Audiophile Albums....Yes indeed

The most interesting in this article (and i didn't expect it) is that a guy behind Peacefrog label who pressed electronic dance music for decades in the 90's finally dug his father's vintage records. 

This is a natural progress for a person who owned a label before, he's been making records for the masses, now it's about passion and high-fidelity, a new label, totally different concept, i like it. 

When some rare original pressings cost $300 each easily (on ebay or discogs or from a private sellers) i am not surprises that someone willing to pay similar price for something special. I never heard about his label before and i have no idea how good they are, but audiophiles often pay a lot for the quality (even if it's the same record they already have, just better pressing:) 

But i know for sure that small reissue labels often have no clue about fidelity, they could use another record as a source (not a master tape) and they can license from the survived band member. Many reissues of some great artrists are very bad in terms of quality comparing to the originals, but the originals sometime impossible to find. 

Quality is a problem, this is why i do not buy reissues if i can find an original for affordable price.

This guy is going to the extreme, but all for the quality, i like this attitude.

 

  

The main entry for me were the albums themselves which sell for $300 -$3k. Only an audiophile board is appropriate for such things IMO

Record collectors are NOT audiophiles, only some of them, collecting records and audiophilia are two different things. There’re millions of vintage records that cost now hundreds or thousands dollars (for 1xLP or 1x45) on the used market. The prices only goes up in time. It must be a rare record if the price is so high. Collectors does’t care about re-issues, they do care about original pressings. On the used market we have what we have, rare records are extremely expensive.

popsike.com is the site to check auction finals with prices for records.

Record collectors, those guys who sitting on many thousand rare LPs and 45s, will pay more for one record than for any piece of audio equipment.

It is crazy that a piece of plastic goes up in price from $2 to $2000 in 40 years, but it must be something very rare and unique for knowledgeable people like record collectors. The quality of pressing is the last thing to care for them. It is true. Many private pressings from the 60s, 70s are bad quality or an average, sometimes very good ... But it’s a piece of history, it can be one and only release made by some band, it is very important for someone who cares.

Recreating vinyl pressing process for the best possible quality on the new re-issue is very good idea, but this is definitely for audiophiles, not for record collectors. Anything made for audiophiles is expensive by default. Even those average 180g re-issues from the digital copy pretending to be "better than original" are expensive.

Michael Fremer's comment about this article and about negative comments HERE