What are your go to LP's for evaluating new gear or new tubes?

No problem @billpete, you confusion is quite understandable. I’ll look through YouTube videos and see if I can find the ones wherein Chad Kassem, Bernie Grundman, Michael Fremer, and Kassem’s QRP (Quality Record Production) production manager sit around for a coupla hours discussing the whole Tea For The Tillerman debacle.

In the meantime, let me see if I can simplify and clarify things for you..Since the advent of Dolby "A" noise reduction (a more complex, full range version of the Dolby "B" and "C" used in cassette decks), it has been very widely used in recording studios. By the time of the taping of Tea For The Tillerman, there were few recordings made without it.

Here’s how Dolby A works. When a 2" 16 or 24 track master tape is mixed down to two channels (left and right, for stereo), the mix is almost always recorded onto a 1/4" or 1/2" master mix tape, the recorder running at either 15 inches per second or 30. During the recording of the master mix tape, the recording engineer, record producer, and sometimes the artist make choices regarding equalization, compression, relative track levels (volume), added reverb and/or echo, etc., etc., etc.

And here’s the important relevant point to be made: when that 2-trk master mix tape is made, the engineer and producer can decide to make it either with or without Dolby A noise reduction employed. Dolby A is a 4-band (four different frequency "groups", each with it’s own frequency response curve. I don’t know the specific frequency bands involved, but for the sake of argument let’s hypothetically imagine them to be 1,000-2,000Hz, 3,000-5,000Hz, 6,000-10,000Hz, and 10,000-20,000Hz. The numbers aren’t important in what we are trying to understand here.).

And here’s the crucial thing to understand: when that tape is made with Dolby A noise reduction employed, the Dolby circuit boosts each of the frequency bands, the boost having a frequency response curve, similar to the filters in a loudspeaker’s crossover. And during playback of the tape in the process of mastering, the Dolby A playback circuitry applies a complimentary but exactly opposite amount of frequency response reduction, returning the response of the 2-trk. tape to that of the 2" 16 or 24-trk. master tape. And since the noise inherent in all analogue tape recording is added to the signal created on the 2-trk. tape---the noise is organically mixed in with the sound contained in each of the 16 or 24 tracks---when the Dolby playback circuitry reduces the frequency response of the signal sent to the recording head, the noise inherent in the signal is reduced by the exact same amount, hence noise reduction is achieved.

When the original mastering engineer received the production master tape of Tea For The Tillerman, he apparently mistakenly assumed the tape had been made with Dolby A employed. It hadn’t. So he used the Dolby playback circuitry, which applied the frequency response reduction curves to the signal used to "cut" the lacquers needed to make an LP.. Since the tape had NOT had the Dolby frequency response boost added to in when it was made, when the Dolby A playback circuit applied the response "cuts" to the signal, the "flat" response of the multi-track master tape now resembled the response curves of the Dolby playback circuitry, not the sound on the tape itself. Oops.

The end result is that the LP was mastered with severe cuts in frequency response, cuts increasing in level as the frequencies increased (deeper cuts at 5,000Hz that at 2,000Hz, say). That’s why the original LP sounds dead, lifeless, missing a significant degree of it’s high frequency content, along with other attributes such as dynamic range. That includes the original pink label Island pressing.

Bernie Grundman made his discovery when mastering the album for Classic Records, whenever that was. When Chad Kassem bought Classic Records from Michael Hobsen, that purchase included the "metal works" for TFTT that Grundman had made for Classic."Metal "works" is the term for the metal disc that is made from the lacquer that a mastering engineer "cuts" (literally), required in the production of all LP’s.

I hope my explanation makes sense, but if not ask away!

@flash56: Yes, the misapplied Dolby playback equalization decreased the percussive attack of the drumstick tip striking the snare drum and tom tom drumheads, and of the felt bass drum beater striking the kick drum batter head. With my sunray Island copy of the LP, the kick always sounded weak, anemic to me, with no punch or power. I attributed the dead, lifeless sound of the drumset to the then-common practice of over-muffling drumset heads in the studio (Ringo’s snare drum sound on Abbey Road is terrible for that reason. He recorded with a towel on top of his snare drum head!). Still, I couldn’t understand why Harry Pearson and Michael Fremer considered TFTT to be such a great sounding LP, and chalked it up to my having only a sunray label pressing, not an original pink label one.

But the first, most obvious difference is the missing "click" of the pick on the guitar strings, and the missing harmonic overtones of the guitar. And Cat Stevens and producer Paul Samwell-Smith didn’t notice that?!

By the way, Analogue Productions made the album in both 1-LP/33-1/3 RPM and 2-LP/45 RPM versions. The 45 RPM version is of course reported to sound slightly better than the 33-1/3, but I went with the 33-1/3 pressing as I’m willing to sacrifice a small degree of sound quality to get the full musical programming flow of each LP side. Music first, people!

According to Bernie Grundman---who has been mastering since the 1960’s---analogue masters tapes are relatively hearty, and suffer no degradation from sitting on a shelf unplayed (assuming the shelf is in a climate controlled environment, which is generally the case). What DOES degrade tapes is being played; the more they are played, the more oxide particles are "shed" from the backing polyester film onto which the oxide is applied. Tapes which have been store unused for fifty years have been found to have startling sound quality, assuming the recording sounded excellent to begin with. To paraphrase Mark Twain’s joke about reports of his death, reports of tape degradation by the mere passage of time are greatly exaggerated.

The usual practice is to make a "production master" tape from the original 2-channel (if stereo) final mix tape, the original master tape then being put away. Safety copy is another term used in place of production master. That production master tape is then used to cut the lacquer from which the metal pressing "plates" are made. The plates are installed in the LP pressing machine, and voila, you have a vinyl LP. There is another step involving father and mother transfers, but this is already complicated enough.

For the Analogue Production mastering and pressing of Miles Davis’ Kind Of Blue, however, Chad Kassem was able to get the original multitrack tape (only three tracks. Remember the album was recorded in 1957), which had not been played since the original production master copies were made at the time of the album’s original release. Grundman said the tapes (two of them) were immaculate.

Rather than making a new stereo production master copy from the 3-track master., Bernie mixed the three channels and sent the resulting 2-track mix straight into the mastering console, thereby eliminating one stage of analogue tape copy degradation. THAT degradation is real.

But there’s even more to the story. While playing the two master tapes---one made each day of the two day sessions for the album, and each on a different 3-track machine---Grundman discovered that one of the tapes was playing back at the wrong speed, thereby changing the pitch of the instruments and the "feel" of the songs and musicianship. What had happened is that during one of the two sessions, the recorded used that day was running either slightly too fast or too slow (I don’t remember which). Hence since the tape was then played back on a playback deck that was running at perfect speed when the lacquer for that LP side was cut (the two days of recording were placed on the two opposite sides of the LP), that side of the LP is out of tune and time. And that was true of every version of Kind Of Blue ever made up to that point in time (1997)!

Naturally Kassem had Grundman adjust the speed of the playback deck to get the music on that side of the LP back to the speed it had been played at in the studio. Once again, Bernie Grundman to the rescue! This is just one more example of why Analogue Production LP’s are as good as they are. And we haven’t talked about the sound quality of the mastering itself, and the quality of the QRP LP pressings.

A good question to ask @flash56, as I don’t think @billpete fully absorbed the somewhat complicated and confusing chain of events. Before I answer you, let me correct one mistake I inadvertently made in my long post above: In the next to the last paragraph (the one starting with "Kassem gave Fremer a call"), in the next to the last sentence I wrote ".....and another splitting the difference in about half (between flat and Dolby boosted)." The part in parenthesis should have read "between flat and Dolby engaged." With the Dolby circuitry engaged during playback, the high frequencies would have been reduced, not boosted. In comparison to the tape played back with the Dolby engaged, the tape played without the Dolby engaged sounds brighter. In spite of that, the tape played without Dolby---since it wasn’t recorded with it---is "flat".

I learned all these details in a few videos all the involved parties made and posted on YouTube a few years ago. According to them, ALL LP’s pressed prior to Grundman’s discovery of Dolby A noise reduction being used in the making of the production master tape (from which the lacquers were cut)---including the pink label Island, the sunray Island, in fact all Island pressings, as well as those on A & M---all were incorrectly mastered and lacquers cut with a tape in which the Dolby playback circuitry was engaged, thereby robbing the recordings of a lot of their mid-to high frequencies. That’s why the cymbals and Cat’s guitar don’t sound right, amongst other sonic problems.

The Analogue Productions pressing of Tea For The Tillerman is the first version mastered and produced without the Dolby circuitry engaged, and sounds dramatically better than the sunray label Island I had (it’s long gone). But of course as always everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I can understand not "liking" the true sound of Cat’s Ovation guitar; lots of players of Martin guitars don’t either.

For those who want to know what a tape made without Dolby n/r but played back with the Dolby circuit engaged sounds like, make a cassette tape yourself duplicating that process. I’m pretty sure you will NOT like how it sounds. Unless your loudspeakers themselves are very, very bright. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Tea For The Tillerman was mastered using Yamaha NS10’s. Oy!

The obvious question that follows is: after Grundman’s discovery, did everyone else also make new production master tapes from which to cut their lacquers and then press their LP's, without Dolby used in playback? I don’t know.

@billpete: If you're going to look for a UK Island copy of Tea For The Tillerman, make sure to find the original version, with the Pink center paper label. I had the second version, with the "sunray" Island label, which I found to sound very odd.

The pink label pressing was on Harry Pearson's Super Disc list for many years, and was raved about by Michael Fremer as well. When I found a copy with the sunray label I bought it, thinking there might be little or no difference. My finding of the Island LP's odd sound may be explained by reading on.....

I've never heard a pink label copy of the album, but here's the full story on the Analogue Productions version of Tea For The Tillerman:

When Chad Kassem (owner of Analogue Productions, Quality Record Pressing, and Acoustic Sounds) obtained the rights to produce an "audiophile-grade" pressing of the album, he hired Bernie Grundman to do the mastering and cut the lacquers (used to produce the metal plates from which LP stampers are made). When Bernie received the original master tapes, he made a startling discovery: the tape was NOT Dolby encoded, but all LP's mastered from that tape had been done assuming Dolby noise reduction HAD been used.

Do you realize what that means?! It certainly explains why I found my Island LP to sound odd. I'm a drummer, and there was a number of things seriously wrong with the sound of the drums and cymbals on my LP (heard through loudspeakers employing ESL tweeters). The harmonic overtones of the cymbals are almost completely missing-in-action. The same is true of Cat's acoustic guitar. The kick drum is lacking in punch, and the whole mess just sounds "wrong" to me. For years I assumed the fault lay in my sunray pressing of the album, but didn't like the music enough to look for a pink label pressing.

To appreciate the significance of Grundman's discovery, you need to know how the Dolby "A" (the version used in recording studios) noise reduction circuit works. It pre-emphasizes the signal it receives with four bands of boosted frequencies, each with 12dB/octave slopes. That's for the recording of the master tape. When the Dolby-encoded tape is played back during the mastering process, the Dolby playback circuit reduces the boosted frequencies by the same amount they were increased during recording, thereby restoring the tape's original frequency response, while simultaneously decreasing tape his by the same amount.

Grundman reported his discovery to Kassem, and Chad instructed him to do his master without Dolby A engaged, as it hadn't been used in the making of the master tape. Grundman did so, and reported to Kassem that the sound of Cat's acoustic guitar was extremely bright. Grundman wasn't sure consumers would like the sound he was hearing. The thing is, Cat's guitar was an Ovation, which unlike "normal" acoustics has a plastic body, not a wooden one. It's suppose to sound extremely bright!

Kassem gave Fremer a call, telling him the whole story. Michael told him "Hey, the sound on the original tape is how Cat and producer Paul Samwell-Smith wanted it." Kassem had Grundman make a production master "flat" (no change in frequency response), and another splitting the difference in about half (between flat and Dolby boosted). After hearing test pressings, it was decided to master the album "flat".

Anyone who prefers the sound of the Island (or A & M) pressing of Tea For The Tillerman to that of the Analogue Productions pressing might want to consider having his system checked for timbral accuracy. 

David Lindley's 1981 album El Rayo-X. "Mercury Blues" is a killer track.

Oh, and a number of Roy Orbison's albums on Monument Records, including In Dreams, Only The Lonely, and Greatest Hits. Originals and reissues by Classic Records.

A long time ago it was direct-2-disk LP’s (Sheffield Labs, etc.). Then it was the Water Lily Record label LP’s (A Meeting By The River, an album of duet improvisations between Ry Cooder and Vishwa Mohan Bhatt). Cat Stevens Tea For The Tillerman LP (first the original pink label UK Island pressing, now the Analogue Productions version). Talking Book by Stevie Wonder, and If You Could Read My Mind by Gordon Lightfoot. And the Dan Hicks And His Hot Licks album Striking It Rich. Produced by Tommy LiPuma, strings arranged by Nick DeCaro, engineered by Bruce Botnick. MaryAnn Price’s singing of "I’m An Old Cowhand" is absolutely salacious!

Holst The Planets, with Sir Adrian Boult conducting The New Philharmonia Orchestra With Chorus (EMI ASD 2301). Trevor Pinnock playing Scarlatti’s Sonatas For Harpsichord (CRD 1068, UK). Anything on Lyrita Records, and Harmonia Mundi (USA and France).