Hoffman mastered ZZ Top Tres Hombres vinyl

http://www.amazon.com/TRES-HOMBRES-...bs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1231024346&sr=8-3

Is this the Steve Hoffman mastered LP, or am I looking for something else? I want to make sure before I order. Thanks for any help, Bob

 

That's the one.

 

Try this place. Everything is explained. Good people too.

http://www.elusivedisc.com/prodinfo.asp?number=WBLP79969

 

AFAIK - The only vinyl of "Tres Hombres" currently 'in-print' is the Warner 180 gram RTI pressing of the SH & KG cut from the original analog master tapes.

Amazon, and others, never show proper company item numbers just their bin number but the bar code is 081227996994.

So yes, this should be it and pay no mind to the negative customer reviews, I think they have the CD release reviews mixed in with this stellar vinyl version.

This is the picture they should be showing for this particular product.

 

Definitely worth picking this slab'o'wax up!

 

While I'm tempted to make the upgrade, this is a classic case of where my original London copy sounds so good I don't see fixing something that isn't broke. I did say the same thing about Rhino's recent press of "Remain In Light" and that turned out to be very rewarding. I suppose it's the "widened soundstage and enhanced depth boost the record's crunchy midrange and sturdy bass lines. Drums now have authoritative presence and image-specific detail," that make me all herky jerky and twitchy.

I suppose it would be nice to have a Tres Hombres cover without ringwear, right?

 

I have this 180g album and it sounds fantastic! You will love it.

 

Thanks Just what I wanted to hear.

 

Whoa! I had no idea this existed!!!! What's with all the negative publicity on Amazon for this pressing? My guess is that those who bought the album probably aren't familiar with Steve and Kevin's take on how the mastering should be done.

I'll confess-- the only way I've ever heard these songs is in the horrible, obviously mp3 sourced broadcast on the local classic rock station. This is going to be bought ASAP so I can hear it correctly. I also have an original London pressing but I've never played it-- it's not in great shape, but would probably be okay if I cleaned it very, very well.

Any specific comments on how each pressing sounds? "Jesus Just Left Chicago" is probably my favorite ZZ Top song because of that dissonant couple of notes that pop up occasionally in the tune... can't wait to hear it on this new LP pressing...

EDIT: DUH! Upon re-reading the O.P., I see that there are CD reviews mixed in with the LP reviews... As the great philosopher Homer would have said, "DOH!!!!"

 

Your head will explode when you hear it.

 

well fortunately we're not talking about "it". Tres Hombres on the other hand on vinyl AND CD both sound great. The somewhat sibilant highs on a lot of ZZ Top records is gone and the bass is deep and tight. Tres Hombres is now just a super smooth fun record...awesome!

 

The SH Tres Hombres is VERY good, I should know because I have more than a few copies
of this album, and Steve's is the Top Dog! The latest c.d. remaster (they used the original
album mix) is pretty good too. Time to do the rest of their albums (Tejas would be sweeeet)

 

Yep, this is the one. Well worth buying. I have a London issue, a Warner Brothers issue and this on vinyl and it's by far the best of them.

Unfortunately, all the reviews for this is for the early CD release and not the vinyl.

 

is this the "good" one as well. i have been wanting some ZZ Top for a LONG time. and i just remembered i have some Best Buy store credit and i can buy this online and use that.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...res+hombres&lp=2&type=product&cp=1&id=1837660

 

I have both the London 1st pressing and the SH re-issue... I preffer the 1st issue...

Rick

 

Steve's is a little "smoother", but the original's sound great too. I have the
first 3 albums that are original Londons, and they rock!

 

Though my original copy that I purchased when this album was released isn't the cleanest sounding copy, the one I purchased last year ( with the same sleeve labeling shown here ) sounds real clean but I don't understand the fuss over it.

It doesn't say anything about Steve Hoffman on it either so is it his?

As far as to how each sounds, they sound much alike to me. Each Lp is low in volume so it needs to be cranked. I was expecting the new version to have more volume to it.

I really don't follow this thing about remastering anyway. You got the original tapes sure, but the band isn't around and now it's up to someone else who isn't even personally connected to the project to inject their feel into it.

It's like me taking a commercially produced recording and tweaking the EQ for my copy of it.

Like, what was wrong with it when it was done the first time? If it ain't broke, what's to fix?

 

This record (the latest vinyl pressing) sounds very true to the original, maybe
a little smoother. It is a nice quiet pressing (good quality vinyl) , so when you
crank it up, you hear music, not noise.

 

This discussion might be veering off-topic from the Tres Hombres remaster, but I can't resist attempting to respond to the comments/questions you posted below.

For one thing, it gives people an opportunity to buy a brand-new, shrink-wrapped edition of this LP, something that would be time-consuming and/or cost-prohibitive (if not impossible) to do nowadays with a 30+ year old LP that has been out of print for years.

It seems to have been a design decision by Warners to faithfully reproduce all of the original artwork, without any modifications including new mastering credits. Check the deadwax though and you should see Steve's initials.

I hesitate to try and answer this part, because I am not as technically accurate or articulate about these matters, so my best advice is for you to spend more time on these forums and you'll eventually find the answer to many of the questions you posted, including the one about why more volume in a remaster is not always a good thing.

Here's my take, grain of salt included: To maintain as much dynamic range as possible, the highest and lowest volume points in the record might be far apart, and the highest volume point might be only a few seconds, leaving the rest of the record sounding like it's "not loud enough." In reality, if you have a good amplifier, you can just crank it up more and enjoy! If the engineer squashed all that dynamic range so the highest volumes were turned down, and the lowest volumes were turned up, it might seem like there's more volume, but in reality you've just been ripped off and lost a great deal of dynamic range.

That's one reason why there remains a market for original vinyl LPs. However, in some cases, the original LP can be greatly improved upon, due to a variety of reasons surrounding the original.

The "outsider" who comes in decades later to remaster an album can take advantage of some things to help themselves do a great job. For example, these are a few things I've learned by hanging out at these forums:
1) The remastering engineer has the original master tapes (ideally), so they hear the most un-futzed-with recording possible.
2) The remastering engineer sometimes has the EQ, etc., notes of the original mastering engineer, which many times are included with the master tapes.
3) The remastering engineer can often obtain original copies of the LP to listen to and compare to the master tape.
4) The remastering engineer might know up front they're remastering for the audiophile market, where the assumption is that the consumer will have better turntables, etc. So while the original LP might have been mastered with compromises to avoid playback trouble on much more modest, mainstream turntables, the remastered LP can take fuller advantage of better equipment for improved bass response, etc. I seem to recall that Joni Mitchell's Blue and one of the recent Warner James Taylor LP remasters both followed that train of thought to expand the dynamic range compared to the original LPs.

I disagree, on the assumption that you wouldn't have the advantages I listed above. Of course, I'm sure there are some remastering engineers who truly do EQ the hell out of a recording, the original sound of the master tapes be damned. I'm focusing my thoughts on the best mastering engineers who take much greater care than that.

Sometimes, there's nothing to fix. In those cases, the ability for people to purchase a brand-new shrinkwrapped copy of the LP, often pressed on superior vinyl to the original, is sufficient justification for the remastering.

In many other cases, though, there are many ways to improve on the original, and the best mastering engineers figure out how to make those improvements without compromising the integrity of the sound evident in the original master tapes.

Craig(VC).

 

Gotta say-- this is an OUTSTANDING pressing! I love it! If you're on the fence, don't be-- GET IT!

 

Curious what those big check marks are next to some items. Any idea?

 

If you're saying that your original isn't the cleanest copy, weren't you excited to at least get a clean copy on good vinyl when Steve's version came out?

If you search for it, you will find Steve's description of how he mastered Tres Hombres. Among other things, he took off the compression that was on the original. I can't say that I had ever found my London pressing incredibly lacking, but the remaster opens up the album and it sounds absolutely unbelievable, IMO.

 

I never owned this album before in any format. I bought this 180 gm lp reissue and was verrrry pleased. It's a no-lose proposition.

 

Hello!

Me and a friend both have Steve's version and love it. In a tragic accident, I fumbled my copy putting it back in the sleeve and now have an extra out of rythym popping noise on 2 tracks. Peace. Robert

 

ouch!