200 gram lps

[spzretent]

I have become addicted to these. I had a credit slip at a local record shop and used part of it on Neil Young at Massey Hall. Unbeknownst to me this is rated as one of the best audiophile lps ever. So I picked up a few more:
Neil Young- Live at Canterbury House
Neil Young- Greatest Hits
Graham Nash- Songs For Beginners
Big Star- #1 Record
Beck- Sea Change(180 gram)
Who- Quadrophenia
Muddy Waters- Folk Singer
and have a few more on order
David Crosby- If I Could Only Remember My Name
Big Star- Radio City
These records do sound superb. I dont have an audiophile set up really. Dual 505-2 turntable, vintage NAD 7080 reciever, Polk Monitor 60 speakers. The difference is incredible.
I do my research as some of these have horrible reviews like some Who, Peter Gabriel and Led Zeppelin lps.
To fund this I have sold tons of Cds, box sets etc(rationalization-which is always necessary ).
Has anyone else ventured into the realm of audiophile vinyl?

[jadams501]

I see audiophile equipment as the equivalent of gourmet food. It would take me a great deal of time and money to develop a real appreciation of it, and then it would mean that what I'm used to would then seem inadequate.

So more power to you, but I'm gonna stick with CDs, Mp3s, and my ipod.

[toomilk]

I don't have any 200 gram LPs, but I don't like how 180 gram vinyl is now the cure-all, faux-audiophile weight. "don't worry....it's 180 gram vinyl! you'll love our shit reissue.....it's 180 gram vinyl!"

[spzretent]

That is what they are trying to sell people. Then they source it from a CD which makes it sound just as flat.
However, the Neil Young Lps and many of the other 180 gram and 200 gram reissues are sourced from the original analog tapes and thus makes a big difference. A lot of the 180 gram lps are bs.
Certain records just sound so good this way.
I guess we all have to pick and choose where we want to spend our hard earned money. Mine is not food,wine or clothes. This is my splurge. And beer I guess.
It doesn't stop me from listening to other stuff at all. Cds, lps,

[TheWarmth]

I have the Neil Young Live @ Massey Hall and Live @ The Fillmore albums, which I love. In general, I find that I'm usually happy with the way vinyl sounds. You can definitely tell the difference between LPs and cds/mp3s. However, I have not really found myself comparing different types of vinyl pressings. I do enjoy the physical vibe of thick vinyl, but my understanding is that it is not the weight/thickness of an LP that results in the high audio quality. It's the mastering (as you mentioned Alan ... sourced from the original analog tapes) and cutting of the lacquers that make the difference. I believe Neil uses a very expensive pressing plant in Japan and that's why his new records are so expensive.

[Greeny]

A few years ago I bought the Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab box set of Sinatra LPs. I was totally blown away by the quality, even though the real Sinatra afficionados moan about two or three of the pressings in that box.

I just bought the MFSL reissue of Sinatra at the Sands - bloody hell, this thing is like 250gm wieght and it sounds extraordinary, you can virtually hear people on the back tables making their drinks orders to the cocktail waitresses. The only way to hear that concert more clearly would be to invent a time machine and turn up on the night.

I fear more MFSL reissues may make their expensive way into my collection before long...

[spzretent]

Greeny:
Do your research. Some are fantastic ie: Beck- Sea Change. Some I have no idea why they doe them ie: Pixies. Not sure how an audiophile pressing is going to help it. Neil Young at Massey Hall is another gem.
I found one of those Sinatra MFSL boxes at a thrift shop. Its missin 3 or 4 lps and whomever owned didn't take care of many of the records in it. Something I just dont understand if you are goung to drop HUGE money. I thought i'd resell it but I just kept it. Id love one of the Beatles or Stones MFSL boxes. I just dont have that kind of money to play with.

[redcloud]

Just saw this thread for the first time.

I buy vinyl whenever I can and have done so since I was a young kid saving my pocket money. I would push dad's lawnmower around the neighborhood and mow lawns or I would wash cars. With the cash I would go to Record Town and spend it all on albums. Back then it was usually Kiss, Grand Funk, Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith LP's. As I grew older I got a job selling Coca-Cola at the old Cleveland Municipal Stadium where the Browns play. If I had a good day I could make $200 but more often than not it was $75-$100. Still, that was a shit load of money for a kid. I would buy, buy, buy records. My youth was spent thumbing around record bins and even today I love to go in some of the better record stores in town and hang out, thumb around, absorb the smells and maybe buy an album or two. I own thousands of LP's...most are original 60's pressings but I also still have all those old 70's hard rock LP's I bought as a kid. I'm a lot more conservative these days with my purchases but when I see something I want I will splurge.

Keeping in mind the inferior technology back then as well as the lack of appreciation in those days for taking care of records (remember the old turntables where you could just load another LP on and it would fall on top of the stack while still turning then rub itself all over the LP that was below it?), many of my old albums still sound surprisingly good. Even the ones where I used such a crappy turntable that I had to tape a penny on the tone arm to keep it from skipping sound ok these days. And none of them were recorded on 200g nor 180g vinyl. Up until the 70's all albums were recorded on a decent weight but then a horrible thing happened. Record companies decided to use less vinyl to save money and also to get longer playing time on the LP's (to cut costs on what should have been a double LP). These LP's degraded quicker and they had a much flatter sound than most records before them. But, on the whole...whether stereo or mono, if one has a clean pressing and a good turntable with an even better cartridge the LP should sound excellent and much, much better than a cd.

I do own a handful of 180g reissues. They were once hyped as the way to go and it seemed that almost every reissue company in the 90's/early 2000's were putting their product out on 180 virgin. Yet, as Alan says...many had no access to original analog master tapes and they sourced it either from digital sources or even vinyl sources. So, what was the point? Obviously, the point was to get your money.

My personal feeling about many of these new technologies is somewhat cynical. I do believe that many in the record business see that there is a whole new generation who didn't grow up with vinyl, yet they want to buy it. The companies are tapping into this generation and making a lot of money by over charging for older albums that had massive press amounts as well as new found technology such as 180g or even 200g virgin vinyl. For example, just the other day I was in the record shop and I saw a bunch of 180g Brian Jonestown vinyl reissues selling for $40-$50! Crazy money.

BUT...does it REALLY sound that much better? Assuming one has a decent turntable and cartridge, if I were to put on a mint condition original copy of "Blonde on Blonde" then I put on a 180g reissue of the same album would you be able to tell a difference? I'm not convinced one would.

Long winded, cynical response but I guess what I am saying is...I think all this heavy weight vinyl pressing stuff is just another marketing gimmick. The heavier the vinyl the more likely it is also to be warped in the pressing stages or recording speeds being slightly off or even off center. BUT, that is not to say I would want to go back to the old 70's thin vinyl. That too was just the record companies trying to save money and the products suffered considerably. I would, however, rather save my pennies and spend it on the hardware. The better the turntable and its tonearm and needle the better the music will sound. Period.

[TheWarmth]

Nice post, Redcloud! When we pressed the first Soft Speaker EP on vinyl, we used Bill Smith Custom Records. When I asked Bill about the weight of the records he said that they press for quality, not weight. So, I do agree with you that in many ways the whole "180 Gram Audiophile" thing is a bit of a marketing gimmick. That's not to say that they aren't nice pressings, but as I said before, I don't think weight = quality.

[spzretent]

Its very clear weight doesn't equal quality. Its all in the transferring and mastering. The heavier the vinyl the quieter its is....usually. I would not consider myself an audiophile. At least not like these internet audiophile nerds are. BUT, I do read their reviews. Which is how I choose what I purchase(assuming I like the record in question).
Capitol Records are notorious for crap 180gr reissues.
Many of the ones I purchased are by Classic Records and these were limited pressings. The crazy thing is if you search ebay prices will range from $40 to $300 as the company was sold and they are all out of print now. However there is a company selling them online for $33 to $50(doubles). Which is 1/3 more than the regular reissues> And they do sound better. No question. At least the ones I have.

[spzretent]

Addendum:
I replaced my turntable today with a high end Sota Moonbeam that was sitting in my basement. I forgot how basic this turntable is. No frills what so ever. Just a great durable table. No idea what I was thinking not using it all along.
The results w/the 180 and 200 gram vinyl are pretty spectacular. Particularly with the My Morning Jacket- At DAwn I picked up today.

[olan]

When we moved to australia from the UK in 1994 I sold off about have of my collection, keeping only the good/rare material. Still about 500 of my records went "missing" in transit (e.g. all my Spacemen 3, a lot of my Spiritualized, almost my entire factory records collection [which was very nearly complete] etc...). From memory I got less than a pound per record back from the insurance,.....bastards. Each of the companies iinvolved in the shipping blamed the other so there was no hope of any good outcome.

Anyway, we left the rest of my LPs and my turntable (a Rega) in storage for about 10 years and concentrated on buying CDs. About 3 years ago I unpacked all the remaining vinyl and my record player and have almost totally given up buying CDs since then. (I did spend money on a better turntable, phono stage and cartridge) I have to say that the quality of some of the 180g reissues is pretty poor (eg the Spacemen 3 records from last year) and the prices are outrageous, but when you get a decently mastered/pressed album (the Wooden Shjips recent releases or the Great Pop Supplement singles are great examples) the difference over CD is massive. Also I had forgotten how I enjoy the peripherals with vinyl e.g. 12 inch album artwork and the whole ritual of playing an album, cleaning it and turning it over half way.....

Finally, I do think making an album to last for two approximately 20 minutes sides made for more coherent work. The 70-odd minute length of the CD leads to a lot of padding at times....

[redcloud]

Finally, I do think making an album to last for two approximately 20 minutes sides made for more coherent work. The 70-odd minute length of the CD leads to a lot of padding at times....

Agreed! I am also not a fan of the "bonus tracks", which tend to be tagged on most cd's these days. There is a reason why tracks were chosen to be on albums and why they were edited off. No matter how good the b-sides/alternate takes/unreleased songs are when these songs are tagged on at the end it disrupts the entire flow of the album. That is also not to say I do not want to hear them...of course I do. I would just prefer to have them on an 'odds & sods' collection than added as an afterthought to fill space.

[alan_cohaul]

That is what they are trying to sell people. Then they source it from a CD which makes it sound just as flat.
However, the Neil Young Lps and many of the other 180 gram and 200 gram reissues are sourced from the original analog tapes and thus makes a big difference. A lot of the 180 gram lps are bs.
Certain records just sound so good this way.
I guess we all have to pick and choose where we want to spend our hard earned money. Mine is not food,wine or clothes. This is my splurge. And beer I guess.
It doesn't stop me from listening to other stuff at all. Cds, lps,

Agreed--you hit the nail on the head! It depends on how the records were done. I'm never quite sure exactly how the records were done.....an improperly done 180 gram vinyl will only sound as good as what's put into it. It's not just vinyl that I have that issue with, it's audio in general--remasters, remixes, etc, etc.....they're only as good as the weakest cog in the system, and there's so many avenues that can go wrong (bad ears supervising remixes/ reissues/ re-pressings, etc). 180 gram is great when done right, but that's also assuming that the original production/ mixes were good to begin with. Some of my favorite records actually have flat mixes, and it's the songs and music themselves that redeems it.....ie: it doesn't matter about SST albums, most of those recordings (especially Spot's stuff) suffered from bad mixes to begin with.

[acrylicnoise]

I've been buying "audiophile" pressings of albums I love and they're great. I think the trick is, as has been mentioned, they need to be pressed from an analogue source, not a digital one. Sometimes I don't fully understand it when it's a Flaming Lips record and I'm sure they use piles of digital sounds, but their records sound fantastic on vinyl.

I've recently been buying up and listening to Wilco's albums and they're so great and clear on vinyl (they also come in plastic sleeves which I appreciate). I've also been collecting all Tom Waits' records because he's my all-time favourite and they're all quality. I think some artists are more hands on and maybe have more control over the quality of the releases.

The weight of the vinyl has fooled me too, but at the end of the day, it's nice to have more weight because it feels more substantial. Not only that, but you get less warped records (not to say some don't come with a bit of a wobble).

I'm loving my discovery of music again on vinyl, it gives you chance to sit down and feel like you're interacting with the thing rather than seeing it amongst lists and lists of mp3s on your iPod and listening to far less clarity. I never heard Cat Stevens before I bought the reissues of his 3 major albums and truly heard the incredible quality of the recordings.

I'm looking forward to Pure Phase and Laser Guided Melodies. I didn't notice a post about those two reissues. I've preordered them on amazon.