Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Chet Atkins Available Now
It’s been quite a while since I played the Classic pressing, but I remember it as nothing special. Like a lot of the records put out by this label, it’s tonally fine but low-rez and lacking space, warmth and, above all, Tubey Magic.
When I wrote that years ago I was being far too charitable.
A remastered pressing of a Chet Atkins recording from 1959 that lacks Tubey Magic is one that is failing fundamentally to understand why it has any reason to exist.
The premise of the modern Heavy Vinyl pressing, as its legions of defenders constantly remind us, is to allow the listener to hear the music as it was meant to be heard — with two added bonuses: better vinyl, and affordable, non-collector prices.
(The dirty little secret of the mid-fi collector market is that affordability, not sound quality, is at the heart of it. The knock on our records is that they are expensive, but how is that relevant to the sound quality of the pressings we offer? A better sounding pressing is a better sound pressing, regardless of its price.)
These newly remastered pressings are meant to offer the music lover the opportunity to hear the true sound of the master tape. This elusive holy grail they will stop at nothing to acquire can be summed up in three words: Master Tape Sound. Or so they think.
(The fact that vanishingly few audiophiles have ever heard a master tape or would know oen if they heard one is an inconvenient truth that must not be allowed to interfere with their righteous desire to own whatever pressing purports to offer it.)
But I digress. Back to Chet Atkins in 1959. Let me sum up my position this way, with a nod to the Brits:
A Living Stereo recording that lacks Tubey Magic is one that has completely lost the plot.
