Food for thought - vinyl reissues....
Posted: Wed Jun 09, 2010 11:59 am
Came across this in the letters page of the current issue of Hi-Fi World and I thought I'd share it with you lot.... Enjoy!
In answer to a query from a reader concerning his underwhelming experiences with some of the new vinyl issues, Noel Keywood and David Price (Hi-Fi World) give their views:
NK: "I am very happy with all I have bought so far and Quiex SVP vinyl is superb in my view.I only start to have reservations when mastering engineers decide they can 'improve' original mix downs just by applying EQ in a heavy handed fashion.I suspect,however,that most 'touching up' is done sensitively and is barely detectable.Then,heavy,flat vinyl I have bought to date is quite obviously,smoother and certainly punchier than the thin warpy stuff!"
DP:"Having spent many hours listening to all varieties of Lps,original first pressings,reissues,audiophile reissues,imports and Japanese pressings,I'm of the view that a perfectly preserved first pressing released in the artist's country of origin is the best sounding,closely followed by the Japanese pressing of the same,followed by everything else,with audiophile reissues often constituting the best of the rest.Of course, it's very complex and doesn't always pan out like this,but it's a good rule of thumb.Some years ago,Lyra's Jonathan Carr and I had a very long listening session in his Tokyo apartment and a mind numbingly expensive system,with just about every variant of Steely's Dan Aja,Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here and Neil Young's Harvest ever made.,listening to up to six or seven variants of same,and that's what we found.We then repeated the tests on a range of other titles and got very similar results;a pattern had emerged!
The closeness to the original release seems to be paramount,both physically and chronologically.So a British Beatles Lp is better than an American or German version (which is more likely to be taken from 2nd generation masters), as is a 1st pressing (i.e. made at the time of release) rather than the umpteenth pressing,made some ten years later (from worn copy masters).. The 'Nice Price' reissues are generally awful (and that goes for Jap Lps,which all went mid-price after a few years subsequent to the release date (if you see 'Y1,600' written on the OBI, avoid). The 'audiophile reissues' are variable;some good,some not so,but none as good as standard home made market first pressings.The 180g thing is in my view a sideshow;some of the best sounding vinyl I've ever heard is Japanese,pressed on 80g.It's not the thickness or weight of the disc,it's the quality of the master presses and the vinyl compound itself,that counts. Jap Lps always sound superb,but are conspicuously different sounding all the same.They're recorded at a lower level,yet their vinyl formulation seems superior so they're quieter even so.They also sound silkier and more delicate to their western alternatives,although this borders on the euphonic if you're going to be a stickler for accuracy.
I really don't think audiophile reissues should be bought with the assumption that they're necessarily better than the original.In most cases, the original was superb (and I mean the original,not the third pressing);the trouble is though it's nigh-on impossible to pick up a mint,unplayed original first pressing of anything now,so suddenly audiophile pressings begin to make sense.Even so,I am dismayed by the repro quality on many of the covers,which seemed to have been scanned on a so-so digital scanner in someone's spare room.Ultimately it's all about the quality of the individual product;I've had brilliant reissues (Marvin Gaye's What's Going On on Motown) and tragic ones (Kate Bush's Kick Inside on EMI) A good place to find out about the quality of reissues is,of course, our very own audiophile vinyl pages,so keep your peepers peeled!"
In answer to a query from a reader concerning his underwhelming experiences with some of the new vinyl issues, Noel Keywood and David Price (Hi-Fi World) give their views:
NK: "I am very happy with all I have bought so far and Quiex SVP vinyl is superb in my view.I only start to have reservations when mastering engineers decide they can 'improve' original mix downs just by applying EQ in a heavy handed fashion.I suspect,however,that most 'touching up' is done sensitively and is barely detectable.Then,heavy,flat vinyl I have bought to date is quite obviously,smoother and certainly punchier than the thin warpy stuff!"
DP:"Having spent many hours listening to all varieties of Lps,original first pressings,reissues,audiophile reissues,imports and Japanese pressings,I'm of the view that a perfectly preserved first pressing released in the artist's country of origin is the best sounding,closely followed by the Japanese pressing of the same,followed by everything else,with audiophile reissues often constituting the best of the rest.Of course, it's very complex and doesn't always pan out like this,but it's a good rule of thumb.Some years ago,Lyra's Jonathan Carr and I had a very long listening session in his Tokyo apartment and a mind numbingly expensive system,with just about every variant of Steely's Dan Aja,Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here and Neil Young's Harvest ever made.,listening to up to six or seven variants of same,and that's what we found.We then repeated the tests on a range of other titles and got very similar results;a pattern had emerged!
The closeness to the original release seems to be paramount,both physically and chronologically.So a British Beatles Lp is better than an American or German version (which is more likely to be taken from 2nd generation masters), as is a 1st pressing (i.e. made at the time of release) rather than the umpteenth pressing,made some ten years later (from worn copy masters).. The 'Nice Price' reissues are generally awful (and that goes for Jap Lps,which all went mid-price after a few years subsequent to the release date (if you see 'Y1,600' written on the OBI, avoid). The 'audiophile reissues' are variable;some good,some not so,but none as good as standard home made market first pressings.The 180g thing is in my view a sideshow;some of the best sounding vinyl I've ever heard is Japanese,pressed on 80g.It's not the thickness or weight of the disc,it's the quality of the master presses and the vinyl compound itself,that counts. Jap Lps always sound superb,but are conspicuously different sounding all the same.They're recorded at a lower level,yet their vinyl formulation seems superior so they're quieter even so.They also sound silkier and more delicate to their western alternatives,although this borders on the euphonic if you're going to be a stickler for accuracy.
I really don't think audiophile reissues should be bought with the assumption that they're necessarily better than the original.In most cases, the original was superb (and I mean the original,not the third pressing);the trouble is though it's nigh-on impossible to pick up a mint,unplayed original first pressing of anything now,so suddenly audiophile pressings begin to make sense.Even so,I am dismayed by the repro quality on many of the covers,which seemed to have been scanned on a so-so digital scanner in someone's spare room.Ultimately it's all about the quality of the individual product;I've had brilliant reissues (Marvin Gaye's What's Going On on Motown) and tragic ones (Kate Bush's Kick Inside on EMI) A good place to find out about the quality of reissues is,of course, our very own audiophile vinyl pages,so keep your peepers peeled!"