45rpm pressing of Fleetwood Mac Rumours

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

I heard the 45 rpm version on a great system and was not impressed with it.

I like the sound of the chain box cd set better

I have both the original and the Steve Hoffman pressings and actually listened to both versions yesterday, back to back. The Hoffman pressing has a more robust bass and perhaps a bit more seperation bewtween the musical elements. The original pressing has much more presence and punch in the upper-midrange. The original is a great, great sounding recording.

On balance I will take the original as I assume it consitutes the sound the band wanted. And it is a great sound. The Hoffman pressing is a fun variant but I miss the punch and presence of the original (I assume this is a function of the master-tape deterioration, and not any choice that Steve made).

I have the new 45rpm version and I think that it sounds very good. I also have an original copy from the 70's. I haven't actually compared the two versions yet but once I do I will post my impressions...