Robert Ludwig, Engineer – Rev/Com

Listening in Depth to Led Zeppelin II

More of the Music of Led Zeppelin

Reviews and Commentaries for Led Zeppelin II

The best copies of Zep II have the kind of rock and roll firepower that’s guaranteed to bring any system to its knees.

That’s what makes it a Top Test Disc.

And if you’re looking for rock and pop albums that are very hard to reproduce, here are some that should fit the bill nicely.

Side One

Whole Lotta Love

This album is unique in one sense: both sides of ZEP II start our with MONSTER ROCK AND ROLL tracks with unbelievable dynamics, energy and bass. Most bands would be lucky to get one song like this on an album. This album has about five!

The middle section with the cymbals and panning instruments is key to the best copies. When it starts they goose the volume — not subtly mind you — and a big room opens up in which everything starts bouncing around, reflecting off the walls of the studio. It’s a cool effect, there’s no denying it.

This is the loudest, most dynamic cut on side one. If it doesn’t knock you out, keep turning up the volume and playing it again until it does.

What Is and What Should Never Be

Amazing presence. Plant is right there!

The Lemon Song

The bass parts always sounded muddy on the sub-gen copies I often found. The definition and note-like quality here is superb and it’s only found on these good originals.

There are real dynamics here — the middle part is at a much lower level than the guitars that follow. This song, like so many on II, is really designed to assault you, to give you the sense that guitars are being broken over your head. That’s the kind of power this track has. It’s also relatively smooth and sweet compared to the rest of the album as a whole.

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Letter of the Week – “Just curious as to why you never point out a Bob Ludwig “RL” pressing?”

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

Hey Tom, 

I am an avid vinyl cat and have been all of my life. I am super curious about your vinyl. I have a pretty good ear myself for top-shelf LP’s but I am just curious as to why you never point out a Bob Ludwig “RL” pressing? Or maybe you have and I just have not noticed?

Thanks so much for a response and much respect for what you are doing and selling…

Dana

Dana, we explained it here, in a commentary we called The Book of Hot Stampers.

We give out precious little in the way of stamper numbers, no information about cutting engineers as a rule, although we do break that rule from time to time. Here is an excerpt of a listing for Rock of Ages from way back when:

What We Thought We Knew

In 2006 we put up a copy with with what we implied were Hot Stampers (before we were using the term consistently) on at least one side:

Side One sounds tonally right on the money! This is as good as it gets… Robert Ludwig mastered all of the originals of these albums, but some of them have bad vinyl and don’t sound correct.

I only played side one of the album, so I can’t speak for the other sides, but what I heard was sound about as good as I think this album can have.

There are some truths along with some half-truths in the above comments, and let’s just say we would be quite a bit more careful in our language were we writing about that copy today.

One side is no indication whatsoever as to the quality of the other three, and without the kind of cleaning technologies we have available to us today, I wouldn’t want to make a “definitive” sonic assessment for any of them.

When you play uncleaned or poorly cleaned records, you’re hearing a lot of garbage that has nothing to do with the sound of the actual vinyl. (Note that we are joking above: there is no such thing as a definitive sonic assessment of a record, from us or anybody else.)

Ludwig cut many bad sounding records. Roxy Music’s Avalon original domestic pressings are RL. They’re made from dubs and sound like it.  Same with Dire Straits’ Alchemy.

Some RL Houses of the Holy sound amazing and some only decent. It’s the nature of the beast. (more…)

Listening in Depth to Tarkio

More Albums with Key Tracks for Critical Listening

Analog richness, sweetness and Tubey Magic are elements absolutely indispensable to the sound of these recordings. Without them you might as well be playing a CD.

Some of the reissue pressings actually do sound like CDs and are not part of the shootouts for this album anymore. Who wants a record that sounds like a CD? They may be pressed on vinyl but they’re no less an embarrassment to analog for it. As you can imagine we feel the same way about most of the Heavy Vinyl records being made today. They’re just embarrassing.

The best pressings, on the other hand, are everything that’s good about the analog medium — smooth, sweet, relaxed and involving. You had best have a fast cartridge and not overly rich electronics to get the most out of this one. The richness on this record is already baked-in; no need to add more.

Side One

One Toke Over the Line

This track is almost always ever so slightly too bright on even the best copies. How many records do we know that have the projected hit single EQ’d a little brighter (or a lot brighter) than the rest of the album? Sergio Mendes’ first album and Mona Bone Jakon spring immediately to mind and I’m sure if I thought about it for a while I could think of many more. It’s a common practice and there’s nothing that can be done about it.

But what this slightly bright track helps the listener to notice is whether there is grain to those brighter highs. The Hot Stamper copies will still be sweet and clear even though they are a little tipped up on the top. The typical copy, pressed on the typically bad vinyl Buddah records is infamous for, will be edgy and aggressive when the vocals get loud.

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Led Zeppelin / II – Gee, I Seem to Have No Trouble At All Playing This Record

More of the Music of Led Zeppelin

I expect that pretty much everyone knows the famous story by now.

Robert Ludwig’s “Hot Mix” (a complete misnomer, mostly propagated by those with a poor understanding of what is involved in making records – the mix never changed, only the mastering) of Zep II was causing the needle to jump the groove when Ahmet Ertegun’s daughter tried to play it on her cheap turntable, so they recut the record with more compression and cut the bass. (The recut, if you have never heard one, may take the cake for the worst sounding pressing of the album ever made.)

Our Triplanar Mark 6 / Dynavector 17dx combination seems to play the original just fine. Amazingly well in fact.

Here’s a challenge for all the Heavy Vinyl fans in the world:

Name all the Heavy Vinyl records that sound as good or better than RL’s cutting of Zep II.

Modern engineers tell us they can cut records better now than ever before, with all the bass and dynamics that previous engineers were supposedly forced to limit for the cheap tables and carts of the past.

So where are these so-called “new and improved” records, the ones with better bass and dynamics?

I have yet to hear one. Perhaps someone can point me in the right direction.

Send your list — even if your list only has one entry! — to tom@better-records.com

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Boys And Girls – Two Tracks Are Key

More of the Music of Bryan Ferry

More Albums with Key Tracks for Critical Listening

The song Valentine, the second track on side two, is a key test for that side. Note how processed Ferry’s vocals are. On even the best copies they will sound somewhat bright. The test is the background singers: they should sound tonally correct and silky sweet.

If Ferry sounds correct, they will sound dull, and so will the rest of the side. That processed sound on his vocal is on the tape. Trying to “fix” it will ruin everything.

You can be pretty sure that whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing has been made for this album that they tried to fix the hell out of it. Doubtless the result is not a pretty one. It rarely is.

On the top copies the lead on the very next track, Stone Woman, is tonally right on the money.

These two tracks, two of the best on the album, together make it easy to know if your copy is correct in the midrange.

Track two: background vocals.

Track three: lead vocal.

What could be easier?

Key Listening Test for Both Sides

The quality of the percussion is critical to much of the music here. There’s tons of it on Boys and Girls, even more than on its predecessor Avalon, and unless you have plenty of top end, presence and transparency, all that percussion can’t work its magic to drive this rhythmic music.

How About the British Pressings?

Bryan Ferry is British, as is bandmate David Gilmour and the recording and producing team headed by the amazing Rhett Davies. And yes, the recording was done at many studios, most of them overseas.

But the album is mixed by Bob Clearmountain at The Power Station and mastered by Robert Ludwig at Masterdisk, and that means the master tape was right here in America when it came time to get the sound of the tape onto vinyl.

The British pressings are made from dubs and sound like it.

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The Recordings of Steely Dan – These Two Didn’t Make the Grade

More of the Music of Steely Dan

Gold, the album on the left, is from 1982 and was mastered by Robert Ludwig. It’s an OK record, nothing more, and offers few of the thrills that the real albums do when they’ve been mastered and pressed right. (To my knowledge, never by Robert Ludwig.)

The soundtrack album below it might interest collectors, but it has forgettable music with barely passable sound.

Steely Dan is one of our favorite bands here at Better Records.

We’ve written more about their albums than any other group’s outside of The Beatles, with more than 60 reviews and commentaries to date.

Our advice: Stick with the seven real albums that were released between 1972 and 1980. Each and every one of them is a brilliant work of art in its own way. For audiophiles, it just doesn’t get any better than Steely Dan.

The Big Seven

We play mediocre-to-bad sounding pressings so that you don’t have to, a public service from your record-loving friends at Better Records.

You can find this one in our Hall of Shame, along with others that — in our opinion — are best avoided by audiophiles looking for hi-fidelity sound. Some of these records may have passable sonics, but we found the music less than compelling.  These are also records you can safely avoid.

We also have an Audiophile Record Hall of Shame for records that were marketed to audiophiles for their putatively superior sound. If you’ve spent any time on this blog at all, you know that these records are some of the worst sounding pressings we have ever had the displeasure to play.

We routinely play them in our Hot Stamper Shootouts against the vintage records that we offer, and are often surprised at just how bad an “audiophile record” can sound and still be considered an “audiophile record.”

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Does It Seem to You That This Guy Knows Anything About Records? Any Records?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

I had posted one of his videos here under the heading “Does it seem like this guy knows anything about Dark Side of the Moon?”

That was too generous. Apparently he does not know anything about records period. Any records. Records with any titles.

That would include records with the title Led Zeppelin II, the subject of today’s commentary.

This video has to be The. Dumbest. Video. Ever.

Never have I seen this level of vapidity on display. I had no idea people like this existed, but apparently they do, and unfortunately this person knows how to make videos.

Most of the audiophiles I’ve run into over the years had no idea how little they knew about records and audio. (I admit I was one of those guys for the first twenty years I was in high-end audio. Thank god there were no audiophile forums or youtube channels around back then.)

The audiophiles of which I speak mostly stayed in their listening rooms where their secrets were safe. With the advent of the internet and youtube, now these clueless types can make their ignorance known to the wider world, the Dunning-Kruger* effect on full display.

The Video

The concept undergirding this demonstration of — now that I think about it, I’m not sure what exactly is being demonstrated other than the fact that records, when spinning on a turntable and scratched by a needle, can make sounds, and those sounds can come out of your computer speakers when you play the video. It’s science.

Anyway, the demonstration is simplicity itself. Watch it, and then you tell me if this isn’t the dumbest video about records that you have ever seen.

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Led Zeppelin / II – A Milestone Event from the 90s

More of the Music of Led Zeppelin

More Milestone Events in the History of Better Records

Here’s the story of my first encounter with a Hot Stamper Zep II.

I had a friend who had come into possession of a White Label Demo pressing of the second album and wanted to trade it in to me for the Mobile Fidelity pressing that I had played for him once or twice over the years, and which we both thought was The King on that album.

To my shock and dismay, his stupid American copy KILLED the MoFi. It TROUNCED it in every way. The bass was deeper and punchier. Everything was more dynamic. The vocals were more natural and correct sounding. The highs were sweeter and more extended. The whole pressing was just full of life in a way that the Mobile Fidelity wasn’t.

The Mobile Fidelity didn’t sound Bad. It sounded Not As Good. More importantly, in comparison with the good domestic copy, in many ways it now sounded Wrong.

Let me tell you, it was a milestone event in my growth as a record collector. I had long ago discovered that many MoFi’s weren’t all they were cracked up to be. But this was a MoFi I liked. And it had killed the other copies I had heard in the past.

So I learned something very important that day. I learned that hearing a good pressing is the best way to understand what’s wrong with a bad pressing..

Needless to say, the trade didn’t go through: he kept his copy and I was stuck with mine. But I knew what to look for. I knew what the numbers were in the dead wax. And I started hunting them down.

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Letter of the Week – “I’m still listening to the copy you sold me every few days, and loving it…”

More of the Music of Led Zeppelin

Reviews and Commentaries for Led Zeppelin II

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

Hey Tom, 

I noticed that a Super Hot of Zep 2, and now a Nearly White Hot, both sold out within hours of you listing them, despite some jaw-dropping prices.

Meanwhile, I’m still listening to the copy you sold me every few days, and loving it at least as much as I did on the first play. I’m still wincing at the price, but also feeling very glad you reached out to me about it. So, thanks again.

Aaron

Aaron,

Just think how many times you will play that record in your lifetime. A few bucks a play, for an experience like that, what a bargain!

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Letter of the Week – “All I can say is that it was a “Holy Shit!” moment for EVERYONE in the room.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

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

Hey Tom, 

Thanks again!

Got the White Hot ELP s/t Friday afternoon as I was leaving for a weekend at the Capital Audio Fest in Bethesda Maryland but had no time to listen to it at home so brought it and the Led Zep 2 White Hot I bought from you a year or so back with me to the show with the intention of playing it on some of the crazy systems being demo’ed at the show.

The majority of participants demo their systems with Mofi and other heavy vinyl reissues. Rarely will you hear old vinyl.

Saturday night in the “main room” where VAC and Von Schweikert were partnering and demo-ing their million dollar system, there was a presentation by Greg Weaver (a friend of mine) and the theme was great sounding prog rock.

After a few records – all reissues, Greg turns to the 30 or so of us and asked what we wanted to hear next. The guy behind me shouts out “Zep 2 Robert Ludwig hot mix!” and of course he didn’t have it but that was my opening and I took it – “I have it upstairs and happy to bring it down!”

Greg of course said “sure!” so I ran up to my room and grabbed the Zep 2 AND the ELP I just got from you but never played.

The Zep 2 was a revelation to many – some people moved closer to take it all in, it was everything you would have expected and beyond, an unforgettable highlight for all! One guy had me pose with him holding the record after it was done, lol!

Greg was excited to see the ELP too and put it on next. He gave a little history about the band and its members and then dropped the needle.

All I can say is that it was a “Holy Shit!” moment for EVERYONE in the room. Maybe, no…without a doubt, the best record I and many there had ever heard in our lives, coming thru a million dollar system and utterly blowing our minds. What an INSANE sounding record!

No one in that room will ever forget it.

My complements to the chefs at Better Records for making this incredible experience possible.

Mike

Mike,

Wow, what a letter! Thanks for the demo. I can imagine it is quite a shock for these folks to hear a real record after so many Heavy Vinyl imposters. Hearing is believing, right?

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