What are your go to LP's for evaluating new gear or new tubes?

According to Bernie Grundman---who has been mastering since the 1960’s---analogue masters tapes are relatively hearty, and suffer no degradation from sitting on a shelf unplayed (assuming the shelf is in a climate controlled environment, which is generally the case). What DOES degrade tapes is being played; the more they are played, the more oxide particles are "shed" from the backing polyester film onto which the oxide is applied. Tapes which have been store unused for fifty years have been found to have startling sound quality, assuming the recording sounded excellent to begin with. To paraphrase Mark Twain’s joke about reports of his death, reports of tape degradation by the mere passage of time are greatly exaggerated.

The usual practice is to make a "production master" tape from the original 2-channel (if stereo) final mix tape, the original master tape then being put away. Safety copy is another term used in place of production master. That production master tape is then used to cut the lacquer from which the metal pressing "plates" are made. The plates are installed in the LP pressing machine, and voila, you have a vinyl LP. There is another step involving father and mother transfers, but this is already complicated enough.

For the Analogue Production mastering and pressing of Miles Davis’ Kind Of Blue, however, Chad Kassem was able to get the original multitrack tape (only three tracks. Remember the album was recorded in 1957), which had not been played since the original production master copies were made at the time of the album’s original release. Grundman said the tapes (two of them) were immaculate.

Rather than making a new stereo production master copy from the 3-track master., Bernie mixed the three channels and sent the resulting 2-track mix straight into the mastering console, thereby eliminating one stage of analogue tape copy degradation. THAT degradation is real.

But there’s even more to the story. While playing the two master tapes---one made each day of the two day sessions for the album, and each on a different 3-track machine---Grundman discovered that one of the tapes was playing back at the wrong speed, thereby changing the pitch of the instruments and the "feel" of the songs and musicianship. What had happened is that during one of the two sessions, the recorded used that day was running either slightly too fast or too slow (I don’t remember which). Hence since the tape was then played back on a playback deck that was running at perfect speed when the lacquer for that LP side was cut (the two days of recording were placed on the two opposite sides of the LP), that side of the LP is out of tune and time. And that was true of every version of Kind Of Blue ever made up to that point in time (1997)!

Naturally Kassem had Grundman adjust the speed of the playback deck to get the music on that side of the LP back to the speed it had been played at in the studio. Once again, Bernie Grundman to the rescue! This is just one more example of why Analogue Production LP’s are as good as they are. And we haven’t talked about the sound quality of the mastering itself, and the quality of the QRP LP pressings.

@bdp24, @billpete  

You don't have to convince me. Now that you have pointed it out. I can hear it. Obviously, the sound of the guitar. The pick across the strings. The songs that I listened to didn't have much cymbal hits. A small crash cymbal here and there. But the drums themselves were very revealing. The initial impact of the stick hitting the head of the snare or toms is very revealing. Also, the vocals are affected quite drastically. It reeks of Dolby A decoding an unencoded recording. The best way that I can describe it is that it sounds as if you are squashing the highs out by applying too much compression. Not allowing it to breathe. If that makes any sense. Being a sound engineer, I have been guilty of that mistake a number of times. That isn't a great description. But, you get the picture. It sounds dull and subdued.

I got on Qobuz. Many times they will have the original and the remasters. The only original that they were streaming was TFTT. Which they were streaming at 192K/24bit. All of the other albums were the 2020 remasters. And are being streamed at 44.1K/16 bit??? They had to be supplied with a digital copy of the original production master. Because it is evident there as well. However, the 2020 remasters do not have that problem. They also have the 2020 remixes of the albums. Which if I am not wrong were only available on CD in the 50th Anniversary Box set. Yusof/Cat was very involved in all of that. The 2020 remasters, at times, sound more like a remix than just a remaster. In any case, I am almost certain that it was remastered digitally, not that that matters. But it would have had to come from the original master tape. And I am certain that they were aware of what Grundman had discovered. And did not make that mistake twice. And, of course,  the remixes had to come from the original multi-track tapes. Which wouldn't have been subject to the decoding blunder. My point is that Cat Stevens' guitar and his voice and the drums, all sound the same in the 2020  remixes as in the 2020 remasters. Have you ever had a chance to listen to the Analog Production remaster, by any chance? Now I am definitely going to have to get my hands on a copy. Out of curiosity if nothing else.

Now the biggest question for me becomes:  Was TFTT the only album where this blunder was made? I do not have an extensive Cat Steven's vinyl collection. However, I do have a 1973 A&M reissue of Mona Bone Jakon. And after checking it. I will bet you lunch that the same thing occurred with that album. In fact, it does more harm to MBJ than it does to TFTT when comparing it to the 2020 remasters. I have only one more Cat Steven's album that I can compare. A 1974 A&M CRC release of Buddha and the Chocolate Factory. I have not yet had time to hear if it also suffers from this expanding blunder. The only remaster that has been done with MBJ prior to the 2020 remaster. Was done by Island Records in 2013. Which would have been two years after the Analog Productions discovery was made by Grundman.

However, with TFTT. Mobile Fidelity released a 1980 half speed remaster from the original master tape. And a UHQR box set in 1982. Did they make the same mistake? Does anyone know?

There have been numerous remasters for CD.

The only other remaster pressed to vinyl prior to the AP 200g. Was done by Island Records in 2008 on 180g. And distributed in Europe. Is that remaster flawed. Did they even use the original master or a flawed production master?

@billpete

You originally said that you had a 200g Universal remaster. And then you said that actually it was 180g. Are you certain that it is not 200g. The only pressings that I can find tied to Universal are the Analog Productions remasters. And I can only find the 200g release in 2011, and the 200g double lp 45 rpm release in 2015. Is this the remaster release that you own? https://www.discogs.com/release/3101375-Cat-Stevens-Tea-For-The-Tillerman

And I agree whole heartedly with you as far as reference goes. When you have  only one reference that you have been given. That is what you expect it to sound like. Had @bp24 not made me aware of this. I would have considered that to be the sound that the album was meant to sound like. With only other flawed pressings to compare it to, you will choose amongst your choices as to which one is best. It is a shame that your remaster pressing has the spindle off center. That is not the first time that I have read about that problem with some of those pressings. If it were playable. I would ask you to consider giving it a listen from a totally different perspective and tell me what you think. But you certainly can't judge anything if the spindle hole is off center. BTW, NM pink copies for sale are few. And scattered around the globe. And not inexpensive. And if they are also pressed from the flawed production masters. What is the point?

The thing that I find utterly amazing is that the sound of Cat Steven's that the world has become familiar with, is not the sound that Cat Stevens intended. Simply because of a simple technical assumption

I apologize for the length of this reply. But this has lit a fire under my a**..

@flash56: Yes, the misapplied Dolby playback equalization decreased the percussive attack of the drumstick tip striking the snare drum and tom tom drumheads, and of the felt bass drum beater striking the kick drum batter head. With my sunray Island copy of the LP, the kick always sounded weak, anemic to me, with no punch or power. I attributed the dead, lifeless sound of the drumset to the then-common practice of over-muffling drumset heads in the studio (Ringo’s snare drum sound on Abbey Road is terrible for that reason. He recorded with a towel on top of his snare drum head!). Still, I couldn’t understand why Harry Pearson and Michael Fremer considered TFTT to be such a great sounding LP, and chalked it up to my having only a sunray label pressing, not an original pink label one.

But the first, most obvious difference is the missing "click" of the pick on the guitar strings, and the missing harmonic overtones of the guitar. And Cat Stevens and producer Paul Samwell-Smith didn’t notice that?!

By the way, Analogue Productions made the album in both 1-LP/33-1/3 RPM and 2-LP/45 RPM versions. The 45 RPM version is of course reported to sound slightly better than the 33-1/3, but I went with the 33-1/3 pressing as I’m willing to sacrifice a small degree of sound quality to get the full musical programming flow of each LP side. Music first, people!

I think this is the pink label version of TFTT, which I shall have to play this morning:

@flash56 

I just checked my re-master copy of TFTT. It is 180G, vinyl re-release, and says mastered from original tapes so not the typical digital remaster. For some reason, I thought it was a digital remaster, probably just because I'm so used to the term. The label reads UNIVERSAL MUSIC FOR THE WORLD, on a gray label with black circle. On the back, it says Universal and Island. Maybe it had a shot at being a good one. Maybe there is a way to re-drill the center hole? Will have to look into that. 

My Island copy is the sunray version but according to what I read on Hoffman's site, it should be the same as the pink label. Is BDP24 saying that none of them are right? There is so much info, I have trouble following. Is there a difference in the dbx version on A&M as I have that one too. 

I find nearly all Cat Stevens albums to have great dynamics, when compared to other records of the same time period. It always seemed to me that he must have been very particular about these things. It is really surprising to find that so many mistakes were made. My other favorites are Buddha and The Chocolate Box and Catch Bull at Four. I haver several others as well but the three named are more of my favorites and get more play time. There are good songs on all of his records and I am now inspired to listen to all of them, including each copy to see what I can pick up. 

This has been extremely interesting.