Basic Audio Advice — The Fundamentals of Good Sound
The highest quality vintage pressings are truly amazing if you can play them right. That’s a big if.
In fact, it may just be the biggest if in all of audio.
Be that as it may. What do we love about vintage pressings like the Ted Heath’s Swings in High Stereo album you see pictured?
The timbre of the instruments is hi-fi in the best sense of the word.
The unique sound of every instrument is being reproduced with remarkable fidelity on this old record.
That’s what we mean by “hi-fi,” not the kind of audiophile phony BS sound that passes for hi-fidelity on some records.
Older audiophile records, typically those made by Mobile Fidelity in the 70s and 80s, suffered from a common group of problems on practically every record they released:
A boosted top, a bloated bottom, and a sucked-out midrange.
Nowadays that phony sound is no longer in vogue. A new, but equally phony sound has taken its place.
What seems to be in vogue these days, judging by the Heavy Vinyl reissue pressings we’ve played over the last few years, is a very different sound, with a very different suite of shortcomings.