Why not copy the greats- vinyl LP question

Legit question. Maybe because a (digital) copy would not sound good so the effort wouldn't pay off. Maybe they do not have the master tapes. Maybe they can't get a license to release it.

Because there already is something better than recreating: better-records.com

The OP already addressed the high price issue.

Because there already is something better than recreating: better-records.com

Search results: 10 results for "led zeppelin" – Better Records (better-records.com)
Hmm...

Where's the Zeppelin?
I guess take your chances with Ebay.

There are places where people post hi res digitizing of classic LP's. In reading the notes, They seem to be decent analog rigs but not very high end.

Might be fun for a listen but I'm of the belief I want my analog to a stay analog and if I'm going to to listen to digital it should a legit hi res release be from the master tapes, without the inherent LP flaws. 

Thanks all- I guess where my thinking is concerns the reissues that seem to come up every decade or so and why some great mixes are not attempted to be repeated for the sake of getting something special into dedicated audiophiles hands for reasonable prices.   There seems to be no no effort to recreate past triumphs, instead we get (sticking to the theme with Led Zep II as an example)- a terrible set of reissues per the late 80s/early 90's products.  A series of great reissues for the Modern Classics versions of the early 00's (but the price on and availability of these is already astronomical with zero availability) and then most recently, the Jimmy Page engineered reissues of 2014- not terrible, but not great either- (Jimmy Page will never win any awards as a sound engineer).  The Page reissues are available and reasonably priced.  Any other good version is $200+ for a playable copy- certainly there is a business model that supports recreating highly praised mixes which could sell for $50-100 or so?

The plain fact is that tape deteriorates! Thus the master does NOT have the sound it had 50 yrs ago. Then there is the lost ones. Plus it wasn't "VINTAGE" then so the records only sold for $2.99 - $4.99. Lots of things happen in 50 yrs. More people went broke in the R&R business than ever  made it big, IE Woodstock Promoters. 

Yes good point about the shape of aging masters. However the thing about most LP’s from many years ago, is that cartridges of the era weren’t able to handle low bass and dynamics (as opposed to today), so there was very often a dub of the master mixdown made for LP cutting. So aside from extra limiting/compressing there was also an extra tape generation or more. Compounding the problem, many engineers that did work liked to label the tapes they worked on as "master," so it could be confusing to find and use best available tapes for reissues over the years. That’s why I like to have a great analog system and a great digital one as well (within limits). Galvanic isolation (like the Etheregen I use) go a very long way to making digital enjoyable.

so there was very often a dub of the master mixdown made for LP cutting. So aside from extra limiting/compressing there was also an extra tape generation or more. Compounding the problem, many engineers that did work liked to label the tapes they worked on as "master," so it could be confusing to find and use best available tapes for reissues over the years.

True, And there was more than one of these "masters" for cutting, each record plant received a reel, eg, US, UK, Germany, maybe Japan. This was during the great days of analogue production.

When the world went digital, record labels had their analogue masters transferred to digital tape. These became the new masters. As digital technology progressed, higher bit and sample rates were utilized.

Jimmy Page did go back to the analogue source tapes, which allowed him to remix. But, these tapes were transferred to digital. There's a very good reason for this besides being easier to work in the digital domain. Nobody would want these old magnetic tapes threaded through various ATR's and shuttled back and forth during a mixing session.
 

Classic Records redid the Zeppelin catalog in the early-2000's, and those pressings are now worth a fortune (Classic even made them available as single-sided 45RPM LP's!). Why? Because they sound better than the originals, all of them. Hardcore collectors who own both Robert Ludwig-mastered Atlantic/Swan Song LP's and the Classic Records reissues have compared multiple copies. Classic offered the complete set in a miniature flight case, and those sell for more than most of us have spent on our hi-fi's.

Classic was granted access to the original analogue masters, from which Bernie Grundman made new lacquers. Grundman, in one of the videos about the new Analogue Productions reissue of Kind Of Blue (which he again mastered, having done the same for Classic in the late-90's), states that the idea that analogue tapes deteriorate by the simple passage of time is a myth.

QRP---Analogue Production's in-house record pressing facility---is making some of the best LP's in the entire history of recorded sound. The way the LP's are pressed, every LP is in-effect a white hot stamper record. Analogue Production's Chad Kassem is deadly serious about making the best LP's humanly possible, and the ones I own are worth every penny. Is $35 a disc too much to ask for an LP? That's a lot cheaper than the same record from Better Records. I dare anyone to compare an Analogue Productions reissue to a white hot stamper version of the same title. Go ahead---prove me wrong. 

@bdp24 
Do you know how many LPs of an artist Analogue Productions typically issues? 
How many units, as they say in the biz.

so, wow..for the price of …a pair of Moabs, a dedicated audiophile / music lover can amass a vast collection of what 10-20 xxx hot stampers from better records… Wow….

I can see the stampede in the distance now, let me step away from the cliff.

Chad is great, creating something great and new. All his 45 rom stuff is revelatory….

the business model is tough, look what happened to Classic…busted pressing unauthorized copies….

@lowrider57: The pertinent number is how many LP’s are pressed by each stamper. With each LP pressed, a stamper becomes a little more "worn". White hot stamper LP’s are those records made when a new stamper has been installed in the pressing machine. How many white hot stamper LP’s can one fresh stamper make? After how many LP’s are pressed does QRP change out a stamper?

I don’t know, but it’s a number lower than LP’s pressed at non-audiophile pressing plants, now or in the past. Records made by the major labels in the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s may have used one stamper to make thousands of LP’s. The sound quality of the resulting records was in part a matter of how fresh the stamper was when any given LP was made.

But remember: those labels were NOT using the master tape as the source---they were using a "production" tape (also called a "safety" tape). That could be a copy of the 2-track master mixdown tape, or even a copy of a copy. Analogue Productions used the actual 3-track master tape of Kind Of Blue as the source for their new reissue of that Miles Davis album. Not a 2-track master mixdown tape, but the actual 3-track master. Bernie Grundman cut a lacquer mixing the 3-track master tape down to a 2-track mix, but without doing it to tape. He bypassed the step of making a 2-track master tape! I don’t care how fresh the stamper was that made a white hot stamper LP, it was still cut from a production copy of a 2-track mixdown tape.

Chad Kassem purchased all the Mastering Lab equipment after the passing of Doug Sax (maker of the legendary direct-2-disc Sheffield Records), and spent a lot of money building the Quality Record Pressing facility in Salina, Kansas. The presses are isolated from terra firma and from other vibration-producing machines (pumps, compressors, etc.). The complete pressing process is done with maximum quality in mind, including slower pressing and longer cooling time of the vinyl. The result is flat, quiet 180 gram LP’s. He has the jackets made by Stoughton Printing, long considered the best in the business. And every LP is slipped into a high quality poly sleeve. I consider $35 a fair price for such quality. 

@bdp24 
Thanks for that in-depth answer. And for including the info about "Kind of Blue"...fascinating.
Used AP releases on Ebay can fetch high prices. And a modern reissue from a major label costs the same as your $35 gem.

I've collected early and 1st issues so I'm aware of the  process. I have a pressing that has -1/-1 in the dead wax; 1st stamper, 1st run. But I learned it could mean I have pressing #1 or pressing #2000.

Exactly @lowrider57, the info in the dead wax gets one only so far. That info tells you nothing about when in a stampers lifespan the LP was made.

It was Chad Kassem and his team who made the startling discovery that all pressings of Cat Stevens’ Tea For The Tillerman album---including the original "pink label" Island LP---had been made assuming the master tape was Dolby-encoded. It wasn’t! The Analogue Productions version of that album---Dolby-free----provides a huge, dramatic improvement over all previous versions, including that by Mobile Fidelity.

Speaking of going back to multi track masters with digital mixing, I recently got a copy of Zappa's Roxy Performances, where Craig Parker Adams went back to the 16 track 30 IPS multi tracks, digitized at 24/96 and re-mixed (not sure of process,  I haven't read the below article yet)

The fidelity is outstanding, and far superior to any previous Roxy release.  Unfortunately it's only 16/44.1. but if enough people request a hi res Like I did, who knows.

Craig was nice enough to email me back, and mentioned he did very little cleanup wise, and he thinks he might not have even used compression!  If only all live recordings sounded like this one.  But it does speak to all the typical intermediates and generations used in LP process causing huge sonic loss.
https://www.soundonsound.com/people/craig-parker-adams-mixing-frank-zappa

"Classic even made them available as single-sided 45RPM LP's"

I'd like to get ahold of just one of these "unicorns"
There was a listing here for the complete catalog in a flight case for $$$$!
I'd like LZ1 please.

I have a HOH Classic. It is very good pressing. There is a distinct sound difference comparing the RL Sterling press I have. I could live  without one, but I'll take my original for the sake of being a period press.

@tablejockey- LZ1 was my original entry point to Zep at the time it was released and though there are some tracks on II that I like, the band’s first album is really the one I’m most attached to since it is very much blues based.
Sadly, I don’t think any of the releases of Zep are "audiophile" quality. Among the copies I have of LZ1 are an early UK plum (not a turquoise lettered cover, I’d have to look at the deadwax, but early); the Hoffman forum fav, which is Piros remaster done in the mid-’70s- lot’s of discussion on the SH forum if that interests you- pressed at Monarch as I recall; and among, others, the Classic 45, as well as my go-to, which is (or was) a relatively cheap option. That is, the 2nd Japanese pressing (I think the third pressing may use the same parts and may be a repressing but can’t be sure without digging).
That Japanese copy does achieve a clarity without harshness that cuts through the muddiness of virtually every copy of LZ1 I’ve heard. The Classic 45 (and I think I have the Classic 33 as well, it’s been a while since I dug through the "Zep shelf" here) does have more "air" but to my ears, sounds a little more modern, tipped up in the highs, more midrange detail than the usual old copy. Still, that old Japanese copy is a winner and though I haven’t priced it recently, is probably still far cheaper than some of the uber copies.
On LZII, my go-to has been an RL for a while- it took several copies to find one that was truly clean playing- now people are asking $350 for what they admit amount to noisy, trashed copies. The alternatives include the UK plum (a good listen, but now expensive too). I have not listened to the Classic 45 of LZII.
It would be great if Chad could get licensed to reissue the Bernie G. cuts and make them available in sufficient quantity, quality and at a price that most could afford. I passed on the road case at the time, and remember some of the QC problems Hobson had, partly due, I think, to his move to 200 gram vinyl and flat profile. He certainly filled a gap, despite some of those issues, before the Resurgence of Vinyl.™

Whart-

Thanks for the enlightenment.

I suppose blasting "You Shook Me" on the Studer is  the final frontier.  

I do hear the Classic with the bass tone  I always complain  about in threads. 
I must be conditioned for RL bass.