My LED ZEP 2 pressing anything special


The LP certainly sounds good, and appears as heavy as my Classic records pressing. It's a US first press as per Discogs, cat # SD19127. In the deadwax is: atlantic studios DK, as well as ST A 6916 72 AA. Strangely there is also a large S w/ small R perched inside the top of the S, and a small C in the bottom.
fjn04

Showing 4 responses by whart

First press in the U.S. should probably be a Sterling with interlocking small 'ss'- that's what you typically see on the 'RL' cuts, and presumably on the issues that came out after the RL got pulled. I think Czarivey is right about the catalog number.
If you want help decoding Atlantic deadwax, here's an anecodotal thread on Hoffman. http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/atlantic-atco-vinyl-labels-and-deadwax-what-do-the-codes-mean.285080/
Discogs also has matrix info for a lot of releases.
I think DK is Dennis King, but may be wrong.
Welcome to the cryptology dept'.
PS- probably a late 70's reissue Specialty Records. Scroll down in the
Discogs release info on the album and you'll see it, I think. Note that in the
comments re 'pulling' the RL from the market due to tracking concerns,
discogs says the replacement eliminated the SS because Atlantic itself did
the remaster to tone it down. It may be that your copy sounds better than
one that immediately followed the RL. The anecodotal claims were that it
sounded way too soft. I have a few old non-RL copies, but haven't listened
to them in years. In fact, somebody just sent me another, which may be a
very early remaster, just after the RL got pulled.
Fjn- the George Piros (GP in the deadwax) copies should be pretty good- his remaster of LZ1 from the mid-70's is really excellent. Short of finding a clean, unmolested copy of the 'RL' of II (which is expensive even for VG +or- copies and not easy to find) or the first UK plum (which is nutty money), you should be able to find a nice GP for reasonable money. I haven't listened to a GP of LZII (at least to my knowledge) recently, but in the shoot-outs we did of LZ1, the Monarch pressings were also more alive than others, US or UK. So, one possible short-cut is to find a GP/Monarch of II.
Good luck, and let us know what you find in the bins.
FWIW, I just got a first press UK a2/b2 of LZII- it is, as the rockitman and
jsman both said, a really worthwhile, 'go to' quality sounding pressing; I
find it darker sounding, overall, than the 'RL,' has profound bass and real
image depth; it also has a sock-it-to-me quality (something that is the
essence of the RL) , but is a little less in your face than the RL (maybe
because it is darker at the top, which could explain why jsman thinks the RL
is a little noisier- maybe it is also the quality of the vinyl itself). My copies of
both are in roughly the same condition: NM-/EX+ (I think my go to RL is a
PR, not a Monarch,FWIW). Given the prices being sought for RLs in VG+
condition, and the difficulty of finding minty ones, let alone at a price, the
UK plum is an interesting, comparable, somewhat different sounding
alternative. And they seem to be available at somewhat more reasonable
prices than the RL these days.