Best vinyl pressing

Andrea

Unless it's absolutely out of reach price wise, I usually go for an original copy or contemporary reissue. Why ? Cause those older discs hold their value and are more consistent sound wise.


I agree with your comments on 'fashionable' reissues. If they are not clean and silent then why bother ? Unless you must have that music on vinyl, I don't see why.


On the other hand I have heard good things about some labels and must admit am tempted to try the newer reissues.

The original 1967 pressing of 5000 Spirits Or The Layers Of The Onion by the Incredible String Band is one of the best pressings I have - perhaps helped by it being one of the most inventive and well performed collection of original songs ever committed to vinyl. I've never heard the re-mastered CD, but it would need to go some to beat this fine example of the black stuff.

The Pretty Things SF Sorrow is almost as good, but the re-mastered Gold CD is even better proving it can be done. Try the new Piper At The Gates Of Dawn for even more proof of how wonderful CD can sound in the right hands or Mary Chapin Carpenter's The Calling to hear how awful it can sound in the wrong hands (great songs, but the over loud mastering is pathetic - the person responsible is a complete idiot and owes Mary an apology of the highest order)

I do have an excellent copy of Carole King's masterpiece Tapestry which is one of those rare things - a satisfactory audiophile pressing. I also have a MFSL copy of Supertramp's Breakfast In America which is a fine pressing even if the music is a little inconsistent, but when it is good (e.g. The Logical Song) then it's superb.

ATB Rotf

In a related thought. Many people hear complain about badly mastered/mixed albums some of them by artists who really should know better. Has any one ever contacted the artists to point out what is being done in their name?
Maybe at the end of the day if it sells who gives a shit.That certainly is the record makers mantra.

I have a Half Speed Master copy of Tapestry.


Howard

When I was young I can remember the pressings of full priced HMV LPs being £2/1/0, which is £2.05 in deecimal terms. These were heavy things that stayed flat, but with the first oil crisis in about 1973 [?, who remembers Sheik Yamani?] things went downhill and never recovered completely.

The best pressed LP I ever owned was of Handel's Water Music played by the Collegium Aureum on Harmonia Mundi, which was manufacturered by BASF. Amazingly that LP seemed to be completely immune to wear as well.

In the early eighties EMI had somewhat recovered in pressing quality and the D[irect] M[etal] M]astered] LPs that emerged, until EMI almost completely abandoned LP issues of classical music, were very fine, though also very thin and prone to warping if left off the shelf for any length of time. They were goood for wear too, being cut at a slightly lower level generally. DMM allowed for very long sides. I bought an issue of Klemperer's recording of the the Choral Symphony to replace two LPs on HMV Concert Classics [Blue label: Who remembers those?] where the heavy tracking of the Finale was worn out worn out - the new issue not only contained the Symphony but I think it was the overture Fidelio! More than eighty minutes on one LP. Unfortunately it had a groove lock on side one [otherwise pristine] so I used to use the first two sides of the old issue for the first two movements, and side two of the new issue!

I never liked LPs! ATB from George

The JVC super vinyl pressings that Mobile Fidelity did in the late 1970's / early 1980's are incredibly silent, particulary in the low frequency "roar" department.

The ones MoFi make today, though, isn't anything to write home about...

JohanR

quote:

Originally posted by ROTF:
The original 1967 pressing of 5000 Spirits Or The Layers Of The Onion by the Incredible String Band is one of the best pressings I have - perhaps helped by it being one of the most inventive and well performed collection of original songs ever committed to vinyl. I've never heard the re-mastered CD, but it would need to go some to beat this fine example of the black stuff.

The Pretty Things SF Sorrow is almost as good, but the re-mastered Gold CD is even better proving it can be done. Try the new Piper At The Gates Of Dawn for even more proof of how wonderful CD can sound in the right hands or Mary Chapin Carpenter's The Calling to hear how awful it can sound in the wrong hands (great songs, but the over loud mastering is pathetic - the person responsible is a complete idiot and owes Mary an apology of the highest order)

I do have an excellent copy of Carole King's masterpiece Tapestry which is one of those rare things - a satisfactory audiophile pressing. I also have a MFSL copy of Supertramp's Breakfast In America which is a fine pressing even if the music is a little inconsistent, but when it is good (e.g. The Logical Song) then it's superb.

ATB Rotf

I'm sorry but until you get the Lp12 going and set up, I can't take your comments vis a vis cd vs vinly seriously. You have continually said you prefer your cds to vinyl. I just checked your profile and looked up the prices of the cd player at Naim USA. Your are playing 15 grand worth of cd player against what ? A lowly Rega p25 ? Sorry, but I don't think so.


I have found your comments about folk and prog rock very interesting but you need to get a serious Lp player bro !


US

That told you didn't it.

quote:

Originally posted by BigH47:
That told you didn't it.

Yeah it did, old codger.

quote:

Originally posted by Unstoppable:

quote:

Originally posted by ROTF:
The original 1967 pressing of 5000 Spirits Or The Layers Of The Onion by the Incredible String Band is one of the best pressings I have - perhaps helped by it being one of the most inventive and well performed collection of original songs ever committed to vinyl. I've never heard the re-mastered CD, but it would need to go some to beat this fine example of the black stuff.

The Pretty Things SF Sorrow is almost as good, but the re-mastered Gold CD is even better proving it can be done. Try the new Piper At The Gates Of Dawn for even more proof of how wonderful CD can sound in the right hands or Mary Chapin Carpenter's The Calling to hear how awful it can sound in the wrong hands (great songs, but the over loud mastering is pathetic - the person responsible is a complete idiot and owes Mary an apology of the highest order)

I do have an excellent copy of Carole King's masterpiece Tapestry which is one of those rare things - a satisfactory audiophile pressing. I also have a MFSL copy of Supertramp's Breakfast In America which is a fine pressing even if the music is a little inconsistent, but when it is good (e.g. The Logical Song) then it's superb.

ATB Rotf

I'm sorry but until you get the Lp12 going and set up, I can't take your comments vis a vis cd vs vinly seriously. You have continually said you prefer your cds to vinyl. I just checked your profile and looked up the prices of the cd player at Naim USA. Your are playing 15 grand worth of cd player against what ? A lowly Rega p25 ? Sorry, but I don't think so.


I have found your comments about folk and prog rock very interesting but you need to get a serious Lp player bro !


US

Hi US

I used to own an LP12 and am aware that it is a fine record player and can do a lot. I've also heard a few over the years. One of the best systems I've heard had a fully Naim'd LP12 as its source.

I committed to CDs because of availability - there are many CDs (and vinyl records too) that disappoint, but many more that engage and excite. I stand by my comments that Piper At The Gates Of Dawn on the new CDs is better than any vinyl pressing of that work that I have heard. If that re-master of Piper came out on vinyl then perhaps it would be even better, but it hasn't so we may never know. Have you heard the CD set? It is truly wonderful.

Have you heard the Kinks Arthur on vinyl on an LP12 - it's dreadful (not the music from Ray Davies that's great, the recording is to blame). Have you heard it on CD - well, it is just as bad. However, if some enterprising person wants to do a re-master on either media then I want to be able to play it. I want to hear Shangri-La without the distortion in the middle break. Just like on his recent concert on the BBC. I care not if it is vinyl or CD. My point is that if this is done then whatever it comes out on will be the winner for that work. It's a case of source first every time for me.

I am going to audition a new TT tomorrow - however, it is not the LP12 - no reason for it not to be, other than I wanted to listen to an alternative at length to hear if it were right for me.

So I do not think all CDs sound better than all vinyl - far from it. I do not think all vinyl sounds better than CD either though it might if everything else were equal.

However, I am unequivocal in that I prefer Basia Bulat on CD to Max Bygraves on vinyl (even if you find a vintage Mobile Fidelity pressing of Max's I'm A Blue Toothbrush and You Need Hands, not to mention Deck Of Cards) - call me weird, but that's just the way I am.

ATB Rotf

Thanks for your kind comments about my folk/prog ramblings.

Folks, I thank you all very much for your contributions, but it really seems to me we went a bit out of topic. . may be it is my fault . . . I was asking some hint about "up to date good vinyl pressing", I mean, if you go, say, on Acoustic Recording web site, you find, only for vinyl, hundreds brands, labels, and god knows what . . . I say, what's the point of spendig a fortune, to discover that halfs are no worthed? Especially if some of you knows it already, anc can advise? So, if anyone knows about really good recent vinyl pressing . . . for ex, JohanR's comment, I think it was in the line of what I was looking for.
Munch too, althoug did not specify the brand/label .. . .
Shall we try again?
good listening to anyone, and thanks anyway
Andrea

Very kind of you, I'll do it right away, best regards
Andrea
(some time I regret not to have more info about people here, like, at list, age, location, familystatus -single, children) stuff like that . . but I guess, this would'nt be "stiff upper lip" enough, isn't it?

quote:

Originally posted by munch:
Bob Dylan Blood On The Tracks.Just go onto Amazon uk type in the above up comes New or old .
Click on the new and there it is Blood On The Tracks Import. But what they dont tell you is it a 200g bit of vinal for £7 with vat and PP to the UK .I would not think the PP would be that much more to where you are
Munch

It sums up to 7.76 . . .it is strange however, it does not say about being 200grms vinyl . .I did not know Amazon did vinyl as well, thanks, great hint Munch, have a god one.
Andrea

Wow! You got 5 children! I got 3, 15girl, 12 boy and 10 boy, and I'm more in the wrong side of 50 than you, I bet . . .Yeah I know tha "half frog man" from the north of Italy, nice guy indeed, but very far away . . . . and young, god bless him . . .
what's a Ruby?
Andrea

quote:

what's a Ruby?

A Ruby (Murray) = Curry. The great London(now the world) art of rhyming slang.

Hey . . . don't you ever go sleeping, Munch?
Anyway, Munch, is this Diamond Dog stuff a recent one, or an I thought you were referring to a Ruby tuesday . . .
andrea