GoodSoundClub - Romy the Cat's Audio Site

In the Forum: Analog Playback
In the Thread: Audiophile Re-issues: What's Lost and What's Gained?

Post Subject: The Sound, Record Stamper Numbers, and the 9th DimensionPosted by drdna on: 5/31/2009

Yes, it's true.

The original pressing is always the best. There has never been an audiophile version that is an improvement to the Sound. They may have a quieter surface, fewer scratches, pops, and less overall noise, in fact the sounds may be better, but the Sound is always diminished.

And those audiophile versions have impressive stats: 200 g pure virgin JVC-formula black vinyl, half-speed remastered by the best in the business as a labor of love from the original master tapes on all-tube equipment. You would think it would be awesome. So, it is not just poor physical quality discs, like in the 1970's.

And by the way the NEW music recorded on this equipment is super awesome. Have you heard some of those Cardas records? Wow! So, it doesn't seem to be the people doing the remastering; they do not appear tone deaf. The new stuff is great.

But not the old audiophile re-do's. Why? So, could it be old master tapes they used have deteriorated and are no longer capable of making good sound? But, wait a minute. My old records and my old reel-to-reel-tapes still sound great. Damn, I guess it is not that either.

So, if it is not the people doing it, the discs themselves, or the source material, what else is there? Well, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said "whatever remains, must be the truth..." So, to start with, I think we can all agree that modern String Theory demands that all points in space and time are connected. Let us then say that some of the impact of the Sound we experience is though these connections with the original musical event and the original composition. Now, let us suppose, that the further we are from this original event in spacetime, the less effect we feel (in the same way that the further we are from a rock being dropped into a lake, the less we feel the ripples).

Thus, the nearer in spacetime the vinyl pressing is to the original musical performance, the greater the transmission of the Sound.

Does this sound bizarre to you? It might, many of the conclusions from Quantum Physics often do. But these ideas are perfectly consistent with the laws of physics as we understand them.

Ultimately, it doesn't really matter what the reason is. We still know the original pressings sound better.

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