Half speed records, are they any better ?

I have a few HSM records, and in general I find them a little smoother and more articulate in the treble.

Where I *really* notice an improvement across the board--mo’ bettah everything--are the 45 rpm LPs. It used to be that my gold standard was 33-1/3 Direct-to-Disk, but with the accumulation of a few 45 rpms such as Analogue Productions’ The Power of the Orchestra, A Meeting By The River (Ry Cooder & VM Bhaatt), Nat King Cole After Midnight, and some from Angel’s Sonic Series including The Planets and Rodrigo’s Fantasia, those comprise the most musical, most kick-you-around-the-room dynamic, most compellingly rhythmic, articulate, and organic needle-in-a-groove music I have.

With no claims of half-speed mastering or anything, some of the best 33-1/3 RPM LPs I have are from Universal’s Play 33-1/3 series. But then at $59.95 for a 2-disk title, they oughtta be.

http://vinyl-records.soundstagedirect.com/records/Universal-Play-33-1-3?cnt=300

Have Kondrashin/Van Cliburn Tchaikovsky Concerto 1 both shaded dog 2s/2s and half-speed re-issue.
The original beats half-speed all the way through.

I have a couple half speed masters that don't sound anywhere near as good as the original first pressing.  George Benson's "Breezin' comes to mind as does Steely Dan's 'Aja'.  I am probably not the best to offer advice as I only have maybe 25 titles, and none of them have 'blown me away'.  I seem to much prefer a good 1st pressing, but that's me.  

N 

things like tape damage and edits become much more noticeable as they basically take twice the amount of time to pass over the tape head. These things can "stick out" on playback whereas they wouldn’t on a conventionally mastered LP.

On the other edge of the sword, and this is a pretty sharp edge, you have to apply only half the RIAA curve when cutting the lacquer, and that’s not always easy to do. Plus, now your response for 20-20K has to go down to 10 Hz. "

"""" I would add that half-speed mastering was invented for RCA’s CD4 Quadradisc LP pressings in the early 1970s, when they had to figure out a way to get the 30kHz subcarrier frequency into the grooves. By reducing the cutting speed in half, they could easily get 15kHz in there with no problem.

The above statements are all false:

A tape edit will sound the same either way. Whoever wrote that comment had no experience and had not even thought through the process...

The RIAA pre-emphasis has to be added whether half speed or not.

You can cut 30KHz to a lacquer at normal speed no worries with any cutter system made in the stereo era.
Decca originally developed the half-speed process to help deal with a resonance in their cutterheads. By going half speed, the resonance was shifted upwards one octave (to about 16KHz) where it was less tricky to deal with. This was a decade prior to 4-channel. So most early Londons and Deccas are half-speed mastered. 

atmasphere,

Thank you for the education.  Makes total sense and explains why the old Londons and Deccas sound so good.  I am wondering though,
why is it that some half speed masters don't sound as good as their normal speed 1st pressing counter parts?  I appreciate someone explaining this. 

Norman