Not trying to sound glib, but as Mick and the boys said, "it's only rock and roll". Besides, how will you know unless you open it? I bought my copy in 1980 upon release and have enjoyed the heck out of it. I retired my tt in the 80's along with my vinyl and bought the 30th anniversary reissue on cd in '97. My trusty Dual is now back in the chain and Wish You Were Here" sounds like heaven. I don't know if mine is "the good one" or not. Play it loud or through some killer cans, it's a fantastic work.
Glad to hear I didn't get ripped off completely. Now I can at the very least compare it to my Japan OP and Barry US copies. I got it on eBay. Vinyl looked clean. Rolling the dice a bit since I thought it was a good deal and I haven't seen an A1/B3 come up in the US on eBay in a bit. Maybe I am too inpatient. If I love it and it's noisey, will just sell it and wait to find a quieter one. If there's too much surface noise, will definitely just re-sell it in auction. I've gotten lucky with some supposedly VG records that were dead quiet and had bad luck with "NM" or "EX" records that while visually looked good had significant surface noise throughout.
I've gambled and won a lot on Discogs especially from Europe but I've rolled some snake eyes this year. The challenge this year is finding desirable things in the US.
It has the sticker on it. Older jacket with sticker. It should be ok but wasn't it a little bit hit or miss during the transition? Everything I know about it was learned here.
Yeah it's not a sure thing. It was brought to me so it was hard to turn down. I bought it eyes wide open at a good price. It's sitting there like a time bomb. Bliss or weird equalization curve. It's not like I haven't burned money on this album; I bought the damn limited edition SACD a year before they reissued it. I console myself with the A-1/B-5 and the QUAD and the German copies.
Are second pressings better regarded? I have A-2/B-2 and A-3/B-3 pressings. Both are great I think the 3 is a bit hotter. It used to be reasonable to buy records from Germany before the problem we have. These were not very expensive.
I started out with the 2016s. Picked up a 2nd press Meddle, completely blew away the 2016. Final cut 2016 thought sounded great, got the Japanese first press, again it was on another level. I have an Aussie presss WYWH that is very noisy but still sounds better than the 2016.
IMO the hardest thing with this album is to get a quiet playing copy. There are so many quiet parts where crackle pops & clicks ruin it for me. I have bought a few copies in the past that look mint but play with far too much crackle for my enjoyment. Even the 2016 I purchased New was not perfect. Lots of crackle in the quiet parts. Finally I came across a U.K. A3/B7 and it is fantastic. I think it’s a second Pressing but who cares it is practically silent in terms of surface/background noise and sounds great. I’m done searching now on this title. I had a couple of copies of the CBS halfspeed mastersound but I didn’t like them and sold them on sounded harsh & digital to me.
Many, many options better than the 2016 WYWH, IMO. For $200 you should be able to get nearly any press of this. I’d go with the A3/B3 German cut or the “Barry” 80s US cut and pocket the savings. But you could always go with an early UK press as well.
Both are 064s. I didn't know that the first copies were 062 until I had already bought both of these. I pursued them based on advice here, probably earlier in this thread. The 062 vs 064 disctinction didn't come until later. Nice to know in the future though.
I just played the album in it's entirety and listened critically. My speakers are accurate and to my ears it was all there, extremely quite, zero sibilance, great dynamic range, incredible sound stage and no tubbiness in the bottom end. It didn't sound at all harsh, however it isn't warm sounding music. It definitely smokes my '97 cd. That said, my copy is the only one I've ever listened to. If a version out there blows it away, I'd love to hear it.
Does anyone else here have a really hard time comparing versions of this album? There's so much empty space... It's hard to lock onto anything. Probably side 2 is better to focus on.
