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Whether made by Klavier or any other label, starting at some point in the mid-90s, many Heavy Vinyl pressings started to have a shortcoming that nowadays we find insufferable: they are just too damn smooth.
Smeary, thick, dull, opaque, and lacking in ambience, this record has all the hallmarks of the modern Heavy Vinyl reissue.
The sound is smeary, thick and opaque because, among other things, the record was mastered by Doug Sax from a copy tape, and not all that well either.
It is yet another murky audiophile piece of trash from the mastering lathe of the formerly brilliant Doug Sax. He used to cut the best sounding records in the world. Then he started working for Analogue Productions and never cut a good record again as far as I know.
On this record, in Doug’s defense it’s only fair to point out that he had dub tapes to work with, which is neither here nor there as these pressings are not worth the dime’s worth of vinyl used to make them.
Maybe the hearing-challenged Chad Kassem wanted this sound — almost all his remastered titles have the same faults as this Klavier — and simply asked that Doug cut it to sound real good like analog spossed to sound in the mind of this kingpin, which meant smooth, fat, thick and smeary.
Yes, this is exactly what some folks think analog should sound like.
Just ask whoever mastered the Beatles records in 2014. Somebody boosted the bass and smoothed out the upper midrange, and I don’t think they did that by accident. They actually thought it was good idea.
Harry Moss obviously would not have agreed, but he’s not around anymore to do the job right.