I was in my local hi-fi shop last weekend listening to some speakers costing an awful lot of money. They had ribbon tweeters which can reproduce frequencies above 20khz. They sounded so good that I was tempted to reach for my credit card. I resisted temptation.
I then went to my local record store and bought a couple of CDs. The owner was playing some rather nice jazz and his 1990 vintage speakers sounded just as good as the super expensive ones I had just been listening too. I can't hear frequencies much higher than 13 khz so the ribbon tweeters aren't much use for me. The top note on a violin vibrates at about 4.5 khz and a soprano rarely breaches 1.5khz. I think that I saved myself a lot of money; my 1990s speakers still sound very good and have all the frequency range needed, even for a young blood, so there is no need to change them.
The record shop had just started to sell new vinyl LPs and I thumbed through the selection and to my surprise I had a couple of original versions of the newly released 180gm vinyls on sale.
I was chatting away to the owner about his new LP sales which seem to be doing reasonably well when he said that a customer had 'phoned him about the new Beatles mono LPs on 180gm vinyl. The customer had said " it was like listening to the Beatles as he had never heard them before". I wonder where the customer had been all his life.
At home I have got a near mint condition of "With The Beatles" in mono from 1963 and in 160 gm vinyl. I have also bought the latest 180 gm version for comparison. They sound almost identical to me. And so they should as the whole idea of the new pressings was to make them sound as close as possible to the original LPs. I fail to see, therefore, how anyone could claim that the new LPs "are like listening to The Beatles like I have never heard them before".
To me it seems as if expectation bias and the power of suggestion are having an influence on the judgement of the listener. This is not to say that the newly re-mastered LPs are not worth buying as they genuinely sound very good. They are really worth buying if your old Beatles mono albums are worn out and need replacement. Just don't play them on a 1960s mono player as you will ruin them forever just like most of us did back then in the days of yore.
