Alice In Chains Facelift Bob Ludwig Vinyl Remaster

My copy of Unplugged was horribly warped when I bought it. After not touching it for a few years I busted it out recently and the warps had fixed themselves enough that is was listenable. That was nice.

 

Bought this lp and played it today. I have nothing to compare it too-ashamed to say this is this the first time owing any Alice in Chains music in any format.
I've always heard the hits on the radio of course but never pursued it further until now. That being said I think this lp sounds pretty good. Very full, clean, dynamic.
Both lps delivered perfectly flat. Gave them a Spin Clean first. Very enjoyable listening experience. If they decide to release anymore lps from them with the same quality I am all in.

I think I will most likely pick up some of their cds for now. They seem cheap enough.

 

Played mine a few times now. Really impressed. Sounds really close in terms of generation to the masters. Nice quiet vinyl, mastered not blown out, couldn't detect any sibilance, despite knowing for a fact I need to realign my cartridge. Really stoked on this release. OG CD was good, but this is an actual upgrade. Like said in previous posts, art could be better sourced, but super happy with the overall pressing.

Quadraflex 610T Reference Turntable w/ Stanton 881s Cartridge
Onkyo Integra P304 Preamp
Onkyo M504 Poweramp
Yamaha NS 500M Speakers
Denon DVD-1920 CD/SACD player (for now)

 

Mid-way through the first disc.

Sound is great. Flat and centered vinyl, here as well.

Very well done, imo. Loooong overdue, this one.
A high end sleeve would have been great, but I have Zero complaints about the quality of the Pressing or the Mastering.

 

Wonder what the issue is with reissuing ‘tripod’ on vinyl? Licensing rights? Was it a different label to the others....I don’t remember it being so?

I can’t believe people here on this forum think MoV Dirt is great? Unplugged....yes. But Dirt doesn’t sound great imo.

 

Same label. Fingers crossed that there are no issues and it's on the way. Maybe they'll do Jar of Flies and Dirt first.

 

SAP is being reissued for RSD Black Friday -8500 copies - 4 songs on one side, AIC etching on the other.

 

Lets hope Dirt is up next! I love my MOV copy, But would dig a Ludwig/Bellman 2LP...

 

Welp, just finally A/B'ed the new 2LP directly vs the original Facelift cd. In my opinion, very surprisingly, the CD absolutely SMOKES this vinyl set. WAAAAAY more detail and presence in the gtrs and vocals & their fx. The new wax's low-end swallows everything, comparatively. Such a huge lift in the bottom makes all of the guitars & vox sit much further back in the mix. The top end on everything does sound to be pretty damn close to eachother tho.
I dipped the vinyl's low end down to match the low end of the cd to see if that helped clean up and present the strings n voice, and it did not. It seems like ol' Bern ducked out high-mids by a decent margin (maybe even a couple dB.) Bit of a smileyface EQ goin' on with the wax.

Before I did the shootout the new vinyl sounded big & badass to me! Definitely didn't immediately feel like it was missing anything imperative. Definitely has good movement, no over-compression with buried drum transients, drums slap you clear n hard... kick drum has a heightened bottom-end in an exciting way. Snare still has its attack & tail on display. PLENTY of bass guitar growl balanced well its own heightened bottom, right along with everything else, in a big & not-annoying way! BUT with that direct A/B.... Holy smokes the vinyl is so blanketed compared to that CD. So much of the guitars between 1khz & 4k is missing, and a ton of its detail, personality & presence with it. The new master definitely balanced the vox & gtrz to where they're still heard clearly, but their command & urgency absolutely got the backseat in the process...

ALL THAT BEING SAID, I don't mean to totally poo-poo the new master. Like I said earlier, it's still an impressive presentation! It was just a startling result to me, considering all of the claims of more detail & depth & wider soundstage. The eq depth is definitely wider from the bottom extension, so that's fun. But the space-in-between-things depth totally suffers because of it. The system I use is pretty damn transparent between vinyl & CD playback, so I can trust what I hear... I've heard albums (vinyl vs CD) sound completely identical when A/B'ing on this setup.
The new vinyl is big, swollen & bassy without losing the drum movement/dynamics. Still has some space left in the mix too, but it is more stuffy. Bigger bass does take up way more real estate, but it also smooths out the sound of the whole. So at that point I guess you might prefer the smoothness, over the gtrz being more chainsaw-like. But the gtrs on this album never bugged me; verrrrry tastefully recorded & mixed. The old CD is so much more geared towards the grinding guitars and vocal performance. Man Jerry's amps & their recordings really shine triple-fold on the CD.

ANYwho.... My 2 cents... Thanks for reading. What a ******' album!!! I'll keep the vinyl and spin it sometimes when I'm in the mood for that big bottom flavor. It was sure pressed absolutely stunningly!!! So clean, with as silent a noise-floor as I've ever heard on wax. The old CD does still win my heart though.

 

Listening again after some dinner. Crankin' the vinyl. Man, for all the whining I did up there, this pressing still fkng rules
I just don't think I was ready for that A/B, it was too startling to my JC fandom. This new master really is balanced very friggin' well. Big, boisterous and smooth... The CD is more fer when you'd rather have this album (and Jerry's greenbacks) affably flamethrow yer eyebrows off.

 

I just listened to my MOV Dirt vinyl... it’s good but nowhere near as good as this Facelift reissue! If they reissue it like Facelift... look out!

 

Can you do a review when you’ve stopped smoking...

 

Man... what happened last night?! Picked a helluva day to stop sniffing glue....

 

Aloha Mr. Hand!

 

Me too. Very much so.

 

Thanks for taking the time to do an A/B and give us your thoughts. I’m ordering the vinyl right F’n now!!! I’ve been waiting god damn years for this! In reading a good number of reviews it seems it was really well done and people are quite pleased overall. Really looking forward to it!

 

Just gave it it's 4th spin, all 4 sides. Definitely one of the better master/pressing jobs I've purchased as of late. Can't get over the lack of groove distortion and siblance. Listening with my entire system completely flat, it still kills with zero harshness, and still leaving detail. I also bought Rainier Fog along with it, which is also stellar.

 

Been waiting a long time to pick this up. No way was I going to drop that much cash for a used one. Spun it today and personally I think it sounds great. A friend has an orginial and I think this sounds as good if not better. My 2 cents anyway. Very happy with this purchase.

 

Ufortunately my local shop informed me that Warner Russia has delayed the vinyl until like 8th January. So probably EU release got delayed a bit. I'm glad you guys already got the new reissue anyway! I had my time to compare the 24-96 version to original CD my friend (who is a fan of AiC) brought it, and so far I personally really like the new remastering. It has better highs and Bob probably tamed Layne's vocals just a bit - while I generally started to dig into 90's alternative in the last couple years, I always found that Layne's style is not my cup of tea in general, and on CD his nasal tone is way to much on my ears, but on remastered version if Facelift it has that comfortable sweet spot, so all in all I'm impressed and, once again, can't wait to get the vinyl version myself.
So cool that we have a pretty dynamic reissue of somewhat "modern" rock era.

 

I've confirmed that the Record Store Black Friday "Sap" EP limited to 8,500 and issued today is indeed another Bob Ludwig/Chris Bellman issue, just like Facelift. Get your copy before it sells out!

 

Got mine today... are all of these warped?

 

It might be due to the etching. Unfortunate but I’ve got my Vinyl Flat ready if needed. I’m finishing up the MOV version right now and this sounds pretty fantastic actually. My curiosity was killing me though so I did order the new one. I wish they did a AAA Jar of Flies/Sap combo reissue actually. They’ve got ‘em cheap on Discogs if anyone wants one.

 

I played mine about an hour ago and it was perfectly flat. MPO in France pressed these, just like they did Facelift.

 

Mike from The In Groove explains why most of these will have at least a slight warp..