Hearsay, Rumor, Myth or Fact?

I know for a fact that Kasey Chambers first two albums, "The Captain" And "Barricades and Brickwalls" are superior in audio quality from the import EMI Australia label vs. the domestic label. I have owned both on both formats and the imports are far less glare and more natural sounding. I have also bought a few Limited edition imports of Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton, and Wishbone Ash. I have found them to be superior too.
J.D.

Broadly speaking, for analog recordings, the pressing of a given artist is best when it is from the country that the master tape resides in. Most American acts will sound best on American pressings. British acts on British pressings, etc. The primary reason is that record companies guard their greatest asset, their master tapes, quite closely. They tend to send safety masters overseas and these are at least a generation removed from the original. Japanese LP pressings are most sought by those that have the greatest issue with surface noise, as the vinyl formulations used are generally superior and quieter than American or European pressings. Of course imported products always carry a premium price wise. But on the used market, most Japanese pressings of American jazz artists are much less expensive than the originals. A really nice pressing of Cannonball Adderly's "Something Else" on U.S. Blue Note can fetch from $500.00 to well above $1000.00. A first pressing Japanese King of the same record will sell for a mere fraction of this.

In the digital world things can be quite different. The Japanese "mini lp"s are true premium products, both in the care taken in the packaging and the pressing chain itself. Some sound quite a bit better than their domestic counterparts and some do not IMHO. They are all packaged much better and this, with the cachet of having an imported product, may well justify the premium in pricing. The JVC XRCD recordings are a different beast all together. The pressing chain has been agonized over, refined and refined again. Most of these are far and away the best digital versions of whatever the material is. The painstaking effort is immediately reflected in stunning, drop-dead gorgeous, sound quality. Try one and you will be lost.

I was a little perplexed when reading the question because you started talking about CDs and jumped to LPs.

There is a big difference between domestic(US) and some European and Japanese LP pressings. The issue dates back to the 70's when the environmental lunatics determined that the process for producing superior quality LPs caused too much pollution. The manufacturers were forced to change the way the vinyl was made, and this resulted in poorer quality vinyl for LPs. Some European countries adopted these laws too, and their vinyl also was of poorer quality.

Holland, and Japan, for example continued to press LPs with the old recipe for vinyl and therefore were able to produce better sounding LPs.

The new DSOTM is a good example. It is pressed in Holland. Did you ever wonder why Holland was chosen? It wasn't due to the admittedly nice scenery. The quality of the vinyl is better than the UK, and production costs are cheaper than Japan.

This has nothing to do with the manufacture of CDs though. I don't know why an import CD would cost more other than the cost to swim across the ocean. That's a lot of work!

Viridian,

Are you serious about the "Something Else" LP? I have a beautiful original copy and never dreamed it was worth so much! How exciting.

easy.

Easy, oh yes, check e-bay for the exciting fantasy world of record buying. First pressings are running into four figures for many older Blue Note releases. Funny thing is that more copies of "Something Else" were pressed than almost any other Blue Note. This is now standard pricing, but who would have thought that folk records are now into four figures? Do a search, a first pressing of Nick Drake's first album "Five Leaves Left" just went for a cool grand even. Yes, you read that right, $1000.00. And we think that power cords are expensive!