When we did a shootout for The Bridge about ten years ago, we thought the reissues with the cover you see to the left actually sounded better than the original pressings, but we were clearly wrong and we have no other option than to admit it, as painful as that may be.
True, we never cared much for the later reissues described below — the tan labels can be passable but fall well short of the standards we set now.
However, even the best orange label pressings from 1975 don’t sound as good to us now as we thought they did ten years ago.
They can be good, but in our experience they can never be great. Great is the sound that can only be found on the best originals, and they win all the shootouts now.
The notes for the AFL pressing with the black label describe it as bright, phony and lean.
This is the kind of sound better suited to the stone age stereos of the past.
I should know. I had a stereo all the way up until the late-90s — not exactly stone age quality, but far from the sound we have now — that prevented me from hearing my records with the highest quality reproduction.