RCA label variations

There is an old Elvis collection that I have a chance to buy one of three different reissues of. All look NM but I can't audition ahead of time. One has the 70s orange "Dynaflex" RCA label, one has a tan colored label that looks otherwise similar to the orange, and the third has a black label like RCA used in the 80s (it resembles my Bruce Hornsby and the Range records).

Since I can't seem to find a clean "deep groove" early pressing, which of these should sound best? I know that the orange Dynaflex is widely disparaged, and I know that the black label records I have in my collection sound really nice, but I'm intrigued by the tan label and know nothing about it. Does anyone here have an opinion? Thanks.

 

All I know about the tan labels are that they first turned up in early 1975, and was initially used exclusively by RCA's Indianapolis, IN factory and Allied Record Co. in Los Angeles (the latter for subcontracted styrene 45 pressings); Hollywood used orange well into late 1975 - and only in its last several months of existence (it closed in 1976) did they press in tan. I.I.N.M., that color tint would've been Pantone 465 or 466.

The "black label, dog near top" was first introduced around the summer or fall of 1976. At least one 45 had been pressed with both that and the prior tan label: Vicki Sue Robinson's "Turn the Beat Around." Naturally, I have the tan.

There is only one plant of RCA's that I know of that did "deep groove" Dynaflex pressings (which was described on another thread here as an oxymoron), and that was their Smiths Falls, Ontario plant in Canada. All U.S. plants by the time Dynaflex was first foisted onto the public in 1970 had 1" diameter circular indents in the label area - the only pressings resembling a "deep groove" (likewise 1" diameter) were from Rockaway, NJ, and only on one side. Smiths Falls didn't fall in line with the U.S. plants in that regard until the mid-1970's.

 

The RCA Tan Label was a transitional label used in the mid 70s (after the orange), & before they changed to the black Nipper label. Which was introduced in '76 I believe.

Frank Daniels has a nice page on RCA labels...... http://heroinc.0catch.com/rca/

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All of this info is good and I appreciate it, but none of it speaks to questions of sound quality. Does anyone know which issue is likely to sound better? Thanks.

 

Well, then . . . deep-catalogue pressings like what you're looking at, basically fall into two categories: (a) use of the same metal parts dating to at least the 1960's (I have a circa 1969 rigid-vinyl orange label pressing with 1" diameter circular indent of a 1950's mono-only Ernesto Lecuona LP with lacquers mastered prior to 1962 or '64), or (b) recuts from tape dubs that were a generation or two removed from what was originally used to cut the original pressings, ergo of somewhat lower sound quality than the previous generation tape dub (let alone the original master tape). In the scenario of (b), post-1976 "black label, dog near top" pressings would have had lacquers of a tape generation lower than 1975-76 tan labels, which in turn would have had lacquers of a tape generation lower than the much-maligned, oft-hated Dynaflex pressings of orange labels (the tint of which, from my research, would have been Pantone 137). Given what had been written up about recuts of Simon & Garfunkel Columbia LP's, one has to presume that the same principles applied to Elvis LP recuts. In other words, based on this simple mathematical principle, the Dynaflex Elvis' would have sounded better.

 

Food for though. Thanks.

 

The thinner Dynaflex records were also thinner in sound and with more distortion at the Lp's ends-not like the Virgin 180g Vinyls which had a fuller-Bodied Sound to them..the way they'd cut them and the way the Dynaflexes warped and broke when bent too far (Easier than their thicker Lp Cousins) made them useless,in my own opinion!:thumbsdn:

 

It would help if you listed specific album titles. That said, generally speaking I prefer the sound quality on the Dynaflex LPs from the early 70's vs. pressings from the mid/late 70's (for Elvis, anyways).

 

I'd also bet on the dynaflex... also, the Elvis 70s reissues I see, especially tan or black labels, are usually very cheap.

 

Not to distract from the OP's Elvis-related question, but while the topic of RCA labels is up, can anyone tell me about these odd greyish-whiteish labels like this?



I'd never seen any like this before, but now I've got two, this one and a Waylon Jennings single that's also from 1974. Were these just used that one year by a certain plant or something? The first time I saw one (the Waylon single), I thought maybe it was just a badly-faded tan label since the record itself was pretty well-worn, but this Reunion record was a new-old-stock copy from a jukebox distributor that went out of business, so I doubt they'd have both faded in exactly the same way.

 

I'm sorry, this will sound lame I'm sure, but I can't remember the specific album title. I know that it is a four LP box with much of the 50s stuff in mono (man, I HATE the rechanneled Elvis stuff, just horrid). Something about gold records, pictures of maybe 25 of them in rows on the front.

 

It's all good. I'm interested in other RCA product as well.

 

As well as John Denver's "Back Home Again" and The Hues Corporation's "Rockin' Soul." Only the Indianapolis plant used this, from about fall 1974 to early 1975. From what I could tell, this very pale color was only on 45's. This was used after the orange color, and before they adopted tan.

 

Good despcription - that sounds like WORLDWIDE 50 GOLD AWARD HITS. VOL. 1. There's also a 4 LP set for Vol. 2 (which adds THE OTHER SIDES to the title).

Assuming it's Vol. 1, the first pressings came out in August, 1970 and have an orange label but it is on thick/rigid vinyl. This also came with a 16 page booklet (there are two variations) which is advertised on the front cover.

The second pressing is on Dynaflex, and these also included the bonus booklet. This was issued sometime in 1971.

Third pressings are on the tan label, some of which have the bookelt; others do not. This pressing came out in 1976. No booklet.

Fourth pressings are on the black label and came out in 1977.

Note that there are also two 2-LP sets of this title (they broke up the 4-LP box into two sets).

 

Shawn, this is great info, especially about the orange non-dynaflex. It could be one of the ones I saw but assumed that orange = dynaflex. I'll look more closely. So, in terms of sound quality, what order would you place them in, best to worst?

Since you seem to know your Elvis, is this the best way to quickly and easily get the early hits in mono? I suspect collecting the singles would be the best option, but I have neither the time or the budget to go down that road.

Thanks again.

 

There's an interesting thread on this LP set here:

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=138610&highlight=worldwide+hits

This is one of the few pre-1977 Elvis LPs that I don't have (the other few are mostly true rarities like the US mono SPEEDWAY or mono GOLD RECORDS VOL. 4... neither of which I'm losing any sleep over). The reason I don't have it is that the 'thick' orange label pressing is somewhat tough to find, at least at what I would consider a reasonable price. So I'm unable to comment on sound quality.

That said, I have heard both 'thick' orange label pressings of ELVIS COUNTRY (10,000 YEARS AGO) and THAT'S THE WAY IT IS and compared them to their respective Dynaflex pressings. In both cases, I preferred the thick vinyl but the Dynaflex's certainly held their own... the difference wasn't massive. Note also that the stampers for most pre-1978 Elvis records were done at three locations, Indianapolis, IN, Hollywood, CA and Rockaway, NJ. There's a concensus that the Indianapolis stampers sound 'best'. But for a compilation LP set like this, I wouldn't worry too much about that (if at all).

If the LP set you're looking at is on Dynaflex and is in decent condition, and especially if it includes the booklet (which is pretty nice) and is no more than, say, $20 I'd go for it if for nothing else that it's a quick and easy way to get all these great songs in one scoop. This is assuming you want these songs on vinyl as opposed to CD.

Sonically, there are probably better ways to get this material on vinyl but that could take you a very long time as well as cost you a lot more. Still, if you see ELVIS' GOLD RECORDS VOL. 3 or VOL. 4 in stereo on original black label RCA and they're in good shape under $10, don't hesitate to get them - the sould quality is really nice IMO.

 

Yes, I want the vinyl. I feel certain that there must be CD versions that are great though. The vinyl boxes available here are priced at $15 each.

I have two Elvis Gold Records Vol 1, a rechanneled stereo which is just unlistenable and a beat up mono that sounds okay but I'll bet was great when it was new. Would you recommend finding Gold Vol 2 in mono and Gold 3&4 in stereo over this box? I don't see Vol 2 in my travels for some reason.

BTW, this set is for my 12 year old daughter who has taken a liking to E, so the book in the box is also an enticement.

Your post and the link are very helpful. Thanks very much.

 

Very glad to help! If the box is $15 - and especially if this is a gift for your daughter - I wouldn't hesitate to get it. Out of curiosity, do you know if the book is included? A lot of times, it's missing as people lost them, cut pics out from it, etc.

Finding an original mono US pressing of Gold Records Vol. 2 in decent shape will take a while, and will be costly unless you get lucky; I'd say 80% of all copies I've seen are trashed. Stereo copies of Vol. 3 and 4 seem a lot easier to find, at least around here. But the track listing between the Gold(en) Record series and WORLDWIDE Vol. 1 differs quite a bit. Again, considering it's for your daughter, I'd go for WORLDWIDE. Plus, it includes outstanding tracks like Suspicious Minds, Kentucky Rain, Viva Las Vegas, etc.

Go for the box, and if it's a big hit with her and you need follow-up Elvis vinyl recommendations just post here

 

Yes, book is included at least in a couple of them. The guy has like eight copies in his shop and I could pick and chose. That is what started my dilemma.

She has quite a few of the Pickwick 70s albums, which are spotty at best. I've been getting those from the buck bin at HPB when they show up minty. We also have one decent 50s collection from Readers Digest called Hits of 56-57 or something along those lines. I was surprised to find the sound on that one was pretty good, all mono. I found a copy of Sun Sessions for $5 (80s black label) which sounds not so great but is (IMHO) the best stuff he ever did. So much energy. She isn't as into it, I think it is a bit raw for her. She likes the late 50s stuff best.

 

Several years ago I was going to make a Dynaflex tribute web site, but I lost my enthusiasm. While RCA did seem to be promoting thin, flimsy records that used less vinyl to press as somehow a benefit to the customer, they did often sound quite good. I found this hard to believe at first since it seemed like such a scam. The vinyl RCA used for Dynaflex was a higher quality than the black label pressings in the late 70s through the 80s. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say Dynaflex was great or anything; it clearly wasn't. But they're better quality than a lot of what RCA later released. Also, it had a cool logo.

 

What is interesting is that a lot of the tracks on 'Worldwide Gold Award Hits vol 1' are the original mono single versions with added eq and compression for radio play and they sound very different to the flat singles we hear on CD now, it's a matter of taste but some of these early tracks sound more exciting with the eq and compression which is how people first heard them back in the 50's and 60's

 

Dynaflex used a high quality vinyl, more expensive, thus to keep the list price down less vinyl was used. Whatever you're favorite artist is - you'll see the same lacquer information on them. Dynaflex wasn't new cuttings, it was a new vinyl blend.

FWIW I always liked them. Quiet surfaces. Never had any warp problems. Most were only a bit thinner than vinyl was trending toward anyway at the time. I have handled some real thin copies though - and some wobbly / warped ones. Those were probably from owner mis-use.

Two factors from the thinner body that can alter the sonics of a given album on Dynaflex, both relatively minor: the lesser weight (mass) - and the VTA, which might need tinkering.