Rhett Davies, Engineer – Reviews and Commentaries

Rhett Davies is one of our favorite engineers.

801 Live – It’s All About the Bass (Except for that One Time When It Wasn’t)

Hot Stamper Pressings of 801 Live Available Now

This commentary was written in 2007 or thereabouts.

What’s especially interesting about this copy is that we went crazy for it even though it did not have the best bass of the copies we played, which, as you will see below, clearly contradicts what we had previously written. We thought that the copies with the best bass had the best everything else too, but that was not what we heard this time around.

THIS copy got the music to work its magic, and it did it with most, but not all, of the bass of the best. Not sure how to explain it. Rules were made to be broken maybe? (more…)

Bryan Ferry / Boys And Girls – Pluses and Minuses from Way Back

More of the Music of Bryan Ferry

More of the Music of Roxy Music

This domestic pressing has STUNNINGLY GOOD SOUND on side two! It’s the best we’ve ever heard the album — super high-resolution transparency coupled with amazing immediacy. And talk about energy — the sound here positively JUMPS out of the speakers!

This side two blew our minds with its distortion-free sound, transparency and its punchy, note-like bass. The recording space is wall to wall HUGE, with amazing depth and three-dimensionality that’s only hinted at by most of the pressings we played. It’s meaty and punchy down low and there’s plenty of extension up top. (more…)

Dire Straits on Phonogram Half-Speed

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Dire Straits Available Now

Sonic Grade: F

This has to be one of the worst sounding copies of Dire Straits’ first album we have ever played.

There are plenty of bad sounding pressings of this album around — most of the domestic copies we’ve auditioned over the years were clearly made from dubs — but half speed mastering did this recording no favors. In fact, it was positively ruinous.

The 10cc title from this same series wasn’t half bad, FYI, certainly not the joke this pressing is.

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Sneakin’ Sally Through The Alley – Robert Palmer’s Best Album By Far

Island Is One of Our Favorite Labels

No doubt this is the best album Robert Palmer ever made. With Lowell George’s unmistakable slide guitar and members of the Meters providing backup, as well as the amazing Bernard Purdie on drums, it’s the only Robert Palmer release that consistently works all the way through as an album. The entire first side is excellent from top to bottom, with the title track being our favorite RP song of all time.

If you love the funky stylings of Little Feat, this surprisingly fun and engaging album should be right up your alley. We could play it every day for a month and never tire of it. The New Orleans-style groove of syncopated funk these guys lay down on practically every track is exactly what Robert Palmer needs to work off of as a vocalist.

Sneakin’ Sally is the closest thing to classic Little Feat — outside of the band itself in its heyday, pre-Times Loves a Hero — that we know of.

The sound on the best copies is superb as well; our old friend Rhett Davies engineered some of it — who knows what, they don’t break it down — but the other engineers must have done a great job as well as the sound is some of the best analog from the Classic Era, in this case 1974.

Side One

A++, with the analog sound we love: good and fat. The bottom end is big and solid here, and the energy is off-the-charts! When you have sound like this, this music is a ton of FUN. So good!

Side Two

A++ again, really jumpin’ out of the speakers with amazing presence and ZERO smear! There’s some real richness and fullness here as well, a combination that easily earns it two pluses in our book.

AMG Review

Before becoming a slick, sharp-dressed pop star in the 1980s, Robert Palmer was a soul singer deeply rooted in R&B and funk. Those influences are on full display on his debut album Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley. With a backing band including members of Little Feat and the Meters, the music has a laid-back groove whether Palmer’s covering New Orleans legend Allen Toussaint (the title track) or singing originals (“Hey Julia,” ” Get Outside”). While the music is tight and solid, it is Robert Palmer’s voice that is revelatory — he sounds supremely confident among these talented musicians, and they seem to feed off his vocal intensity. Fans of the Meters or people who want to discover the funky side of Robert Palmer should check this one out.