Kiss Vinyl Reissues, Part 6

How would you describe the sound?

 

Dead, flat, lifeless like sticking cotton swabs in your ears. The energy is missing.

 

Maybe it is bad tapes since everything else turned out so well. Maybe they had no choice and took a chance.

 

We know that these are remasters and some of them underwent some significant EQ changes with a mixed bag of results.

 

Yeah - I was stunned when it first arrived and sounded like my tweeters just fried. Especially after how awesome the first of these Kiss reissues sounded. Who knows - it could be anything. I never heard the 24 bit files for this one - I wonder if that too sounds veiled and dull or just the vinyl? I have the Stanley and Simmons 24 bit Flacs and they sound real good.

 

Anyone own the German 2014 reissues?
Curious to know if they measure up to the EU versions, and if they're the same mastering?

 

I have Revenge, Animalize, and Rock and Roll Over in the German 2014 versions. They all sound excellent to me, but I have no point of comparison against the EU versions / masterings. I do have the US 2014s as well, and don’t notice much of a difference among the regional releases in terms of sound—some of the pressings themselves are better than others as far as the actual vinyl goes, but generally speaking they are all very enjoyable listens.

 

Like many others, I grabbed Destroyer and Rock And Roll Over from Deep Discount when they were dirt cheap. I just cracked open Rock And Roll Over and ripped it today. I thought it was nice sounding - and a quiet pressing as well. Compared to my pristine original, the reissue is a bit less dynamic, but seems to posses better low end...I will have to compare these further.

I can understand why people recommend the reissue of Hotter Than Hell as that is probably the worst sounding studio recording they made, so making an improvement with this one should not be too difficult. However, I find it interesting that many are recommending the reissue of Dressed To Kill over the original. I don't have this reissue, but I do have a near mint original on the blue label and feel it's the best sounding of all their original studio albums from the 70's. Might have to pick these two reissues up and compare to my originals.

Can anyone recommend the best place to source these for the least $? Any deals going on?

 

If you monitor prices on Amazon, they occasionally drop the prices on some of the Kiss reissues: I snagged the Dressed to Kill and Hotter Than Hell LPs for a little over $10 each within the last year and have noticed during subsequent shopping that the sale prices return now and then. However, the sale prices seem to occur randomly, so you just have to keep checking back.

 

Stick the amazon links on camelcamelcamel and you’ll get an email when they drop in price. You just have to set the price threshold that you want notifying for.

 

Amazon had the lowest price I could find for Hotter Than Hell - and it was part of their "3 for 2" promotion as well...got the last copy they had plus a couple of other albums I wanted which brought the overall cost per album down to about $16 each.

 

I got a handful a couple of years ago from Amazon.de.
I think I ended up with 9 (NINE) for about £65 once the 3 for 2 (that wasn’t advertised ) was applied at checkout.
4 had seam splits and when I raised this they didn’t offer replacements just full refund and said don’t send them back!
Only downside was the German Kiss logo on the sleeves.

 

Significant EQ moves were made on the DTK reissue, don't expect a perfect reproduction of the original pressings.

 

Yes, they used a smiley face EQ on many of these reissues. I guess the aging fan base and those with poor stereo setups appreciate this.

 

I have one of the early Japanese pressings and it sounds incredible. Plus it has a picture from the one of the Elder photoshoots on the center label, which is kind of neat.

I want to get a Japanese copy of Lick It Up, due to the unique OBI front cover of them with their makeup on.

 

Anyone have the German pressing of Alive?
I'm debating between the German and the EU versions.
Is there any difference in sound and quality, other than the SS visuals across all logos?
Anyone compared the EU/German pressings to the US pressings?

 

So I spent the past three days reading parts 1-4 of this thread!
Couldn't really find much of a consensus over the US/EU/German pressings (maddeningly, pick up the following EU pressings, which are - on the whole - excellent:

Destroyer
Love Gun
Unmasked
Music From The Elder
Crazy Nights
Revenge

And I'm about to pick up Alive!
...and Destroyer Resurrected.

The reason for Resurrected is down to one thing. My 2014 EU Destroyer sounds pretty sibilant, which I'm really not a fan of, though I hate to say it. Surprising, considering how great the rest of the reissues have been. On the plus side, all of the above pressings have been flat, noise free, with - IMO - great mastering work. Some which are exceptional (at least, for my expectations going in). In fact, the only issue I really had (other than the aforementioned Destroyer mastering) was some slight (but annoying) crackle on Elder (Under The Rose ... where it's the most noticeable, on what is possibly the best track on the album). I'm pretty confident it's residue left over from the factory, and a good clean or two should probably solve that problem (I'll get round to it eventually).

The soundstage is excellent on Unmasked, Elder, and Revenge - Unholy blew me away! I've never heard that track in quite the same way before. Really opens up to a monstrous presentation. Had me wishing that the entire album was less 'Fuh!' and more 'Unholy'.

Half tempted for Creatures of the Night, but there are several songs I find incredibly jarring and I doubt it would get much play (Keep Me Comin' has got to be one of the worst, most crass single entendres I've ever heard on any record ever. Totally breaks the flow of the album for me. Maybe I'm being too tough on it right now, and maybe I'll come back round to it one day and change my mind - stranger things have happened). Upon reflection, maybe it's more the way in which Paul sings the chorus that gets me. I find 'I Just Wanna' less annoying, lyrically (though it's by no means one that I listen to regularly).

On the whole, though, these reissues continue to be excellent.
Crazy to think that six years have passed since their initial release already...!

 

If I remember correctly, we never did figure out why that was the case. I think there was some speculation that a bit of EQ manipulation was done on the original release when the lathe was being cut.

 

All versions came from the same masters: US, EU, and German. The only differences were how well they were pressed. (Each country used its own pressing plant.) Allegedly, only the US copies were pressed to audiophile standards with better vinyl and more stringent production methods. I didn't hear any difference between the US and others. They all sounded pretty much the same in terms of audio quality. If I were really pressed to pick a favorite, I might pick the German versions. Their pressings seemed to have the least issues. I had German versions of Paul's solo and Love Gun. I remember one member pointed out that the EU versions were cut 1 or 2 decibels quieter than the others. If your pressing was a bit noisy, that would be more of an issue since you had to turn up the EU's a bit louder. I never noticed that myself, though. Also, the EU copies came with a code so that you could download mp3's of the new masterings. Of course, the German copies come with the German logo everywhere you'd see the normal logo. Other than that, the three country's pressings were pretty much the same.

Oh, and the 2014 vinyl version of Psycho Circus sounds better than the original CD version. If you like this one, you haven't heard it until you've heard the 2014 vinyl. (The odd thing is this is one of the few KISS albums to be originally recorded digitally, and only 44.1, 16 bit at that. In other words, it would have to go through a completely different remastering process than the others. A lot of us were worried after it went through whatever processing they did, it would end up sounding worse than the original CD.) Also, that lenticular cover is just the bee's knees...

 

Yeah, I took the poster out of mine to add to a German vinyl 80's repress I had (which I like a lot), and gave the rest of the 2014 repress version away!

 

I forgot to mention: the allegedly audiophile US pressings were more expensive than the EU and German copies, even importing them was less than a US copy which was supposed to sound better. (US copies were about $35 for single discs if I remember correctly. Double LPs like Alive! were more.) Some people ordered EU copies for that reason. One thing the US pressings had that I liked was they used the full surface space of the disc. They spaced out the grooves in the record intentionally to take up the entire space available on the surface of the LP. (This has the potential for better audio quality. Again, I didn't hear any difference between US copies and the others. I don't think anyone else posting here at the time did either, but I still liked that they did that.) The EU's didn't do that with the groove spacing. A lot of the EU copies had a very large run-out groove space. Also, some retailers like amazon got both US and EU copies and you really didn't know which version you would get from them.

 

Yeah, aside from some speculation we never were sure exactly why. One thing I am curious about - do the Hi Res files suffer from the same dullness?

 

Yes it's the same as the vinyl.

 

Yes, they're all from the same master. Actually, the vinyl was cut from, essentially, the hi-res files and the sound quality is better than the vinyl. If you don't have a 97 remaster of Ace's, get it instead of the 2014.

 

Thanks for confirming - this is what I thought. I am all set, I have the 1997 and the original '78 vinyl