Well, Damn These 180 gm LPs (Again)

[BlazeES]

I also found Black Sabbath's Master of Reality still sealed on the NEMS label from Germany. Funny thing about this one- there's a pre-echo on the opening track that was there way back in the 197X Warner Brothers USA release- they didn't fix it. Perhaps a print-through on the master tape? I think this is a reissue, don't know.

I was a HUGE Black Sabbath collector in my younger years. We would try to hit hole-in-the-wall record stores no matter where we happened to be.
And next to the Beatles back then, getting the Sabbath imports were prime objective type stuff. Can't say I remember the pre-echo thing but American
companies always seemed to bork sh!t up on trans-Atlantic releases. Just look at the Capitol releases for the Beatles.

This is strictly my opinion from all those years of searching, buying & comparing - but those NEMS pressings are the cats meow.
I have the full span of those UK NEMS pressings for the Ozzy years. Similar to the UK Beatles pressings, it's obvious that much care was taken even
if they were run of the mill stamps. None of them ever sounded poorly cut. 'Master of Reality' sounds so much better than the US release.
And it blows away any CD's released for all that bottom end it possesses. The Sabbath catalog went 180g HQ re-release not very long ago - I think Ben has some of them - so those might be up to snuff.
Dunno ... as I feel content with the NEMS.
They're special ...

Back on the topic of "listening through", The White Album had repeating pops across a few songs, many during quieter sections and it drove me nuts.
Being mono made it stand out more during open-air, speaker listening. The start in grooves on three of the four sides also sounded like they were lightly sand blasted too.
Picking up used vinyl is one thing, but on new releases I want modest quiet in those sections supposed to be quieter ... and between songs.

 

[Elite-ist]

I intend to pay more attention to the record Label companies and producers that are involved with the production of a vinyl release. There have been a few recommendations, here, so far. If there more, let's hear them.

Here's my recommendation:

Original pressing, Label: EMI, Producers: Tim Friese-Greene.

Talk Talk, The Colour Of Spring

Nando.

 

[Nick Danger]

Sadly 180/ 200g vinyl does not translate to a quality pressing or top- notch mastering. A couple of label I have luck with are QRP, Music Mattters, Toshiba/ EMI and Venus Records. MSFL seems to have slipped a bit in their overall quality IMO and now I steer clear of them(mostly).

 

[MarkWComer]

I was a HUGE Black Sabbath collector in my younger years.
Dunno ... as I feel content with the NEMS.
They're special ...

Oh yeah- I really like my Master of Reality, the NEMS pressing is great! What I meant to say about the "pre-echo" is that what I thought was an error in my old WB/USA pressing is evidently some sort of artifact in the master tape. It isn't horribly offensive, just something that's there.

The start in grooves on three of the four sides also sounded like they were lightly sand blasted too.
Picking up used vinyl is one thing, but on new releases I want modest quiet in those sections supposed to be quieter ... and between songs.

Noisy rims irk me, too. BTW: When in the manufacturing process is that rim added? I've never heard it mentioned. Unfortunately, I think noise on the rims are the nature of the beast for LPs since that seems to get abused in the pressing process. The edge trimming, sliding through the press, and then stacking present opportunity for noisy lead-ins. What I did notice in my RTI pressing of Death is that the lead-in is pretty quiet, and I noticed that in the other RTIs as well.

 

[MarkWComer]

Here's my recommendation:
Original pressing, Label: EMI, Producers: Tim Friese-Greene.
Talk Talk, The Colour Of Spring
Nando.

My copy of The Colour Of Spring is a Capitol master with Wally Traugott's signature on it. Check your deadwax! My copy sounds beautiful.

I intend to pay more attention to the record Label companies and producers that are involved with the production of a vinyl release. There have been a few recommendations, here, so far. If there more, let's hear them.

You can go crazy with all the variables in vinyl: studios, engineers, pressing companies, which stamper came from which mother which came from which lacquer...

 

[MarkWComer]

Colored vinyl? Picture discs? Any complaints about those?

I have ONE picture disc- and only for the purpose of having a picture disc. Believe it or not, it's a Liberace album! I don't like Liberace because he takes too much artistic freedom with a composer's work, but I do have to acknowledge that he does (oops... did!) have talent.

I never bothered to play it with a quality stylus point, but it did sound reasonably good to me. The thing of it is that I have Simple Minds Sparkle in the Rain and the Beatles Let It Be both on clear vinyl, and they sound like an Eva-Tone Flexi-Disc. Noisy, "whooshy", and indistinct. The latter two I did play with my Ortofon 30.

But here's another thing: Urge Overkill's Saturation on orange vinyl, Devo's Something For Everybody on blue, Jimi Hendrix' Band of Gypsys on red, not to mention some others- all sound good to me. Devo's New Traditionalists on clear doesn't sound as good as the black vinyl version. Is there something about clear vinyl specifically that should be avoided?

I have heard that the carbon black added to vinyl adds a lubricant quality to the plastic and it seems to hold true somewhat, but doesn't explain why other colors are better than clear. A picture disc is essentially clear with a printed paper core- but the Liberace LP sounds a bit better than the other clear records.

 

[Elite-ist]

My copy of The Colour Of Spring is a Capitol master with Wally Traugott's signature on it. Check your deadwax! My copy sounds beautiful.



You can go crazy with all the variables in vinyl: studios, engineers, pressing companies, which stamper came from which mother which came from which lacquer...

Interesting, I'll check it out, later. I, also, recently bought Talk Talk's "It's My Life" which is a EMI label produced by Tim Friese-Greene and Mastered by Ron McMaster.

Nando.

 

[Bob Boyer]

Well, to add confusion to the fun, my CD arrived today (that was quick) and it's quite clean considering the type of production that passes for production these days. Nando - to be very specific, I ordered something Amazon referred to as a Deluxe Edition, which contained a couple of extra cuts not on the LP: The Fireman's Talkin' and Let The Rivers Run. Are those on your CD?

If not, then I'd bet something got remixed or remastered somewhere along the way, because this CD sounds as good as any of the newer productions I've purchased in recent years - very layered and overly compressed (like his previous album Face The Promise, or Bruce Springsteen's Magic come to mind) but no distortion like is in the grooves of the LP. Which points me back to bad pressings or Bernie's forgotten how to master an LP. My money is on a bad side 2 pressing, as side 1 of the LP is clean.

And now that I've had time with some clean audio, I'm reassessing my comments on the quality of the songs to say that of the ones Seger wrote, there's just a couple that catch this old FM music director's ear: Hey Gypsy and All Of The Roads. His covers really carry this album, upon further reflection, and that's okay, I guess. Steve Earle's Devils Right Hand and Woody Guthrie's California Stars are classics for a reason, so there's really only four great cuts here that I'm hearing so far. It took me a little while to warm up to Face The Promise, however, so I'll come back to this one a few more times just to make sure.

Methinks part of me is missing that really funky groove that the Swampers laid down on his best stuff in the late '70s and early '80s.

 

[Elite-ist]

Bob: My CD wasn't a deluxe version but it does include both tracks on your Deluxe Edition CD. Those songs are tracks 12 and 13. Too bad about the vinyl version being not so good. Geri and I missed tonight's Bob Seger concert, as my dad passed away on Friday. We sold the tickets, fortunately, but at half-price.

Nando.

 

[Gepetto]

Bob: My CD wasn't a deluxe version but it does include both tracks on your Deluxe Edition CD. Those songs are tracks 12 and 13. Too bad about the vinyl version being not so good. Geri and I missed tonight's Bob Seger concert, as my dad passed away on Friday. We sold the tickets, fortunately, but at half-price.

Nando.

sorry to hear about your dad passing away Nando. May he rest in peace.

 

[laatsch55]

Second that Nando....real sorry to hear this.....hang in there Bud...

 

[Elite-ist]

Thanks Joe and Lee.

Nando.

 

[Nick Danger]

Bob: My CD wasn't a deluxe version but it does include both tracks on your Deluxe Edition CD. Those songs are tracks 12 and 13. Too bad about the vinyl version being not so good. Geri and I missed tonight's Bob Seger concert, as my dad passed away on Friday. We sold the tickets, fortunately, but at half-price.

Nando.

My deepest condolences to you and your family, Nando. So very sorry to hear about the loss of your father.

 

[Fishoz]

Sorry to hear of your loss Nando. My prayers are with you and your family.

 

[Bob Boyer]

Wow. So sorry to hear that, Nando. Just now checking back for a minute in between fighting a war with the administration over future funding for my series at UTC.

Lost dad many years ago to heart attacks; still miss him. Thinking of you and Geri down here.

 

[Elite-ist]

Thank you, Bob. Tomorrow is the funeral, so I'll be able to spend a bit more time on the forum, after then. Although Geri and I sold the tickets to Bob Seger, we were really happy to hear the old man gave the crowd a memorable concert with a 14-piece band.

Nando.