I managed to buy a 1956 UK (London Records) copy at Discogs for 20£ in VG+ condition : clean, not noisy. Tubey Magic :The sound is rich and full-bodied, the naturalness of the presentation puts this album right at the top of best sounding female vocal albums of all time. Worth the effort ! Thank you 🙂
I’m a guitarist and bumped into this album on a rabbit hole dive. It’s great and I appreciate your angle from an audiophile perspective. What I noticed from the streaming versions is the chorus effect of the guitar on “Easy Street”, which I thought would be unusual for 1955. my suspicion is that it comes from double tracking, but I was worried that it might be an artifact from remastering. Do you know? Is it present in the early pressings that you have listened to?
It's refreshing to hear from someone who does not parrot the sales talk from the reissue business and the affiliated journalism; I've been disappointed so many times with the sound quality of reissues aimed at audiophiles, that I'm actually relieved to find it might - perhaps - not just be down to my ears or my audio system... 🙂
Hi, thank you for the video! It was really interesting and useful too, but now I have a big doubt… I’m looking for Julie is her name online and I found a lot of mono version from the ‘50s, just to be sure I understood what you were stating in your video, is it a risk to buy one (even if it’s in very good conditions or near mint) without listening to it before? Should I risk?
It's a risk, but what choice do you have? The early mono pressings give you the best chance of finding a copy that sounds as good as this record can. You could try asking the seller to play test for you?
Thanks for posting your review, and Merry Christmas! I have the 2019 33rpm (single vinyl) copy. It plays fine in my simple system. Compare to some of best vintage vinyls (i.e. Bitches Brew) with pin sharp accuracy of instrument position, gorgeous presence and weighty impact, this one is not quite there but by large it's still very enjoyable to listen. I am wondering if the problem you described is mostly in 45rpm? I say that because I have Impex reissue of Yamamoto Tsuyoshi Trio's Midnight Sugar, also in 2x45 and it sounds very underwhelming. By comparison my 33rpm copy of Impex reissue of The Famous Sound Of Three Blind Mice Vol. 1, sounds just wonderful easily considered as one of demo disc in my small collection. I also had bad experience with 45 Angel Sonic Series (classical and jazz) compare to regular 33rpm copies, they just lost the magic of "you are there" presence and replaced with bloated bass without any meaningful bass impact. I am not technical enough to explain why my experience with 45rpm version is bad I can only judge by what I hear. I suspect this 2x45 Impex reissue fail into the same problem.
It's possible that the mastering for the 45 rpm version and the 33 1/3 rpm versions of these records is a little different. I don't really know. But given how off the mark the mastering of the 45 rpm version of Impex's Legrand Jazz is, I'd be very surprised if the 33 1/3 rpm version improves on it enough to that I'd recommend it.
Stumbled upon your videos. Best of luck I subscribed. Great video. I always like to hear Tom Port. Controversial figure. But I actually think he is a very knowledgeable guy.
Thanks for the recommendation of Julie is Her Name. I managed to locate a couple of 50's pressings and both of things you mentioned in the video hold -- they have great presence and there's always a little bit of background noise. I've explored a fair bit of her discography in the past and would in turn recommend Lonely Girl to you -- the accompaniments are even sparser than Julie is Her Name -- just Julie and a guitar (Al Viola). To my ears, the song selection is a little choicer than Julie Is Her Name, although admittedly there's no "Cry Me a River." This recording also sounds great in general but both the pressings I have (a blue label Liberty from the 50s and a later black label one) show some slight distortion in the vocals as she modulates from soft-to-loud. Don't know if that's present in the master tapes themselves or I just haven't found the right pressing yet.
They were all UK stereo reissues. I think mostly released in the 1970's. There were copies with basically just 2 different sets of stampers in the shootout. That's about all I can tell you.
@@RobertBrook-v6t after you told me "stick with mono", i bought a clean (80's ?) OJC copy, and i'm quite happy with the sound. I have also bought a UK 1st pressing JUlie London - Julie Is Her Name (London Records), and i was lucky to get a clean copy. You are right: it has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records rarely begin to reproduce. Cheers, luca
I guess I'm in the minority because I prefer stereo over mono mainly because the separation of the instruments. I kinda hate when everything is coming out dead center. But the quiet soundstage of this release is AWESOME! I have a 1958 stereo copy I got from my brother years ago when he was going all CD and it's in decent shape and if they could do modern this stereo copy with a release I'd like to compare it.
Hi, may i ask you which option is better between mono vs. stereo , based on your shootout ? Thank you very much ! I need to find a good "vintage" copy ...😊
Sounds like VTA adjustment could scramble everything. Each lathe cutter head will produce its own tracking angle and if not accounted for can produce these variations. The cutter head styli are also replaced every 30-40 hours and the quality control on each stylus’ VTA is not precise. This factor alone could produce the differences along with a few other variables. With your high quality arm adjustments, I’m sure you could tweek away until it would be difficult to quantify differences and the exercise would be utterly frustrating. Very nice effort and it seems you cherish music reproduction and equipment and have achieved something wonderful overall.
Hey you two, that was packed with information. Thanks. A question - I get it that original pressings and modern remasters don’t always sound the best, despite all the hype that surrounds them. But why is it that some early re-masters sound better than the original pressings? Maybe have on a retired mastering engineer from the golden days of vinyl to have them explain what they were aiming for?
Sometimes the mastering engineer that cuts the original version just doesn't get it right. Then someone else cuts it again and nails it. Sometimes it's the other way around. In the case of The Beatles and the UK pressings, it appears to be the former. Hard to say why, but it could also have to do with the cutting system used later, which was perhaps of higher quality and more revealing. Also, some mastering engineers, Robert Ludwig comes to mind, just have a knack for getting the leveling and the limiting to best suit the material they're working with.
It was a long discussion so maybe I missed this but I don't think you explicitly talk about the results of your Revolver shootout compared to Better Records' rankings. Was your "best" the same as theirs? It would be interesting if this were the case because it would allow for a deeper discussion on what your shootouts are capturing/missing versus theirs. Which would of course help your viewers in developing their own internal beauty contests.
My "best" was the same copy the staff at Better Records considered the best of those they loaned me, which was an A++- A+++/ A++-A+++ copy, and it was clearly the best one. That copy is available on their website, by the way. What was less clear to me was how exactly to rank the others. There were some A++/A++ copies and some lesser ones, and I had a rough idea of how they might be graded because I had my A+-A++ copy as a baseline. But the staff at BR have done a lot of these shootouts and have heard many more copies than I have, and therefore have much more experience with what to listen for and how to grade copies. Better Records also has much better control over their electricity than I have, and that makes a substantial difference with a highly sensitive and revealing system.
One more thing: feel free to change the speed to 1.5 or even 1.75. At those speeds the conversation is intelligible and, when it comes to my offerings, if I may be honest, a lot less tedious.
Not sure viewers will want the Alvin & The Chipmunks version of our conversation, but maybe i should get in there and edit out all of my long pauses and my big brain lapse. That would move things along and make for better viewing!
Robert, thanks so much for having me on. Here is hoping that audiophiles of the vinyl persuasion will find something of value in our conversation. You've come a very long way in the years I've known you. Sharing with others what you've learned as you've made such great progress can be a real boon to audiophiles willing to put in the time and effort that you did. It paid off for you and it will pay off for anybody who follows the path you are on. Best, TP
Thank you for doing this, Robert. After seeing you go through the gruelling process, one can certainly admire the service that Better Records provides to the community.
Many Beatles UK 70's / 80's stereo reissues are really good , Harry Moss did an excellent job. My Revolver copy is -3 / -4 , HTM on both sides, sounds really nice ! And my HELP copy, -4 / -4 HTM , early 80's, is outstanding ! (it is a Hot Stamper which i've bought many years ago), when prices were still "ok" 😁
Excellent view into the process of comparing and contrasting records that for all intents and purposes should be identical. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the variations inherent in listening to sound reproduced by dragging a needle through grooves in a piece of vinyl. 🤯 Thanks, Robert.
