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Please do not accept Angel issues of EMI material from this period as being the sonic equivalent of their overseas counterparts. At one point I was working on a classical reissue project that had to be mastered, by contract, by the Capitol engineering staff in the U.S. What I sent out and what I got back were quite different- less bass from Capitol and more compression. That's what I hear on the U.S. made Angels of this period through the mid to late 1980s. I suppose some of the later ones are better, but there was one engineer there (who handled two of my projects) who acoustically sabotaged wheat I sent out. Both projects were also released on cassettes with much better sound. This may have been done deliberately to minimize returns of records played on cheap turntables that could not track bass and that were thus likely to be returned as "defective." I suspect this was true of other company's record club issues as well. I recall what I was sure at the time was a club-distributed copy of S&G's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" where the bass was wimpy as compared with the store-distributed release. Steve Smolian -----Original Message----- From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Carl Pultz Sent: Saturday, July 13, 2013 1:55 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Bass less reissues from England Cleaning up the inbox, I found this kind explanation, somehow missed in June. Thank you, John. I had heard about this, but forgot the term, since the last time I aligned a tape machine was in 1999. My MRL tape is stashed away. In the same thread, Michael Gray challenged a couple of us to look closer at EMI LPs vs. early CDs to see if the perception that the CDs (some at least) were shy on bass is valid. Jamie Howarth offered to do analysis. I've kept this in mind. Best I could do from my modest collection is Klemperer's Beethoven 5, an old Angel/Capitol pressing (S35843, Red spine/baby-blue label) vs. the first CD reissue (CDC 7 47187). A/B'ed with a rough match of levels, the surprise is how CLOSE they sound to each other. One comparison isn't enough, of course, and there isn't a heck of a lot of low frequencies on either version. My general impression was from when I had access to an extensive range of the EMI catalog in both formats. That's long gone now, sadly. Happily, I have a much better hifi than in 1985 and digital playback has made great strides since then. While looking for comparisons, I did find one fascinating item in old and new digital remasterings: Barbirolli's V-W Tallis Fantasia. Hearing the old English String Music CD reissue vs. the 2000 version in the Great Recordings box set is interesting. I think the differences are way beyond what could be attributed to differences in A-D converters. (Well, yeah, sure. Fifteen years, lots of changes. Maybe a different source.) It was worth the effort - the newer one is much better, IMO. Check it out if you can. I don't have it on LP. -----Original Message----- From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Chester Sent: Monday, June 03, 2013 11:15 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Bass less reissues from England At 08:26 AM 6/3/2013, Carl Pultz wrote: >Um, er, - - What? I've never heard of fringing compensation. Please >explain, Sir. See http://home.comcast.net/~mrltapes/mcknight_low-frequency-response-calibratio n.pdf If the master tape has no tones, and (or) LF playback EQ is set using a full-track alignment tape without compensation for fringing, the actual LF response will be too low. The LF problem is exacerbated if the alignment tape has only one LF tone at 100 Hz (a lamentable recent trend -- false economy, IMHO). Setting 100 Hz to the same level as 1 kHz is rarely the correct answer. If the LF tone was 50 Hz, error would be much smaller. If playback is being aligned using tones on the master tape, and the only LF tone is 100 Hz, same problem. Once upon a time, most tape machines could record -- but now many are playback only. If the machine can record *and* the track width of the record and playback heads are the same *and* the track width of the tape to be played matches the playback head, setting LF record-playback response as flat as possible is usually the correct answer. This should be done with a continuous frequency sweep, or a method that plots response at 1/3 octave intervals or less. For a playback-only machine, accurate LF calibration requires a DIY alignment tape whose track width matches the track width of the tape you want to play (which hopefully matches the track width of the playback head). This tape should have tones at 1/3 octave intervals or less to give a reasonably accurate picture of head bumps. Graphs showing head bumps at http://www.endino.com/graphs/ Shows why setting LF response at any single frequency is often a bad idea. -- John Chester