Led Zep Reissue on vinyl

Moryoga: I think the 'muddy' sound of LZII (at least on several tracks) is due to the huge amount of crude processing done when the album was originally assembled- you can hear the overdubs and the layering of different tracks- it is very evident on the 'RL' of II where a track with heavy processing, like 'Whole Lotta Love' seems to suffer from generation loss due to all the gimmicks. There are some web discussions and articles about how the album was made that support this.
I still haven't listened to my new copies yet, but hope to do so soon.

hi Bill,

the Classic Records 45rpm pressing of 'Whole Lotta Love' is not muddy sounding, the layering is very clearly heard and not fuzzy sounding. back in 2004 during my room project, i listened to this track in my system with one of the engineers for LZII, Chris Huston (who was my room designer and was staying with me at the time). he did say that they did venture into the 'then' mostly unknown reaches of mixing methodology to unleash the magic of that track. which we all continue to enjoy to this day.

too bad that the Classic 45's were still a couple years away from release when Chris was in-home.....i would have loved to get his take on them.

Mike: I have never heard the Classic (either 33 or 45) of LZ II. At this point in the game, I'd probably just go for the 45 if it was find-able. My comments re the 'RL' really don't lean toward 'fuzzy' but I can understand 'muddy': at least on the RL, there is a loss of immediacy when all that 'tape bouncing' is going on, compared to some of the other tracks where less 'processing' is going on; I hear it as generation loss due to the 'tape to tape' transfers that were apparently used to get the effects on that track. I still haven't listened to the new LZII, but did have a little time to listen and compare a couple tracks on the new LZI. I'll post my comments separately. Nice to see ya, Mike. Winter is over! Back in NY for a little while, and brought a nice big crate of old records back from Texas.

A few quick observations on listening to the first two tracks of LZ 1,
admittedly a 'once through' with each of the different records mentioned
below.
The new vinyl sounds very good, quiet and has no apparent digital artifacts
that stand out- something I'd usually hear as a flattening of the
presentation, i.e., detail, but no life. It doesn't suffer from that, dynamics are
good- if forced to choose between some older pressing of questionable
provenance, with the surface noise and other hazards associated with old
records, this is a winner and a bargain to boot. That said,...
The '74 Piros/Monarch sounds far more 'filled in' tonally- the drum skin
sound is more vivid; i'm not sure that the record has more dynamics than
the new recut, but the bass tone is more fleshed out. It just sounds more
'saturated' tonally; I suppose you could call this 'richness' or 'warmth' but to
my ears (and I've been listening to copies of LZI since it came out), this
was never a great sounding record, it always sounded a little 'pinched'
when things got going, and a little muted (I used the word 'canned,' as in
'muffled') when I commented on this record, generally, earlier in this thread.
The Piros has more life than the standard issue from back in the day (I
have a bunch of copies) and the Monarch pressings just seem to be the
most vivid of the bunch. (The best original I ever heard, owned by a
neighbor, is a first press Monarch, which I'll try to compare on his system
with the '74 when we get together in a couple weeks).
The Classic 45- same two cuts- Good Times/Bad Times & 'Babe I'm Gonna
Leave You'- just sounds more spectacular than the Piros in some ways-
whether it is a difference in EQ, the 45 rpm iteration, or something else, I
have no idea. It is also more organic and filled-in sounding, tonally, than the
new remaster, and has more 'air' and spaciousness to the whole
presentation, but we are talking about a very expensive, hard to find
record today. What's interesting is the comparison between the Piros and
the Classic...but I'll save that for more listening and a different
posting/thread.
Bottom line, as a preliminary reaction: the new re-cut doesn't come as
close to the uber copies as I had hoped, but I don't think that's damning by
any means. (I was hoping for the best on these and I'm not disappointed).
I've heard lots of lousy copies of LZ1 and frankly, for new, gettable, quiet
vinyl, this is a very good record.

Final caveat: this album, in my experience, has a lot of track to track
variability in sound quality, so even if I thought my conclusions were
somehow 'definitive' for me (and they aren't, I'll listen to the rest of the
record and do more comparisons), other tracks on LZI may present a
different result than my comparison of just the first two tracks. (I also have a
copy of the Classic 33, but I figured I'd just skip over that one, for now).
Needless to say, I'm hardly an arbiter of what any of you may think, given
your ears and your systems, but I promised to share my reactions, within
the limits of my system and my listening bias (which tends toward wanting
an absolutely grainless, unprocessed sounding midrange, and having a
system that does not deliver gargantuan bass, but has very good 'tone,'
midrange clarity and a fair amount of life, using horns and SET amps).

So, is III the best out of all of them? I think so, after hearing the clips on HD Tracks...

I was just listening to my Classic 'LZ' S/T ... I thought it sounded "damn" good. The title I have the most problem with is "Physical Graffiti". I've vascilated for years as to my favorite LZ lp, the S/T is way up there, III is probably 2nd, then Physical Graffiti.

Is there a great sounding Physical Graffiti lp out there???