Regarding Cat Stevens’ Tea For The Tillerman (the recorded sound quality of which is stunning):
For years the go-to version was the original "pink label" Island Records pressing. When Chad Kassem acquired the rights to reissue it on his Analogue Productions label, he hired Bernie Grundman to cut the lacquer and do the remastering. Grundman got the master tape from Island, and upon examining the notes included in the tape boxes, along with listening to the tapes, he discovered an amazing fact: the tapes were made without employing Dolby noise reduction. In spite of that fact, all precious issues of the album (on both LP and CD) had been made assuming Dolby WAS employed. So in playback, all previous mastering had been done with the Dolby system engaged, with it’s mid-to-high frequency slope reducing those frequencies.
I always wondered why the sound of the drumset cymbals and bass drum (which was missing it's high frequency overtones, which provide that drum's "snap") didn’t sound right to me. Fremer talks about how the sound of the Ovation acoustic guitar (which is known for it’s unique sound owing to it’s plastic body) is missing it’s signature high frequency-emphasized sound. Now we know. The Analogue Productions Tea For The Tillerman was made sans Dolby, so it sounds most like the master tape, with high frequencies fully intact.
Grundman is also credited with discovering the fact that all versions of Kind Of Blue had been made with one side of the album mastered with the tape running at the wrong speed. He discovered that fact while doing the reissue for Classic Records in the late-90’s. Chad Kassem bought Classic Records, and used Grundman’s "metal works" (which are manufactured from the lacquer he cut for Classic) for the AP reissue of Kind Of Blue, restoring the full album to it’s correct running speed and musical pitch.
