Best Pressings

See this link for details.

The best singer I've ever heard singing some of the best acoustic folk songs on very nice vinyl elpees. There are some MP3s on the link for you to check out if you like Shirley's music.

Rotf (still appalled that Shirley did become Dame Shirley in the last honours list)

Why shouldn't she?

quote:

Originally posted by ECM:

For example, there is a lot of chamber music out there and some is on Classics For Pleasure, some on Deutsche Gramophon.

What to look for??

Are you saying, that the sound quality of the recording is the decisive factor for you in deciding what music, you want to hear? Well, the Japanese pressings have always been in a special class - and price. You can get an awful lot of our repertoire in Japanese pressings, classical, jazz, rock et.c.

I have found it a little depressing the proportion of defective records I got when I briefly bought new vinyl a short while back. In the end I went back to CD.

As pe-zulu suggests though, the key thing with any disc is the music and the performance, rather than how well it is recorded.

regards, Tam

quote:

Originally posted by jcs_smith:
Why shouldn't she?

Whoops - mega error.

I meant still appalled that Shirley did not become Dame Shirley in the last honours list

Rotf (highly embarrassed smiley)

As Billy Bragg said Shirley is a national treasure.

Tam,

Yes, your point about defective records and giving up on vinyl.

There are some staggering differences out there, and now that I have my first decent hi-fi system I am feeling the ups and downs.

For example, John Martyns 'solid air' is fabulous, (recorded on the Island label) and I am totally in love with how my system brings his stage presence alive. On the opposite extreme I have a Bartok string quartet that sounds like their playing in the other room (then I found that it is a mono recording!).

Luckily I have some jazz on the Pablo label and it's brilliant; Joe Pass and Oscar Peterson like I've never heard them before. Foot tapping!

I don't care about crackles and stuff like that, it's the life in the recording that turns me on. I'm finding that the best recordings are way above CD, with all sorts of little touches,like hearing fingers on the fretboard or instruments being put down after the performance.

Classical recordings are the diciest, as I think they are miked up differently from more popular stuff, but I don't know.

I am going to try to find Jaqueline Dupree with the Elgar Cello concerto and that should be definitive. I hope it hits me where I want to feel it (as Stravinsky said "In the breastbone") .

Thanks everyone, I hadn't heard of Shirley, but I certainly like Billie Bragg (incisive chops on the fender etc etc)

I am a musician myself and I am always listening for the attack on an instrument. The Naim is great at bringing that out.

Cheers, ecm

I gave up on vinyl about three years ago. Where I live there are no shops stocking vinyl, and those I specially ordered locally invariably had problems. I had a fully Naimed LP12, but my current CD player sounds as good and you can pick up CDs so much more easily. I order a lot through Amazon from the US and they are pretty cheap and only rarely is the case cracked. They fit through the letter box, and you can play them in the car. I could not be ordering LPs for £15 to £20 when you can get the CD for £8.99. If you could still get records easily, for the same price as CDs, there is no way I'd have ditched them (I sold well over 1,000, some to Forum members, even some to Naim employees), but it just wasn't viable.

I see no point in searching out specialist pressings so that it 'sounds good'. No special pressing can make a boring record sound good, and who wants to be restricted to reissues of 'classic' albums. I'd certainly be wary of starting a collection these days.

Nigel

ECM

As a rule of thumb, the best pressings (musical dynamics etc) are first pressings made in the country that has the master tape. Who has the master - usually the HQ of the company involved - other countries would have copies often many times removed from the master. So therefore with EMI (classical) for example, buy UK pressings over ANY other nation (including Japanese though surfaces will be quieter with Japanese pressings).

Another point to keep in mind are reissues. The later the reissue, usually the worse it will sound compared to the first pressing (there are exceptions with some companies that specialize in producing reissues using the original master). This is especially true with digital remasters many of which are excrement. Stay way from those if at all possible.

Hope this helps.

I am returning to more vinyl listening lately. Growing up playing the violin, most of what I acquired in the 70s and 80s was classical, so I haven't gotten into the classical reissues. That said, I am really taken with the Speaker's Corner reissue of Janos Starker playing the Bach Cello Suites.

The most stunning sonics I think I have on vinyl is a recent original release of Sara K's Water Falls. This is a direct to metal master recording put out by a German company Stock Fish. I understand that unlike the direct to disc technology, where a lacquer master is cut, this is direct to a metal master(mother?), bypassing two plating steps on the way to the metal stampers. This pressing really is optimized for sound quality, with only about 12 minutes per side to give the grooves plenty of elbow room, four sides total for the release. If you don't know Sara K, she might be described as folk/jazz, something like a 90s/00s Joni Mitchell.

Finally, while at Stereophile Magazine's Home Entertainment 2006 show in LA three weeks back, I bought three great LPs. Two are Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio repressings of Three Blind Mice label releases from the 70s of Midnight Sugar and Misty. I have owned the TBM CDs of these since the early 80s, and TBM definitely made some of the best CDs I own. TBM is rightly famous for its sound, hence the re-releases of much of their original releases, some by Cisco, some on First Impression Music. These two LPs by Cisco Records, pressed by RTI outside of LA, left me speechless. The sound was so unfamiliar, I had to drag out the original CDs to double check that the music really was known to me.

The other LP I got at the show was Classic Records' reissue of Kenny Burrel's Midnight Blue. I heard this used for demo software in one of the rooms and went right over to Classic Records' booth to buy the last copy they had. My first Kenny Burrell disc, and surely not my last!

I went to Acoustic Sound's web site to pull up URLs for these releases, but they should be available from many audiophile software outlets, including Music Direct in Chicago, as well as from Cisco or Classic Records themselves. Don't know about availability on the other side of the pond.

Norman

ECM, you can find some excellent pressings right here on the Naim label.

This one, for instance:



I know nothing about it, but folks tell me they like it a lot. Of course, by opting for the LP you'd be missing out on three tracks from the CD, all excellent, or so I'm told.

Fred

I think EMI and early Deutch Grammophone had great recordings years ago, they seem to be very reveered for their technique and preformers. I'm not up on the technical details and dates. But I have been dissapointed by some recordings, whether CD or vinyl. One guy years ago sent me a list of the Angel recordings and he had all the specifics on what the label looked like as to what was original and secondary pressings. I couldn't be bothered.

The finest classical recordings ever produced (excellent sonics combined with stellar performances of great music) all come from roughly the same period, 1955-75. Labels such as Decca and EMI in the UK, RCA and Mecury in the USA, had a tremendous range of extraordinary artists and engineers, whose recording methods and techniques have probably never been surpassed. Most of these Lps were recorded before multitracking recording decks and digital rot caused the awful decline of the classical recorded medium.

It does take some knowledge and effort (and often deep pockets) to find the right pressings but the results are often extraordinary and well worth it. Such an effort does require a passion for both the music and the recorded medium that not everyone shares. However, as there are those that still do share that passion, IMO vinyl records (I predict) will survive the CD medium and still be collectable amongst those who desire them, while the majority will have moved on to the convenience mediums of ipods and digital servers playing "music" throughout the home (just like the shopping mall) where the finest sonics and the recreation of a musical performance are secondary issues.

quote:

I know nothing about it, but folks tell me they like it a lot. Of course, by opting for the LP you'd be missing out on three tracks from the CD, all excellent, or so I'm told.

P.S

Naim should use DMM mastering for their LPs Fred.

IME, DMM is not an improvement and should be generally avoided.

quote:

IME, DMM is not an improvement and should be generally avoided.

Why?

IME I have not found any DMM master to be superior to those cut in a more conventional manner. In fact the ones I have tried (Blue Notes DMM reissues for example) are very bright and thin sounding with reduced dynamics. Often they are combined with digital remasters (another recipe for disaster IME). In fact the worst sounding Blue Notes in my possession are digital remastered DMM pressings. I would not buy one again unless nothing else on vinyl were available of that title.

From what I have read a DMM master is easier to produce than a conventional lacquer (hence its frequency of use) but DMM may not necessarily result in any sonic advantages. The problem with conventional lacquers is that they are often difficult to get right and so it is faster to get into production (and thus sales) with DMM.

quote:

Originally posted by Basil:

quote:

I know nothing about it, but folks tell me they like it a lot. Of course, by opting for the LP you'd be missing out on three tracks from the CD, all excellent, or so I'm told.

P.S

Naim should use DMM mastering for their LPs Fred.

Basil, not only do I not know what DMM is, I don't even currently own a turntable, so I haven't heard any Naim LPs. However, their CDs sound excellent to my ears, so I would assume the their LPs would sound polychloridevinylicious.

Fred

Fred

Direct Metal Mastering involves cutting a groove directly into a copper metal master. Stampers are plated directly from the DMM Copper Master, eliminating two of the three plating steps required for lacquers. In theory, DMM Mastering produces records with lower distortion, superior high frequency response, longer program times and quieter surfaces than mastering on lacquers. This creates a "brighter", more pristine sound.

I have a DMM pressing of Carole King's Tapestry on 200g vinyl and it sounds very good in most part, but can emphasise a few oddities in the recording. Tapestry is one of the greatest albums ever made, so I'm not convinced by DMM, as I should be able to just sit back a listen to it and not listen to it in a hifi way - listening for bits that appear too bright or where the piano is over emphasised at the expense of the vocal. On a plain pressing that a friend of mine has, everything sounds as I belive it should do.

The Shirley Collins elpees I have recommended above are not DMM, just very well pressed and packaged and sound better than the originals on vinyl or the same tracks when they appear of compilation CDs. Though to me, anything with Shirley singing on it is a pleasure to listen to. The Kinks remasters pressed by Earmark are very good too - the 3 disc version of Village Green[/] is wonderful. BTW if anybody knows of a version of the Kink's [i]Shangri-La from Arthur: Decline and Fall of the British Empire on vinyl or CD that doesn't distort on the loud buts then I'd like to track it down.

I agree with you about Naim CDs - they are superb. Even the MP3 samples Naim publishes on its web site sound better than most mp3s I've heard.

Best regards, Rotf

Fred,

One of the biggest gains in using DMM is playing time, over 40 minutes per side! No need to skip tracks on the vinyl release with DMM!

quote:

Originally posted by ROTF:
BTW if anybody knows of a version of the Kink's Shangri-La from Arthur: Decline and Fall of the British Empire on vinyl or CD that doesn't distort on the loud buts then I'd like to track it down.

My version (original Pye LP stereo release) doesn't.

quote:

One of the biggest gains in using DMM is playing time, over 40 minutes per side! No need to skip tracks on the vinyl release with DMM!

The longer sides IME also result in sharply reduced dynamics. The gain is one of convenience only. You might as well buy a CD especially if it is a digital master.

quote:

In theory, DMM Mastering produces records with lower distortion, superior high frequency response, longer program times and quieter surfaces than mastering on lacquers. This creates a "brighter", more pristine sound.

In theory only. The advertising sounds better than the resulting record. The "more pristine sound" I would describe as thin, washed out, and devoid of colour. Compare any original to a DMM pressing to hear the significant losses on the DMM lp.

IIRC, DMM was first developed at the same time as the first CDs. The claim of "lower distortion, superior high frequency response, longer program times and quieter surfaces" intended to comptete with similar claims on the first CDs. In fact the results on DMM lps were much like the CDs of the 1980s - absolutely awful (or "perfect sound forever" as claimed by CD industry advertisers).

quote:

The longer sides IME also result in sharply reduced dynamics.

Not in my experience, I have a box set (2 lps) of the Brahms symphonies (one symphony per side) and they are superb! No loss of dynamics at end of side. The same goes for every other EMI, Hyperion and Chandos DMM LP I own.

Which Brahms performances are these? Boult? Klemperer? Are they digital remasters? Have you actually compared these to the analogue originals?

Hyperion and Chandos Lps are almost all digital and new recordings so you cannot compare these to analogue originals of the same performance as they don't exist. I actually own a number of these too and I will certainly buy newly recorded Lps when nothing else is available. However, I am really only making the comparison between DMM reissues and originals because otherwise there is no basis of comparison (unless you have a master tape).

Hyperion and Chamdos Lps are often quite well recorded IMO. Would the LP have been even better if they were not DMM. Who knows? Maybe? From what I understand many companies now demand DMM because it is less problematic than making lacquers - thus saving money.

When you were talking about end of side "dynamics" (did you mean end of side distortion? I meant dynamics throughout the whole LP side.

quote:

Originally posted by Paul B:
From what I understand many companies now demand DMM because it is less problematic than making lacquers - thus saving money.

Not just saving money, but saving trees.

quote:

When you were talking about end of side "dynamics" (did you mean end of side distortion? I meant dynamics throughout the whole LP side.

Yeah, that piqued my curiosity, too ... the problem of length in an LP side is reduced dynamic range across the whole side, not just the end. But maybe Basil meant something else.

Fred