Received Animals last night, cleaned and listened. Upon first listen, side 1 sounded good but side 2 sounded like rice krispies, snap crackle pop. I listened a second time and the noise was mostly gone. Apparently just needed a little de-burring. This is the first time I've been exposed to this remaster series. Animals sounds just like the 2011 CD, tonally. I had a minty US original that I sold off a few years ago and I think I preferred the sound of the CD at the time, so I suppose I have an upgrade from that.
Well I just finished listening to the entire campaign for the second time. Absolutely love these new records and I can't praise Bernie Grundman enough for the effort he put into them. I have even sought out to get a pink milk crate to store them in.
You're right that the vinyl sounds similar tonally to the 2011 cd, but not spatially or resolution-wise. I think Animals got the most rap of the reissues due to its sounding the most different from the original. In terms of balance, I think the 2016 is better, BUT, you have to wonder if the bass-heavy and dark-sounding original was not what the band had intended it to sound like in the first place. It's not like they didn't have the equipment to do otherwise.
How it was intended to sound, hmmm....that I don't know. But I like the sound of the 2016 over my early US Columbia.
In this case, it's really a question of taste, or what we're used to. If I'm nostalgic and want something meatier, I'll go for the original. If I'm on a diet and want something sunnier, I'll put on the new one.
PATGOD, More and OBC were highly rated as well! Unless you have any original or super sound copies in NM condition, BG reissues are the best deal around.
I had to order my third copy from the Pink Floyd website, I spend the extra $$ but I am anal when it comes to the Floyd...need the collection to be in perfect shape. The first copy was ruined, the replacement copy (which I think was the last before Amazon went out of stock) was extremely dirty and unplayable thus I sent it back only to tell me they are out of stock. The replacement copy from the website is perfect, dead quiet too.
WYWH (Bernie), OBC, Meddle are at the top of my list for almost 3d like sound quality. WYWH (Doug) has great bass. Animals is clean. The "punch" of 'The Wall' ..... You know what! They all have their moments.
One can speculate that the newly constructed Britannia Row Studios provided a different experience during playback than Abbey Road. Was it mixed there?
FWIW, my copy of The Wall is one of the noisier pressings I've purchased recently; if I had purchased it locally I would have attempted an exchange. All silent areas are crunchy-sounding.
I am pretty sure the entire recording took place including the mixing at Britannia Row (with Brian Humphries). Nick Mason has said (and I am paraphrasing here) that Animals had a much simpler setup because of the new facility/new equipment and the response to Punk. Richard was the only member who didn't like the album, which is a shame his playing is quite good for having no writing credits on it.
Mine was awful too. Unfortunately my return window had closed by the time I got around to listening to it.
I remove them from the shrink and stick them back on a vinyl cover protective sleeve. Some of these Floyds hupes are hard to remove.
That's a must. I just replaced the battery in my CD set a few months back. It had been dead for several years, but my CDs are out of storage boxes and now visible on storage shelves.