Top Artists – Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd – A Saucerful of Secrets

More of the Music of Pink Floyd

  • This vintage UK stereo pressing was doing just about everything right, with both sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them
  • Forget whatever sleep-inducing Heavy Vinyl record they’re making these days – if you want to hear the Tubey Magic, size and energy of these wonderful sessions from 1967 (some with Syd, some with David), this is the only way to go (particularly on this side one)
  • Bernie Grundman remastered the mono tapes for a Record Store Day release, and if you want to know why we have lost all respect for Bernie, you can go to the blog and read our review on his work in painful detail
  • In 2014, Nick Mason named A Saucerful of Secrets as his favorite of Pink Floyd’s studio albums. “I think there are ideas contained there that we have continued to use all the way through our career,” he says. “I think [it] was a quite good way of marking Syd [Barrett]’s departure and Dave [Gilmour]’s arrival. It’s rather nice to have it on one record, where you get both things. It’s a cross-fade rather than a cut.”

(more…)

Pink Floyd – The Final Cut

More of the Music of Pink Floyd

  • STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it brings Pink Floyd’s 1983 release to life on this vintage British Harvest pressing
  • Both of these sides are transparent, with excellent presence, and plenty of Tubey Magic, the kind that can only be found on the best vintage vinyl pressings
  • Some of the copies we played had a tendency to sound dry and sterile, even analytical, but this one had the lovely analog warmth we were looking for
  • “This may be art rock’s crowning masterpiece, but it is also something more. With The Final Cut, Pink Floyd caps its career in classic form, and leader Roger Waters — for whom the group has long since become little more than a pseudonym — finally steps out from behind the ‘Wall’ where last we left him.” – Rolling Stone

The sound on this copy is, in a word, powerful — an excellent way to experience this music!

If you weren’t a fan of The Wall, I can’t imagine this one is going to be your cup of tea, but Pink Floyd fanatics will likely be very happy with the sound we found on this copy. Most of them we played weren’t anything like this!

(more…)

Pink Floyd – Meddle

More of the Music of Pink Floyd

  • Here is the Tubey Magic, presence, size and space we guarantee you have never heard on Meddle no matter what pressing you may own
  • A Top 100 audiophile demonstration quality recording on a par with Dark Side of the Moon, which is really saying something
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Pink Floyd were nothing if not masters of texture, and Meddle is one of their greatest excursions into little details, pointing the way to the measured brilliance of Dark Side of the Moon and the entire Roger Waters era.”
  • This killer reissue puts to shame the originals we’ve auditioned, and the reissues we offer on the site are guaranteed to do the same
  • If you’re a Pink Floyd fan, and what audiophile wouldn’t be?, this title from 1971 is clearly one of their best

(more…)

Letter of the Week – “Where should everything be on the ‘stage?'”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Pink Floyd Available Now

One of our good customers had some questions about the Hot Stamper pressing he had purchased:

Hey Tom, 

Hope you are fine! Please let me ask for a bit of help/advice. It may seem to be a stupid question, but it is essential to me to get clarity about my room and treatments.

It is about Wish you were here, the song on side two of the album. Got the white hot and it is sounding phenomenal.

Now my questions: It is about 1) the „huuhh“ followed by the 2) harrumph and the following 3) two tunings of the guitar.

1) Until yesterday the „huuhh“ was coming out between the loudspeaker, with small changes in the room treatment it is now coming from right, which sounds good. The accoustik guitar intro came before and comes after the changes from between the speakers. So my question: Should the „huuhh“ come from the middle or from the right. When coming from right the sound in general sounds more dynamic to me.

Hans,

Let me tell you what I can say without having to go back into the studio to play the record. These are some things I believe are generally true about recordings that have a bearing on your situation.

I am guessing you are probably correct. The reason for that is that the guitar is close-miked but not the vocal, meaning the vocal may be displaced in the soundstage due to phase issues. It is off-axis to the mic, and therefore “out somewhere,” not where the guitar is, because only the guitar is directionally miked.

2) The harrumph comes from the right side, right?

3) The two guitar tunings: first comes from the upper middle of the stage, the second comes from the right upper side, correct? Especially those two guitar tunings are in my opinion extremely fragile to changes, really minor changes in room acoustic and speaker placement, I would say half of a cm or so are enough for changes where they come from.

Would be great, if you can give me some input here. All in all, if half a year ago somebody would have told me my stereo sounds like it does now, I would have told him, that’s impossible. Now, I want even more, and the more I do, the more I am convinced that the room with the treatments together with speaker placement are the critical point.

All of this gets at the same questions – where should everything be on the “stage?”

The danger is making these judgments with one record is that you never want to optimize one record, only to find out afterwards that it sounds good but others you own don’t. Here is an old commentary about that.

BS&T is a tough test too.

So the best thing to do is get all your hardest test records out and start playing them and making notes as you make changes to your system.

You are correct that speaker placement is very important. Room treatments too. I would add electricity to that list.

I said so in my review of the 45 RPM Tillerman:

Recently I was able to borrow a copy of the new 45 cutting from a customer who had rather liked it. I would have never spent my own money to hear a record put out on the Analogue Productions label, a label that has an unmitigated string of failures to its name. But for free? Count me in!

(more…)

Letter of the Week – “I kept putting the volume up little by little and it just got better and better and better.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Pink Floyd Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:

Hey Tom, 

I got around to listening to The Wall last weekend, a 3+ / 3+ / 2+ / 3+ copy. It was yet another of those cannot-concentrate-on-anything-else experiences, simply astonishing.

I kept putting the volume up little by little and it just got better and better and better.

The quality is mind-blowing.

I want you guys to know how much pure pleasure you’re able to generate, and it’s priceless. Thank you all.

Rich 

Rich,

So glad you liked the pressing we sold you as much as we did!

Of course we agree with you wholeheartedly about the joy of turning up the volume on a record that sounds as good as the one you played.

The Wall has long been a member of our Top 100 and a true Demo Disc, especially if you can play it on big speakers at loud levels.

One obvious reason that the turn up your volume makes such a great test is that the louder the volume, the more obvious the problems with the sound become, and the harder it is to ignore them.

If you turn up the volume on the copy of The Wall you now own and it gets better and better, I think we can safely say it passed the turn up your volume test.

Some folks complain about our pricing, a subject we discuss here, but the question our detractors have the most trouble answering is, “What’s a priceless record worth?”

Thanks for writing,

Best, TP

(more…)

Letter of the Week – “Wish You Were Here is maybe the best sounding record I’ve ever heard…”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Pink Floyd Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased a while ago:

Hey Tom,  

I want to say a big THANK YOU for the Hot Stampers you sent to me.

Wish You Were Here is maybe the best sounding record I’ve ever heard (as you know I have a lot of Hot Stampers). I’m so amazed and lucky – I can’t describe it. The copy sounds out of this world with soooo well-defined bass, stunning clarity, warmth and richness, immediacy, astonishing transparency…

It murders my old copy.

Another Passenger and Honky Chateau are also Demo Discs of the highest order. 

Erik S.

Erik,

Glad to hear it, all great albums in my book.

Another Passenger is unfortunately one of those records that should be more popular with audiophiles and music lovers but just isn’t. It’s been years since we did a shootout for it. If any of you out there want a good Carly Simon record, pick that one up, it’s well worth a listen.

(more…)

Pink Floyd – Atom Heart Mother

More of the Music of Pink Floyd

  • You’ll find solid Double Plus (A++) sound on both sides of this seriously good UK import pressing
  • This is one of the better copies we’ve played in years – it’s richer, bigger and more solid than most others from our most recent shootout
  • While the music here may not be for everyone, if you’re a fan you’ll have a hard time finding a copy that sounds even remotely as good as this one does

This is an album that rarely sounds any good. We’ve spent a ton of money over the years chasing British originals and various other pressings looking for that Pink Floyd magic, but the early pressings were consistently disappointing, as are most reissues. If you like this music — admittedly a big if — I don’t think you can find better sound for it. (more…)

Pink Floyd – The Wall

More of the Music of Pink Floyd

  • This copy of The Wall is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other pressings you’ve heard, with solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER on all FOUR sides
  • Forget whatever dead-as-a-doornail Heavy Vinyl record they’re making these days – if you want to hear the Tubey Magic, size and energy of Floyd’s magnum opus from 1979, this is the way to go
  • The Wall demands big, bold, explosively dynamic analog sound, and here is a copy that delivers on that promise
  • Grungy electric guitars, breathy vocals, huge punchy drums, earth-shaking bass and room-filling ambience are all here on these TAS-approved side like you’ve never heard before
  • A Top 100 title and one of the best sounding rock recordings of all time – here is a copy that will make our case
  • If you’re a Pink Floyd fan, or maybe just somebody looking for a killer Demo Disc to play, this title from 1979 surely deserves a place in your collection

We spend a ridiculous amount of time cleaning, playing, and comparing copies of this classic double album for our shootouts and let me tell you, there are a lot of weak copies out there.

What do these kinds of top grades give you for The Wall? Top-notch clarity and transparency, mind-blowing immediacy, weight to the bottom, extension up top, HUGE open soundfields, real texture to all the instruments, TONS of energy with serious dynamics, BIG punchy drums and loads of natural ambience.

Pink Floyd tends to be an amazingly well-recorded band, and this album is certainly no exception. If you’ve taken home one of our Hot Stampers for Dark Side of the Moon, Meddle, or Wish You Were Here, then you certainly know what we’re talking about. (more…)

Letter of the Week – “It was so good that I got transported somewhere and back and didn’t even realize it.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Pink Floyd Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about a Hot Stamper pressing he purchased recently:

Hi Tom,

Last night I had a ticket to a very special show.

It was my first ever listen to a 3+ Side 1 of Dark Side of the Moon.

It was so good that I got transported somewhere and back and didn’t even realize it. I had the gain turned all the way up. Perhaps it would have been better for the vocals on the first track to turn the gain down a little, but not for the music.

I have heard a 2.5+ before on my other copy which has a 3+ side 2, but the 3+ completely takes the cake.

What a pleasure it was to listen to. The vinyl was pretty darn quiet too.

I mean… over the years… Japanese, Japanese Pro Use, MFSL, UHQR, UK, UK A2/B2, UK A3/B3, US 30th Anniversary…

And you mean to tell me it all comes down to a variant of a [redacted] with several deadwax configurations. Only the super lucky might have ever figured it out. I didn’t have a chance in hell!

Take good care,
Michel

Michel,

Think of all the money you spent chasing one copy after another of Dark Side of the Moon, only to be disappointed time and time again.

Somehow none of those pressings, the ones that have been idolized by in-the-know audiophiles for more than fifty years — promoted again and again as the only possible solution to your problem, the true answer you seek — could take you to the places our humble mass-produced import reissue took you to.

This is absurd. It flies in the face of everything we know! Do you really expect other enthusiasts to believe your story that all the most highly-regarded audiophile versions couldn’t get the job done?

(more…)

The Wall Sounds Terrible on these “Audiophile” Rip-offs

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Pink Floyd Available Now

This Japanese import is one of the dullest, muddiest, worst sounding copies of The Wall we have ever played. It is clearly made from a second generation tape (or worse!).

Is it the worst version of the album ever made? Hard to imagine it would have much competition.

And somehow this pressing, or one very much like it, ended up as on the TAS Super Disc List. I would hope that the copy Harry played sounded a whole lot better than this one.

The version on the TAS Super Disc list is EMI 4814, which I believe is the British original. Conventional wisdom? Is The Absolute Sound capable of any other?

And the CBS Half-Speed is every bit the mudfest that the Half-Speed is.

How is it that the worst sounding pressings are so often marketed to audiophiles as superior to their mass-produced counterparts? In our experience, more often than not they are just plain awful, inferior in every way but one: surface quality.

And the knock on these CBS Half-Speeds is that they are made from the same vinyl CBS used to press all their other records.

I remember buying them back in the late-70s at Tower Records. They were only $12.99 when Mobile Fidelity pressings were $17.99, garnering a premium price because they were pressed in Japan. Fool that I was, I bought plenty of both, not to mention those made by Nautilus, Direct Disk Labs and plenty of others too painful to think about.

Dear audiophiles, stop collecting crappy audiophile pressings with quiet vinyl and just switch to CD already. You’ll be getting better sound and saving yourself a lot of money to boot. You simply cannot defend analog with this kind of junk.

(more…)