45rpm pressing of Fleetwood Mac Rumours

I am disappointed with the 45 rpm version. After reading all of the glowing reports, I was really looking forward to this. I also find it to be dull and rolled off at the top. My setup - Garrard 301 in Steve Dobbens plinth, Triplanar arm with Dynavecto xv-1s into Dartzeel preamp/phono is extremely open and airy. Makes me wonder what other people are hearing. As they say, YMMV.

IMO the 45 is definitely better. my 0.02

the early pressings can be great but you have to find a good one. interesting reading from tom port on this subject:

http://www.dccblowout.com/product.aspx?pf_id=fleetrumou_1210

There is more going on with reissues of thirty plus year old recordings than meets the eye. While 45 RPM pressing can, no doubt, engrave more detail on an LP, the unfortunate fact is that master tapes degrade. And this degredation is related to storage conditions, tape formulation, signal and many other factors. In any given instance will the former improvement overcome the later degredation? That remains to be seen.

I recently purchased "Thelonius Monk with John Coltrane, The Complete Riverside Recordings" on CD. And putting aside sonics and remastering issues, for a moment, in comparison to my original LPs, one can clearly hear dropouts, lots of them, and insecurity of pitch, which I ascribe to stretched tape or some other artifact of the master. In the end, it's really clear how the master has just become incredibly degraded. It doesn't speak well to our rich musical heritage.

Love this album and I have several versions of it. Original, japanese pressing, nautilus 1/2 speed and the 45rpm. All of it sounds great I would have to rate the 45 a bit ahead of the japanese pressing.... a bit more air and separation I think Hoffman did a great job