Out This Week / on 3 August 2018

Hi Paul.
Just thought I’d say thank you for passing on the word: my first piece of vinyl deliberately bought for over 30 years has arrived – the ELO Secret Messages – and my BluRay 5.1 copy of Eye in the Sky. Both of which I wouldn’t have known about had you not said something.

The ELO was so important to me that I had to buy a turntable to play it on! But it sounds glorious (even though I have had the CD and the unreleased tracks in various sets for years). What I didn’t realise, though perhaps I should have, is that the vinyl comes with a digital download copy.

Eye in the Sky is as immersive as I had hoped.

Now off to play them again.

Thanks again.

Amazon currently have the signed edition of the Ben Fold Brick available – https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07CPXKYYG – presumably a few cancelled orders have made copies available again. It’s a few quid more than the unsigned version though.

I was briefly excited to see a new release from Chris Difford, until I saw that it was just an abridged version of Fancy Pants, which I already have. Oh, well.

First Genesis album has difference licensing and has been thrown around various small labels.

The only good thing about vinyl is the art work. I for one was glad when it was phased out and replaced with CD’s and i’ve lost count on how many times when i bought 12 inches and got home only to find that they jumped either that or some numpty sat on it on the bus. Imagine having to get up and change over a CD after 5 songs i think not.

I was excited about this forthcoming release until I saw it was out of my price range – a career spanning vinyl and CD box set by Eric B & Rakim: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/eric-b–rakims-the-complete-collection-8-lp–2-cd-deluxe-box-set-arrives-july-13-on-urban-legends–ume-300680604.html

Many old master tapes are being transferred to high bit rate digital sources as they are degrading badly and won’t last forever. No system will extract absolutely the very best from either digital or analogue sources unless it is a high end system, ie say £10,000 and above for vinyl. But vinyl will always sound different to CD at any level system purely due to the way it extracts the sound initially, ie via a stylus. Many people describe it as having a warmer sound and this is what is often preferred over digital. You pays your money and takes your choice……………

I love the artwork for Pants.

I’m a huge audiophile who always seeks the best possible format for the albums I purchase. I ignored the resurgence of vinyl for years before spotting a nicer turntable on sale on a Black Friday 2 years ago and went ahead and bought it.

I agree that in most cases, there is no real advantage to vinyl – if you took the best CD version of an album and played it next to a 180 gram vinyl pressing of that same album, the results would be nearly identical (all audio equipment being equal).

However, I will say that there are a few select artists who have chosen vinyl as the format in which the best possible recordings of their work exist. For example, Peter Gabriel’s back catalogue was released in 1/2 speed remasters a few years back and when you listen to the album ‘So’ on 1/2 speed vinyl, I feel the sound is far richer and even includes certain sounds that you simply don’t get on CD. Phish is also a band that has chosen vinyl over CD to reissue their original albums. Although with the Phish reissues, the differences are far slighter than with PG.

You really just need to do your homework when choosing titles to buy on vinyl to see if the pressing is at all superior to the current CD version. There are some, but not many.

Re Genesis albums. Got the box sets a few years ago so assuming these are the same masters. SEBTP had been remixed – different vocals by Gabriel on acouple of tracks.

The Genesis LP’s are the 2007/2008 remasters. Most were only available in the LP boxsets and now are available without having to purchase those expensive boxsets.

Can a vinyl aficionado help me here? The recordings that make up “Mystery White Boy” were captured on DAT, a format whose highest sampling rate (48/16) is only fractionally higher than CD.

When there is no sonic advantage in purchasing a vinyl pressing from that era (and it’s moot whether there’s ever any real gain at all), in fact, when there’s every possibility it will be worse, why bother? What is it that you’re paying over the odds for? I have “MWB”, and from what I remember, there isn’t even anything in the way of annotation or photography that alone would even warrant a larger format.

I only ask because I’m curious. My interest, first and foremost, is in the music. I want it to be optimally mastered, remixed where remixing can demonstrably improve the listening experience (e.g., Sgt Pepper), and diligently curated. Beyond that, I couldn’t really care what format it comes on.