AAA Vinyl

I'd have to hear the entire album, but other than the annoying synthi thing at the front end, it seems they missed the mark by a few years. Sounds very much, to my ears in the vein of Allman Bros. Midnight Rider (1970) or Delaney and Bonnie or something by Steve Miller from the same period. When I think of the later 70's and early 80's, I hear Toto, The Clash, Michael McDonald with the Doobies, and the Jam, or Tom Petty which is maybe a bit closer. There's so much great music to explore from the 70's--where the production was astonishing--that I have trouble warming up to these types of artists, but I certainly appreciate their spirit and ethos. And thanks for introducing them.

A very mean spirited review. I own this album and enjoy it very much, and it is hardly "demo quality" cheapo sound. Time to ride off into the sunset, your ears have expired.

for this kind of honesty! Surely there’s a lot more of very average music (just my taste) one could write about like that, but this belongs here because this crowd is sensible for AAA and professionally mastered stuff!

The hype for average music (just my taste) and average sound quality results, just because it seems audiophile by the involved AAA and mastering engineer is worth more indignation than this honest review.

AAA and 180g doesn’t mean good music, nor good sound.

I listened to the EP releases on Qobuz...nothing special. I'm so tired of "retro". Plus, making "retro" sound like it's recorded on a Tascam cassette portastudio with a bunch of SM57's is pointless. I'm all for going all analog.....just make music that is interesting and make your band sound the best it possibly can. This is why the same classic records, of any genre, keep getting reissued over and over again...the music is good and interesting. New Jazz recordings are so much more interesting with quality than pretty much any new pop/rock record (with a few exceptions).

It is impossible to win with you people. If the music was more "appealing" to you and was recorded on ProTools you would complain it is digital slop. No wonder they keep reissuing the same golden oldies over and over, in ever more expensive packages.

You should look at the Big Picture. Why would young or even established artists spend the time to hand craft analog recordings and hire people like KG when they met with this kind of mean girl reception.

I agree it has a retro vibe, and the Allman bros comparison was great.

It also reminds me of a group called "Snail" from the later 70s.

I think a "7" is appropriate.

I tried another cut: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn_Z4qbb9eQ

Yeah, it's fine, I guess.

THE BIG QUESTION: Senor Michael, did you do anything to the record before playing it? If you hit it with the Kirmiss treatment, it would be fascinating to see if you thought the sonics changed.

(Side note: on that "Good Day" cut, you can imagine Dave Matthews singing it, too.)

In 2022 with the best ADDA converters ever, excellent tape machines, mic preamps, and great microphones it seems too hard to make albums that are 9-10 in sound quality. It seems to happen too often and maybe, just maybe they are messing with the mix to much just because they already bought the gear in the rack.

I just bought an album of a male singer I am a big fan of and some of the tracks are just dreadful. When viewed in my audio editor both channels are just full color top to bottom with all the dynamic range compressed and limited to death. A cassette on some of these tracks could not have sounded worse. With most releases just because we have all these plug-ins in our DAW doesn't mean we have to use them.

and have played it only once. Based on that single play, I agree with Michael’s ratings. That may change for the better after a few more spins but probably not.

Every musician cannot produce a 10 album every time! They have tried to do what they feel will reproduce their music the best, being a 7 is pretty dam good for their first? I listened a few times and am happy with my purchase of it!

I will qualify that by saying that for albums originally recorded 100% on tape or direct to disc, it is not irrelevant. But the vast majority of music of the last 25 years and going forward is and will be recorded, mixed and mastered in a hybrid fashion. Tube powered studio microphones are a mainstay of even home studios. Tube powered mic preamps and their solid state cousins, many designed and/or manufactured in the 50's and 60's are common. And mix engineers run all kinds of individual tracks and mix busses through classic analog gear like Pultec EQ's and UREI 1176 compressors during the process. Entire mixes are subject to mastering gear that is 100% analog on their way to the master disc. And some hybrid projects such as Analog Productions Beach Boys stereo mixes are even sent to ¼" tape before the masters are cut. So when bands like Calling Cadence and Tool record albums using nothing but analog gear, is it that big of a deal anymore, or is it an exercise that elicits unrealistic expectations that may (Tool) or may not (nothing comes to mind at the moment:-) be met?

By the way, I can find no official releases of Tool's Fear Innoculum (supposedly all analog, although the info is sketchy) on analog media--until the $180 vinyl box set which will be released in a few days, nearly 3 years since its initial release. So what does that mean? (I know what it means, but I'm not accusing anyone of anything at the moment).

The important thing is this--digital recording contributes to equity in music. Analog is cool but many of us have stacks of AAA albums that have great music but sound horrific. Many of us have a DDD CD or two that sound great. Most music, however, is neither digital or analog. It's ANAL-DIG (©2022 DrJB). I suppose I could have skipped the long winded stuff and included only these last couple of sentences, but, whatever. Love and Peace. Analog and Digital. Anal-Dig ©. I'm done.

This issue is mostly due to the lack of available tape machines from any manufacturer. One can go to Mara Machines and pay huge sums just to get back in the game, but maintenance and calibration still have to be done. I have some great Sinatra and Bennett LPs that sound exceptional, so it can be done.

DW Fern makes great mic preamps as do others and many tube mics have low self-noise including affordable ones from the likes of Rode. I own some DSD/SACD releases where the noise level right before the band starts playing is around -40db. That noise was not an ultrasonic artifact, but under 250 hz. as seen in FFT. That is pathetic on any level and only shows there is there is some noise from the console, AC, or just the ambient noise in the room itself. That, to me, is outdoor concert stuff that does not belong in a studio recording set up.

In my amateur recordings for local schools and universities most of my problem are the venue and the HVAC noise, and adjacent room/street noise. At home I have a -75-80db noise floor.

Still I contend that in 2022 it should not be that hard to make a recording that sound 9 out of 10, that is a totally separate issue of the rank of the performance itself.

Most of us who are fans of Analog Planet have read and listened to interviews of all that lacquer cutting engineers go through to make as good an LP as possible. It is not easy work and it can never be better than the files or the tapes they have been given.

I think of all of this in the same way as all that Michael has shown us here about cartridges and the poor mounting of the styli to the cantilever and what off-set errors can do to the reproduction. Most of us have no way to do this type of investigation. Can we not trust that the $100, $1,000, or more cartridge that we buy was manufactured right? Evidently not.

There is much science going on at every level and at times it seems progress is often missing. At the price of LPs today no one should suffer a grade of 7 engineering wise on an LP.

I like it - but I'm in my 70's. Qobuz only has the 4-tracks available as a pre-release tease. But the full album is supposed to be available on May 5th. These four tracks are 98/24 resolution and played through Roon/HQPlayer at 384/24 through my Chord Qutest (and all tube integrated and Harbeth speakers) it sounds pretty nice. But what do I know, my ears are 72 years old, too.

Thanks for sharing your positive input. I am glad you did not let this mean spirited hatchet job of a post dissuade you from purchasing and enjoying the LP. Cheers.

OK, received the LP yesterday. I like the music quite a lot. I like the overall sound and everything is good - EXCEPT the vinyl is trimmed badly. The record is too large in diameter. I've never seen this before. How big? Maybe 3 to 5mm too wide at the outer rim.

It plays fine but it hangs over the outside of the platter in a noticeable way. I thought it looked wrong so I measured it with my other LPs and this record is absolutely too large.

I don't know why but I don't think I've noticed this before on any of my 600 other LPs.