I once played a mint USA quad LP on a really good proper QUAD system with a Sony decoder and was overwhelmed with emotions of all sorts. I now have a DVD-A of the quad reel master (sorry I don't know how legal that is) and it is just as wonderful. This is definitely my go-to version for this album. I am an analytical listener and I love to be able to separate the parts. This album is crying for a sensitive 5.1 remix job.....
Sundazed vs Classic 200g Are these both AAA? And has anyone done a comparison between these two? Thanks.
I have an original pressing with the old label. This pressing is pristine (unopened when I purchased it in a charity shop fir a buck -NYC, 77th st at 3d Ave. AND, on virgin vinyl -really.) I am E.E. and I am listening to it now —A-B'ing with the CD. I am impressed with how good the vinyl sounds, but, er, um....digital technology is light years ahead of what was necessary to lathe a mother and create a stamper "back in the day." Yes, sometimes the analogue record DOES sound better than the CD, but this is only because of lousy, slap-dash corporate digital mastering. I.e. the first CD release of Pet Sounds sounded like pure rubbish. Why? because they used the master tape with the latest date!.. This master tape was several generation old and intended to to make 8-track cartridges! (a super poor adaptation of radio station 2-track "carts", which were mostly used for commercials. I loved all thise thin strands of 1/4" Mylar tape littering our highways for 20 years. But for you lads, who just will not give up trying to prove than 33 RPM records sound better than the common 44.1kHz/16 bit PCM-CD, I suggest you find the cheapest CD recorder you can ($150 Phillips models were quite good), and recod your best pressing. Next, get a friend and a blindfold. make sure the A/B test is volume equalised. Remember that you will be listening to a "live" phonograph record against a reciding of the same record to a consumer digital recorder. You can also use a more modern digital recorder for this test. Final word? You will not be able to tell the difference between the signal source, unless your digital recording had impedance input problems. Perhaps I do not use a sufficiently high quality analogue system. It is all tubes. I use a completely rebuilt Thorens TD124 #41651, with an SME 3012 and a Shure V-15xVMR. (it took me 20 years to learn how to properly rebuild a TD124 and I have 2 of them instead of about 5. I prefer the "MK-1 as the flywheel is 10 lbs which is an extra 3 lbs from the later model. I find that 7 lbs is approximately the magical weight for a flywheel; —regardless of motor or voltage supply system. The team that designed the Thorens TD124 heat stabilisation and eddy magnetic field system but an extra 3 lbs is..um...BETTER!. However, you must use MM cartridges. That's okay. The Shure V-15xVMR does the trick. Besides, MC cartridges require far more gain and impedance conversion. They are over-rated in my estimation. E.g. A stylus NUDE rebuild for a Grado or Shure M97 by Expert Stylus in Surrey England will impress the heck out of you (and they are NOT expensive!). The preamp is a rebuilt McIntosh C20 from the last model run of these made -ca. 1963. I improved the C20 with modern components, An upgraded power supply section, (still with valve rectifier) . Heck, I gained an extra 4 db by building an isolated back plane input panel that avoids the usual ground loops inherent in the older designs. I now realise specs that beat any C22 and come close to matching a gas-switched C220! I also have designed my own preamp using digital switching with probably superior results, but i am enjoying listening to music the McIntosh way. Yeah, i loose a slight amount of transient response and gain some noise, but i am trying not to be more anal than I already am. In my own preamp design, the valves are used only to amplify the analogue signal (not merely "process"). Frankly, I am now designing a class A FET preamp that will feed my quasi-Williamson design power amp. 65 years of improvements in components makes a BIG difference! As for a solid state preamp design, I am sold on the modern solid-state components. Heck, Tantulum capacitors alone make me smile! That they can be to time is a gas. And um, don't breath that gas, should the capacitor fizzle. Remember selenium rectifiers? Yeah, I know they work great....but PLEASE replace them before the sun goes down, that is if you would like to have children. Yep, I am old and have been doing this for over 40 years. I was a HAM at 10 years old, and by the time I was 15, I had built a few FM radio station transmitters. Um, these involve the pirate word, but after 40+ years, I suspect no one cares. Plus, we were good boys, played nice music and kept out mouths clean. I insisted upon this and not exceeding 20 watts RF input to the 2 bay circular, home-made, antenna system. I was able to get about 1.5 db gain at 1.5:1 SWR. And I had NO SWR meter! could not afford one. I was able to estimate SWR via several other methods. I got it all from a 1940s ARRL handbook. I used, the then brand new, optical isolators for the signal processing and they could compete with the Optimods of the era. I remain proud as we built this with money earned from mowing lawns and our signal sounded as good as the next station. Back to vinyl; I maintain the Thorens TD124s for transferring older parts, such as 78RPM lacquers, shellacs, acetates, metal mothers, etc. However, once in a while I test the best older and original mother pressings with the CD. And sometimes, i find a 33 ROM vinyl record that will never be remastered. I.e., I try to save the music and bring it back ALIVE. Many of you seemed to know about 45 RPMs expanded bandwidth. YEP, that is why RCA fought so hard to make it THE standard. As a result, microgroove 33 RPM records sounded like rubbish until stereo produced 3-D lathing images and companies like Scullay (the first feed back bass limiter and variable groove lathe), Victor, Cadillac, Scullay, 3M, EMI, Capitol, etc. are what made records sound so good. For those of you who prefer the English pressings of the old Beatles records, you should know that Sir Paul was always trying to get the EMI engineers to lathe a pressing that had bass that sounded as good as STAX , Volt,. Atlantic, etc from America. FINALLY, when "Rain" and "Paperback Writer" were to be released, Sir Paul put his foot down and DEMANDED the same process that Motown and Stax records were using. Hence, EMI finally got hip to the Scullay feedback lathe. The Beatles were iconoclasts in a stodgy, but quite "correct" engineering environment. Sir paul was arguing with guys 20 years older who had serious engineering degrees...and he was RIGHT. PS: Please know that companies like Sundazed generally use digital sources for their "master tape" —but this is the least of their perfidy. They are mostly able to lathe only on the last Technics SL-10 lathes and other lathes operating at sub-quality levels. They do not even use negative stylus to smooth out the pops on their metal parts. The golden days of lathing are mostly over. The last even decent lathing I have heard was from Capitol (the Smile box set). Capitol keeps a few of the serious lathes around (the weigh over a ton!). The Smithsonian may also have a few decent lathes, and I am sure there are others kept by BMG. Most of them were sold for scrap over the last 20 years. A ton of fine metal is worth $$ Note: The SMITHSONIAN is a FREE source of factual engineering information of all types. They are YOUR source. —I.e. they work for YOU! Call them up and ask questions. They are great guys and I have learn much from them over these many years. Golly, I have some great Smithsonian stories.
I have the orange UK, and just bought a gold demo stamped sleeve unplayed Half Speed . If you will forgive the audiofool language, there is a bit more air between the instruments, and the attack of the guitar strings is more noticeable - overall a very pleasing clean sound, nice weight of bass. I had the MFSL and sold it, did nothing for me. I am also in the "not wanting to get off my ass every 8 mins and start cleaning another side club", so the 45rpm is too much like singles night, not for me. As this is so satisfying, I will stop at this, and spend the other money I shouldn't be spending on different music. Sleeve states this is a West German pressing. If the responses as claimed are 90Db of 20 Hz to 20kHz, what could be missing? That is all of our hearing range and the mastering engineer was no slouch.
I have the US quadraphonic LP, Columbia CQ 30995, and have run it through SQdecode and burnt a 6-channel AC3 CD (though the centre and subwoofer channels are empty, obviously). It's a slightly odd listening experience. In its favour, I'd say the strings (mainly cello, I think) on 'So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright' sound more lush, and there are various small mixing differences throughout which are mildly entertaining. Not so good is the processed xylophone on 'Cecilia' (if that's what it is!) which is overly dominant, and, similarly, the sax on 'Baby Driver' is a bit too forward (though the engine effects make an impression!). The separation between the four channels is muddy at best on the quad LP, but that's SQ quadraphonic for you! (Unless, of course, the amps of the day did a better decoding job.) I recommend the quad LP for the novelty, but for ordinary everyday listening the CBS LP 63699 (UK) and the Columbia CD 88697134662(5) (EU) are both pretty good (though I'm certainly not claiming that any of these three versions is actually best).
The SQ LP pales in comparison to the quad reel, which of course was not released, but if AF could somehow get a hold of it -> "sweetness". Remember, the stereo master tapes are allegedly trashed beyond hope due to multiple uses over the years, but the quad masters lie undisturbed since the early '70s. For those of you that heard the Mike Robin's, well, you know what I mean.
Not for Bridge Over Troubled Water or Bookends. The masters have been used for those albums. Note that the Mastersound mastering of BOTW has been recycled at least a couple of times with very minor tweaks (level adjustments and removal of some dropouts and vinyl tics in El Condor Pasa). Scully. And the cutter head was Westrex. But I'm not aware of any changes to the lathe or cutting head for Paperback Writer. EMI *did* employ their own ATOC (Automatic Transient Overload Control) system to help cut louder bass.
I have the first Japanese Blu-Spec release and the Blu-Spec 2. The first one sounds better to me, as does the first Blu-Spec release of "The Essential S&G" (which frankly sounds the very best of all on my system).
For those that have the 200g Classic, did they use a heavier jacket compared to the 180g? Mine is supposedly 200g but the jacket has "1999" on the back. thanks.
Thanks for the advice, David. I received the UK CBS 63699 yesterday in the mail. Oh my ***** god!!! It was like I took the wax out of my ears. Sound is beyond amazing. Lots of nuances I'd never heard before. Now I'm dreading going back to my Columbia 2-eye (which I considered great) since, in all honesty, it's no contest. Cheers for the recommendation.
Right. I'm assuming those were the 45s used by DJs? I recall seeing mono sides of Steely Dan and other 70s artists. What I thought was that there was an album of BOTW in mono.
No, these US Columbia stock singles were all mono: The Boxer/Baby Driver Bridge Over Troubled Water/Keep The Customer Satisfied Cecilia/The Only Living Boy In New York El Condor Pasa was issued as a mono/stereo promo. The stock single was stereo. America was issued as a mono/stereo promo, but the mono side was a fold-down.
