UK y&b Parl. Hard Day's Night LP

Received my first UK y&b stereo copy of this LP tonight. Not mint, a few pops on side 2 and bit of surface noise on side 1, but overall a very strong vg++, bordering excellent.

But what I really want to comment on is the loudness of this LP. The music just freaking exploded from my turntable! Oh my God, I have NEVER heard a UK y&b Beatles LP sound like this, and I have them all now. (AHDN was the last one I needed.)

Anyway, I perplexed because the last time I a-b'd a y&b LP with a 70's 2 EMI box one (Help!), I heard virtually no difference. Tonight, it was like night and day.

Here are the matrixes:

Side 1: YEX-126-1, with OT at 3:OO and 4 at 9:00. Above the 4, you can just barely make out a 3.

Side 2: YEX-127-1, with MR at 3:OO and 2 at 9:00.

Very early pressing for sure, but it's the loudness that got me. If EMI could make a CD sound like this, they could charge $50.00 for it AND it would go to No. 1.

I don't know what to make of this, just wanted to pass the info along.

For completists, the labels have the "Sold in UK..." language, the P 1965 language and its a GRAMOPHONE outer rim pressing, all of which places it somewhere between the Spring of 65 when the P 1965 language first appeared and Summer of 69 when the "Sold in UK..." language disappeared.

Time to sleep.

 

OK for sure now to believe it!

Hyorgi & Yortuk Festrunk..we are the Festrunk Bros.

 

I have a B&Y stereo with Parlophone rim copy , 2 copies with 1 EMI box and recently got the BC13 box and the HDN has the same laquer numbers on all 4 - they`re all 126-1 and 127-1 !!They all sound pretty similar, though I think the original has the edge .If your hunting on a budget this is worth remembering . They obviously pressed HDN up to mid/late 70`s with original metalwork . Some of the others in the BC13 had much higher laquer numbers ( 3`s 4`s 5`s & 6`s ) None of the others in my box use original 60`s laquers apart from this one and maybe 1 or 2 sides of the white album (IMMIC).Of note I found that originals sounded better in every case apart from Revolver. My BC13 copy of that ( -3,-4 i think ) had a bigger vocal than my B&Y original ( and my 1 EMI box copy ) and was just more lifelike and more enjoyable - maybe the 2 original laquer copies I have are bad pressings but it seems bad luck that both are inferior.

 

I just checked my "AHDN" from the BC-13 box and my side one is a -2 and side two is a -4.

 

I wonder about using original metal parts into the the late 1970s for stereo pressings. I know the 1982 mono reissues did, though. Those Beatles titles sold so many copies, you'd think they would've had to cut new lacquers before that. Massive demand.

I tend to suspect what happened was the same typeset for the matrix info was used for those earlier recuts, rendering them visually indistinguishable from the original lacquers. Then, some of THOSE lacquers survived into the late 1970s. Of course, the later HTM lacquers that came into use towards the late 1970s are obviously not originals.

I could be wrong, though.

 

Mine is very close to yours Peter - sounds great.

2nd pressing Y/B - Sold in UK, small stereo on cover:
YEX-126-1 OM/3
YEX-127-1 MD/2

 

I have another later copy - All rights..rim copy which is -3 & -4 . The -3 is the more modern typeset with another 2 dashes and numbers after , YEX 126 -3-1-1 and HTM at 12 o`clock. I think that`s Harry Moss as the same initials are on a lot of the master tape boxes in the MOFI set. The -4 is the more traditional YEX 127 -4 with mother & stamper numbers at 9 and 3 o`clock ( no letters - I assume they stopped the GRAMOPHLTD code system around 1978 as some of my BC13 still have it , some don`t ). This copy is noticeably inferior to the earlier -1 pressings I reffered to . Not awful ( like blue German odeon I had ) but just not as good as the earlier ones , and on thin vinyl with a horrid matt sleeve. My BC13 sleeves are just like 60`s originals but without the the flipbacks - beautiful thick laminate you can see your face in - worth having for these alone.
One other thing on that later pressing , the typesetting for the more traditional -4 side laquers is slightly different to the 60`s originals - the Y E X is slightly more spaced out than on the 60`s original leading me to believe that early 70`s -1 copies are made from original metalwork as the typeface + space is identical. After all, this would not have been a big Stereo seller in the 60`s - all the copies I have ever seen have low mother & stamper numbers , so it`s feasable that the metalwork would have lasted well into the 70`s

 

Nice detective work! Good point about demand regarding stereo vs mono, too.

It would be interesting to take two stereo copies of the same title sourcing the same lacquer #, one original and one early 1970s pressing, and visually compare the groove spacing and width of the lead-out area. If they sourced the same lacquer, they'd obviously be identical. If not, I'd venture to guess it would be possible to identify very slight differences in groove geometry.

Does anybody have two such copies from which a comparison could be made?

By the way, I much prefer the laminated covers, too.

 

I have a 1st Press AHDN (Parlophone rim) and a 1-box AHDN. I'll try to take a look this evening or tomorrow a.m. to compare.

 

Same lacquer #'s, right? If so, please do...oughta be interesting.

 

I don't have access to them at the moment, but I'm 99% certain they are both YEX126-1/YEX127-1. If I can figure out how to post pix of each, I will.

 

I did check that out before my post . They`re all identical ,the original Parlophone rim , the 1 EMI boxed logo ( I have 2 of them )and the Gramophone rim 2 boxed are all the same visually , same runout groove areas etc- sonically the differences I hear could just be arm height differences as they are all slightly different weights and I assume this will effect the tracking angle. I`d be interested to know from someone like our main host how much difference there should be sonically between an early pressing and a much later repressing. Is it generally thought that later pressings of a given laquer are not as crisp ? like the ink fading on a rubber stamp ? How many mothers and stampers can be made from one laquer before you would notice an audible difference.I suppose I`m asking is it worth ( sonically ) hunting down albums with early mother / stamper numbers or is it just pot luck whether you get a good or a bad pressing?

 

I also did a comparison of a -7N original and later mono reissue of With the Beatles. The run out groove spacing and visual look of the grooves appeared identical.

 

Well, it seems like they're probably the same stampers...which is a good thing for sure.

I think you can get a coupla hundred pressings from each stamper, but I'm not sure how many stampers you can pull from a single mother...or just how many mothers can be made from a single lacquer.

As for getting hot copies, I think the best ones come from around the middle of each stamper run...after the earlier pressings refine the stamper a bit and before the stamper starts to dull down a little. Kind of a crap-shoot basically. I wouldn't give it much thought with UK EMI pressings, though. Pretty nice pressings whatever order they came off the stampers.

 

Thanks to everybody for posting. I think we are all realizing that there's just too much variation in these pressings for any more than a cursory rule of thumb to apply. Witness: My 1978 UK Abbey Road is better than my UK originals; the 1978 UK white vinyl pressing of the White Album is the best (stereo) pressing of that LP in the world (SH agrees); my 1-EMI box "For Sale" is 20% better thab my 2-EMI box of For Sale; my 2-EMI box stereo Help! sounds identical to my Y&B stereo Help!

How to reconcile all this? I don't think it can be done.

 

Steve, don't apologize. We always appreciate what you have to say.

Anyway, this would explain why the 1978 era pressings sound so good. I can still see myself in the room I was in in 1978 when I first played a 2-EMI box Pepper. Still have that copy. You should see people's faces when I a-b that to the CD!

 

Is there a place where I can see these tape boxes?

 

Here`s the Sgt Pepper cover ( I hope ! )- sorry it`s not that sharp.

 

Sorry about that - you cannot see much !! Maybe someone else can do you a better job. Anyway at the top it says Date :1-5-67 ,Operation: master lac stereo SHB 1, Initials HTM and further down the list 9-4-75 stereo master SHB 2 , 29-8-76 SHB 3 , 6-7-78 SHB 4 and so on for the 5th and 6th lacs later that year - all initialed by HTM. I assume these SHB numbers tally with the YEX numbers on the run out grooves.

 

HTM - is that Harry Moss by any chance? I know he did a lot of cutting of their records.

He also did a Zomibies record on See-For-Miles. "The Zombies" Side one has the A sides. Two has the B sides.

Steve can ye tell us more about this Harry Moss feller. I am sure you have investigated him before.

 

Right, so you are happier with the Beatles cuttings when he is not mastering them, except for Beatles For Sale. (generalization of course but, then, when did he stop doing them and others stepped in?)

 

It seems he did most if not all of them through to the early 80`s if the tape details on the MOFI covers are correct. It`s certainly his initials next to nearly every one of the entries for the "mast lac " numbers from Beatles for sale onwards ( these details aren`t listed on the 1st 3 albums)- so can we assume from this that he cut the lacuers ? He`s noted in the Complete Recording Sessions as cutting the Rubber Soul Lp "disc-cutter Harry Moss made the mono lp , on the 23rd he cut the stereo " and these details tally with the MOFI cover for RS which would suggest that he did all of them?