I really like your definition of “Audiophile” as something that makes your setup sound better. I believe the official industry definition of “Audiophile” is “2-5 times the original price.” 😮
A subjective definition of audiophile. If it works for you, and you like it, it is all audiophile, imho. I'm half deaf so mono audiophile.😂 I do love and agree with your definition as well, Sir. Thanks for sharing these albums with us all. Some fine music right there. I will seek them out on CD. Love the menagerie on Abbey Road. Good genetic stock right there. 'Fortunate Son' resonates very closely with me and our African confict, with many American Vietnam vets that joined us.
Discog must know... but I know what I had prior to when I moved to England in 1970. I had a cassette of Tom Jones Live in Las Vegas and Willy and the Poor Boys. I played it came out of the sky over and over.
@@jameswheeler8588 thanks for double checking. My time line and location might be slightly off. We moved around a lot. But I did have a cassette! I promise!
My favorite audiophile records aren't necessarily audiophile so much as they sound good AND I can't find them on streaming (I have Amazon Music Unlimited) because they're so out of print. Off the top of my head, a record I've almost worn out myself and it was an old sealed 'new' copy when I got it, Caravanserai by Santana. Also Muddy Waters, the Chess Singles Collection. Double album with all of his A side singles on Chess. 10 songs on each side. 40 songs starting with Rollin' Stone recorded in 1950. I have a Savoy Brown album called Blue Matter. My friend the Savoy Brown "fan" didn't believe me because it's not listed on Amazon Music.
Worst sounding (not K-Tel) record in my collection: Caddyshack soundtrack (Columbia). Early low-res digital master. Best sounding: Donald Fagen The Nightfly. Also early digital but fantastic dynamics and separation.
Yes that debut album by Billy Cobham is Audiophile material, Tommy Bolin guitar's incredible, and Ken Scott did a fantastic recording and mixing job by using a lot of Neumann mics to capture all the parts of the drums. A great album for those who like Jazz fusion and the sound by Jan Hammer.
I bought the album “In between dreams” by Jack Johnson for about €30,-. It,s a regular price, there was nothing “special pressing, audiophile, mastered by blah blah on there. When i put it on my turntable, it just sounded amazing! Dead quiet, clear and epic dynamics. Now it’s one of my favorite albums! I really like it!!
I personally don’t own a $100 record but I do value a good pressing. I can honestly say my setup, modest at best, sounds better than the same track from Spotify with a $1,300 streamer and DAC. There is just something about vinyl. Keep rocking and rolling. 🤘🏼🎸🤘🏼
@@westernartifact580 I have a cheap Blue Ray player. My rig is a Cambridge Audio CXA81 and their CXN-V2 DAC and streamer. I have considered Tidal and others like it, however I keep buying vinyl and CDs so hard to justify that and Spoitfy too. I wouldn't have Spotify if my teenage daughters didn't want it. :-) But Dad gets to listen to new songs so it's a win/win. What I like, I usually buy it on CD and if I really like it, I get it on vinyl.
I’ve been dipping my toes into the Jazz realm. The Verve Acoustic Sound Series releases of Coltrane’s A Love Supreme and Ella and Louie are 2 of my favorites. Blue Note’s Tone Poet series has some good ones too. Really enjoying what you’re doing here.
Thanks for the support, Thomas! I got into jazz during the pandemic. I have a pretty solid stable of BN Tone Poet and Classic reissues. Hey if you can find Kenny Dorham "Matador" on Impex... it swings!
Great video and great stories. If i were to make a video talking about the best-sounding records that I do have in my collection, I would pick out some Mofi LP's such as American Beauty by the Grateful Dead and Japanese vinyl pressings of live albums e.g., Exit... Stage Left by Rush, and of course Deep Purple's Made in Japan my all-time favorite😊 I discovered Erykah Badu as a young teenager on the '99 project "Chant Down Babylon" featuring Bob Marley's remixes/"virtual" duets with Lauryn Hill, Aerosmith, Busta Rhymes and many others. A long time ago...
Anything that are bright to your ears, any vocals that have sibilance and sound annoying, is definitely not Audiophile. But again the master tape got to be good for a record to sound like a piece of Audiophile. CCR music are definitely Audiophile material for Fantasy and their engineers did a great job except their debut album.
In the last two years, I basically stopped buying reissue vinyl, except maybe a few audiophile jazz reissues, simply because old releases and old reissues sound better. I simply can't stand this new audiophile sound where the compressor raises the quiet parts of the music and lowers the louder parts. That sounds terrible to me, especially when they use equalizers too much and disturb everything.
Two great audiophile lp's from the 80's without hype stickers are the Oscar winning 'Round Midnight". The other is its essential companion "The other side of 'Round Midnight". Both of these have a live jazz club atmospheric sound without an audience. The pressings are surprisingly quiet and dynamically uncompressed. Now and then mass produced vinyl produces outstanding audiophile grade pressing. Other fine examples are Steely Dan's Gaucho and Paul Winter Consort's, Icarus which the late Sir George Martin called his favorite, above all the lp's he ever recorded.
New subscriber! Being in Canada, one record that took some effort and expense for me to acquire (I special ordered it), that is all analog and that I do not hear anyone mentioning is L.A. musician Bart Davenport's 20th anniversary of his album Game Preserve. It's a recent discovery for me and I just love the songwriting and the pressing. Despite being pressed on "mimosa marbled" vinyl, it sounds great! This brings me to my own experience and opinion on colored vinyl. If pressed with the care and precision, it can sound just as good as black. It's just that for the last decade, many indie labels used it as a way to sell "limited' color versions and were pumping them out to capitalize on the vinyl resurgence. While I've experienced noisy black and colored vinyl, I think as interest has grown, the overall QA has improved as expertise once again increases in the art of pressing (we lost a lot of pressing experience in the last 30 years). The exception seems to be "glow in the dark" vinyl and picture discs (none of which I own save for an Ozzy/Lita Ford Close My Eyes Forever picture disc that I picked up at thrift for $1 ☺), but even maybe those formulations have improved...I'm just not interested.
Thanks for the notes! You will find as you watch my channel I will make many generalizations like that😊! I do have some quiet-ish colored vinyl. Now check this out... I think solid colors are quieter than translucent colors. Fight me! Thanks for watching!
Yeah Miles Davis Kind of Blue audio file pressings 100 bucks a piece my buddy bought three when it came out they're all garbage a lot of noise even after cleaning noise they're junkFrom Chad
(I can tell a radio guy when i hear one...) Nice vid. And you're right about the Cars on Rhino. It's absolutely amazing. Moving in Stereo almost brought me to tears.
Fogerty WON the copyright suit, but he had a long battle for legal fees that was appealed to the Supreme Court, which they ultimately ruled in his favor.
Good analogy,a record that makes your system sound better. One that stands out to me is a band called Smith debut on Dunhill. What city are you in ? Dallas is north of me too .
@@UnitedStatesofAnalog Glad to help. The same thing happened on the Autosport channel a few days ago. Maybe coincidence, maybe not. FWIW, it's not so bad on laptop speakers but tough on a sound bar.
Bob, Creedence was awesome. John Fogerty’s voice was killer. Listen to “Long as I can see the Light”. What a vocal! Great job and great choices. Abbey Road is also an Audiophile album. Btw, your mic was a bit over modulated. I had to turn it way down.
XTC - English Settlement, 2LP UK pressing sounds beautifully to me. All albums by Tom Petty and Heartbreakers sounds amazing. Yesterday I was listening Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Trilogy, UK pressing 1973 Label is Manticore - K 43505, sounds amazing, it just sounds natural. Steely Dan abum Gaucho mastered by Robert Ludwig sounds great. The Clash Sandinista, Holland pressing sounds great too. The best pressings of Pink Floyd The Dark Side Of The Moon and the Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band are pressings by italian GN Records and sound amazing.
One of my favorite audiophile albums is Bill Berry And His Ellington All-Stars "For Duke" direct to disc recording, that I purchased back in late 70's or early 80's. This album makes my system soar. Just a beautiful sounding album.
Hi Bob, longtime listener of yours here. I've been deep into the high performance analog playback world for a long time. I love that you're doing this! One of my favorite audiophile LPs is the Mobile Fidelity pressing of Kiko, by Los Lobos. It takes you on an hour long ride that you won't forget. Please seek it out if you don't already have it. I use a Klimax level Linn LP12 with a Koetsu Moving Coil. I'm curious what table and cartridge you are using.
Ha 2nd comment for your algorithm. You can probably guess my age. When I was a kid my best friend's bedroom was in a basement and he shared his room with one of his older brothers, who had a record palyer and every Creedence album (as worn out as they could be but we didn't care, we were 12). ANd a full set of drums (my friend was in band). Dude those were the friggin days. I learned how to play Wipe Out, Mike learned how to play like Doug Clifford. He ended up being a heavy equipment operator but he played in blues, rock, and country bands on weekends for years.
Great video. Just subscribed. Greetings from Europe, Germany 🇩🇪✌️. This channel is going to be big! Oh btw I'd love to see a rig rundown, where you're presenting your equipment because I saw a beautiful Geshelli Labs sitting in the background 😎
My main system is a MoFi Studiodeck table with top Mastertracker cart, to Technics SU-G700 integrated( I know, it's digital... but it slaps!), to Klipsch Forte IVs. Also a Marantz CD player into a Geshelli J2 AKM DAC when needed. components around the house!
I've been listening to vinyl for decades I never came across this term audiophile vinyl before this past year. These are records. Let's not get too fancy about it. And records can't love sound. If you want to create categories, then let's just describe the quality of the pressing in factual terms. Half speed mastered, as you said, for one example. And how could a record make your gear sound better? An amplifier has no sound unless a source is connected to it. The term puts me off and I'm not even new to this hobby
I don't know if I wanna get into the "audiophile" thing, but I do like your description. I've always regarded the hype stickers as purely marketing tools, and been of the opinion that just because it says it on the sticker doesn't necessarily make it so. Records are a variable experience, some are incredible, some are terrible, there's everything in between, and thus has it always been. There are some artists who do seem to consistently produce great sounding records, first one that springs to mind from more recent times is Steven Wilson, both his solo stuff and the albums he's done with his band Porcupine Tree are bloody excellent sound quality. I have a couple of different versions of some of that material and can't really tell any difference between them, they're all top notch. Steven Wilson has a reputation for being a bit of a perfectionist, he may well be nit-picky to work with but boy is it worth it. If modern prog is your thing you can't beat SW. As some others have mentioned, Steely Dan records are all pretty much fantastic, and I know those fellas also had a perfectionist reputation, and once again, the results make it worth it. Another one I could add is Sting. His first three solo albums are super clean sounding and the balance of everything is just bang on. It doesn't matter how loud you turn those up they just sound better the louder they are, and are a good way to test out a system because the recording isn't falling over when the SPL starts to get up there. I've always thought the Talk Talk albums sounded fantastic. Those guys are credited with many great things, essentially being the first "post rock" band (a genre where Radiohead sits pretty squarely these days), they were fantastically innovative and not really appreciated in their time for how good they were, and of course how influential they were to become. They were just too far ahead of their time, we weren't ready for Talk Talk when they started getting experimental. Part of why they are so revered now is how good those records sound. Try and find originals though, the modern reissues are a bit noisy which is disappointing. Australian band Powderfinger recorded an album back in 1996 called Double Allergic, it was the album that broke them into the mainstream and they became a household name after that, at least in Australia anyway. Their huge international success came later I think, but Double Allergic was the one that started it. Originally it wasn't anything special, those 1996 presses are virtually unobtainable now and fetch STUPID money, and don't actually sound that great. A mate of mine had one and Side B was pressed off-centre which was a bit galling considering how much they're worth now. But recently that album was re-mixed and remastered and reissued on white vinyl and YE GODS it's incredible, the bass is so much more open and full sounding. Find a copy of that somewhere and let its brilliance wash over you. It's not even expensive, I think I paid $40AUD. I've paid far more and gotten way worse, as have we all. I could go on, but this is an essay already. Thanks for reading.
This is such an interesting and entertaining way of doing a RUclips channel. Please keep it up, and I say a big 'yes please' to more content about your experiences like the Eryca Badu tale - maybe one per video would be a good teaser? Best sounding LP for me was Steve Miller Band's 'Italian X Rays' - when I first played the opening track, I really thought I was listening to a CD but better.
It is a shame. One less screw, stick a "Made in America " sticker on it and appeal to a misguided sense of nationalism. Because buying Japanese is un-American.
I still use an old pair of Mordaunt Short, before they were scooped up by Koreans, and an ADC direct drive from like 1975. Folk don't need to spend thousands. I sat in a room and listened to a £87,000 system from Naim. Then they ruined it with a Madonna track. British hifi utterly ruined by some 80s has been. Ther is no true American hifi brand. And that's strange. Celestion, British. Tannoy, British. Yamaha, Japanese. Dynaudio, Danish. M&K. Danish. Musical Fidelity. British. Now, McIntosh. American. Totally Scottish name but heh credit where its due. Perhaps do a small series of affordable hifi. I am old enough to remembering getting the bits was as important as the crap you listened to. An old NAD is worth n amount of streaming 128kbps mp3.
Alexa. Play the 12" version Belfast from Orbital. Or Pigs from Animals. Or The whole album of The Final Cut. The Wall. Right at the end of the 4th side." Isn't this... "and the first side of record 1. Where we left off". You can't hear that on modern stuff. Like on Dark side of the moon. There is no dark side. As a matter of fact its all dark. I challenge you to find an smplifier. TURNTABLE. and a pair of speakers for under £250. And 1 record.
Yeah, my Cars LP had corner dings. I've had Ebay sellers use better shipping boxes than Rhino did. I won't be buying from them again until i've heard heard their shipping boxes are sturdier. One of my favorite hidden audiophile records is the 1st pressing of R.E.M. Reckoning, mastered at Sterling sound on translucent Quiex vinyl, sounds amazing.
The many hundreds of lp records in the London CS 6000 (Blueback) series in the late 1950s were all half speed mastered. They were classical music. I'm not sure if that is the first time anyone used the process or not. But half speed mastering goes back at least as far as the 1950s. The price was $2.99 an lp. Not $100 or way over $100. I know there's been inflation, but 8 times more; not 40 or 50 times more. Greed for the most part, not cost, is why audiophiles have to deal with those kind of prices.
@@UnitedStatesofAnalog I have that Rhino Cars pressing and the Alice In Chains is better. I'll bring it over as soon as you extend an invite to that jazz kissa bar
NO RECORD, no matter how good the vinyl is can be truly "audiophile"! ONLY CASSETTE tapes can be truly "audiophile" as this is the same system the masters were recorded on tape. 🙉 Great Job, Bob!
I really like your definition of “Audiophile” as something that makes your setup sound better. I believe the official industry definition of “Audiophile” is “2-5 times the original price.” 😮
Heard. Agreed. Price is no guarantee of quality these days!
A subjective definition of audiophile. If it works for you, and you like it, it is all audiophile, imho. I'm half deaf so mono audiophile.😂 I do love and agree with your definition as well, Sir. Thanks for sharing these albums with us all. Some fine music right there. I will seek them out on CD. Love the menagerie on Abbey Road. Good genetic stock right there. 'Fortunate Son' resonates very closely with me and our African confict, with many American Vietnam vets that joined us.
Thanks again, Simon! BTW The Cars The Cars is a GREAT headphone album! Check it out!
@UnitedStatesofAnalog certainly will do, Sir. Thank you
Thank you for your video. Discogs tells us that Willy and the Poor Boys was issued on cassette in the US only in 1983, not in the 60s.
Discog must know... but I know what I had prior to when I moved to England in 1970. I had a cassette of Tom Jones Live in Las Vegas and Willy and the Poor Boys. I played it came out of the sky over and over.
@@UnitedStatesofAnalog right on! Looks like there was a European cassette released in 1969. To share listening time with Tom Jones!
@@jameswheeler8588 thanks for double checking. My time line and location might be slightly off. We moved around a lot. But I did have a cassette! I promise!
My favorite audiophile records aren't necessarily audiophile so much as they sound good AND I can't find them on streaming (I have Amazon Music Unlimited) because they're so out of print. Off the top of my head, a record I've almost worn out myself and it was an old sealed 'new' copy when I got it, Caravanserai by Santana. Also Muddy Waters, the Chess Singles Collection. Double album with all of his A side singles on Chess. 10 songs on each side. 40 songs starting with Rollin' Stone recorded in 1950. I have a Savoy Brown album called Blue Matter. My friend the Savoy Brown "fan" didn't believe me because it's not listed on Amazon Music.
I think I have to go with the Time Out 45RPM as my number one. Rumours 45RPM is right up there too.
I have the Rumors 45. Pretty great!
If you love Willy and the Poor Boys, I recommend the AP cut or DCC pressing, both done by SH/KG. All analog and sounds incredible.
hi, new sub here, enjoying the content
Pretty sure a nicely remastered 24bit/96 recording on a decent system would floor any of those plastic discs
Heard! I should have done United States of Streaming! I miss all the trends!!!!😢
Worst sounding (not K-Tel) record in my collection: Caddyshack soundtrack (Columbia). Early low-res digital master. Best sounding: Donald Fagen The Nightfly. Also early digital but fantastic dynamics and separation.
Yes that debut album by Billy Cobham is Audiophile material, Tommy Bolin guitar's incredible, and Ken Scott did a fantastic recording and mixing job by using a lot of Neumann mics to capture all the parts of the drums. A great album for those who like Jazz fusion and the sound by Jan Hammer.
Hey, thanks for all that information on a record I'm glad I finally discovered! Thanks for watching!
I bought the album “In between dreams” by Jack Johnson for about €30,-. It,s a regular price, there was nothing “special pressing, audiophile, mastered by blah blah on there. When i put it on my turntable, it just sounded amazing! Dead quiet, clear and epic dynamics. Now it’s one of my favorite albums! I really like it!!
Unicorn record!
It's a great recording
I personally don’t own a $100 record but I do value a good pressing. I can honestly say my setup, modest at best, sounds better than the same track from Spotify with a $1,300 streamer and DAC. There is just something about vinyl. Keep rocking and rolling. 🤘🏼🎸🤘🏼
Agree with everything you've said! I'm glad you're enjoying your music! What are you listening to! Turn me on!
Yeah but Spotify? Have you heard redbook or higher through your streamer?
@@westernartifact580 I have a cheap Blue Ray player. My rig is a Cambridge Audio CXA81 and their CXN-V2 DAC and streamer. I have considered Tidal and others like it, however I keep buying vinyl and CDs so hard to justify that and Spoitfy too. I wouldn't have Spotify if my teenage daughters didn't want it. :-) But Dad gets to listen to new songs so it's a win/win. What I like, I usually buy it on CD and if I really like it, I get it on vinyl.
I’ve been dipping my toes into the Jazz realm. The Verve Acoustic Sound Series releases of Coltrane’s A Love Supreme and Ella and Louie are 2 of my favorites. Blue Note’s Tone Poet series has some good ones too. Really enjoying what you’re doing here.
Thanks for the support, Thomas! I got into jazz during the pandemic. I have a pretty solid stable of BN Tone Poet and Classic reissues. Hey if you can find Kenny Dorham "Matador" on Impex... it swings!
Great video and great stories. If i were to make a video talking about the best-sounding records that I do have in my collection, I would pick out some Mofi LP's such as American Beauty by the Grateful Dead and Japanese vinyl pressings of live albums e.g., Exit... Stage Left by Rush, and of course Deep Purple's Made in Japan my all-time favorite😊 I discovered Erykah Badu as a young teenager on the '99 project "Chant Down Babylon" featuring Bob Marley's remixes/"virtual" duets with Lauryn Hill, Aerosmith, Busta Rhymes and many others. A long time ago...
Anything that are bright to your ears, any vocals that have sibilance and sound annoying,
is definitely not Audiophile. But again the master tape got to be good for a record to sound
like a piece of Audiophile. CCR music are definitely Audiophile material for Fantasy and their engineers did a great job except their debut album.
That is a great picture of you and your boys. I played the crap out of my CCR Chronicle Cassette. It was on heavy rotation in the Plymouth Horizon.
In the last two years, I basically stopped buying reissue vinyl, except maybe a few audiophile jazz reissues, simply because old releases and old reissues sound better. I simply can't stand this new audiophile sound where the compressor raises the quiet parts of the music and lowers the louder parts. That sounds terrible to me, especially when they use equalizers too much and disturb everything.
Actually manufacturers declare that colored vynil may have higher noise floor, easy to check.
Two great audiophile lp's from the 80's without hype stickers are the Oscar winning 'Round Midnight". The other is its essential companion "The other side of 'Round Midnight". Both of these have a live jazz club atmospheric sound without an audience. The pressings are surprisingly quiet and dynamically uncompressed. Now and then mass produced vinyl produces outstanding audiophile grade pressing. Other fine examples are Steely Dan's Gaucho and Paul Winter Consort's, Icarus which the late Sir George Martin called his favorite, above all the lp's he ever recorded.
I'll check them out!
New subscriber! Being in Canada, one record that took some effort and expense for me to acquire (I special ordered it), that is all analog and that I do not hear anyone mentioning is L.A. musician Bart Davenport's 20th anniversary of his album Game Preserve. It's a recent discovery for me and I just love the songwriting and the pressing. Despite being pressed on "mimosa marbled" vinyl, it sounds great!
This brings me to my own experience and opinion on colored vinyl. If pressed with the care and precision, it can sound just as good as black. It's just that for the last decade, many indie labels used it as a way to sell "limited' color versions and were pumping them out to capitalize on the vinyl resurgence. While I've experienced noisy black and colored vinyl, I think as interest has grown, the overall QA has improved as expertise once again increases in the art of pressing (we lost a lot of pressing experience in the last 30 years). The exception seems to be "glow in the dark" vinyl and picture discs (none of which I own save for an Ozzy/Lita Ford Close My Eyes Forever picture disc that I picked up at thrift for $1 ☺), but even maybe those formulations have improved...I'm just not interested.
Thanks for the notes! You will find as you watch my channel I will make many generalizations like that😊! I do have some quiet-ish colored vinyl. Now check this out... I think solid colors are quieter than translucent colors. Fight me! Thanks for watching!
Being at Abbey Road was a great day and a bucket list item checked! Thanks for watching!
Yeah Miles Davis Kind of Blue audio file pressings 100 bucks a piece my buddy bought three when it came out they're all garbage a lot of noise even after cleaning noise they're junkFrom Chad
I like Analoque Productions a lot, but sometimes...
(I can tell a radio guy when i hear one...) Nice vid. And you're right about the Cars on Rhino. It's absolutely amazing. Moving in Stereo almost brought me to tears.
MIS is the standout track for sure! Thanks for watching, and happy vinyl hunting!
Fogerty WON the copyright suit, but he had a long battle for legal fees that was appealed to the Supreme Court, which they ultimately ruled in his favor.
I stand corrected! I knew it was a very long case... I'm glad he came out smelling like a rose! It was Old Man Down the Road and Green River, right?
Good analogy,a record that makes your system sound better. One that stands out to me is a band called Smith debut on Dunhill.
What city are you in ? Dallas is north of me too .
Austin-area! Thanks for your approval! See you back here soon!
I LOVE THIS FLEGLING CHANNEL!!!! WOWIE ZOWIE!!! EVEN MY TYPING IS EXCITED!!!
Thank you Sunny! Wait until you see my next video!
My Cars copy got to Killeen with just 1 corner ever so slightly dinged.
Congrats on getting a good copy. Truth be told I had very slight corner damage too... nothing to complain about!
Play 'em on any table except the $20 Chi-Fi MP3 converter.
For sure! That MP3 thing was a hot mess. But it was fun to play with it!
Thanks for the video. A little hot on the volume?
Ha! We're still dialing everything. This was my first edit on DaVinci. Thanks for the feedback!
@@UnitedStatesofAnalog Glad to help. The same thing happened on the Autosport channel a few days ago. Maybe coincidence, maybe not. FWIW, it's not so bad on laptop speakers but tough on a sound bar.
Bob, Creedence was awesome. John Fogerty’s voice was killer. Listen to “Long as I can see the Light”. What a vocal! Great job and great choices. Abbey Road is also an Audiophile album.
Btw, your mic was a bit over modulated. I had to turn it way down.
Thanks, we are dialing the audio! Appreciate your feedback! Please come back!
@@UnitedStatesofAnalog No problema there!
Incredible, amazing, fantastic!
Thanks a lot, jayjones! Keep checking in!
Yes it is Audiophile Tech Level 1971 :)
Avery good year for sure!
Thank you so much, Sir Crunch! Appreciate the support and I hope I can earn your loyalty!
XTC - English Settlement, 2LP UK pressing sounds beautifully to me. All albums by Tom Petty and Heartbreakers sounds amazing. Yesterday I was listening Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Trilogy, UK pressing 1973 Label is Manticore - K 43505, sounds amazing, it just sounds natural. Steely Dan abum Gaucho mastered by Robert Ludwig sounds great. The Clash Sandinista, Holland pressing sounds great too. The best pressings of Pink Floyd The Dark Side Of The Moon and the Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band are pressings by italian GN Records and sound amazing.
One of my favorite audiophile albums is Bill Berry And His Ellington All-Stars "For Duke" direct to disc recording, that I purchased back in late 70's or early 80's.
This album makes my system soar. Just a beautiful sounding album.
Came for the Bob stayed for the Fonseca
Thanks, Thomas! I appreciate you checking it out! Please return and see what we are up to!
Keep 'em coming! Enjoying the channel!
Thanks, will do! That makes me happy! See you soon in the USofA!
Hi Bob, longtime listener of yours here. I've been deep into the high performance analog playback world for a long time. I love that you're doing this!
One of my favorite audiophile LPs is the Mobile Fidelity pressing of Kiko, by Los Lobos. It takes you on an hour long ride that you won't forget. Please seek it out if you don't already have it.
I use a Klimax level Linn LP12 with a Koetsu Moving Coil. I'm curious what table and cartridge you are using.
BOB! If Wishes Were Fishes by Eric Bogle
Ha! I'll check that out!
Ha 2nd comment for your algorithm. You can probably guess my age. When I was a kid my best friend's bedroom was in a basement and he shared his room with one of his older brothers, who had a record palyer and every Creedence album (as worn out as they could be but we didn't care, we were 12). ANd a full set of drums (my friend was in band). Dude those were the friggin days. I learned how to play Wipe Out, Mike learned how to play like Doug Clifford. He ended up being a heavy equipment operator but he played in blues, rock, and country bands on weekends for years.
Great video. Just subscribed. Greetings from Europe, Germany 🇩🇪✌️. This channel is going to be big! Oh btw I'd love to see a rig rundown, where you're presenting your equipment because I saw a beautiful Geshelli Labs sitting in the background 😎
My main system is a MoFi Studiodeck table with top Mastertracker cart, to Technics SU-G700 integrated( I know, it's digital... but it slaps!), to Klipsch Forte IVs. Also a Marantz CD player into a Geshelli J2 AKM DAC when needed. components around the house!
I'll be reviewing the Geshelli Archel 3 Pro headphone amp soon! Greetings to Germany!
Very interesting, thank you! Looking forward to that review!
Well Bob when you said vinyl on the radio, I thought you meant the cover on the album. Not the record. 😂 I guess I’ve learned something new. 😂
I've been listening to vinyl for decades I never came across this term audiophile vinyl before this past year. These are records. Let's not get too fancy about it. And records can't love sound. If you want to create categories, then let's just describe the quality of the pressing in factual terms. Half speed mastered, as you said, for one example. And how could a record make your gear sound better? An amplifier has no sound unless a source is connected to it. The term puts me off and I'm not even new to this hobby
Good job Bobfather. Keep it up dude!
Thanks! Appreciate your support!!!
Liked and subscribed!
You are wise beyond your years! Welcome!
New Subscriber, like your channel, I am more Reel to Reel (10"). Agree 100% on Red vinyl. CCR.............so short lived. only 2 yrs.
Welcome aboard! Wish I still had my Sony 4-channel reel to reel!
Great video Bob! I need to go through my vinyl!
Nah... just send it to me!
@@UnitedStatesofAnalog when I’m dead you’ll get a random call
Great stuff Bob!
Thanks, David. We're grinding it out! We're in it to win it!
I don't know if I wanna get into the "audiophile" thing, but I do like your description. I've always regarded the hype stickers as purely marketing tools, and been of the opinion that just because it says it on the sticker doesn't necessarily make it so. Records are a variable experience, some are incredible, some are terrible, there's everything in between, and thus has it always been.
There are some artists who do seem to consistently produce great sounding records, first one that springs to mind from more recent times is Steven Wilson, both his solo stuff and the albums he's done with his band Porcupine Tree are bloody excellent sound quality. I have a couple of different versions of some of that material and can't really tell any difference between them, they're all top notch. Steven Wilson has a reputation for being a bit of a perfectionist, he may well be nit-picky to work with but boy is it worth it. If modern prog is your thing you can't beat SW.
As some others have mentioned, Steely Dan records are all pretty much fantastic, and I know those fellas also had a perfectionist reputation, and once again, the results make it worth it.
Another one I could add is Sting. His first three solo albums are super clean sounding and the balance of everything is just bang on. It doesn't matter how loud you turn those up they just sound better the louder they are, and are a good way to test out a system because the recording isn't falling over when the SPL starts to get up there.
I've always thought the Talk Talk albums sounded fantastic. Those guys are credited with many great things, essentially being the first "post rock" band (a genre where Radiohead sits pretty squarely these days), they were fantastically innovative and not really appreciated in their time for how good they were, and of course how influential they were to become. They were just too far ahead of their time, we weren't ready for Talk Talk when they started getting experimental. Part of why they are so revered now is how good those records sound. Try and find originals though, the modern reissues are a bit noisy which is disappointing.
Australian band Powderfinger recorded an album back in 1996 called Double Allergic, it was the album that broke them into the mainstream and they became a household name after that, at least in Australia anyway. Their huge international success came later I think, but Double Allergic was the one that started it. Originally it wasn't anything special, those 1996 presses are virtually unobtainable now and fetch STUPID money, and don't actually sound that great. A mate of mine had one and Side B was pressed off-centre which was a bit galling considering how much they're worth now. But recently that album was re-mixed and remastered and reissued on white vinyl and YE GODS it's incredible, the bass is so much more open and full sounding. Find a copy of that somewhere and let its brilliance wash over you. It's not even expensive, I think I paid $40AUD. I've paid far more and gotten way worse, as have we all.
I could go on, but this is an essay already. Thanks for reading.
Great channel
Thanks for the kudos and your support!
This is such an interesting and entertaining way of doing a RUclips channel. Please keep it up, and I say a big 'yes please' to more content about your experiences like the Eryca Badu tale - maybe one per video would be a good teaser? Best sounding LP for me was Steve Miller Band's 'Italian X Rays' - when I first played the opening track, I really thought I was listening to a CD but better.
hot mic
The struggle is real!
Digging what you are doing sir! Solid and fun presentation. Keep up the good work!
Merkins do audio about as well as they do supercars.
Heard! Thanks for watching!
It is a shame. One less screw, stick a "Made in America " sticker on it and appeal to a misguided sense of nationalism. Because buying Japanese is un-American.
I still use an old pair of Mordaunt Short, before they were scooped up by Koreans, and an ADC direct drive from like 1975. Folk don't need to spend thousands. I sat in a room and listened to a £87,000 system from Naim. Then they ruined it with a Madonna track. British hifi utterly ruined by some 80s has been. Ther is no true American hifi brand. And that's strange. Celestion, British. Tannoy, British. Yamaha, Japanese. Dynaudio, Danish. M&K. Danish. Musical Fidelity. British. Now, McIntosh. American. Totally Scottish name but heh credit where its due. Perhaps do a small series of affordable hifi. I am old enough to remembering getting the bits was as important as the crap you listened to. An old NAD is worth n amount of streaming 128kbps mp3.
Alexa. Play the 12" version Belfast from Orbital. Or Pigs from Animals. Or The whole album of The Final Cut. The Wall. Right at the end of the 4th side." Isn't this... "and the first side of record 1. Where we left off". You can't hear that on modern stuff. Like on Dark side of the moon. There is no dark side. As a matter of fact its all dark. I challenge you to find an smplifier. TURNTABLE. and a pair of speakers for under £250. And 1 record.
Love the stories Bob please keep sharing them.
Thanks, Joe! I gotta million of 'em! Thanks for watching!
Yeah, my Cars LP had corner dings. I've had Ebay sellers use better shipping boxes than Rhino did. I won't be buying from them again until i've heard heard their shipping boxes are sturdier. One of my favorite hidden audiophile records is the 1st pressing of R.E.M. Reckoning, mastered at Sterling sound on translucent Quiex vinyl, sounds amazing.
Mike at The In-Groove was spot on with his assessment of the situation. They use great shippers as does Acoustic Sounds. Thanks!
@@UnitedStatesofAnalog Met MIke at the austin record show a few months ago. always like his channel.
@@petekutheis3822 I talked to Angel about getting him on my morning show when he was in Austin... but never got a call back!
The many hundreds of lp records in the London CS 6000 (Blueback) series in the late 1950s were all half speed mastered. They were classical music. I'm not sure if that is the first time anyone used the process or not. But half speed mastering goes back at least as far as the 1950s. The price was $2.99 an lp. Not $100 or way over $100. I know there's been inflation, but 8 times more; not 40 or 50 times more. Greed for the most part, not cost, is why audiophiles have to deal with those kind of prices.
Alice In Chains Unplugged MOV pressing. It sounds fantastic!
If it's as good as Nirvana unplugged... I'm in!!! Thanks for watching!
@@UnitedStatesofAnalog
I have that Rhino Cars pressing and the Alice In Chains is better. I'll bring it over as soon as you extend an invite to that jazz kissa bar
NO RECORD, no matter how good the vinyl is can be truly "audiophile"! ONLY CASSETTE tapes can be truly "audiophile" as this is the same system the masters were recorded on tape. 🙉 Great Job, Bob!
Wow, John! That's a hot take! But all hot takes are welcome here!