BACKSPACER VINYL, SOUND QUALITY?

so if everyone complains about the sound on PJ vinyl, why does everyone go nuts for it?

Any more, the whole digital vs analog debate cracks me up. If someone says, "Digital is better," I say, "To whom?" If someone says, "To me, digital is better," I say, "Cool. Enjoy."

Personlly, I very much almost always prefer vinyl (especially 12" 45 RPM- man! great sound!) but if I say that and someone says to me, "Nah man, you're full of shit, digital is better," my first thought is, "What are you doing inside my ears and brain and how the hell did you get in there in the first place? That's an amazing trick. How'd you do that?"

I agree that BS sounds shitty, and LB ain't great, namely because it plays really quiet (but cranking the volume solves that. It's better than BS. I don't have any complaints about any other PJ vinyl, unless we're talking reissues, which suck.

Intersting that people say the reissues sound worse than the originals. What was the point of reissuing them to just sound worse???

paulonious said:

Intersting that people say the reissues sound worse than the originals. What was the point of reissuing them to just sound worse???

To make them more loud. The mastering for any PJ release after Binaural is terrible, and the only one that is ok is the Benaroya Hall vinyl, which I think clocks in at a whopping DR10... But by audiophile standards that's just ok.

sounds pretty good to me... good album too.

Blredyellow said:

Many that complain about vinyl sound have crappy setups and don't know what they're talking about.

Or have very nice setups and expect more.

Most of PJs LPs sound good/great on vinyl. They have often mastered specifically for vinyl. They've released everything on vinyl, helped keep it alive in the 90s and do a better job than most bands with it.

I think up through Riot Act they sound solid, but far from great. Again, not much offensively bad, but could be a lot better. Especially since they were recording in an analog format of some form until Backspacer. And even digital sources can sound really good when done properly.

I think LB was the first time that they mastered specifically for vinyl. Maybe BS was as well...don't feel like checking right now. Otherwise, not to my knowledge, and the audio evidence that has been analyzed over and over.

I will give them kudos for helping keep it alive, but there are plenty of bands around that do it better than them. Ranging from newer bands and their latest albums or catching up on stuff they didn't press, to older bands redoing classic albums and catalogs.


I don't think the subpar equipment argument holds much water, unless we're talking about real "amateur" type stuff. I've got decent setup, but it's the one constant. I have records that sound amazing and I have records that sound like garbage. A million dollar setup would undoubtedly improve the sound, but I think that improvement would be pretty uniform across my collection.

AndySlash said:

sounds great on my fisher price

Looks like you could use one of these: