Letters (Jun. 1997)

Platter Matter

Dear Editor:

It's amazing how seemingly ignorant your staff is of the recent resurgence of LPs, as evidenced by the availability of quality vinyl records of current rock and pop albums as well as a plethora of classical, blues, jazz, and popular reissues.

Alan Lofft, in the December 1996 "Play Back," foists this contrived ignorance on your readership through misleading and deceptive statements regarding the application of the Shure V15VxMR phono cartridge, ostensibly for LP historians and archivists with "...hundreds (or thousands) of LPs tucked away that you never seem to play anymore..." Lofft wistfully harkens back to the supposed "heyday" of vinyl from whence all these Smithsonian artifacts originated.

The reader is left reinforced with the false notion that LP production is indeed "history" and that LP playback is an anachronism. While my own LP collection is burgeoning with fantastic-quality new vinyl, almost no one I know is aware that LPs are currently being manufactured. In fact, those who acknowledge LP collections only reluctantly admit--and then in embarrassed, hushed tones--that they still listen to and enjoy these disreputable vinyl antiquities.

If ever there were a heyday of vinyl, it is now. I have fewer than 100 LPs from the putative "heyday" of vinyl to which Lofft refers, as most domestic vinyl from the late '60s through the early '80s was unlistenable straight out of the shrink-wrap. There have been a good 20 years of technological improvements in the recording and manufacturing chain of vinyl from those bad of days-and likewise on the playback end.

Most people have never heard a properly produced LP played back on a quality turntable fitted with a modern cartridge. I hadn't either until a year ago, when I upgraded my '70s vintage plastic turntable with a new Thorens and began purchasing new vinyl: It was simply a revelation! Now my CD player is gathering dust! On another point, I know it must have been irksome for you guys to hear Kavi Alexander tout analog ("The Audio Interview," December 1996), but I'm going to let you in on a "secret": The newly remastered Muddy Waters Folk Singer album, to which Alexander so enthusiastically refers, is not the CD. In fact, it is a current vinyl production from Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs (MFSL 1-201)! Of course, the reference that was provided to your readers in the article, Chess CH-9261, masks this fact, giving them no information by which they can avail themselves of the LP to which Alexander referred.

I can imagine how irritating it must be for Audio to witness the resumption of LP production. However, your contrived ignorance does provide a useful strategy: It keeps your readers conveniently in the dark regarding LP availability, serving to ensure that the current LP revival quickly becomes a mere footnote in music history. You would better serve your readers by keeping your biases personal and attempting instead to provide a balanced, professional approach to record availability, as does your less Philistine competition.

-Michael T Klewin; Lawrenceville, N.J.

Editor's Reply:

There was no attempt to mask information from Audio readers; in fact, just the opposite. Did the analog snit into which you worked yourself on reading the Kavi Alexander interview in the December issue blind you to the full text of the article? In response to a remark from the interviewer, Bruce Bartlett, that some old recordings still sound great, Kavi Alexander replied (page 37): "Yes! There's a newly re mastered Muddy Waters LP [emphasis mine] recording from 1963, Muddy Waters, Folk Singer [Chess CH-9261], that's absolutely formidable in its sound quality. Staggering."

Journalism 101 did teach me to be precise, to get the facts straight. If you consult Schwann Spectrum (Winter 1996-1997), you'll discover that Chess CH-9261 is the Muddy Waters LP, remastered and first reissued in October 1987, not a CD. It has since been reissued again by Acoustic Sounds in both LP (AMCA 9261) and CD versions (CMCA 5907), available by mail-order (800/716-3553) for $10 and $15, respectively. Mr. Alexander owns the Chess LP from Acoustic Sounds, not the Mobile Fidelity Anadisq 200 vinyl (MFSL-1-201) or the Mobile Fidelity Ultradisc CD (UDCD-01-00593), the latter also available from Acoustic Sounds (CMOB 593 Gold).

As regards improvements in record manufacturing, respected mastering engineers such as Doug Sax (Sheffield Lab) and Stan Ricker (of the JVC Cutting Center) were producing excellent-sounding direct-to disc and half-speed mastered LPs long before the advent of the CD format. When everything is aligned and tweaked just-so-tonearm, turntable, and cartridge-and cleaned, some LPs can sound remarkably good, barely distinguishable from the same material on CD save for the odd groove tick or trace of telltale flutter. There are also thousands of crummy-sounding LPs and CDs (about half of the 17 cartons of vinyl that came with me to Manhattan fit that description). The pleasure of audio--as a pastime--is searching out great recordings.

The "PlayBack" review cited the Shure V15VxMR cartridge as the best transducer I had tested for reproducing the best and worst of vinyl recordings. Of course good vinyl is still being manufactured (you might check out our interview with Mobile Fidelity's Herb Belkin, January 1996), but the quantities are minuscule relative to the millions of CDs sold annually. In fact, recent data from the Recording Industry Association of America shows that 2.9 million LPs were shipped to retailers in 1996 versus 778.9 million CDs.

-A.L.

Was That One Joke or Two?

Dear Editor:

Your April issue seems to have a couple of "foolish" articles. The obvious one concerns Professor Lirpa's superconducting cable in Ivan Berger's "Spectrum." And in light of previous audio passing fads (four channel, Elcaset, MiniDisc, etc.), I'm forced to consider DVD a joke until it proves to be otherwise.

-Glenn Manuel; Richardson, Tex.

(adapted from Audio magazine, Jun. 1997)

= = = =