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Best Pressing Shootout: Charles Mingus, The Clown — 1961 Atlantic US vs. 1972 Warner-Pioneer Japan
Unlike most audio snobs, I strongly dislike mono pressings. There is a clear reason for this: I listen to most of my music on headphones, and mono sounds bad on headphones — all squashed into the centre of your head. Whereas speaker-lovers claim mono recordings offer “depth” rather than “width,” I find that mono just…
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Best Pressing Shootout: Rubber Soul — 1981 Blue Box vs. 1995 Direct Metal Master
In my fourth Best Pressing Shootout in as many days — the coronavirus shutdown is having many unexpected effects — let’s look at my two pressings of Rubber Soul. The Pressings Back when I was a young lad in my twenties and just getting into vinyl — ah, the early oughts! — I naturally wanted…
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Best Pressing Shootout: Abbey Road — 1981 Blue Box vs. 2009 Remaster vs. 2019 Giles Martin Remix
And now, in the third installment of the Best Pressing Shootout series, I move from the painfully obscure to the glaringly obvious. At least I don’t need to explain this album to you. I also probably don’t need to explain the whole “Why do you own multiple pressings of so many albums?” thing in this…
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Best Pressing Shootout: Prince Lasha Quintet, The Cry! — 1963 Contemporary US vs. 1975 King Japan
Here is the thought I had while listening to this unbelievable album in three versions last night, a somewhat guilty pleasure in the midst of a worldwide crisis: A species that can create something this beautiful — the musical forms that endure across generations, the individual artists who interpret and distort them; the instruments, the…
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Best Pressing Shootouts
This is where I’m collecting links to all my “Best Pressing Shootouts.” I’m going to try to organize these in a useful way, by genre and label. But this may develop over time… Winners are bolded and underlined. Since I’m always updating my hifi, I occasionally return to an earlier comparison to evaluate it in…