lacks-ambience

Is The Heavy Vinyl from 2012 the Best Sounding Sgt. Pepper?

beatlessgtMore of the Music of The Beatles

Letters and Commentaries for Sgt. Peppers

You might agree with some reviewers that EMI’s engineers did a pretty good job with the new stereo pressing of Sgt. Pepper mastered by Sean Magee from the 2009 digitally remastered tapes.

In the March 2013 issue of Stereophile Art Dudley weighed in, finding little to fault on this title but being less impressed with most of the others in the new box set. His reference disc? The MoFi UHQR! Oh, and he also has some old mono pressings and a domestic Let It Be.

Now there’s a man who knows his Beatles. Fanatical? Of course he is! We’re talkin’ The Beatles for Chrissakes.

When I read the reviews by writers such as these, I often get the sense that I must’ve fallen through some sort of Audio Time Warp and landed back in 1982. How is it that our so-called experts evince so little understanding of how records are made, how variable the pressings can be, and, more importantly, how absolutely crucial it is to understand and implement rigorous protocols when attempting to carry out comparisons among pressings.

Critically comparing LPs is difficult and time-consuming. It requires highly developed listening skills. I didn’t know how to do it in 1982. I see no evidence that the audiophile reviewers of today are much better at it now than I was in 1982.

Just to take one example: They all seem to be operating under the same evidence-free conceit: that the original is the benchmark against which other pressings must be compared.

To those of us who have played Beatles pressings by the hundreds, this is patent nonsense. To cite just one instance, a recent Hot Stamper listing notes [inaccurately as it turns out, see below]:

We defy any original to step into the ring with it. One thing we can tell you, it would not be a fair fight. The cutting equipment to make a record of this quality did not exist in 1967, not at EMI anyway.

We had the opportunity not long ago to audition a very clean original early pressing of the album and were frankly taken aback by how AWFUL it was in virtually every respect. No top end above 8k or so, flabby bass, murky mids — this was as far from Hot Stamper sound as one could imagine. If it were a Heavy Vinyl or Audiophile pressing we would surely have graded it F and put it in our Hall of Shame.

To be fair we have played exactly one early copy of the record on our current system. (Played a copy or two long ago but on much different equipment, so any judgments we might have made must be considered highly suspect.) Perhaps there are good ones. We have no way of knowing whether there are, and we are certainly not motivated to find out given the price that original Sgt. Pepper’s are fetching these days.

We can tell you this much: no original British pressing of any Beatles album up through Pepper has ever impressed us sonically. We’ve played plenty and have yet to hear one that’s not congested, crude, distorted, bandwidth-limited and full of tube smear. (The monos suffer from all of these problems and more of course, which is only natural; they too are made with the Old School cutting equipment of the day.)

If that’s your sound more power to you. It’s definitely not ours. The hotter the stamper, the less congested, crude, distorted, bandwidth-limited and smeary it will be. (Or your money back.)

NEWSFLASH 2023

[Update: there is a copy of a Beatles album on the original label that was competitive with our best 70s pressings, this one. We explained why it’s not a problem to admit we were wrong about For Sale this way:

This finding about For Sale is precisely why Live and Learn is our motto.

We don’t know it all, and we’ve never claimed that we did. We constantly learn things about pressings in our daily shootouts. That should not be too surprising, as record shootouts are the only way to learn anything about the sound of records that’s actually worth knowing.

Start doing your own experiments and your record knowledge might just take off the way ours has. 99% of what we think we know about the sound of records we’ve learned in shootouts over the course of the last twenty years.

Here is our advice on getting started.

Before this, the only Beatles record we would sell on the Yellow and Black Parlophone label was A Collection of Oldies… But Goldies. That title does have the best sound on the early label. In numerous shootouts, no Black and Silver label pressing from the ’70s was competitive with the best stereo copies made in the ’60s.

Until now, it was clearly the exception to our rule. From With the Beatles up through Yellow Submarine, the best sounding Beatles pressings would always be found on the best reissue pressings.

The Best Pepper Pressings

How did we come to find the best Sgt. Peppers pressings? Our recent commentary about a wonderful Benny Carter record on the original Contemporary Black Label may serve to shed some light on the process.

We noted how Tubey Magical Benny’s trumpet sounded on the original, adding that it unfortunately comes at the expense of all the other instruments — drums, bass and piano — which are simply harder to hear — less immediate, less real, less “live in your listening room.” We went on to say:

Yet this is precisely the sound that many, even most, audiophiles would find perfectly acceptable. There are many reasons for this, but one of the main ones has to be that they have never heard a truly amazing reissue, the kind we sell all day long. Had they heard such a pressing they would be in a much better position to weigh the pros and cons of both. This is why we do shootouts. Every pressing has the potential to show you some quality you can’t hear any other way, some aspect of the sound you would not even know was possible. Super Hot and especially White Hot pressings — on the right equipment — can put you in the presence of a recording you had no idea existed. It would be no exaggeration to say that it happens to us every week.

Not to put too fine a point on it, comparing an original pressing of Sgt. Pepper with the new Heavy Vinyl reissue is simply comparing one badly flawed pressing with another badly flawed pressing. Pace Mr Dudley and his confreres, we’re not exactly sure how their efforts in this regard are of much benefit to audiophiles who take their record collecting seriously, at least to that subset of collectors in search of the best sounding pressings.

If you want to find an LP of Sgt. Pepper that sounds better than the original, that’s one thing. If, on the other hand, you want to find the best sounding pressing there is, that’s quite another.

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Alan Sides Likes a Dead Studio

Hot Stamper Pressings of Pablo Recordings Available Now

More Reviews and Commentaries for Pablo Recordings

Many of Allen Sides‘ recordings suffer from a lack of ambience. The musicians do not seem to have much room around them. In audiophile parlance, his recordings often lack “air.”  I can’t say all his recordings are made in a dead studio, but some of them sure are.

Many audiophile recordings, especially direct-to-disc recordings from the ’70s, are insufferable in this respect, with too much multi-miking and not enough studio space.

This Bach recording on Crystal Clear is a good example of the sound some audiophile labels were going for. Back in the 70s, audiophile producers and engineers were using state-of-the-art high-tech recording equipment, but they seemed to lack experience as well as knowledge of the recordings of the past. They regularly ended up producing records that are not remotely the equal of those that were commonly made only twenty years before.

For Duke is the poster boy for that sound. The instruments are dynamic as all get out, but no one ever imagined that the ideal approach to recording Ellington’s music would be to cram a big group of players into the equivalent of a heavily carpeted and draped livingroom.

Miller and Kreisel created a completely new, strange and inappropriate sound for Duke’s music, and it has been rubbing me the wrong way since I first heard it demoed in the audio showrooms of the 70s I used to frequent.

Sheffield’s first Direct to Disc recording suffered from the same problems to some extent. Lots of multi-miking, lots of instruments in isolation booths, no sense that everyone is playing together in a big room.

When the space in a recording is reduced on one pressing versus another, that is a sign that the pressing is question lacks resolution, and in our shootouts you lose a lot of points for that shortcoming. (Records that are especially good for testing Ambience, Size and Space can be found all over this blog.)

Bob and Ray is a favorite test disc of ours for three-dimensional sound. A big group of guys in 1958 playing live in a reverberant studio with superb acoustics produced our favorite wall to wall, floor to ceiling Large Jazz Group recording of all time. For the last fifteen years it has been invaluable in testing and tweaking the system.

Back to Oscar

For our review for the Oscar Peterson record you see pictured, we noted “Surprisingly spacious and three-dimensional for a recording from 1986.”

But that is setting the bar awfully low. Truth be told, recordings made in 1986 are rarely if ever as spacious or three-dimensional as those produced in the 50s, 60s and well into the 70s.

Two of the Worst

Of course, some of the most ambience-challenged records available today are on Heavy Vinyl. I could link to hundreds of them, but here are two that should get the point across well enough.

This album on DCC, like much of their dubious output, has very little of the breathing space of the vintage pressings we sell.

And the disgraceful label that released this title can be relied upon to press records that no audiophile with a decent stereo and two working ears should want anything to do with.

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Iberia on Classic Records – What, Specifically, Are Its Shortcomings?

The Music of Claude Debussy Available Now

Album Reviews of the music of Claude Debussy

An Audiophile Hall of Shame pressing and another Classic Records LP debunked.

The Classic of LSC 2222 is all but unlistenable on a highly resolving, properly setup hi-fi system.

The opacity, transient smear and loss of harmonic information and ambience found on Classic’s pressing was enough to drive us right up a wall. Who can sit through a record that sounds like that?

The Classic reissue has plenty of deep bass, but the overall sound is shrill and hard and altogether unpleasant. The better bass comes at a steep price.

Way back in 1994, long before we had anything like the system we do now, we were finding fault with the “Classic Records Sound” and said as much in our catalogs. (Sometimes. Sometimes we were as wrong as wrong can be.)

With each passing year — 29 and counting — we like that sound less.  The Classic may be on Harry’s TAS list — sad but true — but that certainly has no bearing on the fact that it’s not a very good record.

For a better sounding recording of Iberia, click here.

Here Are More Titles that Are Good for Judging These Recording Qualities

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Sibelius / Finlandia – Classic Records Reviewed

More of the music of Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)

More of the music of Edvard Grieg (1843-1907)

Sonic Grade: F

Classic Records ruined this album. Their version is dramatically more smeared and low-rez than our good vintage pressings, with almost none of the sweetness, richness and ambience that the best RCA pressings have in such abundance.

[This turns out not to be true, as we discovered to our chagrin in 2014.]

In fact their pressing is just plain awful, like most of the classical recordings they remastered, and should be avoided at anything other than a nominal price.

Our current favorite pressing is this one on a budget Decca reissue. Go figure.

If you’re tempted to pick one up for a few bucks to hear how badly mastered their version is, go for it. If you actually want a record to play for enjoyment, don’t bother — it’s a complete waste of money.

It is yet another example of a record that has no business being on the TAS List.

Most audiophiles (including audiophile record reviewers) have never heard a classical recording of the quality of the best Living Stereo pressings like those we sell. If they had, Classic Records would have gone out of business immediately after producing their first three Living Stereo titles, all of which were dreadful and described as such by us way back in 1994.

I’m not sure why the rest of the audiophile community was so easily fooled, but I can say that we weren’t, at least when it came to their classical releases.

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Casino Royale Is Really a Mess on Classic Records Vinyl

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Burt Bacharach

More Stamper and Pressing Information (You’re Welcome!)

Sonic Grade: F

Casino Royale under the sway of Bernie’s penchant for bright, gritty, sour, ambience-challenged sound? Not a good match. There is no reissue, and there will never be a reissue, that will sound as good as a properly-mastered, properly-pressed, properly-cleaned original.

And I hope it would go without saying that most copies cannot begin to do what a real Hot Stamper original can.

As is often the case, the Classic Heavy Vinyl Reissue is simply a disgrace.

Is it the worst version of the album ever made?

That’s hard to say. But it is the worst sounding version of the album we’ve ever played, and that should be good enough for any audiophile contemplating spending money on this Heavy Vinyl trash. Our advice: don’t do it.

Labels With Shortcomings – Classic Records – Classical (more…)

Bill Berry and His Ellington All-Stars – For Duke

Hot Stamper Audiophile Recordings

Reviews and Commentaries for Direct to Disc Recordings

  • An original M&K Real Time pressing with stunning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound from first note to last – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • Tubier, more present, and more alive than practically all other copies, with more of that “jumpin’ right out of the speakers” quality that only The Real Thing (The Real Thing being An Old Record) ever has
  • “. . . this album features a true all-star lineup. Each artist solos in this heartfelt tribute session. . . one of those rare albums that you can enjoy over and over without losing your smile.”

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David Crosby – Another in a Long Line of Classic Records’ Mediocrities

More of the Music of David Crosby

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of David Crosby

What do you get with our best Hot Stampers compared to the Classic Heavy Vinyl reissue?

On high quality equipment, you can expect to hear improvements in all of the following areas:

  • Dramatically more warmth,
  • Dramatically more sweetness,
  • Dramatically more delicacy,
  • Dramatically more transparency,
  • Dramatically more ambience,
  • Dramatically more energy,
  • Dramatically more size (width and height),
  • Dramatically more correct timbres (without the boost to the top and the bottom end that the Classic suffers from).

in other words, the kind of difference you almost ALWAYS get comparing the best vintage pressings with their modern remastered counterparts, if our first hand experience with thousands of them can be considered evidentiary.

The Classic is a decent enough record. I might give it a “C” or so. It’s sure better than the Super Saver reissue pressing, but that is obviously setting a very low bar. No original I have ever played did not sound noticeably better than Bernie’s recut.

A Hot Stamper of an amazing recording such as this is a MAGICAL record. Can the same be said of any Classic Records release? None come to mind.

By the way, the remastered CD that came out in 2011 (I think that’s the one I have) is excellent, with a surprising amount of the Tubey Magic that is on the original tape. On a good CD player it would be clearly superior to the Classic vinyl, and for that reason, we say buy the CD.

Here are some records we’ve reviewed that are lacking in the same qualities as this pressing of David Crosby’s first album. If you own any of the titles that we’ve linked to below, listen for their shortcomings and see if your copy doesn’t sound the way we’ve described the copies we’ve played.

Further Reading

New to the Blog? Start Here

There is an abundance of audiophile collector hype surrounding the hundreds of Heavy Vinyl pressings currently in print. I read a lot about how wonderful their sound is, but when I actually play them, I rarely find them to be any better than mediocre, and many of them are awful. (Some, of course, are good, and we don’t mind saying so.)

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Moondance on Heavy Vinyl Is a Disgrace to Audiophiles and Record Lovers All Over the World

xxxMore of the Music of Van Morrison

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Van Morrison

Reviews and Commentaries for Moondance

Sonic Grade: F

The original grade I gave out in 2015 when last I played this remastered version as part of a shootout was “D.” I explained at the time:

Just listen to how strange Van’s voice sounds, so lean, hard and sour. That alone qualifies it for an “F,” but considering how bad most pressings of this album are, let’s be fair, if not downright generous, and call it a “D.”

I just revisited the record in a current shootout, and after giving it some thought I have decided that the right grade is in fact “F.” It cannot be any other, for reasons I discuss below.

In 2014 I had written:

Where is the Tubey Magic of the originals? The sweetness? The richness? And why is there so little ambience or transparency? You just can’t “see” into the studio on this pressing the way you can on the good originals, but that’s fairly consistently been the knock on these remastered Heavy Vinyl records. We noted as much when we debunked Blue all the way back in early 2007, so no surprise there.

Having just played a marvelous shootout-winning early pressing, this time around I found the reproduction of Van’s voice on the reissue to be so leaned-out, artificial and unpleasant that I could hardly stand to listen to it.

We had reset the VTA correctly; the overall tonal balance of the recording from top to bottom was correct. It was only the voice that sounded so off. All the other shortcomings I had mentioned before were still true of course, but none of that mattered. The singer on this record just sounded awful.

As you know, we are constantly making improvements to our playback system. The real Moondance we had just played sounded better than ever. The fake Moondance, however, was sounding worse than ever. That’s what higher quality playback can do for you. It makes your good records sound better than they’ve ever sounded, and shows you just how bad your bad records really are.

Do I have a bad copy of the Heavy Vinyl pressing? Maybe, can’t say I don’t. If any of you out there in the real world have a copy of this pressing that you like, and would be willing to send it to me to hear for myself, I would be more than happy to give it a listen and report my findings on this blog.

Short of that I’m not sure what more I can do. I certainly do not feel the least bit inclined to waste a nickel of my hard earned money on another copy of this ridiculously badly mastered crap vinyl.

If you want to read about other records that have these same shortcomings, here are links to the ones we’ve auditioned and identified to date. Our advice would be to avoid them, and if you own some of these pressings, perhaps now is the time to give them another listen and see if you don’t hear the same faults we did.

And, of course, the Hot Stamper pressings we offer, when played side by side with any of these Heavy Vinyl remasters, can help you to see more clearly just where these new records are going wrong, or, in the case of Moondance, completely off the rails.

Here are more records that we found to have similar shortcomings. They are, to one degree or another,

Some Fun Quotes (bolding added)

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John Coltrane – Thick and Dull, Sorry, Not Really Our Sound

More of the Music of John Coltranecoltranegiant45x

John Coltrane – Giant Steps / Rhino 45 RPM 2 Disc Set 

Sonic Grade: F

The sound of the 45 RPM 2 disc version cut by Bernie Grundman does not exactly tickle our fancy. It sounds thick, dull, and entirely too smooth.

It reminds us of the awful Deja Vu Bernie remastered years ago for Classic Records.

As is the case with so many of the Heavy Vinyl reissues released these days, the studio ambience you hear on these pressings is a pitiful fraction of the ambience the real pressings are capable of revealing. Real pressings like, you know, the ones mass-produced by Atlantic, original and reissue alike. What’s Bernie’s excuse?

Rhino bills their releases as being pressed on “180 gram High Performance Vinyl.” However, if they are using “performance” to refer to sound quality, we have found the performance of their vinyl to be quite low, lower than the average copy one might stumble upon in the used record bins.

If you are stuck in a Heavy Vinyl rut, we can help you get out of it. We did precisely that for these folks, and we can do it for you.

(Like the gentleman who sent me the Steppenwolf album, you may of course not be aware that you are stuck in a rut. Most audiophiles aren’t.)

The best way out of that predicament is to hear how mediocre these modern records sound compared to the vintage Hot Stampers we offer.

Once you hear the difference, your days of buying newly remastered releases will most likely be over.

Even if our pricey curated pressings are too dear, as a Brit might put it, you can avail yourself of the methods we describe to find killer records on your own.

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Virgil Fox – The Fox Touch Volume 2

Hot Stamper Pressings of Direct-to-Disc Recordings

Reviews and Commentaries for Direct to Disc Recordings

Played against the best Golden Age organ recordings, these Crystal Clear titles are noticeably lacking in ambience.

The best pressings, assuming one would do a shootout for them, might be expected to earn a sonic grade of B- or so.

Volume 1 is a TAS List record. But seeing as they were all recorded at the same time, this one might sound every bit as good. Then again, it might not. 

By the way, did you know Stan Ricker cut this record live direct to disc? He did a great job too.

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