*Reviewing the Engineers

David Crosby – Can Chris Bellman Cut Records As Well As Artisan Did Back in the Day?

Robert Brook has a blog which he calls

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

Robert’s story begins:

Recently a friend and a frequent reader of my website suggested I review the 50th Anniversary Edition of David Crosby’s debut. He’d read my article from a while back in which I made comparisons between two different Hot Stamper copies of the record, and he knew I was a fan the album.

I’m sure he also knew, as any of my regular readers would, that I’m extremely skeptical of modern reissues. You can find many examples on this site of reissues I’ve written about that have failed miserably to impress me. But this friend was pretty insistent that this one, remastered by long time engineer Chris Bellman, was different. He also told me it was on par with original Monarch pressing of …My Name he also owned.

Bellman was responsible for cutting one of the few heavy vinyl reissues that my friend Tom Port has liked and recommended – a European pressing from 2020 of the Dire Straits record Brothers In Arms. Tom likes precious few “audiophile” reissues. He’s mentioned maybe 4 or 5 over the years as being worthy of any consideration. Given that, and the fact that my friend was so insistent, I figured why not give Bellman’s recut of . . .My Name a shot?

Click on the link to read the whole thing. I left some comments at the end you may enjoy reading. I hope to be able to address some of the other issues Robert brings up at a later date.

IF ONLY I COULD REMEMBER MY NAME: 50th Anniversary Edition

If you are interested in picking up an amazing Hot Stamper pressing of the album, we currently (as of 2/24) have some in stock. Click on this link to see what is available: If I Could Only Remember My Name.

On the website, we talk about just how much we love this album:

It’s the ultimate hippie folk rock Demo Disc – both sides are amazingly transparent, with huge amounts of bass, silky highs, in-the-room vocals and tons of Tubey Magic

Here it is, folks…a true rock Demo Disc! An outstanding copy such as this will show you why we’ve long considered it one of the top rock albums for both sound and music. You will not believe how Tubey Magical and three-dimensional this album can be when you have a pressing with this kind of sound. The harmonic complexity and extension on the acoustic guitars are absolutely stunning.

Harry Pearson put this record on his TAS list of super discs, not exactly a tough call it seems to us. Who can’t hear that this is an amazing sounding recording? (We do applaud his decision not to add the Classic pressing of this title to the list, the way he did with so many other Classic pressings that have no business on anything called a super disc list.)

When you drop the needle on this record, all barriers between you and the musicians are removed. You’ll feel as though you’re sitting at the studio console while Crosby and his no-doubt-stoned-out-of-their-minds Bay Area pals (mostly Jefferson Airplaners and Grateful Deads) are laying down this emotionally powerful, heartfelt music.

The overall sound is warm, sweet, rich, and full-bodied…that’s some real ANALOG Tubey Magic, baby! And the best part is, you don’t have to be high to hear it. You just need a good stereo and the right pressing.

I discovered the album in the 90s, probably from reading about it in The Absolute Sound. When I was in my thirties and buying records regularly, the album was essentially out of print. The (awful sounding) Super Saver came out in 1975 and probably was deleted before long due to a lack of demand.

Once I had heard the record, it quickly became a go-to test and demo disc, mostly for the song Traction in the Rain. The sound of the autoharp on that track is one of the most amazing things I have ever heard, on any album, ever. The exceptional resolution and harmonic coherency of the multiple electrostatic arrays I was using for the mids and highs were perfectly suited to that instrument, and that track.

I listened intently for the notes that got louder and softer as the instrument was strummed. The more different each note sounded, the more micro-dynamics I knew I must be reproducing. I tweaked and tested my system for months, even years with this track.

I didn’t know enough to buy other copies and compare them to mine. I just knew it was a great sounding record that I could blow people’s minds with in a demo.

I credit it with making me a more critical listener and also with helping me make progress in audio.

Over the last twenty years I can recall a number of tweaking sessions in which I tried to get If Only I Could Remember My Name to sound better, knowing that the better it sounded, the better all my other good records would sound.

The second, third and fourth tracks on side one are excellernt for this purpose, as is the second track on side two.

On big speakers at loud levels this album is a thrill.

Further Reading

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Turning Master Tapes into Mud Pies – The Magic of the Electric Recording Company

More of the Music of Love

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Love

““It’s magical what they’re doing, recreating these old records,” Fremer said as he swapped out more Electric Recording discs.”

Swapped them out? Anyone with an ounce of respect for Love’s music would have tossed them into the nearest trash bin.

Our Story Begins

We did a shootout for Love’s Forever Changes earlier this year, and it was our good luck to get hold of a copy of the Electric Recording Company’s pressing of the album in order to see how it would fare against our Gold Label Stereo original pressings.

As you can see from the notes, to say that we could hardly believe what we were hearing clearly understates the depth of our befuddlement.

We simply have no context for a record that sounds as bad as this record sounds. We’ve never heard anything like it, and we’ve played a lot of records in the 35 years we’ve been in business. After critically auditioning thousands upon thousands of pressings in our shootouts, all day every day for the last twenty years, we’ve worn out scores of cartridges and even our Triplanar tonearm.

But this is new ground for us. A quick recap:

  • Incredibly dull,
  • Has no top or space at all,
  • One of the worst reissues I’ve ever heard.

You get the picture. What more needs be said? Last year I wrote the following:

Pete Hutchison of The Electric Recording Company makes some of the worst sounding records I have ever played in my life.

If you play me one of his awful records, and don’t tell me who made it, I can judge the record on its merits, the way we judge all records. We test records blindly for precisely this reason. We let the record tell us how well it was made, what it does right and wrong relative to other pressings of the same album, comparing apples to apples.

His records tell me he loves the sound of the murkiest, muddiest vintage tube equipment ever made, and wants every record he produces to have that sound.

In my book that is an egregious case of My-Fi, not Hi-Fi. We wrote about it here.

It’s astonishing to me that anyone takes this guy seriously.

In the Washington Post video, we did a little comparison on camera for two pressings of Quiet Kenny, a record I will have more to say about in Part Two of this commentary. Here is Geoff Edgers’ description in the article of how it all went down.

The first is from the Electric Recording Co., based in London, which produces roughly a dozen albums each year on vintage equipment painstakingly restored by owner Pete Hutchison. ERC makes just 300 copies of each reissue and charges $376 per album. The stock sells out immediately. Then the records pop up on eBay for as much as $2,000.

[Sunshine] English, [our assistant at the turntable] has agreed not to reveal which copy is being played so the shootout can be truly blind. She lowers the needle onto the ERC edition of “Quiet Kenny.” Port groans loudly. “Listen to that bass,” he says. “Blah, blah, blah, blah. Who wants to play a record that sounds like this?”

Next up is a copy pressed by Analogue Productions, the Kansas-based label founded by Chad Kassem. Port says that Kassem “has never made a single good sounding record” since AP’s founding in 1991. (Kassem calls Port a “f—ing loser.”) This blind listen gets better marks, which surprises Port when he’s told it’s an Analogue.

“That’s the best-sounding Analogue Productions record I’ve ever heard,” Port says. “Because it’s not terrible.”

Later on in the article, Edgers writes:

We talk more about ERC and how coveted Hutchison’s records are in the market. He agrees to try song two on the ERC vinyl, but things don’t get better. I suggest that maybe English adjust the arm on the turntable. The vertical tracking angle, or VTA, as he calls it. “Nothing can fix this record,” he shouts back. “It’s junk. And that guy should be ashamed of himself.”

If you go to the video embedded in the article on their site, about thirty seconds in I have this to say about the ERC pressing:

“This guy’s a mud pie maker. That’s junk.”

Which seems obvious to me. Apparently others, including the audiophile quoted at the top of this commentary, see things differently.

A few questions come to mind.

This is the muddy sound audiophiles want?

Has anyone else called out the awful sound of this guy’s records?

Can everyone be in on the grift?

Is there not a single self-identified audiophile with ears that operate well enough to tell him how bad this guy’s records sound?

Let me add an additional thought to the quote at the top of this commentary:

Any reviewer who claims to be writing for audiophiles and has ever said anything nice about this guy’s work is clearly not qualified to do his job.

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