WARNING! RABBIT HOLE AHEAD!

PROCEED WITH EXTREME CAUTION!

Audiophile record collecting is different from simply collecting records in a some very significant ways. First, for the average collector, the thrill gotten from collecting comes from the acquisition itself. When the collector finds the coveted title in a shop (very exciting, especially when it’s a good price!), or receives it in the post (less exciting but still very fun!) – that is the payoff. The title can now be added to the collection and that box can be checked off the endless want list.

I certainly get excited when I acquire a title I’ve been desiring, but the real thrill for me comes when I play the record and, low and behold, it is also exciting to listen to! Unfortunately, this means that the initial thrill of acquisition is more often than not followed by the let down of playing yet another disappointing record. It also means that if that title is one that I really want to experience in the best possible way, arguably the way the artist had intended, then I need to keep looking to find a better copy.

This highlights another important difference in the collecting experience. An audiophile record collector must endure no small amount of delayed gratification. It’s difficult to say how many copies of a title I might have to play to find the right one. But when the right one comes along, oh man, it makes the whole process, however arduous, well worth the effort!

Fortunately I’ve learned and continue to learn ways of narrowing down the search and improving my chances or landing a winner. For the most part, I share everything I’ve learned with you, my small but highly valued group of readers. For instance, I’ve pretty much made it clear at this point that if you want a good sounding copy of any title that is not current (say released before 2000?) then it’s safe to say you’re just about always better off buying a vintage copy than a recent reissue (see the category of posts titled “Vintage or Reissue” at the right of the page).

I’m just beginning to understand the reasons for this. I hope to understand them better and pass that knowledge on to you at some point. In the meantime, the one reason that new(er) records are mostly sonically weak lies in the nature of much of the music that gets released these days.

I heard an interesting comment from a music writer not long ago who, discussing the impact of electronic dance music on music in general, said that EDM was the folk music of our times. The reason for this, according to this writer, was that anyone can create music on their computer and make it available for others to listen to in the same way that, in the 1960’s for instance, anyone could pick up a guitar and/or a harmonica and make music that could be performed just about anywhere at any time. Thus “folk music” in this writer’s view meant music made available to an audience without the necessity for all of the other cumbersome steps of professionally recording, producing, engineering, mastering, pressing, packaging and selling.

To build on this idea further, the difference then between the folk music of the 1960’s, and the folk music of today, besides the fact that much of today’s music relies heavily on modern technology, is that much of today’s music, however you want to categorize it, is not recorded in a way that gives the gives the music that sense of place and ambience that a great studio or live recording does.

Now this is not to say that musicians, producers and recording engineers haven’t been employing technology in myriad ways since there has been such a thing as recorded music. Why did the Beatles, for instance, stop touring? Well of course because touring was a drag and they were so huge they didn’t really need to tour. But it was also because the music they were making was relying more and more heavily on the magic that they and George Martin were creating in the studio, and it was moving further away from what would work well in a live performance.

And this is also not to say that there are not musicians, producers and recording engineers out there now that aren’t doing their darnedest to create wonderful sounding vinyl records. Check out my interview with Bobby Macintyre for an example of a producer and recording engineer who is passionate about making contemporary records with vintage quality sound.

Still, if you’ve ever heard a great pressing of Sgt. Peppers on vinyl you’ll understand what I’m getting at. Modern records just don’t sound like that anymore. Even with all of the studio pyrotechnics employed on that album, a great copy of Sgt. still sounds natural, musical and three dimensional. Modern records, in my experience sound flat, opaque and don’t invite the listener into the music the way a great vintage record can.

Yesterday I was playing some records that I hadn’t played in a while, including a copy of Courtney Barnett’s debut album sometimes I sit and think, and sometimes I just sit. Courtney is a wonderful lyricist and the album has some great songs and a laid back aesthetic I really enjoy. It also rocks very heavy at times which in my book is almost enough reason alone to recommend it, even if it didn’t deliver artistically which it does in spades.

But sonically, the record was a total dud. Even the one “live” track on the album “small poppies”, which I remember really liking when I first played the record, was overwhelmed by the bloated bass and the irritating shrieks that pass for upper mids and highs on the recording. The record is a great example of the way that flaws in production and engineering run interference between the artist and the listener, ruining the entire listening experience. If I want to listen to sometimes… in the future, I think I’ll just listen to it in my car on Spotify, because the experience of playing my vinyl copy is just too discouraging. Ms. Barnett and her wonderful music deserve better.

The other very significant difference between collecting records for sound vs. collecting just to collect is that records that sound the best may not and often are not the most desirable or valuable from a collecting standpoint. A few years back when I was just starting to write about records, I set out to fill an obvious hole in my collection. I had been obsessed with David Bowie for decades, but never owned a vinyl copy of his masterpiece, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. I was reading everything I could in the blogosphere about pressings of this record and one view left an impression on me – that it was likely the very first UK pressing of the record which best expressed the artist’s “vision” for the album. Of course, the first UK pressing as first pressings, UK especially, often are, was by far the most expensive one out there.

Nonetheless, I set out to find a first UK pressing in good condition and that I could afford – no small feat for someone unused to paying more than $20 for a record, let alone just to have it shipped. When a seller in the UK steered me toward an early but not 1st pressing Ziggy that, in his view and that of another experienced record dealer colleague, was better sounding, I bit. I wrote about this version in one of my very first posts where I did a shoot out of 4 different copies of Ziggy. If you’re interested in reading that post you can find it here.

A lot has changed since I wrote that post. My system, in particular, has improved substantially since, as has my ear. Still I’m glad I did that shoot out. It was good experience for training my ear and I am still satisfied with the post, even though I might think differently about those 4 records now.

At the time I wrote that Ziggy post I knew I had a ways to go in critically listening to and evaluating records. And sure enough, even after declaring a winner in that shoot out, dissatisfaction with my copies of Ziggy persisted. So a year later I bought a “super hot” copy from Better Records for a substantial sum. That copy, a green label UK RCA International reissue from 1980 is a monster and worth every penny, but if I knew 2 years ago when I was first searching for a good copy of Ziggy what I know now, I would have started by looking into the UK green label reissue on my own. And copies of that version are much cheaper than a first UK pressing.

Several of Bowie’s records were reissued by RCA in the UK in 1980, and a few were remastered by Dennis Blackham aka “Bilbo.”  I have found his versions, at least those I’ve heard, to be superb. These versions include my “hot stamper” of Ziggy and an even better sounding copy of Hunky Dory I located on my own (see my recent post on this record here). I have heard anecdotally that Blackham’s version of Heroes is also excellent. A green label reissue of Aladdin Sane that I own, while I’m not sure it was remastered by Blackham, still has much to recommend it.

So when I read in forums and on instagram that “the best” version of a record is definitely “the first pressing” I feel grateful that I now know what I know. I only wish I’d known it a little sooner. If you’re reading this and you’ve been fed this line of bull about first pressings always being the best, I would only say this: keep an open mind and remember that the only thing that can ultimately tell you if a record sounds good is your ears. Having said that, the only way you really know if a first pressing sounds the best is to have a copy and at least one later pressing or reissue to compare it to. Then even if the first pressing is the best sounding version you’ve at least done the due diligence to confirm it.

I’m of the mind that if you hear enough good sounding records, regardless of the titles or the pressings, then you know when you find a great copy of a particular title. It was immediately obvious to me that the UK green label copy of Hunky Dory I bought was special, but I also had a different copy that had already bested 3 other versions to compare it to and confirm my assumptions.

This brings me to what is perhaps the best piece of advice I can give any audiophile record collector looking for advice (you may not be in which case why are you still reading this?). That is, unless you are convinced beyond all doubts that you already have a great sounding copy of a record, get at least one more copy. It may be dumb luck to land a great sounding record by buying just one copy, but the only way you really know you’ve landed a gem is to play enough records of varying quality to know what makes any record sound great.

This approach to collecting has several huge advantages. First, it challenges your assumptions about how that particular record should sound. This is important because it makes you both a better audiophile and a better record collector. Over and over I’ve had the experience of thinking I had a good copy of and then, low and behold another copy of that record shows me how wrong I was. I’ve also had the experience of discovering that a copy I already owned, one I wasn’t sure was all that great, was in fact, GREAT!  And the only way I figured that out was to hear the sonic flaws in the other copy, or copies and realize that the copy I already had really sounded the way that record should.

I’ve just recently had this experience with a copy of The Rolling Stones’ Let it Bleed. I’ve owned this copy for a while, but have meanwhile I’ve been picking up other copies whenever I find them and shooting them out against this one. So far each one has only showed me how much better the one I already had sounds than the copies that have come and gone.

The second reason that buying at least one more copy of title is important is that it gives you an opportunity to train your ear by shooting out the copies you have, and this training in turn helps you to evaluate and find even more great sounding records! Of course, you have to enjoy doing shoot outs and they can be tedious. But if you’re not up to shooting out records then you’re not really and audiophile collector so, feel free to move on.

Lastly, buying at least one more copy of a record, even if you think you already have that title nailed, will if nothing else increase your chances of find an EVEN BETTER sounding copy! My Ziggy shoot out is a great example of this. At the time I thought I knew what a great sounding copy of Ziggy sounded like. It turned out that I didn’t really. And I wouldn’t have discovered that if I hadn’t kept pressing on (no pun intended).

So as much as I’d like to layer this post with juicy shortcuts for finding the best sounding vinyl pressings you’ve been coveting, my best advice appears to me that you need to do some work to find them. Still, here are a few more tips that I find accelerate the search.

• Consider whether the country of origin rule applies: Just because a band is from England doesn’t ALWAYS mean that the UK pressing sounds the best (or US bands and US pressings, or German bands, etc), but it sometimes does. If you can figure out which pressings are made from dub tapes then you can avoid buying any copies that have absolutely NO CHANCE of sounding good. Jimi Hendrix, for instance, was American, but he first achieved success in the UK and Are You Experienced was recorded and first released there. The UK version is generally considered far superior to any US copy.

 

• Pay attention to mastering credits:  The “BILBO’ mastering credit is a case in point, but there are other great mastering engineers to pay attention to and while the mastering credit of a skilled vinyl cutter in the runout is by no means a guarantee that that record will sound better than another without the credit, it does often help you narrow down the options. Led Zeppelin’s fourth album, for example, was mastered by George “Porky” Peckham, and the copies that have his mastering credit in the runout are generally considered superior to those that don’t.

 

• Better Records is a great resource, even if you don’t buy their records!: There’s a lot of controversy out there about whether Better Records is good for record collecting, or not. What’s not often talked about in the blogosphere, at least as far as I know, is how much information they provide, FOR FREE, both explicitly and implicitly, on their website and on the associated blog ontherecord.co. Let’s face it, Tom Port and company are in possession of the closest thing on the planet to an encyclopedic knowledge of vinyl pressings of a rather extensive catalog of titles. Their websites regularly mention which country origin they prefer and why, and they often state in no uncertain terms which pressings to avoid. And despite the fact that they withhold the juiciest pressing info as proprietary, as they should, I wold argue that they provide a essentially free public service with the info they do provide, and that info will help collectors narrow down their search in signifiant ways. Let’s face it, even knowing whether a certain country’s pressings are superior to another is a big help!

 

• Better Records is a great resource WHEN YOU DO buy their records: If you’ve read some of my other posts you know it’s no secret that I buy records from BR. I can understand some of the criticisms of their business model, but for the most part I am convinced that they are an extremely helpful and valuable resource for acquiring great sounding pressings. Some collectors might think it’s cheating to buy from them, but to those folks I would say this – when you play a few of their records and you start to understand the level of quality of what they sell, it helps you find better sounding copies yourself by providing an invaluable resource for training your ear to know what a great record sounds like. And when you start to know the sound of a great sounding record, it helps you make better choices about upgrading your system so that your great sounding records sound sensational!

 

• Finally, get more than one copy of the records that matter to you: I know I’ve already said this above, but it is essential. And even when you think you have the unbeatable copy already, why not challenge your assumptions and learn something?

Audiophile equipment and audiophile record collecting are both ridiculous rabbit holes, but if you’re still reading this you know as well as I do that there’s something so exciting, no, THRILLING, about both that you wouldn’t ever consider giving them up. My opinion is that the only way to even semi-justify the time and expense of these hobbies is to approach them as an opportunity for learning and growth. And I think that approaching these hobbies as a way to grow and not just as source of pure sensory indulgence is perhaps the only way to escape from the audiophile rabbit hole.

BEST OF LUCK!