Led Zeppelin II on vinyl

I don’t want to add to the speculation about the source of the immediate post-RL cut but suffice to say, a lot of pretty big records were made by sending copy tapes to various pressing plants simultaneously. I gather that in some cases, at least in the U.S., metal parts would be shipped. I think Atlantic relied largely on Columbia in those days for U.S. pressings; the foreign pressings would have likely come from safety/production copies that were already EQ’d--that is a reason (correct me if wrong) why you might find a ex-U.S. pressing with a Hulko or RL inscription.

I bought most of my Zep copies back when and if you can sit and listen to them in batches-- doing "shoot-outs" with eliminations, you can pretty much discern the differences over a known system. It takes time (when I did this for Zeppelin a number of years ago, these shoot outs-- which I never wrote up--were done over the course of days and weeks, and involved East and West Coast US pressing plants, UK (like the LZ I Turquoise, which I did not own) and numerous others). 

You don’t need golden ears to hear the differences-- some are more dramatic than others. With LZII, I’d still put the RL at the top of the heap-- Monarch if possible and yes, there were WLPs of those which are pretty rare. I’ve heard it said that there were around 200k copies of the US RLs, which is still a decent amount of records from  a collector’s standpoint, although the band was well known by the time the second LZ album was released, so that was just the "starting" runs-- from multiple plants simultaneously.

One other observation-- system character will play into how the particular pressing is perceived. I bought the MoFi LZ II when it was released, and using a Quad/Decca/subwoofer system and tubes at the time, the EQ of that cut compensated for the tonal balance of that system. I haven’t listened to that copy in a long time, but regard the vinyl compound as possibly the best- I played the hell out of some of those old MoFi (JVCs) and they are still quiet. 

Among the copies of LZII here (to my memory) are multiple RLs, an early UK plum, the aforementioned 2nd JPN (which I was told was highly regarded by the Highwater Sound guy), a Canadian "TG" and probably a few others. I did have those Page supervised remasters of I-III but got rid of them when I purged before moving to Texas. 

Obviously, the biggest obstacle is availability of clean players in a highly inflated market. I think I paid around $300 US to a bin diving friend for the cleanest RL and that was reasonable for both of us at the time. Today, I probably would not bother, but there are many other pressings out there, and some pretty good write-ups of them if you research. Part of the joy of this, to me, is the process of searching these out, researching, listening and comparing. It’s easier to do when a record is 50-100 bucks than 1,500 US. 

Even though I have gone through quite a lot of vinyl (mainly older copies), I’ve slowed way down because of the inflated market. I will still pay for a record I want, but I’m more deliberate about it now. 

There is a good thread on Hoffman about "mid-level" LZ II  that also brings up a Spanish pressing (Alvear, which I have not heard) in addition to a number of others, some mentioned here. 

Cool info @whart , thanks for sharing as always 🎵

The JVC vinyl compound was/is very quiet.

Excellent discussion guys. I learned a lot and I thank you all for it.

@whart 

You provided a lot of helpful information, and valid reasons for why pressings, regardless of record label or album title, vary in sound quality.

My point is about the basis for those "reasons", which have to do with churning out as many pressings as possible, where sound quality ends up being sacrificed.

Imagine if Sony manufactured TVs, and to meet customer demand, made a specific model with several different levels of picture quality, but all under the same model (just as records do, under the same album title).

Sony would likely catch hell for advertising model XYZ, and one shipment has one picture quality, and a different shipment has a different picture quality.

Same thing for cars, or countless other products.

Imagine if Magico, in order to meet demand, rushed their "M" series of speakers, where they differed in sound quality.  Or if Wilson did that, or Vandersteen did that.  There would be an uproar.

But record companies did that, routinely.  And they release re-masters, which nearly without exception, sound worse than the original release.  Put a re-mastered label on it, or heavy vinyl sticker on it, and it sells.

Sound quality is not a priority for record companies.

And even with digital releases, and digital re-masters, and re-re-masters, the sound quality is all over the place.  From original releases to all the later releases, usually none of them sound too good.  And re-masters and the others often have some blaring "pay attention to me" quality, that initially wows you, and later grinds on your nerves.

With billions of album pressings released, and endless digital releases of albums, and individual hit songs released, and re-released, decade after decade, with sound quality all over the place (and 80%+ not too good), it has to be that sound quality is not a priority for most record labels, even the ones recording the biggest artists in the world.

No other industry (that I can think of) would get away with the above level of (or lack of) quality control.

The initial capture tapes have glorious sound quality.  And then the conveyor belt of mixing and mastering and enhancements take place, and the band's vocals and instruments go from sounding wildly good to "what went on in the studio?"

Even on my RL pressing, the sound quality greatly differs from song-to-song (most notably being that only the first two songs on side one having way better sound quality).  Why would songs, on the same album side, sound so different (sound quality wise)?  My conclusion is a lack of quality control.  What else could it be?

There are some brilliant engineers.  But they are the exception; not the rule.  It should be the other way around.  Or perhaps, to their dismay, those engineers are following orders from the guy in the corner office?  Whatever the reason, we end up with endless, defective releases.  Except for the first two songs on side one of my RL pressing, I deem it defective.

I would love for every album to include credits for all of the personnel involved in creating the final released product, including the executive in charge of the company (the same as we see for movies).  Then we would be able to see patterns of who was involved in the amazing sounding songs, and who was involved in the lesser sounding songs.

We will find out what is at Area 51 before we find out what goes on in the record companies.

@seymour-krelborn: I don’t disagree that when these records were the most common mass medium for consumer sound reproduction in the home, little attention was paid to quality or consistency. That old Monarch plant which is so highly regarded now was owned at one point by Viewlex (if memory serves), which also owned Buddah Records, a label not known for quality pressings. 

I think the attention paid to quality (with exceptions for classical and some jazz during the era) really came after the vinyl LP lost its mainstream status and was declared dead. People were focused on finding extant copies and that led to a lot of retrospective examination of dead wax, pressing plants, mastering engineers and other factors-- things I don’t think people were concerned much about when the LP was a common commodity that you could buy at a local store or the mall for 6 bucks. Princeton Record Exchange was very busy once the CD mainstreamed, because in NY metro, they catered to the vinyl "purist" crowd and had the stock-- old RCA doggies,  Mercury Living Presence, all the HP List stuff, etc. 

I remember when Famous Blue Raincoat was an audiophile favorite, and nobody complained that it was a digital recording (Killer personnel on that one for sure). All that purist stuff came later, when people had to suss out whether a used record was a "good one." The Internet helped accelerate that too- crowd sourcing info on matrices, mastering engineer initials, pressing plant trivia, along with anecdotals comparing sonics. That’s where some of the earlier Hoffman threads on rock music really shine. You had a lot of compulsives who compared notes and shared when the records were still relatively cheap (but after The Death of Vinyl™)

I bought LZ II  (US pressing) when it was released. I never checked the deadwax. (That copy is no longer in my possession).