"Classic Yes" album question...

Xiekitchen,
Thanks for clarifying that. Yes, my US pressing is just shy of unlistenable.... We Have Heaven and Cans and Brahms, for example, sound full of clipping distortion, and Roundabout is full of spitty, ragged sibilants. It's as if nobody listened to the thing before shipping it. How's the CD, then?

If your copy is "unlistenable" I suggest you have a tonearm/cartridge alignment problem or mismatched components.

Using a number of tonearm and cartridge combinations here, the passages you cite track perfectly and without sibilance.

If your copy is a reissue, that's a different story as most of them suck. If it's an original issue, see my opening comments.

thanks

Audiofeil,
I doubt that's the case. The cartridge is brand new, and the arm, cartridge and 'table were just refurbished by SOTA at the factory. Lots of other albums sound great. I think this is just a really crappy pressing. It's also a very old copy...

I have to agree with audiofeil on this. My copies of the US pressing of fragile and the yes album don't sound anything like Rebbi describes. The only "every copy is crappy" Yes album I know of is Relayer. But even so, the music is wonderful.

New cartridge, new tonearm, etc. alone are not going to ensure the best playback. It is all in the setup.

I just picked up a CD copy so I can compare.