Top Artists – Dave Mason

Dave Mason – It’s Like You Never Left

More Folky Rock

  • It’s Like You Never Left returns to the site after a nearly three and a half year hiatus, here STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound throughout this early Columbia pressing
  • Mason’s 1973 comeback album got help from the likes of Graham Nash, Stevie Wonder and George Harrison
  • Both sides have good extension up top and down low, with plenty of meaty bass and silky highs
  • “Mason is perhaps one of the most creative forces, lyrically, musically and vocally, in pop today.” – Billboard, 1973
  • Thank Al Schmitt for delivering top quality — albeit glossy — sound on this 1973 recording
  • If you’re a Dave Mason fan, this has to be considered a Must Own Title of his from 1973.

I was a big fan of this album when it came out in 1973. I used to play it all the time, in fact. Now I hear why — it’s big and rich with a solid bottom end and a smooth, sweet top; perfect for the big but not especially sophisticated speakers (the Fulton J System) I had back in the day.

This album has the kind of sound that the typical CD just doesn’t want anything to do with. Not that the Compact Disc couldn’t pull it off — there are good sounding CDs in this world, I own hundreds of them — but it doesn’t seem to want to even try.

Graham Nash helps out on vocals on tracks one, two and five on the first side. Stevie Wonder plays a lovely harmonica solo on “The Lonely One” on side two, and George Harrison guests on guitar on “If You’ve Got Love,” the third track on side one.

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Traffic – The Best of Traffic

More Music on Island Records

For those who wish to find their own Hot Stamper pressings of the album, we say more power to you. Our helpful advice can be found at the bottom of the listing,

  • This original Pink Label Island pressing was doing just about everything right, with both sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER
  • Side one was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be shocked at how big and powerful the sound is
  • Here are the full-bodied mids, punchy lows and clear, open, extended highs that let this 1969 release come alive
  • This amazing compilation boasts superb sound, often dramatically better than the very same tracks on many of the original British releases
  • Problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • Top 100 and 4 stars: “The entire second side of the LP, comprising ‘Medicated Goo,’ ‘Forty Thousand Headmen,’ ‘Feelin’ Alright,’ ‘Shanghai Noodle Factory,’ and ‘Dear Mr. Fantasy,’ was the kind of progressive rock that would define Traffic and give it its place in the rock pantheon.”
  • For our current take on the sound of the various labels and stampers for Mr. Fantasy and The Best of Traffic, please click here.

This British Pink Label Island pressing has some of the best Traffic sound you’ll ever hear! We’ve been flipping out over Hot Stamper copies of this greatest hits comp for ages for a very simple, yet likely shocking, reason — the sound on the best copies can be better than the best original pressings! How can that be you ask, dumbfounded by the sheer ridiculousness of such a statement? Well, dear reader, I’ll tell you. Follow me over the jump to find out.

It’s a dirty little secret in the record biz that sometimes the master for the anticipated “hit single” (or singles) is pulled from the album’s final two-track master and used to make the 45, the thinking being that the 45 is what people are going to buy, or, having heard it sound so good on the radio, cause them to buy the album. One way or another, it’s the single that will do the selling of Traffic’s music.

A dub is then made of the master tape that was used to cut the 45 and spliced back onto the album master, so that the single (or singles) is one generation down from the master for the other songs on the side.

This explains why the “hit single” from so many albums is often the worst-sounding song on the album — most likely to suffer from bad radio EQ and distorted, smeary, sub-gen sound. And it also explains another anomaly those of us who play tons of records run into from time to time: songs on greatest hits albums sounding better than their counterparts on the original albums from which they are taken. That’s crazy talk, but this Traffic record is all the evidence you need to demonstrate that as it crazy as it seems, every once in a while it turns out to be true. This is one of those times.

Heaven Is In Your Mind

Best proof: “Heaven Is In Your Mind,” the second track on side one. It is amazing sounding here and such a disappointment on every Pink Label Island original (and some reissues) we’ve played. Once you know how good that song can sound — by playing a Hot Stamper copy of Best of Traffic like this one — going back to the original version of the song found on the album is not just a letdown, it’s positively painful.

Where’s the analog magic? The weight to the piano? The startling clarity and super-spaciousness of the soundfield? The life and energy of the performance?

They’re gone, brother. Not entirely gone, mind you, more a shadow of what they should be. But once you’ve heard the real thing, it’s no fun listening to a shadow. It’s just a drag.

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We Used to Think the 25th Anniversary British Pressing of Mr. Fantasy Was Pretty Good

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Traffic Available Now

This is an older review. probably from the early 2000s,so take it for what it’s worth.

This minty looking Island 25th Anniversary British Import LP has SURPRISINGLY GOOD SOUND! I’d have to say it’s the best sounding record from this series I’ve ever heard. (Note that this is the British version and not the Italian one.)

I can’t vouch for other copies of this record — they may not sound as good as this one — but this one has the bass that’s missing from some of the Pink Label copies and is overall tonally Right On The Money (ROTM), with almost none of the transistory grain that you find on domestic pressings. If you don’t want to spend the big bucks for a Hot Stamper, this is probably the next best way to go.

Most of the older reviews you see on the blog are for records that did not go through the shootout process, the revolutionary approach to finding better sounding pressings we developed in the early 2000s and have since turned into an art as well as a business.

We found the records you see in these older listings by cleaning and playing a pressing or two of the album, which we then described and priced based on how good the sound and surfaces were. (For out Hot Stamper listings, the sonic grades and vinyl playgrades are listed separately.)

We were often wrong back in those days, something we have no reason to hide.

Audio equipment and record cleaning technologies have come a long way since those darker days, a subject we discuss here.

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Dave Mason – Alone Together (Marble Vinyl)

More of the Music of Dave Mason

  • Mason’s Masterpiece (on marble vinyl!) returns to the site after a three and a half year hiatus, here with INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on both sides of this vintage Blue Thumb pressing
  • Listen to how big and rich the dynamic chorus gets on the first track, “Only You Know and I Know” – what a thrill to hear it like that
  • A killer Bruce Botnick recording – Tubey Magical analog, smooth and natural, with the whole production sitting on a rock solid bottom-end foundation
  • Our latest shootout was a tough one – we actually had three winning copies but this was the only one with issues that weren’t significant enough to prevent it from being listed on the site
  • We do this shootout about once every ten years, and every time we do it, the best sounding copies, always on marble vinyl, are often too noisy to sell — next stop, 2035!
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Alone Together represents Dave Mason at his peak… everything comes together perfectly.”

*NOTE: There is a stitch that plays as a very light and intermittent swoosh throughout all of side 1, audible only in the quiet parts (of which there are few). It then plays at a moderate level during the intro to the last track, “Shouldn’t Have Took More Than You Gave.”

Before I get too far into the story of the sound, I want to say that this album appears to be criminally underrated as music nowadays, having fallen from favor with the passage of time.

It is a surely a Masterpiece that belongs in any rock collection worthy of the name. (Others that belong in that category can be found here.) Every track is good, and most are amazingly good. There’s no filler here.

This Copy Rocks

Punchy and surprisingly deep bass is one of the first things you will notice when playing one of these Hot Stamper copies. Huge amounts of ambience fill out the space that extends from wall to wall (and all the way to the back of the studio), leaving plenty of room around each of the players.

Full-bodied sound, open and spacious, bursting with life and energy; presence in both the lead and backup vocals (so critical to the presentation of this kind of Folk Rock); not to mention harmonically rich acoustic guitars that ring for days — these are the hallmarks of our hottest Hot Stampers.

Listen to how big and rich the dynamic chorus gets on the first track, “World in Changes.” What a thrill. Any shortcomings in the sound will be instantly obvious on this chorus. It managed to stay as clear and uncongested as any we had ever heard.

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A Pink Label Island LP Left Us with Egg on Our Face

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Traffic Available Now

We used to think that The Best of Traffic had better sound than the early pressings of Mr. Fantasy, but in a head to head comparison with a killer copy we played not long ago, we were proved wrong, or, perhaps more accurately, we proved ourselves wrong, something we pride ourselves in being able to do by carrying out regular shootouts for records we’ve been listening to for more than twenty years.

Oddly enough, in our shootouts we often learn new things about records we thought we knew well.

Here is what we had to say about one of the tracks on Mr. Fantasy that we thought sounded dramatically better on The Best of Traffic back around 2005:

Best evidence: Heaven Is In Your Mind, the second track on side one. It is amazing sounding here and such a disappointment on every Pink Label Island original we’ve played.

Once you know how good that song can sound — by playing a Hot Stamper copy of Best of Traffic like this one — going back to the original version of the song found on the album is not just a letdown, it’s positively painful. Where’s the analog magic? The weight to the piano? The startling clarity and super-spaciousness of the soundfield? The life and energy of the performance?

They’re gone, brother. Not entirely gone, mind you, more a shadow of what they should be, but once you’ve heard the real thing it’s not a lot of fun listening to a shadow.

You can be sure that we did not know what we were talking about when we wrote all that.

What we had done is assumed that all the pink label pressings of Mr. Fantasy sounded like the one we played, something we’ve been telling audiophiles for twenty years not to do, because collecting records by label is a fool’s game.

In this case, clearly we are the fools.

It probably — probably, since all the evidence points in the same direction — had the stampers you see below, apparently known as an Orlake Pressing, something I knew nothing about until reading about it on Discogs just now.

  • Matrix / Runout (Side A, stamped): ILPS+9061+A
  • Matrix / Runout (Side B, stamped): ILPS+9061+B

These same stampers would be used to press the Pink Rim Label copy you see below. We put it into a recent shootout and described it as having “hollow, dubby” sound.

Yes, we heard the very same “dubby” sound on a copy we played about twenty years ago, and thought all the early pressings on Island, pink and pink rim alike, had these same mastering shortcomings.

Back then we didn’t know what we know now, which is that the right UK pressings on Island of Mr. Fantasy are dramatically better sounding.

In fact, they handily win our shootouts, something they have been doing for at least the last ten years or so.

We’ve run into so many sonically-flawed Pink label Island pressings by now that hearing one sound lackluster if not actually awful doesn’t phase us in the least.

Some of the other pink label Island pressings that never win shootouts can be found here.

But before that, back in the dark days of the early 2000s, we clearly were lacking a comprehensive understanding of the sound of the various UK pressings of the album.

There was a great deal of research and development left to be done. Eventually our efforts led to a breakthrough in 2006.

For more than twenty years, this is the kind of work we have undertaken. Why? Because we get paid to do it.

We may be the most knowledgeable experts on the planet when it comes to the best sounding pressings of audiophile-quality recordings — if we’re not I’d like to know who is, and how they came by that information — but that doesn’t mean we know it all.

If we come across that way, it’s the result no doubt of our enthusiastic responses to the hundreds of amazing records we’ve had the pleasure to hear. For example, here’s one, and of course there are literally hundreds and hundreds of others with similarly over-the-top notes. Allow me to apologize for any misunderstanding our commentary may have caused.

One thing we do know: all knowledge, of records or anything else you care to name, is provisional.

If somehow we did know it all, there would not be a hundred entries in our live and learn section.

We regularly learn from our mistakes — like the record reviewed here — and we hope you do too.

However, we learn things from the records we play — not by reading about them, but by playing them. Our record experiments, conducted using the shootout process we’ve painstakingly developed and refined over the course of the last twenty years, produces all the data we need: the winners, the losers, and rankings for all the records in between.

We’ve achieved our results by purposefully ignoring everything there is to know about a record — who made it, how they made it, when they made it — everything, that is, but the sound coming out of the speakers of our reference system.

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Hey Mr. Fantasy – Where’s the Bass?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Traffic Available Now

For our newest take on the sound of the various labels and stampers for Mr. Fantasy, please click here.

A long, long time ago, probably at the start of the 2000s, we put up this early UK pressing on the Island pink label.

Charged good money for it, too, justified by the fact that the early pink label pressing would be assumed to have the best sound for audiophiles in search of higher fidelity.

Back then we didn’t know what we know now, which is that the right reissues are dramatically better sounding.

In fact, they handily win our shootouts, something they have been doing for at least the last ten years or so.

The pink label pressing we review below is very unlikely to earn a grade high enough to qualify for Hot Stamper status.

Our Old Listing

This pink label original Island pressing has amazingly sweet, open, extended and transparent mids and highs.

It has two major shortcomings: a lack of bass, and a fair amount of surface noise.

If you can add a few — let’s say three — dB around 50 cycles and can put up with some surface noise and scratches, you are guaranteed to hear some wonderful sound in the best tubey Island tradition. 

Side two sounds better than side one. It has more bass and is more tonally correct overall.

Live and learn is our motto, and progress in audio is a feature, not a bug, of record collecting at the most advanced levels. (“Advanced” is a code word for having little to no interest in any remastered pressing marketed to the audiophile community. If you want to avoid the worst of them, we are happy to help you do that.)

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Alone Together – What’s with All the Bad Vinyl and Murky Sound?

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Dave Mason

What follows is some advice on What to Listen For.

If you are interested in digging deeper, our Listening in Depth commentaries have extensive track by track breakdowns for some of the better-known albums for which we’ve done multiple shootouts.

On to Alone Together.

Some records are consistently too noisy to keep in stock no matter how good they sound.

This is one of them. We have a section for records that tend to be noisy, and it can be found here.

We struggled for years with the bad vinyl (on the original vomit-colored vinyl pressings, those are the ones that have the potential to win shootouts) and the murky sound of this album.

Finally, with dozens of advances in playback quality and dramatically better cleaning techniques, we have now [circa 2012] managed to overcome the problems which we assumed were baked into the recording.

I haven’t heard the master tape, but I have heard scores of pressings made from it over the years. I confess I actually used to like and recommend the Heavy Vinyl MCA pressing. Rest assured that is no longer the case. Nowadays it sounds as opaque, ambience-challenged, lifeless and pointless as the rest of its 180 gram brethren.

You want to keep what is good about a Tubey Magical analog recording from The Golden Age of Rock while avoiding the pitfalls so common to them:

  • poor resolution,
  • heavy compression,
  • thickness,
  • opacity,
  • blubber,
  • compromised frequency extremes,
  • lack of space and
  • lack of presence.

How’s that for a laundry list of all the problems we hear on old rock records, old classical records, and old jazz records?

All records when you stop to think about it.

What record doesn’t have at least some of these faults? Not many in our experience. A copy with few or none of these problems would do very well in our Hot Stamper shootouts indeed.

This is, of course, a list of all the faults we hear just as often in the Heavy Vinyl pressings we audition.

Records are records. Thick ones have the same problems as thin ones. Why wouldn’t they?

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Listening in Depth to It’s Like You Never Left

More of the Music of Dave Mason

The first track on side one, Baby…Please, has huge bass and is very rich.

Check out the sweet vocals on the second song, Every Woman, and the Tubey Magical richness of track three, If You’ve Got Love.

On side two note how big the piano sounds, and how much space surrounds it.

Then in comes the solid snare, followed by rich, meaty horns; breathy, silky vocals, and big guitars.

This album is very well recorded and you don’t need a pair of golden ears or a state-of-the-art system to hear it — assuming you have a great copy like this one.

If you don’t have a good copy of the album, no amount of money spent on stereo equipment is going to get this album to sound the way it should.

I Was a Fan in 73

I was a big fan of this album when it came out in 1973. I used to play it all the time in fact. Now I hear why – it’s big and rich with a solid bottom end and a smooth, sweet top, perfect for the big but not especially sophisticated speakers (the Fulton J System) I had back in the day.

This album has the kind of sound that the typical CD wants nothing to do with. Not that the Compact Disc couldn’t pull it off — there are good sounding CDs in this world, I own hundreds of them — but it doesn’t seem to want to even try.

Graham Nash helps out on vocals on tracks one, two and five on the first side.

Stevie Wonder plays a lovely harmonica solo on The Lonely One on side two, and George Harrison guests on guitar on If You’ve Got Love, the third track on side one. (more…)

Another Dirty Little Secret of the Record Biz

More of the Music of Traffic

For our current take on the sound of the various labels and stampers for Mr. Fantasy and The Best of Traffic, please click here.

Let’s talk about hits that are made from dubbed tapes.

The sound of some songs on some greatest hits albums can be better than the sound of those very same songs on the original pressings.

How can that be you ask, dumbfounded by the sheer ridiculousness of such a statement?

Well, dear reader, I’ll tell you. It’s a dirty little secret in the record biz that sometimes the master for the presumptive Hit Single (or singles) is pulled from the album’s final two track master mix tape and used to make the 45 single, the idea being that the single is what people are going to hear on the radio and want to buy. Or, having heard it sound so good on the radio, go out and buy the album.

One way or another, it’s the single that will do the selling of the band’s music. This is clearly the case with Mr. Fantasy on the original UK Island pink label pressing. (Some of the other pink label Island pressings that never win shootouts can be found here.)

A dub is then made of the tape that was used to cut the 45 and spliced back into the album master, so that the single (or singles) is one generation down from the master for the other songs on the side.

This explains why the hit single from so many albums is often the worst sounding song on the album — it’s the one most likely to suffer from bad radio EQ and distorted, smeary, sub-generation sound.

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Traffic – Self-Titled

More Traffic

More Steve Winwood

  • An incredible sounding Island pink label pressing and the first to hit the site in many years — Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or very close to it on both sides
  • Both of these sides are rich, full-bodied and Tubey Magical yet still incredibly open and spacious; there’s tons of bottom end weight too!
  • “As Mason’s simpler, more direct performances alternate with the more complex Winwood tunes, the album is well-balanced… their second consecutive Top Ten ranking in the U.K.; the album also reached the Top 20 in the U.S.” – All Music, 5 Stars

This vintage Island pink label pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound. (more…)