Why do I keep torturing myself with remasters?

  What about 40 to 50 year old tape sound deteriorated over all that time?

The cost of original pressings are outrageous. There are some that are quite good. Why do we do this at all????

For me, it is this is what I love.

Original pressings are just that, original pressings. For those rare and un-molested finds ,you are going to pay a premium.

Most, did not take care of their vinyl records which also drives the money train for original pressings.

Here's ONE reason...

Gregg Allman  "Laid Back"  (APO)

I can guarantee you'll not hear this lp in better form than on this (re-issue)!

This is why I continue to torture myself!

I remember a long lost phrase, "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."

An amazing number of original pressings can be found for cheap
not high profile artists or labels record shops are tipped off to 
(hate the internet for that)

I had left about 15 boxes of my LPs in my parents basement when I moved out. After 10 years of a lot of moving around the country, I finally settled down. I went to my parents to pickup my LPs only to find my kid brother had sold them at one of my parent's garage sales for 10 cents an LP!?

I had been collecting LPs since the late 60's (lots of jazz, big band and rock) and they were mostly first issues. Man, I was pissed!

It's been a slow (and expensive) process re-establishing my collection. Nowadays, with my current digital rig (Esoteric DV-50S or pc feeding into a Teac UD-501), I'll only buy the LP if:

a). the digital recording is complete shiite, or
b). it's only available on LP.

But, like 'hi-res' files, I've become wary of the marketing of re-mastered LPs. Not all remastered LPs are sonically superior to the original.

Although, admittedly, finding decent copies of LPs pressed in the 50's is becoming really difficult.

Sorry to hear your terrible loss :( Your bro is mad.

However, `hi-res´ files are really something else in today´s digital audio and worth to try. In fact one of the very famous and serious `professional´ audiophiles says that those files mops all analog audio in sound quality, including those priceless original pressings. That leads to conclusion: digital has finally surpassed analog ?

i love viynl

Me too... Honestly, digital can´t surpass analog IMHO. So I´m not worrying. 

While the quality of some (most?) of the early digital recordings were limited by the equipment available at the time, it is very easy now for a modern digital (DSD) recording to match (or, in some cases, exceed) vinyl in terms of frequency response. Admittedly, this has no bearing on whether or not you prefer the sound of vinyl over digital. The fidelity of one's playback system exerts a large influence in this as well.

But recordings stored on analog tape are subject to degradation due to how the recording was made in the first place (i.e. magnetism). The longer an analog tape is stored, the more 'bleed through' of the signal to adjacent parts of the tape you get (unless you take proactive measures from the beginning).

Alan Shaw (of Harbeth speakers in the UK) did interesting experiment. Here's a link to it: http://www.harbeth.co.uk/usergroup/showthread.php?1477-Early-analogue-recordings-amp-an-evaluation-of-analogue-technology. He analyzed 30 year old tape recordings spectrally and found instances of pre and post echoes in quiet parts of the tape (i.e. where you'd normally expect silence). This was unnoticeable in the busier passages but it was still there.

So remastered recordings that use the original master analog tape will have some unwanted signal introduced into the new recording. Removing it can contribute to a degradation of the original recording. 

Direct-to-disk recordings would obviously not have to deal with this issue.

Removing unwanted signal is futile because to remove that extra signal needs digital processing and it always just lessens sound quality.
I personally don´t want any kind of digital processing to the original information. I´m not excited about analog either but can accept in certain cases.

Not another analog digital debate, please..
not the topic


A friend of mine received some pristine 1950s and 60s jazz from a friend who’s dad had passed away. He knew a few of the names but had no idea what he was holding. Treasure troves like some small label Duke Ellington.

As I was updating him on what he had I told him this would be a flash forward to some music lover picking through our extensive collections


Really put it in perspective

I agree ehto
    I lost thousand of albums to a house fire ,replacing them is virtually impossible.I shop in the obvious places and see something I had used for 50 bks to hundreds .That puts alot in prospective for me ,I think to myself  "if i could just shop from my old collection i would be stoked"
     Unforntunatley i was bit like many in the early 90s to let the lp12 sit and start collecting the ultimate sound! compact discs lol (many thousands were lost).
       I am rebuilding my collection again and I don't think i've bought 10 cd (used at that),and hundreds and hundreds of albums,That said i do have probly 10,000 albums in mp3 :(
      I still say original and japanese if i can get it. I just popped open a sealed Steely Dan Aja tonight lmtd original ,it was warped pretty bad when playing on bside even with my clamp.I shot the guy an email (ebay purchase) he told me to keep the album and he refunded my money back to paypal.I thought that was pretty cool because it was sealed and that can be a gamble sometimes because of age yannow

You have dealt with a true gentleman. + you can fix the warped record easily. Buy a Vinyl Flat + Groovy Pouch.

:)

I never buy sealed LPs for more than a few dollars, you really can't know what's in there, nor can the seller.

Ive never even seen a flattner in person , is this set up worth the 200 bks 

I have flattened tens of bad warped records now. My Vinyl Flat with Groovy Pouch can be taken from me only over my dead body.

What ever happened to placing LPs between two sheets of glass in the over at 150 degrees for ten minutes?  Some experimentation with temperature and time might be advantageous.

Sound good to me , although i never have . My concern with heat is flattening the grooves also

Oleschool,

Try it. You'll like it. It's what the pros use.

Geoff, I´ll take that as a compliment :)

Oleschool needs some newschool.

I embrace anything that works . Never have had a huge issue with warped lps . A few but not really so ...  

Here's a couple more I really enjoy:

The Litter "Distortions"
Richie Havens "Mixed Bag"

Sundazed mono (lp)

I have an original Verve/Folkways Richie Havens Mixed Bag - stereo mind you -  which, is on my list of go to records whenever I make a change in my system and want to here the improvement/deterioration.
Great record.