Olivia Newton-John on vinyl, rating best releases worldwide

Hi Qtez. I'm probably using the wrong term for what I'm hearing. I've just replayed several versions of Free the People and now it doesn't seem as severe as I recalled but it's roughly at 1:50 to 1:53.

 

Thanks for the information, though I couldn't find any difference.
As to dropouts all I know is If We Try on Crystal Lady. At the beginning kicks have been omitted due to mistake. The similar mistakes are also on Aussie CDs. Perhaps many ONJ fans know what occurred on If We Try and It's So Easy.
As to Love Song only Aussie CD (1993) includes the correct & complete song. On Other CDs the beginning part is odd.

 

I will check those out.

 

Just picked up a mint copy of Have You Never Been Mellow on MCA Canada with humongous dynamics. Just love it.

 

As to HYNBM album I only have US pressings. But they're indeed great!
I don't have Canadian pressings, sorry.
Logically UK EMI had the original master, but the reality might be different. Of course I love UK and Japan pressings too!

 

Oh, sorry.
I have UK original and US pressings, and also Japan pressing pressing too!

 

Why are you sorry? Maybe the ones you have sound better!

 

In my country Japan many people including me copied vinyls to the compact cassette tapes in those days and listened to the copied tapes. Because vinyls were expensive for us and thanks to that custom vinyls remained undamaged. Perhaps you know the quality of Japan pressings. Though far from the original tapes, but sounds almost noiseless. Direct playing was for most of us too extravagant. Surely we were poor in the 70's.
Days have passed and we can enjoy the digital technologies. When I feel like listening to ONJ, I record the vinyls thru digital recorder and I use 24bit/192kHz. If we've done such, we can enjoy that vinyl sound as soon as we want to via PC! Of course 24/96 might be enough and even better. 24/192 is just my opinion and would not force anyone. 16/44.1 might be the best. But I use 24/192 for the time being.

 

I used to make cassette copies of vinyl I loved to save on wear and tear on the record. Now I'm recording those same albums digitally. I go in spurts so it's going to be a slow process.

 

I don't understand how you guys can digitize your vinyl! You're defeating one of the advantages of listening to vinyl in the first place. Besides, if you have a decent needle and turntable, and everything is set up properly, you shouldn't have any wear. Just my opinion, guys

 

Because you can't play vinyl when you go for walks or drive a car. It's nice to have easier access to the music, especially the 45s. My biggest reason is I may not always have a turntable, same for ripping my CDs. I rather play it safe.

 

That's a normal opinion and in Japan also there are many who insist on such. Listening to vinyls directly is the best way but nowadays we don't have to use the compact cassette tapes and we can even record them in Hi-res format. Though digitizing makes some loss, but it has become a such level that we can ignore it. 24bit/96kHz or higher is very strong, I think.

I have other reasons. Playing vinyl is such a hassle. That's a pain in the ass. When we want to listen to, for instance, Richard's Window of US pressing, if that song has been digitized & the file is in our hard drive, we can listen to it at once in a great sound quality!

 

Mr_Vinyl, please tell us the minimum decent needle and turntable for litening to ONJ vinyls. In Japan now "decent needle and turntable" is very expensive. I personally want a VPI classic, but it's too expensive for me.

 

Qtez,

Besides ''personal'' tastes, a good place to start would be an elliptical stylus (needle). The word ''decent'' I used earlier is relative, and even more so when this forum includes members from different countries. There are other variants of the elliptical stylus which are a little more expensive to VERY expensive and have various names such as MicroLine, Shibata, etc.
Since we're talking about record wear, the most important things are the adjustments. You can have the most expensive set in the world, but if your turntale isn't level, it will still damage your records like a $20 turntable would (okay, maybe not as much). As for a turntable, whether you're listening to ONJ or Beethoven or Death Metal, the best one you can get is the one that you can afford. Since you're in Japan, I'm pretty certain that you can get a very good used one that's in mint condition for a fraction of the price of a VPI!

 

Many thanks, Mr_Vinyl. I thought you suggested to use a turtable of middle price ($3,000 - $5,000) or higher by the word "decent".
I use DENON DL-103R now, so it's not an elliptical but conical stylus.

So the properly adjusted turntable does no harm to vinyls, is that right?
I'd like to add the word 'almost', but that's my personal opinion.
Anyway thanks for your explanation.

 

I don't want to go too much off-topic and ruin Pizza's thread, as there is a section in this forum for equipment, but...
Yes, a properly adjusted turntable (level, weight, tracking force, etc.) and type of stylus will make a tremendous difference as to how long your records will play before you hear any signs of wear. Make sure that your turntable is perfectly level (straight in all directions) before making any of the other adjustments.
Of course there will be record wear eventually, but I haven't heard it...yet. I have many records from the 70's that have been played quite often since, and they're still in the same conditon today (mint). I'll probably lose my hearing before any of my LP's wear out, so I don't really concern myself about that. I just try to enjoy the music as much as I can.

 

Bought plenty of ONJ vinyl recently. Well, I found out that there's no general rule regarding the pressings. Two of a Kind - japanese sounds so much better than US i's not even funny. Soul Kiss - vice versa. The japanese pressing sounds a bit lazy while US has all the PRAT and punch that this particular record requires.

 

Something was off on the MCA TOK. It was poorly pressed. I have three copies and one is descent and the other two seem to be made of a very cheap grade of vinyl. It was like they were made by two different companies.

 

Make sure you get the japanese pressing. The moment those digital drums pound you into your sofa on Living in Desperate Times you know it's how this OST is meant to be heard!

 

I'll definitely watch out for it! Thanks for the heads up.

 

A co-worker gave me a bunch of lp's a few months ago Pizza, Including a 'visually' N/M US Totally Hot, 1977, It's a Allen Zentz cut. I'll give it a listen later, doing a OMD transfer right now

 

Hmm sounds like we need to start a TOAK thread like we did for Xanadu

I've only owned the US version LP for TOAK and always thought it sounded decent, so the Japan Lp is better?

 

Way better (on my system at least)

 

I look forward to what you think about it.

 

I'm yet to pick up the MFSL but japanese Totally Hot destroys the US MCA, period.