@oregonpapa - Not certain why I looked at this thread again, but: I own a number of older(circa early Eighties) audiophile(ie: Nautilus/MFSL/Crystal Clear/Sheffield/etc) vinyls. One example, my Nautilus, ’Rumours’, got a lot of play, demoing the speakers at my shoppe. It was always well cared for, but- I thought I’d try a new/remastered pressing. I bought the Hoffman/Grey, 45 RPM version. My old pressing presents(to this day) each instrument’s/human’s voice, as a distinct entity on the sound stage with clarity and lifelike dimension(an excellent mix). ie: One of my customers(a young, professional studio drummer), while auditioning a pair of my speakers, exclaimed, "WOW! I can count the rivets, on the Ride!"(during, ’Dreams’), which was one of my more gratifying moments, as a speaker builder. Suffice it to say, their’s(outside of Stevie’s voice) was a muffled, indistinct, blob of sound, in comparison. Regarding the Jimmy Smith/Midnight Special album: Kenny Burrell’s Sax put me in the venue(guitar and drums- nice), while Smith’s B3 sounded like the crew forgot to remove a few shipping blankets, from over the Leslie. There was a third album, but- it’s been close to a decade and memory fails. The nicest thing I can remember now, is how easy it was to sell all three, after advertising them as, "VPI cleaned/LAST treated/played once to archive". I considered adding the term, "archive" as accurate, since I’d firmly committed the experiences to memory. The buyer was very happy. I’ve been scrupulously avoiding anything with which they’ve been involved, and not had a bad reaction to any purchased recording, since. Sorry, if I seemed loquacious and(of course) YMMV(seems it has). Happy listening!
