Sheffield Lab

I have most of them that I bought back in the day, but musically, the 'pop' records aren't of great interest to me. Like a lot of 'audiophile' speciality recordings, many of them sounded 'good' for demo purposes but weren't something I'd choose to listen to for musical enjoyment. Not trying to rain on your parade, though. If it is a new discovery for you, enjoy. I remember hearing The Missing Linc endlessly at Opus One in Pittsburgh -then probably the best hi-fi dealer in the area where I lived- back in the early 70's. I have piles of these things, along with M &K's, old MoFi's, the old Mark Levinson records, Dave Wilson's records, Keith Johnson's records, Nautilus, and a few other labels, the names of which escape me. Last year, I sold a pristine copy of Flamenco Direct to Disc Fever for a handsome sum- used it to fund more records, of course. (Been buying old UK Vertigos, Island, Harvest and other records from the early psych-folk-progressive era). One of my personal favs- and you may dismiss this as silly or banal, is the third Alice Cooper record "Love it to Death" on the original Zappa 'Straight' label. These early pressings- made before the album was re-pressed on Warner's 'green label' sound absolutely spectacular- whether you like Alice Cooper is of course another matter. (I dismissed him for years but that record, at least to me, is crazy good musically and sonically- very immediate sounding).

Lindis- I don't know that the Alice record is 'better' sonically than the Sheffields, but I guess my point (as others have said) is that choosing music over sonics, you can still find killer sounding 'regular' pressings and that pressing of "Love it to Death" is fabulous. It is the pink colored Straight label pressed in the U.S.- I've compared probably a dozen different early pressings of that record and it is really a marvel. Finding one that isn't trashed isn't easy, and the record has collector value, apart from sonics, because it had the infamous 'thumb' cover (which was quickly changed due to 'indecency' concerns). Another spectacular hard rock record is May Blitz's self-titled album on UK Vertigo Swirl but those early pressings fetch pretty big money.

SBrown- without getting into the musical merits, the Moscow Sessions, as I recall, was not direct to disc.