A few technical notes (I was an active recording engineer from the mid 1970's to the mid 2000's):
"There aren't so many behind the mixing desk today who really know what to do." --- This comes up a lot these days in online discussions; comments about balances and mixing in mastering. Mixing is not a part of the vinyl mastering process.
"More to the po int, I think first pressings are a better document of the artist's original intention at the time of creation because the people who made the music had to approve that version." ... "the Originals got the ok from the Artist, it was done the way he wanted it." --- BUT: big labels like Columbia had in-house mastering and artists had little flexibility and not nearly as much power as you might think regarding mastering issues. There's a lot of 70's, 80's Columbia material, for example, that you can tell could sound a lot better if mastered differently.
"Storage of Tapes is also a special chapter, the loss of information (mainly in the higher frequencies) is fact. --- Definitely true.
"this record was actually used by CBC radio in Vancouver." --- Not necessarily a good thing, in that radio stations generally used tracking forces in the several grams range so as to minimize skips.
Finally, I will say that I've been absolutely stunned by what a good line contact stylus can do to extract good sound from used, older pressings. The contact area is different from elliptical, and often all but untouched on these older records. I have a Soundsmith level II retip on a Shelter 501 II, and am really enjoying listening to my well-used 60's-era records these days.
"There aren't so many behind the mixing desk today who really know what to do." --- This comes up a lot these days in online discussions; comments about balances and mixing in mastering. Mixing is not a part of the vinyl mastering process.
"More to the po int, I think first pressings are a better document of the artist's original intention at the time of creation because the people who made the music had to approve that version." ... "the Originals got the ok from the Artist, it was done the way he wanted it." --- BUT: big labels like Columbia had in-house mastering and artists had little flexibility and not nearly as much power as you might think regarding mastering issues. There's a lot of 70's, 80's Columbia material, for example, that you can tell could sound a lot better if mastered differently.
"Storage of Tapes is also a special chapter, the loss of information (mainly in the higher frequencies) is fact. --- Definitely true.
"this record was actually used by CBC radio in Vancouver." --- Not necessarily a good thing, in that radio stations generally used tracking forces in the several grams range so as to minimize skips.
Finally, I will say that I've been absolutely stunned by what a good line contact stylus can do to extract good sound from used, older pressings. The contact area is different from elliptical, and often all but untouched on these older records. I have a Soundsmith level II retip on a Shelter 501 II, and am really enjoying listening to my well-used 60's-era records these days.