Bill, you're so full of crap that I can smell you from here.
Through the 1970s DG, RCA and, to a lesser extent, Columbia, all issued mostly poor pressings from compressed masters. Some labels, like Lyrita, HM, Mercury and Nonesuch bucked the trend, but at much lower volumes.
I'll bet that Mr. Feil, like the rest of us 50+ audiophiles, hand picked his LPs back in the day. My old LP mostly sound great today, but I wasn't buying the average records of the day. Pop and rock was really horrible, in general.
Dave |
>>This is the way it was in vinyl's heyday, prior to CD. More LPs sucked than sounded great.<<
Totally untrue.
In vinyl's "heyday" there were far more great recordings than poor recordings.
My extensive 50 year+ collection is proof positive.
You are obviously speaking from limited experience. |
7/ -Bill Evans : Waltz for Debby / AP - Top live recording in the club
8/ -LA 4 : Just Friends / 45 RPM Groove Note
9/ -Jacyntha : Here's to Ben / 45 RPM Groove note- sensual voice- sax
10/-Serge Gaingbourg: Melody Nelson / Philips a masterpiece concept album
11/-Jazz @ the Pawnshop / Prophone Sweden- a classic live jazz sound A+ |
"Stravinsky Ballets box set, Dorati, Speakers Corner Mercury reissues", as Rushton mentioned. Its a good thing Speakers Corner picked up the licenses for these. Petrouchka and the Rite of Spring are sonically very good, and Firebird is one of those 'pinnacle of the vinyl medium' offerings. SC has done a wonderful job with the slipcase, booklet, and covers.
Its taken me a while to realize what everyone else probably knows: Stravinsky was a genius - a rhythmic devil who stretched and broke the bounds of his musical context in fantastical ways. Pricey, yes, but you may not want to let these lapse.
Tim |
Gentlemans,
Let's try to share some stellar experiences with music. I'd like to discover more titles with you in a positive way. Every title I post here is listened just before to be sure I am not biased. So it will take time, little by little, but everytime I listen to those vinyls I am transported...to heaven !
1/ Janos Starker/ J.S. Bach : Suites for unaccompanied cello/ Speaker's Corner
The most relaxing after a hard day work. Very revealing lower midrange of your system. Emotionaly beautiful.
2/ Janis Ian: Breaking silence / Analogue Productions ( A.P.)
Female voice so well recorded, a must.
3/ Archie Shepp & Horace Parlan : Trouble in mind / SteepleChase Audiophile
This is one of my favourite jazz recordings.
4/ Ry Cooder & V.M. Bhatt : A Meeting by the river / 45 RPM A.P.
A pure analog recording vacuum tube Tim de Paravicini of EAR, Kevin Gray
This one is a gem, So well recorded, fells like you are with the musicians...
5/ Johnny Griffin : The Kerry Dancers / 45 RPM A.P.
If you like sax try this one, he was a genious. Gorgeous recording.
6/ Studio One Classics: the original / Soul jazz Records
If you like reggae, ragga,ska and jamaican souds of the 60's,70's,
Soul Jazz is a UK company that reissues the best with damn' good sound.
That's all for today. I will give more inputs as time allows...
Happy listening !
|
0-07-08: Dcstep
This is the way it was in vinyl's heyday, prior to CD. More LPs sucked than sounded great. I didn't buy too many LPs in the '80s, but these days, I've bought *lots* of used LPs from the '80s, and I find the opposite to be true. Whether I buy LPs of blues, classic rock, new wave, country, or especially jazz from the '80s, they sound superb nearly without exception. This includes everything from The Police, The Cars, Huey Lewis and the News, Men at Work, Dwight Yoakam, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Eric Clapton, David Bowie, the Eurhythmics, Stevie Winwood, or Steely Dan's one '80s album, Gaucho. Only the Stray Cats strike me as hashy and compressed with a fast bass rolloff. The jazz pressed in the '80s is astounding, but then, I gravitate to Pablo, Concord Jazz, ECM, and Geffen. Concord Jazz from the '70s and '80s is unbelievably good. As for good latter-day pressings, I love the 150g red vinyl pressing of Diana Krall's Christmas album, I've been happy with the $10 Original Jazz Classics reissues, my 200g Classic Records reissue of Kind of Blue is actually crackle-free, the 180g Speakers Corner reissue of Count Basie and the Kansas City 7 couldn't be better. The pinnacle of my collection is the 45 rpm 2x180g EP issue of Ry Cooder & VM Bhatt's "A Meeting By the River" recorded in analog with a Blumlein mic array by Water Lily Music. |
This is the way it was in vinyl's heyday, prior to CD. More LPs sucked than sounded great. That's why CDs were so successful, despite their glare and other shortcomings, they were better. I love good LPs, but this behaviour will probably lead to a second failure of LP format. If you have to pay $50 to be assured a good pressing and master, most people will not support the format.
Dave |
I firmly believe some pressings are better than others. I bought the "Once" soundtrack LP and it is full of surface noise. In contrast my new Miles Davis Kind of Blue is excellent. I have a number of Ryan Adams LPs which are good but not as great as they could be. That said I'd love to hear some other people's reviews of other good new recordings. |
Here are two that you should avoid on vinyl:
Portishead "Third"
Ratatat "LP3"
both domestic pressings, both horrible with noise and defects (took one back because it skipped). Also, both domestic...hmmm. |
I'm recently back into vinyl and have had mixed results with new vinyl from a quality standpoint(i.e. minimal snap, crackle or pops). By far the best of the handful of new vinyl I have purchased so far is Miles Davis' "Relaxin" on the Analogue Productions label. It's quiet as a CD and sounds fantastic. I have read that Analogue Productions issues are generally good, so I have ordered a few more from that label for comparison. As an FYI, my copy of Shelby Lynne's Just a Little Lovin that some mentioned earlier sounds good, but has a bit of surface noise. |
Just few from the past couple of months...
The Music Matters and Analogue Production 45 rpm Blue Note Jazz reissues (any of them: Horace Parlon, Kenny Drew, Hank Mobley, Jackie McLean, Tina Brooks, Art Blakey, John Coltrane)
James Taylor, Sweet Baby James (Warner Brothers BS 2561, Rhino reissue)
James Taylor, Mud Slide Slim (Warner Brothers 274300, Rhino reissue)
Blues Jam at Chess, Blue Horizon 7-66227, Pure Pleasure reissue
Beethoven, Symphony No 7, Kajski/PolishChmPO, Tacet L 149
Rossini, 6 Sonate a Quartro, Philips 4769648, limited edition reissue
Stravinsky Ballets box set, Dorati, Speakers Corner Mercury reissues
. |
I happened to buy SRV Texas Flood on Pure Pleasure just a couple of months ago.
While the LP doesn't have any major anomalies, or defects, and of course doesn't possess grounds for return, or stating it is bad, I did seem to notice a couple of cuts on the LP, one being "Mary had a little Lamb", that seemed to not similarly match other cuts on the LP, and sounded to me like something wrong was done with re-matering, volume levels, etc. Like I was playing an entirely different LP.
Sadly, it seems, one can pick apart so many of these modern re-issues, and it also seems that for every re-issue there is, it never fails that somebody will note that an original of one flavor, or another always surpasses it.
I know re-issue Vinyl is a godsend for many, but I admit, my purchase of new vinyl has curtailed over recent years, and prefer to hunt down clean originals in almost every case. With that being said though, I may be blind to know that there are probably some very good new vinyl to be had. Unfortunately, my pockets haven't been deep enough lately to take the chance. Mark |
Gang,
Here are a few good-excellent sounding purchases of new music over the past year:
Shins "Wincing The Night Away"
Mudcrutch (Tom Petty with his original band) "Eponymous"
White Stripes "Icky Thump"
Raconteurs "Consolers of the Lonely"
Elvis Costello "Momufoko" (?sp?)
Shelby Lynne "Just A Little Lovin"
New music with less than stellar sonics:
Gutter Twins "Saturnalia"
Menomena "Friend of Foe"
The National "Boxer" (fabulous album)
A sampling of new old stock recordings of merit:
Grace Jones "Slave To The Rythym"
Robert Palmer "Clues"
The Bangles "Everything"
Phil Woods "More Live"
A/C D/C "Back in Black"
Stevie Wonder "Songs in the Key of Life" (Speakers Corner Reissue)
Flip Phillips "A Real Swinger"
Duke Ellington w/Ray Brown "This One's For Blanton" |
Mudcrutch sounds excellent. |
Five out of the 6 new LP's I have purchased were warped. Seems high to me. |
Ok, I should have posted this on the "music" thread but some records are so important for us to reveal the full potential of our analog gear that we can call them "reference records" for testing a new cartridge or phonopreamp.
The music section of HiFi + gives a rating for sonics and this is how I discovered Pure Pleasure records a few years back, I listened to Stevie Ray Vaughan "Couldnt Stand The Weather" and was totaly blown away. My whole audiophile journey started there... |
