Is there a way to know if vinyl reissues are taken from original analogue masters?

Having heard vinyl reissues taken from original analogue and from digital, I completely accept the notion that there's a big difference.

I notice that Rhino is starting to mention analogue origins on their vinyl reissues, but I wonder how else one can know the source of a reissue? Any resources out there for that?

 

It seems that simply contacting the person(s) who mastered the reissue can often result in a swift answer, not always, but more often than not, it is a good starting place.. Go to the source about the source!

 

Agree. Ask the source. They are generally very willing to say if they used an analogue source. If they do not respond, it is generally because they do not want the information out there, and that leaves you to draw your own conclusions. At that point, I lean towards not purchasing.

Also, you should be cautious that an analog source is not always the original source of the album in question, so be sure before asking that it wasn't a digital album to start with.

 

They should list the source on the back of the album covers. It's only right because that seems to be a big issue with vinyl lovers now. However, I would listen to a record at least once if possible that way you might be pleasantly surprised even if it was sourced from digital material.

 

But the problem is that it isn't. A good number of those in my vinyl-lover circle have no opinion on the source of master. They care more about a) the mastering engineer on an older album, b) the quality of the overall package, and c) the relative obscurity or limited availability of a release. The vinyl community is only partially made up of audiophiles. A great many others are just collectors.

 

For me, the sound quality is more important than whether it was sourced from analog or digital.

 

Analog master doesn't really tell the whole story. Was that master then transferred to digital, then cut to vinyl? The in thing seems to be to say taken from the analog masters, great, then what happened to it.

 

Yeah, watch out for the language used. If it says "sourced from the analog master," it's highly likely a digital copy was used to cut the lacquer. Only if it says "cut from analog master" is it likely 100% analog. Then again, I've seen claims in online and brick and mortar stores that the recent Rhino Captain Beefheart box was cut all analog. Somebody here on the board confirmed with Rhino that Chris Bellman was given digital copies to cut with, even though he can and does cut all analog. So you can't always believe what you hear. Anything on Rhino cut by Ron McMaster at Capitol is digital, even if it says analog tapes were used. Our host has said that Capitol mastering uses a digital delay in their chain, which means that signal is being converted to digital before it hits the cutter head.

I think the reason labels are so cagey about this stuff is that they know that a lot of people will be put off paying big money for albums cut from digital sources. I will buy these albums if there are no other options, but I won't spend more than $15-20 on them. They can sound really good, but what is the point? Unless the album was recorded or mixed digitally to begin with, and there is a usable analog master tape, it should be used to cut lacquers, period. There is no good reason to do otherwise, other than laziness. It can't be a cost cutting measure. Last year's Beatles mono and this year's Kinks mono reissues prove that it can be done cost effectively, and people will buy it.

 

I have asked this question directly many times since I got back into vinyl 7 years ago. With only 1 sole exception in all this time, I've been met with silence in those instances where I subsequently found out they were digitally sourced. That exception was Chandos Records, who quickly responded to me that their LP releases were made from 24/96 masters. Mind you, given they only record digitally, they were likely very keen to quash the notion that they came from CD resolution masters.

I find this whole thing very frustrating. I wish companies would just simply tell us the truth. Yes, an LP can sound very nice even when made from a 16/44.1 master file (I have some Mercury Living Presence reissues which are really good). But in my experience all other things being equal, it would have sounded significantly better again had it come from 24 bit masters, especially when it comes to classical music which really highlights the shortcomings of 16/44.1.

As for pure analogue versus 24 bit masters, to me it is no longer a simple matter of saying the analogue would be superior. The reason is that a lot of these master tapes are now seriously degrading. Every time I compare a new RCA Living Stereo release or Mercury Living presence analogue release to one even made 15 to 2o years ago, I can hear the tape deterioration. Best example is MLP SR90006 - released from the original master tapes on CD some 25 years ago and only a year ago on ORG. The tape is dying. The distortion caused by oxide shedding (sounds like overloaded tubes) is at times extreme on the latest remastering and barely audible on the one made 25 years ago. It's for this reason that sometimes a record made from a 24 bit master than in turn was made 20 years ago might actually be better, especially if it is classical and they were using a dCS converter to make that 24 bit master.

 

You've hit the nail on the head. But they should ask the question how many people will be put off by them not saying anything at all?

 

I would assume that it's never the case with a new release these days, unless they specifically go out of their way to tell you otherwise.

 

They're banking on the fact that most people buying vinyl these days have no clue how records are made, and have no idea what a "master" is. I would think many I these people would be pissed if they had any idea how the sausage was made, but many more could care less.

 

But is that really the case in the main? I'm not sure. I certainly agree for anyone who gets into vinyl because it is "cool", they like the physical media aspect, the covers, the artwork, the stereotypical "warm" sound that even a cheap system will produce (possibly the case for young people), but I would have thought a lot of buyers care and are knowledgeable. It doesn't really make sense to me that someone would invest good money in a vinyl front end and not know at least the fundamentals of record making and mastering. Because you really need to be an enthusiast on some level to get into it to begin with.

The new vinyl releases from Universal (i.e Decca, DGG, MLP) cost $30 each in the US and here in Australia $52 each! But almost anyone knows you can download the same recording from their websites for a fraction of that money. At those sorts of prices, I really care about what I am getting. I would have thought that anyone with a decent vinyl front end (say worth $3,000 or more for turntable, cartridge and phono stage) would consider the provenance of a recording to be a key consideration. The fact that it gets discussed so often would seem to support this.

 

I don't doubt that. The problem I have(regarding digital sources that is) is that some vinyl enthusiast tend to blast some records for having digital sources without really hearing the product. I own approximately 60 vinyl reissues out of my collection of 700 vinyl titles. Some I know come from digital sources, but many of those sound pretty good in my opinion. My point is give it a chance before you condemn the product. Otherwise, record pressing plants may be hesitant to release a digital sourced pressing on fears that it won't be accepted by the vinyl community as a whole. Let the ears be the judge and not random rhetorical comments.

 

"cd on wax" releases are a waste of everyone's time. It drive sme nuts to see RSD support them as well as singles with virtually no unique content that clog up every record store months after the event.

 

hi-rez digital vinyl can sound great. it's the 16-bit stuff that needs to stop.

Why can't precise source information be listed somewhere on the packaging?

 

I'm not sure anyone is saying 24/96 files can't produce decent vinyl, take MOV, they seem to get those right. It is the misleading, "taken from anlog tapes" that seem to be popping up on every new release, when they know that it is not a true analog release. Just say, produced from 24/96 files taken from the analog master, don't try to pull one over on people. And, yes, they know what they are doing, or trying to do. In my opinion, if an all analog chain exist, it should be an all analog release.

 

I'm sure by now 75% of what's out there is digital one way or another.

All those mater tapes of those classic albums we all know or/and love are deteriorating one way or another and the only way to save them is to convert them to hi-rez digital. All those acetate based tapes (from the 50's and 60's) are shrinking and twisting, the oxide is shedding from poor storage/age/over use. Acetate over time lets off a vinegar smell (vinegar syndrome to us film collectors) that's a sign of "transfer me quick before I shrink and become difficult to play". All the masters of those 1972-1980? albums were recorded on tape with a synthetic lubricant that breaks down over time, when those tapes are to be used, they must be baked in a convection oven at 125 degrees for 6 hours to be played, longer for 2" multis and 1/2" tapes. Someone mentioned here that the tape for Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody has been baked too many times, I wonder if that's a factor for the lousy sounding Police and Steely Dan re-issues. I'm sure when a tape get's baked, it loses something. Since a chunk of our musical heritage is slowly decomposing, the only way to save it is to convert it to digital. A good example are the tapes for "Kind Of Blue", a nice chunk of the CBS records catalog, and the first Doors album which are now fried, the DCC Doors S/T is probably the last time the original master was used. Other albums use remixes since the original 1/4" masters are gone/used up (like KOB and Blonde on Blonde). A good chunk of those tapes are at the end of the line and have to be converted to digital to save them.

In other words: Since a good number of reissues are digital copies of now deteriorating master tapes, the best bet is to find a original LP pressing.

 

And last years issue of Tommy cut by Kevin Gray from digital files demonstrstes that vinyl cut from digital has the potential to sound excellent.

 

Look, I have some VERY good digitally sourced LPs that are way better than the CD version. I have some excellent sounding albums that are standalone great sonic albums. BUT I have records that were recorded analog and then made into digital masters. I have both original LPs cut from the analog tapes and later digitally mastered LPs of the same. There are aspects of the digitally mastered ones I prefer, but I always prefer the analog ones overall which, to me, have better musical flow. It's the reason that they chose to scrap original plans to do the Beatles mono LPs digitally and instead do them all analog, going back to the original masters. If it didn't matter, would they have done that?

Another example was Resonance Records digitally mastering the Bill Evans Live tapes they recently uncovered. The head of the company was crowing to me how they took out the hiss and everything. This is more of an overuse of a technique, in my opinion, but it sounds like they took a bit of life out of the recording. It sounds good, but I bet it would have sounded better. But i digress.

 

Wait. Has anyone heard the Music Matters Blue Note reissues? I know a few here have. I recognize the names. Those are all analog from the original masters (98% of them, anyway) and they are f-ing amazing. Can I get a witness?!

 

If it is a newer recording, it is more likely to have come from a digital master. It is my preference as digital recording/mastering had surpassed analogue sq wise by the turn of the millennium. As long as the final mix down is at least 16/44 it will sound better than analogue if it is mastered properly.

 

It gets discussed often on here. My circle of friends mostly have a high-quality receiver bought second hand (70s Marantz seems to be the choice), a decent set of mass market speakers, and a ~$500 turntable. They're in at maybe $700-800, not $3k. while I have no evidence to support this, I have a feeling that this represents a good portion of the market. When I go on other boards, including Facebook, I see people fawning over resissues not because of the sound, but because "it has an awesome swirled color vinyl". And that just happened to be on a CD-sourced vinyl. We are the exception on here, not the rule, which is why the labels doing this know they can get away with it.

I agree, but the problem is in order to hear vinyl, you have to pay for it. It isn't like record stores let you come in and listen first like they did with CDs, nor would they have a good enough system to make it a fair evaluation. So in the meantime, we have the opinions of fellow forum members (which I do not consider 'random'), and our own closely held beliefs.

 

I'll admit that when I got back into buying records, I didn't exert any effort at all to find out whether what I was buying was actually better than the much cheaper CD or other digital version. I ended up buying several things on vinyl that I already had on CD because I was under the misimpression that vinyl necessarily made the sound quality better. Thankfully, I discovered this forum, which has saved me money on those sorts of purchases (although I am not saving money overall because now I am aware of the more niche audiophile type presses).

Anyway, my point is that the "vinyl sounds better" thought process means that there is likely little demand for most companies to release any further information. Like most people selling things, they are banking on consumer ignorance.