i'd like touch on the topic "cd pressings"

[papaya86 0]

Not too long ago, i started getting fussy over the different pressings of albums. i acquired a jap pressed eric clapton unplugged and compared it with my regular germany pressing and found out the difference in sound quality of the recording is unbelievably big. its like 2 entirely different recordings, one is full of life and another one is dead dull sounding. thus i went on to experiment with pressings and acquired some jap pressed queen albums and compared to the regular pressings that i already own, and again, the jap pressed albums thrashed the normal pressed ones sonically. im talkin about 30 40 percent improvement (if its alright to use percentage to gauge sonic improvements).

 

I own several pressings of Jimi Hendrix's "electric ladyland" as all the ones i owned are sonically unlistenable, the highs being too harsh and all. Finally i got myself the first pressing of the electric ladyland, a made in west germany pressing with the nude cover and im happy to say that will be the last copy i will ever purchase. Again, i did alot of comparison on special/better pressings of albums i already own, namely "hell freezez over" "pink floyd: the wall" "pink floyd: dsotm" and come to the conclusion that pressings of cds do matter alot, for me that is. As alot of people said before, garbage in garbage out. I think this applies to cd pressings as well. There's no point having a super setup if the source of music, the cd, is a lousy pressing, imo. Generally, my favourite pressings of cds are japan, us, uk and west germany. The ones i avoid, and i believe alot of us would avoid, is malaysia (i own a few copies printed in malaysia and i really feel like using them as frisbees for my dog) , china, singapore, europe.

The price difference is of course pretty big, a regular europe release being priced at 17-20 and a jap pressed going for 50-70. But for me, i feel its worth it to pay more for albums/artists that i really like (mostly everything old school). Recently, i bit the bullet and spent over 100 bucks on a jap mobile fidelity release of an album i really liked, and the sonic improvements over the regular release is unbelievable. Putting prices aside, the older pressings of cds are all out of production, mainly the west germany ones, those are imo the cream of the crop for "budget" pressings and one is only likely to acquire them second hand.

 

i don't know what you guys think/feel about this, but im just sharing information that i recently found out. After all this, one things for sure, i will never drop by gramophone again as the pressings they have are mainly europe releases. i have always wondered why HMV sells their cds at a higher price compared to gramophone, the reason being the pressings of the albums. HMV stocks up mostly u.s pressed cds.

 

All in all, this is my take on this, im not forcing it down anybody's throat. I would like to see if anyone cares about cd pressings as well.

[1bit 0]

mm where did you bought your jap pressed cd btw?

is there a shop in singapore that sells them? or did you buy them online?

[evil-zen 0]

Besides the Mobile Fidelity label, there is also the DCC label. Steve Hoffman is the mastering engineer and his website can be found here. The definitive website for the pressing to get.

[papaya86 0]

Mostly ebay, the japs seem to do a great job at re/mastering albums. i just received a harvest jap pressed dark side of the moon in my mail and its much much better than the various ones i already owned, including the sacd. HMV has some jap pressed titles.

[Blues 0]

have a few japanese press cds.. very good recordings.. one of my fav is Fumiya Fujii - Retake. v intimate and clean detail - better than some of the so called reference cds I've heard

but then for the price, I think most people would rather go for cheaper press. Imagine $50 for 1 cd vs $20, let's say you have 50 discs.. already $1500 .. that's alot of money which can be put to buy more music or invest in better gear. I used to buy a few but then felt the pinch was too much and hence stopped. If u have the cash to spare get them - if not settle for the second best hahah

[wil 0]

Hehe...i know im going to flack for this, but if u want quality pressings, go analouge....totally big, huge even, jump from digital...

 

Analouge has much more air, naturalness and warmth as compared to even the best of digital recordings. There seems to be a digital sheem to CDs...

 

One thing that LPs can reproduce is the naturalness and air in music. Esp with vocals, u notice alot more "body" to it. Treble and bass extension also improve by a noticable amount.

 

Im not saying that digital isnt good, just that analouge can provide what the digital format lacks of.

 

The price is prohibitive, but i decided to ahead with it and im not regretting it one bit.

 

Just another POV, YMMV...

 

But as always,

 

Enjoy the music!

[Blues 0]

but LPs are quite restricted in terms of music release

alot of stuffs I listen to don't come out in LP so there's no point..

[wil 0]

Blues, what music do u listen to?

[lekguan 0]

ditto (referring to blues' post)

 

We kids nowadays

Listen to lousy music

Edited November 20, 2005 by lekguan

[Blues 0]

just some trashy pop music

now listen more on j-rock esp luna sea stuffs..

[neutralzz 0]

Blues, what music do u listen to?

eh wil you got a copy of flamenco fever? *wink*

[papaya86 0]

my musical tastes is somewhat different from most people of my age. I only dig old stuff like hendrix, led zep, cream, clapton, doors, the who, deep purple, neil young, pink floyd, bob dylan, dire straits, eagles supertramp, bb.king, frank sinatra, john lee hooker, rolling stones, beatles, ac/dc, s.rv. I do know for all these artists, vinyl is the way to go, but i don't have the time and money to search for them. I do know of one fella who owns about 30000 vinyls. Thats 1041.6 days of continuos listening if he would want to give all of em a second listen. (an average of 50mins a record that is)

[neutralzz 0]

i dig vocals

[av98m 0]

If I thought I could afford it, I will buy nothing but Japanese pressed cds. Even US pressed cds are not free from problems. I'm quite pissed over the obviously poorer quality of the local/regional pressed cds compared to the US or Japanese presses. I'm quite convinced that there's absolutely nothing wrong with cds as a medium, rather it is the recording engineers mucking things up, like trying to make the recordings as loud as possible, that cause all the compression, clipping and grunge. One good example is Do As Infinity's last compilation, Do The A-Side. Great music, but absolutely horrible sound, to the point of being almost unlistenable.

 

 

And with mandarin or canto pop cds, you don't even have any option for a higher quality pressed version. If you like the genre, you'll have to live with the very bright/harsh nature of such material. I can't help but wonder sometimes if the very excessive sibilance found on such recordings is due to their artistes' poor miking techniques.

 

The irony is that CDs from China (I'm talking their own original artistes, not pirated CDs) these days, costing only about $15 each, featuring either DSD or K2 mastering, sound so much better. Unfortunately, the limited content will not appeal to many people.

Edited November 21, 2005 by av98m

[Absolute0 0]

One good example is Do As Infinity's last compilation, Do The A-Side. Great music, but absolutely horrible sound, to the point of being almost unlistenable.

My sentiments exactly. I was a little put off by the mp3-quality sound on many tracks. Such a pity.