And Blu-ray Audio. The only time I would prefer an LP to a CD is if the engineers ruined the original sound with remastering. I kept a lot of Sinatra Capitol LPs because the Bob Norberg produced CDs were terrible. MoFi came out with about 6 of them on SACD and there are HD download versions of the rest.
Now the only LPs I hang onto are of things not available on CD.
Thank goodness the download sites allow you to sample.
Crap digitized in hi-res is still crap.
Bob Norborg’s mastering should NEVER be trusted...especially on any Sinatra album he remastered.
A few notes on Sinatra’s iconic “Wee Small Hours” from Steve Hoffman re: CD vs LP:
WEE SMALL recorded in 1955 at Capitol, Melrose in a nice, intimate dry setting. Records cut from this original tape sound progressively better as the years go on with the best (to me) in the higher numbers around 1958-60.
In 1962, Capitol redubs the original album master with bad mono echo for a “new” release of the album and DISMANTLES THE ORIGINAL TAPE for deep storage. This new turkey tape is marked MASTER. The actual master cuts are marked: DO NOT USE.
No cutting after 1961 can be trusted. Only trust “scroll style” lead out matrix numbers.
In the 1980’s my buddy at Capitol, the late Pete Welding decided to reissue this on compact disc. He means well and takes the effort to go back to the original DO NOT USE tapes but decides (unfortunately) that it sounds too dry and needs reverb, thereby rendering it revisionist claptrap just like the reduped with echo 1962 version. Why go to all that trouble of finding the absolute original tapes and then do the same thing that they did to the tapes in 1962? Arggh
This is your only choice if you don’t have a turntable. So, do one of two things: Get the old LP or find someone to make you a needle drop on CD if you want to hear what this classic album should sound like.
Over and out.
Steve Hoffman, Dec 21, 2007