Definitive Audiophile pressings

Mather said:
Okay so early verdict.
Bookends is incredible. Huge huge stage and great bass and punch. However I have not heard the RKS so I can't compare.

Purple Rain is also really really dynamic with great punch and stage. But I can tell where KPGs is going to better it. The vocals. There's definitely an inherent harshness to the driving aspects of the vocals that I'm sure KPG will have softened. But that being said I can't wait to compare the two because this does sound really really good. Much better than I expected.

So Bookends and Purple Rain were both better than I expected. Not thin at all, great low end, great punch and separation. Both fantastic

The Slider. Er... don't particularly like this one. I find it soft and muddy. Very little punch or separation. Compared to the stream it's falls pretty short for me. But it's still a great player copy, just not gunna be the end game copy.

And the Flag Series Rubber Soul... basically the same thing as The Slider. It's fine, but it's soft and doesn't have the separation and punch of other versions. I can see why people don't like this version. Again, totally good player copy but not gunna be the end game either.

So all in I was hoping for 3 out of 4 being great, got 2 so it's cool. It'll be fun to listen through the whole albums. I only had time to spin a few tracks from each.
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I don't remember if you ever said if you ended up liking that japanese Space Oddity? The one I have is one of the japanese pressings I'm not a fan of. Played it again last weekend and it's still not doing it for me. Very thin. Not as bad as Eat To The Beat was, but one of the worst I got. The others I dislike are Rain Dogs and Out of the Blue. The other 53 I have are all good to superb.
 
Mather said:
To be honest I don't remember if there was any other versions of the Sundazed BOTW but with so many of the other KPG Sundazed there are so I just didn't even bother. I was speaking in generalities here, not specifically about that press. I'm just so sick of hunting mislabeled variants.
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I didn’t think you were saying there is one about any particular album, but it turns out there is another Sundazed in Discogs, done by Wes Garland @ Nashville Record Productions.
 
Turbo said:
I don't remember if you ever said if you ended up liking that japanese Space Oddity? The one I have is one of the japanese pressings I'm not a fan of. Played it again last weekend and it's still not doing it for me. Very thin. Not as bad as Eat To The Beat was, but one of the worst I got. The others I dislike are Rain Dogs and Out of the Blue. The other 53 I have are all good to superb.
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I remember liking it but I'll spin it again. Which pressing do you have? From what I recall it was on the thinner side but I think it still had good dynamics from what I recall.
 
Portland Sheriff said:
Lol — my blood pressure spiked a bit when I read this b4 I confirmed that my Sundazed “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” which i bought on discogs, has “KG@CA” in runout. I’m 99% certain I verified that when I bought it but didn’t know this uncertainty was a thing.
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Most of Sundazed catalogue has multiple cuts/pressings but they all tend to have no way to identify each one outside of opening it up and looking at the run out. Wes Garland cut a bunch, then it seemed that KG went back and recut many of them later on once Cohearant opened and KG started working with them more.

Here's the non-KG BOTW:
www.discogs.com

Simon And Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water

View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the Vinyl release of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" on Discogs.
www.discogs.com www.discogs.com

@Mather is right in that many times people scan the barcode then sell the wrong one. or just don't look at the deadwax. I had this issue with Bookends before finding the opened one.
 
Mather said:
I remember liking it but I'll spin it again. Which pressing do you have? From what I recall it was on the thinner side but I think it still had good dynamics from what I recall.
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The 1976. I'm not well versed on how it's supposed to sound though. It's hard to describe but the highs are almost irritatingly high and the bassline, when present, is muddy. Separation is good and the vocals are fine. It's not bad enough that I put it in the sale box (yet) but I'd be up for a different pressing.

That Tom Waits is the most disappointing one I bought though, because it wasn't cheap. Small Change sounds so good so I never thought this one would disappoint.
 
Turbo said:
The 1976. I'm not well versed on how it's supposed to sound though. It's hard to describe but the highs are almost irritatingly high and the bassline, when present, is muddy. Separation is good and the vocals are fine. It's not bad enough that I put it in the sale box (yet) but I'd be up for a different pressing.

That Tom Waits is the most disappointing one I bought though, because it wasn't cheap. Small Change sounds so good so I never thought this one would disappoint.
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I'll give the Bowie another listen. I remember thinking it was good but not incredible. I think it varied a lot track to track. But I think that album is not super fantastically recorded either way so I'm not sure you're going to find a really great one. I think the best one might be the remaster from a couple of years ago? I partly wanted it simply because of the alternate cover and the obi because I am a huge obi slut.
 
Sonicpharmacist said:
Yep! I am SO EXCITED. I still remember going to The Wherehouse in the mall, my mom buying this new for me when I was like 8 years old.
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I'm definitely up for it as well! MOFI did such a great job on Eldorado. I really wanted a copy of Out Of The Blue so I went for a japanese but the pressing I got is lacking. I was A/B'ing it with the digital stream and I felt the digital was better. It needed more oomph.
 
Mather said:
I'll give the Bowie another listen. I remember thinking it was good but not incredible. I think it varied a lot track to track. But I think that album is not super fantastically recorded either way so I'm not sure you're going to find a really great one. I think the best one might be the remaster from a couple of years ago? I partly wanted it simply because of the alternate cover and the obi because I am a huge obi slut.
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Yes! It does vary a lot from track to track. That's definitely the feeling I got. The ones without bass are very thin, but then I guess that's how they're supposed to be?

EDIT: Mine doesn't even have the obi.

@jamieanderson1968 How's the current reissue sound of this one? Is that what I should get? (Space Oddity in case you didn't follow the conversation)
 
Turbo said:
Yes! It does vary a lot from track to track. That's definitely the feeling I got. The ones without bass are very thin, but then I guess that's how they're supposed to be?

EDIT: Mine doesn't even have the obi.

@jamieanderson1968 How's the current reissue sound of this one? Is that what I should get?
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Here's what I wrote at the time about that Space Oddity:

Space Oddity is equal parts absurdly good and then overly' bright and sibilant in parts. But it's not across the board. I'd say 3/4s of the songs sound better than I've ever heard them (again no other vinyl copy to go on here, this is just from years of hearing them), like that softened vocal veil that I find tends to be over a lot of his stuff is totally gone here. Much like the early JP Revolver he's now right in the room with you. And on most of the tracks that's mind blowing. But then there's a few parts where you get major vocal sibilance (mainly on Letter To Hermione) where because they haven't yanked down the treble to account for the quality of the recording, he may be in the room but his mouth is pretty much touching the mic, and it very much sounds like that. And when things get loud at the end of Free Festival you get some brightness with the cymbals and chorus. But I'll take it because since the treble hasn't been softened, the majority of Free Festival where it's just Bowie and the organ or accordian is mind melting. He's right there in front of you. So that's kinda the trade off with this one, you get the clearest most concise sound I can imagine, but with that you have to take the downside that a couple of songs probably needed that treble yanked down.
 
Mather said:
Here's what I wrote at the time about that Space Oddity:

Space Oddity is equal parts absurdly good and then overly' bright and sibilant in parts. But it's not across the board. I'd say 3/4s of the songs sound better than I've ever heard them (again no other vinyl copy to go on here, this is just from years of hearing them), like that softened vocal veil that I find tends to be over a lot of his stuff is totally gone here. Much like the early JP Revolver he's now right in the room with you. And on most of the tracks that's mind blowing. But then there's a few parts where you get major vocal sibilance (mainly on Letter To Hermione) where because they haven't yanked down the treble to account for the quality of the recording, he may be in the room but his mouth is pretty much touching the mic, and it very much sounds like that. And when things get loud at the end of Free Festival you get some brightness with the cymbals and chorus. But I'll take it because since the treble hasn't been softened, the majority of Free Festival where it's just Bowie and the organ or accordian is mind melting. He's right there in front of you. So that's kinda the trade off with this one, you get the clearest most concise sound I can imagine, but with that you have to take the downside that a couple of songs probably needed that treble yanked down.
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Yeah, ok. I can see that. The sibilant parts are probably what's pulling me out. Something is irritating me with it before I get to the end.
 
Turbo said:
Yeah, ok. I can see that. The sibilant parts are probably what's pulling me out. Something is irritating me with it before I get to the end.
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I think also my system, due to the room correction and the treble being rolled off a little means that it can put up with some of these bright tracks in some cases. It softens them a bit. But I absolutely get it, it's a harsh listen at times.
 
Turbo said:
Yes! It does vary a lot from track to track. That's definitely the feeling I got. The ones without bass are very thin, but then I guess that's how they're supposed to be?

EDIT: Mine doesn't even have the obi.

@jamieanderson1968 How's the current reissue sound of this one? Is that what I should get? (Space Oddity in case you didn't follow the conversation)
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Its good. I won't say that it is better than the original but different enough without getting in the way like Metrobolist did. I think Tony really put a lot of work into the remix and it shows. I found pretty much everything is tweaked just a bit to give the album a bit more punch. I find the original a bit thin which the remix addresses without going over the top.
 
MikeH said:
thesoundofvinyl.com

The Rolling Stones In Mono: Limited Edition Colour Vinyl 16LP Box Set

The Rolling Stones – The Rolling Stones In Mono (Colour Vinyl): 16LP Box Set
thesoundofvinyl.com thesoundofvinyl.com

thoughts? (Aside from high price...) are Stones in mono worth owning?
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Absolutely worth owning if you like 60’s era Stones. I actually bought a majority of these on ebay as break outs on from the box set. I had a handful of pretty clean mono US pressings. They are all fantastic pressings and sound great. Mono is definitely the way to go up to Aftermath at a minimum. I prefer everything in mono through Satanic Majesties. Beggars Banquet is a fold except for a dedicated mono cut of Sympathy for the Devil (which is amazing). Let It Bleed is a fold and sounds OK but the DSD stereo is better.
 
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