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Dave Mason – Alone Together (Marble Vinyl)

More of the Music of Dave Mason

  • Mason’s Masterpiece (on marble vinyl!) returns to the site after a three and a half year hiatus, here with INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on both sides of this vintage Blue Thumb pressing
  • Listen to how big and rich the dynamic chorus gets on the first track, “Only You Know and I Know” – what a thrill to hear it like that
  • A killer Bruce Botnick recording – Tubey Magical analog, smooth and natural, with the whole production sitting on a rock solid bottom-end foundation
  • Our latest shootout was a tough one – we actually had three winning copies but this was the only one with issues that weren’t significant enough to prevent it from being listed on the site
  • We do this shootout about once every ten years, and every time we do it, the best sounding copies, always on marble vinyl, are often too noisy to sell — next stop, 2035!
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Alone Together represents Dave Mason at his peak… everything comes together perfectly.”

*NOTE: There is a stitch that plays as a very light and intermittent swoosh throughout all of side 1, audible only in the quiet parts (of which there are few). It then plays at a moderate level during the intro to the last track, “Shouldn’t Have Took More Than You Gave.”

Before I get too far into the story of the sound, I want to say that this album appears to be criminally underrated as music nowadays, having fallen from favor with the passage of time.

It is a surely a Masterpiece that belongs in any rock collection worthy of the name. (Others that belong in that category can be found here.) Every track is good, and most are amazingly good. There’s no filler here.

This Copy Rocks

Punchy and surprisingly deep bass is one of the first things you will notice when playing one of these Hot Stamper copies. Huge amounts of ambience fill out the space that extends from wall to wall (and all the way to the back of the studio), leaving plenty of room around each of the players.

Full-bodied sound, open and spacious, bursting with life and energy; presence in both the lead and backup vocals (so critical to the presentation of this kind of Folk Rock); not to mention harmonically rich acoustic guitars that ring for days — these are the hallmarks of our hottest Hot Stampers.

Listen to how big and rich the dynamic chorus gets on the first track, “World in Changes.” What a thrill. Any shortcomings in the sound will be instantly obvious on this chorus. It managed to stay as clear and uncongested as any we had ever heard.

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Alone Together – What’s with All the Bad Vinyl and Murky Sound?

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Dave Mason

What follows is some advice on What to Listen For.

If you are interested in digging deeper, our Listening in Depth commentaries have extensive track by track breakdowns for some of the better-known albums for which we’ve done multiple shootouts.

On to Alone Together.

Some records are consistently too noisy to keep in stock no matter how good they sound.

This is one of them. We have a section for records that tend to be noisy, and it can be found here.

We struggled for years with the bad vinyl (on the original vomit-colored vinyl pressings, those are the ones that have the potential to win shootouts) and the murky sound of this album.

Finally, with dozens of advances in playback quality and dramatically better cleaning techniques, we have now [circa 2012] managed to overcome the problems which we assumed were baked into the recording.

I haven’t heard the master tape, but I have heard scores of pressings made from it over the years. I confess I actually used to like and recommend the Heavy Vinyl MCA pressing. Rest assured that is no longer the case. Nowadays it sounds as opaque, ambience-challenged, lifeless and pointless as the rest of its 180 gram brethren.

You want to keep what is good about a Tubey Magical analog recording from The Golden Age of Rock while avoiding the pitfalls so common to them:

  • poor resolution,
  • heavy compression,
  • thickness,
  • opacity,
  • blubber,
  • compromised frequency extremes,
  • lack of space and
  • lack of presence.

How’s that for a laundry list of all the problems we hear on old rock records, old classical records, and old jazz records?

All records when you stop to think about it.

What record doesn’t have at least some of these faults? Not many in our experience. A copy with few or none of these problems would do very well in our Hot Stamper shootouts indeed.

This is, of course, a list of all the faults we hear just as often in the Heavy Vinyl pressings we audition.

Records are records. Thick ones have the same problems as thin ones. Why wouldn’t they?

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For Rock and Pop, 1970 Might Just Be the Best Year of Them All

Hot Stamper Pressings from 1970 Available Now (All Genres of Music)

1970 turned out to be a great year in music. I wouldn’t want to be without any of the 17 albums listed below.

Cat Stevens Tea for the Tillerman,

Bridge Over Troubled Water,

Moondance,

Alone Together,

Tumbleweed Connection and the Self-Titled Album,

Sweet Baby James,

After the Goldrush,

Paul McCartney / McCartney,

Stephen Stills / Self-Titled,

Van Morrison / His Band And Street Choir,

Deja Vu,

Workingman’s Dead,

Tarkio,

Stillness,

Let It Be,

Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus

and there are surely many other Must Owns from 1970 we could name if we simply took the time to list them.

When it comes to Rock and Pop, the best of the best from 1970, numbering less than 30 titles, can be found here.

Here is a more complete list of our favorite albums from 1970.

The list of titles from 1970 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

Note that on any given day we do not have a single Hot Stamper pressing on the site of more than a few of the albums you see listed.

All of them are getting very hard to find, with the right stampers, in audiophile playing condition.

The book Fire and Rain tells the story of four of these albums well, and comes highly recommended.

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Our Last Shootout for Alone Together? Way Back in 2021

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Dave Mason Available Now

Listen to how big and rich the dynamic chorus gets on the first track, Only You Know and I Know – what a thrill to hear it like that.

A killer Bruce Botnick recording – Tubey Magical Analog, smooth and natural, with the whole production sitting on a rock solid bottom-end foundation.

Before I get too far into the story of the sound, I want to say that this album appears to be criminally underrated as music nowadays, having fallen from favor with the passage of time.

It is a surely a Masterpiece that belongs in any Rock Collection worthy of the name. Every track is good, and most are amazingly good. There’s no filler here.

Finding The Right Sound on Alone Together

We struggled for years with the bad vinyl and the murky sound of this album. Finally, with dozens of advances in playback quality and dramatically better cleaning techniques, we have now managed to overcome the problems which we assumed were baked into the recording. I haven’t heard the master tape, but I have heard scores of pressings made from it over the years. I confess I actually used to like and recommend the Heavy Vinyl MCA pressing. Rest assured that is no longer the case. Nowadays it sounds as opaque, ambience-challenged, lifeless and pointless as the rest of its 180 gram brethren.

This copy managed to find a near-perfect balance of the above four attributes. You want to keep what is good about a Tubey Magical analog recording from The Golden Age of Rock while avoiding the pitfalls so common to them: poor resolution, heavy compression, thickness, opacity, blubber, inadequate frequency extremes, lack of space and lack of presence.

How’s that for a laundry list of all the problems we hear on old rock records (and classical records and jazz records; all records really)? What record doesn’t have at least some of these faults? Not many in our experience.

(more…)

Dave Mason – Alone Together on MCA Heavy Vinyl

More of the Music of Dave Mason

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Dave Mason

Sonic Grade: D

I confess I actually used to like and recommend the Heavy Vinyl MCA pressing. Rest assured that is no longer the case. Nowadays it sounds as opaque, ambience-challenged, lifeless and pointless as the rest of its 180 gram brethren.

As for other records we got wrong, you can find plenty more here, under the heading: Live and Learn.

We struggled for years with the bad vinyl and the murky sound of this album. Finally, with dozens of advances in playback quality and dramatically better cleaning techniques, we have now managed to overcome the problems which we assumed were baked into the recording. I haven’t heard the master tape, but I have heard scores of pressings made from it over the years. 

It is a surely a MASTERPIECE that belongs in any Rock Collection worthy of the name. Every track is good, and most are amazingly good. There’s not a scrap of filler here. The recording by Bruce Botnick is hard to fault as well.

1970 was a great time in music. Tea for the Tillerman, Bridge Over Troubled Water, Moondance, Sweet Baby James, Tumbleweed Connection, After the Goldrush, The Yes Album, McCartney, Elton John, His Band And Street Choir, Deja Vu, Workingman’s Dead, Tarkio, Stillness, Let It Be — need I go on?

Even in such illustrious company — I defy anyone to name ten albums of comparable quality to come out in any year — Alone Together ranks as one of the best releases of the year. (more…)

1970 – It Was a Very Good Year, Especially for Dave Mason

masonalone

1970 Was a Great Year for Analog Recording

This album appears to be criminally underrated as music nowadays, having fallen from favor with the passage of time.

It is a surely a MASTERPIECE that belongs in any Rock Collection worthy of the name. Every track is good, and most are amazingly good. There’s not a scrap of filler here.

The recording by Bruce Botnick is hard to fault as well.

1970 was a great time in music. Some of the best albums released that year (in no particular order):

  • Tea for the Tillerman,
  • Bridge Over Troubled Water,
  • Moondance,
  • Sweet Baby James,
  • Tumbleweed Connection,
  • After the Goldrush,
  • The Yes Album,
  • McCartney / Self-Titled,
  • Elton John / Self-Titled,
  • Morrison / His Band And Street Choir,
  • Deja Vu,
  • Workingman’s Dead,
  • Tarkio,
  • Stillness,
  • Let It Be — need I go on?

Even in such illustrious company — I defy anyone to name ten albums of comparable quality to come out in any year — Alone Together ranks as one of the best releases of 1970.