The other day I had the pleasure of joining a great group of guys with a similar passion for audio and audiophile record collecting on consummate gentleman Steve Westman’s Youtube channel, The Audiophiles. Steve has a regular feature on his channel he calls the “Audiophile Roundtable” that addresses various topics related to audiophile record collecting. On this occasion, he invited me to join a discussion of the question, “why do some records sound better?”, which later morphed into “do audiophiles represses sound better?”, which then became a discussion of the question of whether audiophile reissues sound better than original pressings, or if the “OG’s” sound better.

Steve’s roundtables tend to focus on new or upcoming releases of contemporary audiophile records, such as those from Mobile Fidelity, Analog Productions, Craft and others. I never buy these types of records anymore, and I only have the opportunity to play them and form an opinion about them when they’re loaned to me. I had mentioned this to Steve in an email, and I imagine this was why he chose this particular topic. A discussion of whether modern reissues sound better or worse than their vintage counterparts helped bring me into a conversation to which I might otherwise have had little to add.

Inevitably, a conversation about how good modern reissues sound raises the question of whether some of these audiophile reissues improve on the “original.” Is this new MoFi better than the “original” or does the “original” sound better? This question frustrates me to no end! Invariably, it devolves into those present gravitating toward their preferred points of view while a vortex forms in the middle in which only the central question is treated as relevant.

Meanwhile, the more nuanced, important and frankly obvious questions go unasked and unanswered. Do the originals sound better? Sometimes. Maybe. Which originals are we talking about? In what country were they pressed? With what stampers? At what pressing plant? What about early reissues? Maybe those are better than the originals? These secondary and tertiary questions matter a lot and rarely get addressed.

But these questions really ought to be addressed, and I’d like to explain why with an example. I’ve probably spent more time with Sonny Rollins’s Way Out West than any other jazz record, and  I’ve written about it often. I also had a copy sitting near me during the roundtable the other day, which I proceeded to pull it out at one point to serve as a concrete example of a record that, even with a copy that isn’t the best of the best, can deliver a listening experience that comes as close to a “live in the studio, right there in the room” experience as you’re ever likely to find.

Are the originals of Way Out West the best sounding? Not necessarily. Not if by original you mean the mono copies with the original black labels. I’ve heard one of those (not a very large sample size I realize but we’ll get to that issue very soon) and it didn’t sound all that good to me. Based on that I would have to say the originals are not the best.

But there are also stereo copies with the black label, are those the originals? And some of those stereo versions, like the mono versions, have different stamper numbers? Which ones are the originals exactly? There’s a “D1.” That must be the true original right? After all, the mono stampers appear to only go as low as “D2,” so it would seem the “D1” stereo black labels are the originals right?

I suppose if your priority as a collector is collecting “true originals,” whatever that means, these details matter. But we’re collecting for the best sound, are we not? Therefore does whether a record is a “true original” really matter? Wouldn’t the more important question be, which stampers are the best sounding? Assuming that’s the case then is it the “true” original black labels with “D1” stampers that sound the best? Or is it the black labels with “D2” stampers? Maybe those are the killer ones. But wait, there’s also a green label version that has the same “D2” stampers. Does that one sound just as good as the black label? Better maybe? Does the label even matter?

And what about the yellow labels? There’s a version pressed at Monarch with yellow labels with “D2” stampers. Does that one sound just as good as the black label with “D2”? Or the green label? Or maybe “D3” is better. Then again maybe not. I heard a yellow label with “D3” stampers and the first side sounded terrible, although the second side was very good. I’ve also heard a yellow label with “D4” and it was excellent. Maybe “D4” is the one to get? I wasn’t crazy about “D6.” I’ve never heard “D5” so that one might be killer. Hard to say.

ANYWAY, I imagine you get my point, but just in case you haven’t, here it is – this question of does audiophile reissue “A” sound better than the “original” is an absurd question, because what we might mean by the word “original” can mean so many things that the designation becomes totally meaningless! Not to mention the fact that, as vintage pressing of a record go, the originals might not be the best one to use for comparison. I can think of quite a few records where an early or even later reissue sounded better than the originals. In fact, I held one of those up, Roxy Music‘s debut, at the end of the roundtable.

During our conversation, one of my fellow guests, Nathan, a guy I’ve formed a good impression of and would love to get to know better, talked about Mobile Fidelity’s Onestep of one of my favorite albums, Blood, Sweat & Tears. Nathan made the bold statement that the MoFi Onestep was “the best version” of this record out there, based on the fact that, to his ears, it was much better than his “original pressing.”

What Nathan didn’t mention was which original pressing he has, and let me tell you, there are A LOT of them! I’ve heard several and they all sound different. Some of them are just okay and some are stupendous. I’ve also heard the MoFi Onestep 45 rpm version and, while it has some qualities to recommend it, it also has some issues that I wrote about when I reviewed that version on this site and which, in my view, make the right originals clearly superior.

Anyway, not to pick on Nathan, but his claim illustrates my larger point perfectly. Those of us in a position to recommend certain versions of certain records, whether they be vintage pressings or modern reissues, need to be clearer with our readers / listeners about what basis on which we’re making our recommendations, MYSELF INCLUDED! And I’d say the first thing we should all do is stop saying a particular reissue is better or worse than the “original” or the “OG'” and start saying it’s better than “the original copy or vintage pressing(s) I had to compare it to.”

Of course, this is not to mention that even different copies of the exact same pressing can sound vastly different from each other, a fact that throws an even bigger wrench into this whole business of comparing modern reissues to originals or vintage pressings. I’ve heard different copies of the very same pressing where one was clearly better sounding than the other(s). Let’s face it, is there anyone out there reviewing modern records that when comparing it to an “original” compares it to even 2 versions of that original? If there is, PLEASE TELL ME!” I would like to read their reviews.

In the meantime, please, consider what I’ve said here the next time you read a record review that compares a modern reissue, or really any record, to an original or frankly to any other version, and that goes for my reviews just as much as the next guy’s. The only way to really know if a record sounds bad, or good, or great, or fantastic is to play it and see for yourself.

Then, play other copies of the same record, and do some work on your stereo to make meaningful improvements. Then, further down this long and goofy road that we audiophiles travel, play that record again. You’ll be amazed by what you learn.