Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Doc Watson
Folks, if you made the mistake of buying the Cisco Heavy Vinyl reissue of this album, and you manage to grab one of our Hot Stamper pressings, you are really in for a treat.
I have to confess that when this record came out in 2003 I had a hard time coming to grips with what was wrong with it. I knew I didn’t like it, but I wasn’t sure exactly why. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was doing wrong, if anything. It seemed tonally correct and natural sounding. Why didn’t I like it?
It wasn’t phony up top with sloppy bass like a MoFi.
It wasn’t hard and transistory like so many of the Classic Records pressings back then.
I didn’t know the record at all so I really had nothing to judge it by.
But there was definitely something lacking in the sound that had me confused. Eventually I figured it out. Looking back on it now, the problems with the Cisco I could not identify were these:
- The Cisco lacks presence. It puts Doc Watson further back than he should be, assuming that he is where he should be on the good vintage pressings, which sound right to me — some better, some worse, of course. Moving him back in the sound field does him no favors.
- The Cisco lacks intimacy, which is key to the best pressings. The shootout winners remove all the veils and put you in the presence of the living, breathing Doc Watson. The Cisco adds veils and takes the intimacy right out of the record.
- The Cisco lacks transparency. It frustrates your efforts to hear into the recording.
- Doc is in a studio, surrounded by the air and ambience that would naturally be found there. The Cisco is airless and ambience-free, with Doc performing in a heavily damped booth of some kind. At least that’s what it sounds like.
- And the last thing you notice is the lovely guitar harmonics on the originals and early reissues, harmonics that are attenuated and dulled on the Cisco.
As my stereo got better and better, and my critical listening skills improved in tandem, it became more and more obvious to me what was wrong with the Cisco. When we play modern Heavy Vinyl pressings these days, especially albums we know well, it usually doesn’t take us two minutes to hear what they are doing wrong.
We go back and forth between the new pressing and one of our Hot Stampers a few times, make some notes, and proceed to put the review up on the blog, and maybe mention it in our listings for the album. A half hour or an hour is the most it takes these days. Like I say, these records are obviously doing some things poorly, and their failings are easy to spot if you know the album well — a little harder, but not that much harder, if you don’t.