A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector [Expanded/Extra Tracks] - 10/02/2012

Got my copy the other day and I'm happy with it. I would guess this is probably just about as good as this album is ever gonna sound.

I played my roommates 1989 Abkco CD a few days ago and to me it sounds like a muffled old cassette tape.

From the looks of the packaging on Amazon, I thought the new version was gonna be CDs shoved into cardboard slots, but it's a regular tri-fold digipak with discs held in place. I actually got emotional listening to the first disc. There's just so much joy in the music and it's really sad how everything eventually went so wrong with Phil. Anyway, I'm done buying this album!

 

I bought this 2011 reissue last year:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Christmas-Gift-From-Phil-Spector/dp/B002N1AEV4/ref=ntt_mus_dp_dpt_1

Anyone know which mastering this is? I don't have my copy to hand.

 

This appears to be the Bob Ludwig 2009 mastering. Sony/Legacy

 

Got my copy this morning but sorry to say I'm not a fan. Maybe it's my imagination but the vocals seem to have a bit too much bite. However, one thing I can say with certainty is that the bass is weak compared with my EMI CD PSCD 1005 which is a 1991 digital remastering "digitally compiled and prepared under the direction of Phil Spector by Andrew Oldham, Jody Klein, Bill Inglot, Larry Levine and Tom Steele." I have big speakers with 12" woofers and 12" passive bass radiators and the very deep bass on some tracks of the 1991, especially Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, is just glorious - it has me grinning from ear to ear. On this new version, that very deep bass is simply not there. The vocals are also more to my taste on the 1991.

If you don't have big speakers, though, you probably wouldn't miss the bass.

 

I wonder if your EMI cd is identical to the 1987 Rhino cd which is mastered by Inglot/Perry.

 

If anybody in the UK wants to pick this up at a bargain price, it's currently on sale in Sainsbury's for the princely sum of £3.

 

Digging up this old thread... I've been looking for the 2CD version and can't seem to find it anywhere with shipping to Sweden. But I came across a cd with the EAN "0887654331021" and it's not on the discogs page. It says "Sony Music" on lable "Legacy".
Which version is that? Is that the old Mono or the new Mono version which this thread is all about?

Might pick it up if it's a good version. Probably the best christmas album - still

 

It's the Anesini 2 cd set.

 

Where the 2nd disc is Greatest Hits, right?

 

Yes.