"Sgt. Pepper's" - Vinyl Pressing Comparisons at Beatledrops

Lot's of great mono and stereo pressings here to compare of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band"....... Just click on the Sgt. Pepper's link.

www.beatledrops.com

Original UK Mono, 82 UK Reissue, Japanese Mono Red Vinyl, and US Capitol (boo)....... All the major stereo pressings.

For myself, and some other folks here, a pattern is emerging for the stereo pressings. The '70s 2 box htm -4/-5 etc. vintage stampers are becoming my favorites. Lots of punch and more clarity than the original Yellow and Black labels...... This one here sounds particulary good. Check your 'backstock'.

Tone

 

Do you want an '86 Japanese mono? I have a drop using a Technics SL7 turntable and an Ortofon 14 if you're interested.

 

Thanks for putting up the Sgt. Pepper clips. What's lacking on the US mono edition is not the top end, but the upper midrange. This filtered-out upper midrange makes the album sound "muddy." And as usual, the original US stereo pressings sound somewhat thin and shrill. By contrast, the UK mono is as I expected, while the later UK cuttings slightly edge out the original UK cuttings. The later US stereo masterings are slightly worse than any of the UK masterings, but still tolerable.

 

Try to find a UK stereo -3 side 2. Really good sound.

I think this is the first time I've preferred the JPN mono over the UK. That red '82 sounds very nice.

 

The German blue label Odeon LP is one of my favorites for stereo Pepper.

I have a German Apple which is pretty good but I like the blue Odeon copy a bit better.

 

Thanks! ......... That's very generous. With the pressings sounding so close, I'd be hesitant to put the 86 up in comparison, when recorded from a different cart....... So just send me the album.

On the HDN page I do have both an 82 & 86 to compare.

 

Thanks Martin. I'll look for one of those.

The -5/-4 htm is my favorite stereo here. Really has a lot of punch and clarity. Kind of similar in sound to the MONO JPN that you like.

http://www.beatledrops.com/sgt_peppers.html


.

 

I don't think the 82 MONO Pepper is...

A true likeness of the original 67 MONO Sgt Pepper. The 82 reissues in my opinion are possibly the thinest vinyl ever made and can't compare with the original UK Parlophone MONO ... I am going to be selling a lot of early 70s Parlophone Beatles on the forum soon. The early ones are quite good,especially the GRAMOPHONE and EMI rims . These cost a fraction of the originals and are not bad at all and the GRAMOPHONE rims are for the most part as good or better than the originals.The one box EMIs are great.
If anyone is looking for 70s Beatles UK albums I have a bunch I am selling.Hopefully as a lot of 12 or 13 albums .These are so much better than the box sets and all are either Gramophone or EMI rims.
Kind Regards
Jake

 

PM me Jake.......... I may be interested.

 

PM me too, please. Interested in stereos.

 

Not exactly a night and day difference between the CD and the best vinyl pressing. It would be very sobering to have a similar comparison for every pressing that people make hyperbolic claims about.

 

There was talk here about just such a site of pressings comparisions. Not sure what become of that.

This Beatles site is an attempt at one leg of that. It is a Lot of work, but I do hope somone will pick up some other groups and pressings.

 

It will never happen. Hard facts and blind comparisons would take the wind from the sails of the forum. It is more fun to have discussions in subjective terms.

You would have to think twice before you exclaim that your rare unattainable pressing "blows the others away" if there was a audio sample that everyone could listen to.

 

........ Tell me about it.

 

http://www.beatledrops.com/sgt_peppers.html

........ These later purple Capitol pressings are so much better than earlier ones. Ultra cheap too. Who was the Exec. at Capitol that finally cleaned up the Beatles' Master mess?

 

Actually, that's a cutting (as in lacquer cutting) problem, not a tape problem. Remember, all US pressings of the SGT. PEPPER album are mastered from decent-sounding dupe tapes. But the earlier cuttings somehow apply additional compression and limiting (and sometimes funky EQ), making them sound either muddy or shrill. It was not until the MASTERED BY CAPITOL-marked cuttings of this LP came in the mid-1970s that the US masterings sound even close to the true dupe tapes that they're mastered from to begin with. These later, better-sounding masterings of the US-issued Beatles albums came rather late in the orange-label period, circa 1976.

 

Right. There was no way that the Beatles were sending over tapes that sounded that bad. But I've heard that Capitol was often using 2nd rate Masters or ones they'd made themselves. Who knows, but the poor quality control has always amazed me.

Did you listen to the Dave Dexter interview at my site? He sounded offended that someone finally told him that the work he'd been putting out sounded like crap. (Thanks to Rich H for that interview)

Got quite a few examples and info on those posted, so that folks can hear how much better they sound. As I've pointed out, some sound darn near as good as the UK, though the vinyl is often still quite noisy. But many pressing from the 70s are also not played to death with bad needles like the 60s copies.

 

That wacky sound quality of the mid-'60s material put out by Capitol is the result of some (though not all) of the engineers Mr. Dexter worked with. In reality, Mr. Dexter had little to nothing to do with such mediocre-to-awful sound quality of Capitol's mid-'60s product. In the case of the Beatles albums, AFAIK, Dave Dexter, Jr. merely selected the tracks and sequencing of the albums. The tinkering (reverb, compression, bad EQ, etc.) came after the track listing for the album(s) had left Mr. Dexter's hands.

 

What!? You're saying that someone else took the tapes and duplicated them again and added reverb/EQ? Or that someone in the cutting room went beserk and started wildly manipulating pots?
Dave Dexter Jr was the producer. Who are these others?

 

Likely some combination of both. Dave Dexter Jr. actually listened to the actual tape dupes sent to Capitol by EMI UK. He merely told the engineers to tweak the sound to what they thought the American record-buying public would have liked. And some of them went too far with the tweaks. I should have worded my last post as "Mr. Dexter was not directly involved in producing such a crummy-sounding LP."

These "others" are someone in the tape and cutting rooms turning the pots. And the compression, limiter and EQ are not always applied in the tape dupes; they can be added in the lacquer cutting. For the most part, the actual Capitol LP master tapes sounded better (particularly for the later albums) than the usually crummy original '60s pressings made them out to be.

 

Hey Tone,

I've picked up an Australian 1/1 stereo and an Australian 1/1 mono in the last month or so. Both are pressed with UK supplied stampers and to my ears are the best sounding copies I have of Pepper now.

Bobby Sutliff

 

Great job! I have a question though....

Is there a speed problem with "Good Morning" from MAS 2653 or is it just my idea?

 

I still like the -1/-1 better. The difference is not great on the two songs you selected, but it's much smoother. The other pressings, including, the CD all have a bit more midrange for a more slightly more sloppy sound.

 

Mmm...I'm not sure I agree, Martin. The JPN mono has a bit more at 1K and has a swishy sound that I've heard on a few of these pressings.

 

I'll have to listen closer to the exact MAS 2653 example.

However, It's worth noting that there are number of tuning problems inherent to every version of "Good Morning". The overall track is not tuned to A440--(sounds flat to me.) Whether this is a result of the instruments being out of tune or the tape machines running at the wrong speed is not clear. Also, notice how the overdubbed horns are tuned sharper than the rest of the track. It's a great song, but as a trained musician, the tuning issues drive me crazy...