dubby-sound

Records that are made from sub-generation tapes, tapes dubbed from the masters, or dubbed from second generation tapes previously dubbed from the masters, tend to have what we call “dubby sound.”

They will usually be somewhat veiled, small, smeary and opaque. They tend to get congested in loud passages. They sometimes have more tape hiss.

Many of these shortcomings are the ones we regularly hear on the Modern Heavy Vinyl reissue.

We suspect that many of them are made from copy tapes, but whether they are or aren’t is immaterial. The bulk of them simply do not sound very good to us. Regardless of what tape was used, they should be avoided by those who are interested in high quality analog.

Parallel Lines on Heavy Vinyl

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Blondie Available Now

Sonic Grade: D or worse

EMI and Simply Vinyl both released Heavy Vinyl versions of the album with little sonic success.

I remember being underwhelmed by the Simply Vinyl version, the perfect example of the smeary sub-gen sound you get when a record is made from a tape dub.

The EMI 180 was brighter and thinner and every bit as wrong in its own way. Choosing among them would have been difficult.

The best choice: none of the above. 

As is so often the case, the Heavy Vinyl Reissues are simply a disgrace.

(more…)

The Merchant of Venice Suite – Another Dubby Klavier Record

Hot Stamper Pressings of Classical and Orchestral Music

Sonic Grade: F

A Hall of Shame Pressing and another Heavy Vinyl Classical LP debunked.

This record sounds like it was mastered from copy tapes, which is where at least some of its dubby sound comes from. All the Klavier Heavy Vinyl pressings we’ve played have this problem.

Yes, it is yet another murky, smeary 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. Once he started cutting Heavy Vinyl it was all over.

Advice – What to Listen For on Classical Records

(more…)

Mercury Stereo Sampler Vol. 1 (SRD-1)

Mercury Pressings Available Now

This Mercury Sampler has SUPERB Super Hot Stamper sound on side one, or better — who knows if this isn’t as good as it gets? We can’t find enough clean copies to test so we’re sticking with A++ or better just to be safe.

Either way, this is the BIG, BOLD classic Mercury sound.

Let’s Dance – David Carroll – from Let’s Dance (SR-60001) has the sweet Tubey Magic of the best Living Stereos and the percussion excitement of Bang Baa-room and Harp.

Not every song on side one is a knockout but some of them certainly are, making this a top quality Variety Demo Disc.

Tracks two and three on side one are great, but there may be others you will like equally well.

Side two earned a single plus grade (A+); some of it sounds like it’s made from sub-gen tapes. The Gershwin comes off pretty well with a solid clear piano.

Side One

Rhapsodero – Richard Hayman – from Havana in Hi-Fi (SR-60000)
Let’s Dance – David Carroll – from Let’s Dance (SR-60001)
Rain On The Roof – Dick Contino – from It’s Dance Time (SR-60006)
Birth Of Passion – Clebanoff – from Moods in Music (SR-60005)
The Lady Is A Tramp – Griff Williams – from America’s Most Danceable Music (SR-60007)
Autumn In Rome – Patti Page – from Let’s Get Away from It All (SR-60010)

Side Two

Anderson – Sleigh Ride – The Eastman-Rochester Pops Orchestra – Frederick Fennel – from SR-90009
Prokofiev – March From The Love for Three Oranges – The London Symphony Orchestra – Antal Dorati – from SR-90006
Rhapsody In Blue (Portion) – Eugene List – The Eastman-Rochester Symphony Orchestra – Howard Hanson – from SR-90002
Funky Drums – Pete Rugolo – from Percussion at Work (SR-80003)
Rose Room – Terry Gibbs – from Allen’s All Stars (SR-80004)
Like Someone In Love – Sarah Vaughan – from Sarah Vaughan at the London House (SR-60020)

Iron Butterfly – Dubby Da-Vida

More of the Music of Iron Butterfly

The craziest thing we learned in our shootout from many years ago is that something close to half of all the yellow label, authentic, non-record-club Atco copies we played had clearly been mastered from a dub tape on side two, the side with In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.

We’re guessing that at some point after 1968, when it came time to recut the record, the cutting master for side two was either damaged or couldn’t be found.

Not a problem the label says to itself, we have a safety tape we can copy and use for side two.

Problem solved, except for the fact that on those copies In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida sounds like a cassette playing on a machine with clogged heads. The sound is smeary, veiled, small and recessed — all but unlistenable.

That was a shock, but the other shock we experienced was much more to our liking: hearing that the sound of the best copies is actually surprisingly good.

The tonal balance is right on the money, but of course, because this is a compilation, it is made from copies of master tapes, not real master tapes themselves, so it will always have that blurry, smeary, recessed, flat, opaque, airless, sub-generation-tape sound. In short, it’s dubby.

(more…)

Nilsson Schmilsson – A Simply Vinyl Disaster

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Harry Nilsson Available Now

Sonic Grade: F

Awful in every way. Made from a dub of the master tapes and then mastered from them poorly.

Phill (That’s Two L’s) Brown

I recently looked up the engineer for the album and am rather shocked that I never paid much attention to his body of work before.

He assisted on some amazing sounding records, many that we’ve auditioned and some that we’ve done Hot Stamper shootouts for and know to be superb recordings:

(more…)

Tchaikovsky / Symphonies 4-5-6 – The Sound of Dubbed Tapes

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Tchaikovsky Available Now

Sonic Grade: C  

This is a Deutsche Grammophon 4 LP Box Set. I used to really like the sound of this set back in the day, as you will see from the rave review that I wrote in 2009.

It’s been a while since I found the sound to be worthy of a Hot Stamper shootout, and now, in 2017, having just played some of the discs against some very good German and British reissues, I now realize the records in the set are clearly made from dub tapes.

They badly lack presence, space, transparency and clarity, all hallmarks of sub-generation master tapes.  (more…)

How Good Are the Domestic Pressings of Days of Future Passed?

More of the Music of The Moody Blues

If you’ve ever done a shootout between domestic pressings of the Moody Blues and good imports you know that the imports just kill the American LPs. Domestic pressings are cut from sub-generation tapes, tend to sound more smeary, yet they’re thinner, brighter and more transistory, and overall have a fraction of the Tubey Magic the good imports have.

Moody Blues albums on import are typically murky, congested and dull. Listening to the typical copy you’d be forgiven for blaming the band or the recording engineer for the problem.

Of course the album is never going to have the kind of super clean, high-rez sound some audiophiles prize, but that’s clearly not what the Moody Blues were aiming for.

It isn’t about picking out individual parts or deciphering the machinery of the music with this band.

It’s all about lush, massive soundscapes, and for that this is the kind of sound that works the best.

(more…)

Santana Records to Avoid – 180 Gram Imports!

More of the Music of Santana

There are some 180 gram reissues produced in Germany that are just plain awful. They can’t begin to hold a candle to good American copies.

The Original Orange Label CBS pressings always have that veiled, opaque, smeary quality that we dislike so much. They are obviously made from sub-generation tapes. The transients suffer badly when dub tapes are used.

Further Reading

(more…)