It’s at this point that our discussion gets a bit
philosophical. There’s something of a tension between ‘audiophiles’ and
recording engineers, and it’s seems to be writ large in Pete’s world. “Whereas
the studio people, by definition, have been skeptical about the audiophile
world and not wanting to get involved, I’m in both camps. Studio people think
if you can’t measure it, it’s not there – you’re always battling against this
stuff. I think you’ve got to experiment. But the Lyric cost $19,290.08 in the
mid-fifties, which is the cost of a good house, and was built very well, and
the design is exceptional. So I’d be reticent to modify it, I don’t want this
to become an audiophile project, it needs to be about the music. The fact that
it has become an audiophile-type project has happened almost by accident.”
I put it to Pete that he’s in something of a strange
position; most studio engineers regard him as a bit bonkers thanks to his
audiophile tendencies, yet his primary motivation is not actually ‘audiophile’
as such – rather, it’s purist. “I don’t want to ‘sex the music up’, but nor do
I want it to lose its mojo! If I hear Hendrix, I want to feel like I’m in a
gritty studio someplace, not that I’m part of some corporate listening
experience, so that was the thing with these records – I wanted them to feel
like they still sounded like the originals.”
Even though he premasters vinyl, he’s rather dismissive of
this so-called black art. He prefers a more ‘hands off’ approach, resisting the
temptation to interfere with the original master tapes. “You know in the old
days, Abbey Road didn’t really add any equalization – it was frowned upon – on
classical, and even on things like The Beatles, they didn’t really add EQ and
processing. It was only in the eighties that mastering became this kind of ‘art
form’ with a ‘mastering guru’. In the old days it was more of a kind of ‘brown
coat, here-we-go’ transfer job.”
Unlike many vinyl
reissues, Pete’s come from the original master tape
As well as committing the cardinal sin of putting recordings
that were originally mastered via tube equipment through solid-state lathes,
Pete laments that vinyl reissues seem to be beset with engineers who come and
say: “Ooh, that’s a bit honky, I’ll add a bit of bass to smooth that off, add a
bit of this”. Although it might sound ‘better’, Pete reckons this isn’t right
if your goal is to retain the original sound. “So when I do the old records, I
don’t want some genius in here, putting his oar in... You know, I find
everything I hear on the reissue market sounds contemporary, a contemporary
version of a classic record. To me the music comes first, not the production.”
Press to play
We listen to Pete’s two-and-a-half grand box set through his
Garrard 301 turntable, Linn Istook tone arm and Denton DL103 cartridge running
into the mixing desk, and I point out how different it is to your average
‘audiophile’ repress. Bach’s Unaccompanied Violin Sonata has a very narrow
bandwidth, with not much up top or down below that’s of any real consequence,
yet still it sounds wonderfully engaging and open, I tell him. “Exactly, you do
feel close to the musician. It doesn’t sound like a contemporary record. I
don’t think audiophile people should really buy this. It’s quite honky!”
Pete has a strong preference for tubes over transistors, but
above this he’s a stickler for the right equipment being used for the right
period music. “I think the things to avoid if you have got a late fifties/early
sixties tape, putting it through transistor equipment, into say a Studier, you
won’t be hearing the same as you got in the original pressing, it will give you
a different sound.
I put it to him that valves also have their own problems as
well, and he retorts: “I think later valve technology isn’t as good as the
early valves, so when I hear some early stuff it’s very fast, very dynamic. But
the seventies and eighties valves have a sort of warm woolliness, which I think
people associate as ‘the valve sound’, but I don’t think it is!”
So what of the vinyl itself? Pete reckons “That whole thing
of the weight of the vinyl is a bit of a myth. Heavyweight vinyl can sound
better, but it only works on certain machines, I found, because I started
A-B’ing different test pressings and I found on some of the heavier vinyl it’s
a bit rolled-off. In terms of speed, 45RPM tends to be a bit cleaner, but it
changes the bass. You might not quite get as much of a gutsy bass – it might be
a bit more defined, but it loses a bit of charm.”
Mozart’s Complete
Parisian Compositions are a steal at $3,351.04
As far as the pressing process is concerned, Pete confesses
to be going through “a bit of a learning curve”. He’s pressed in four different
factories (in Germany, Holland, the US and UK), and they’re all very different.
“You’ve got the processing stage when you get a lacquer, then you make the
metalwork. Different people make the metalwork, and different factories make
different metalwork. There’s the various chemicals used, temperatures etc.,
expertise in different factories; then there’s the stamper and the vinyl
compound; that changes on a daily basis, and it’s different in different
countries, different suppliers. Then you’ve got the pressing machines
themselves and how they’re working on a daily basis –– whether there’s enough
heat going into the system, you might get something that’s called ‘non fill’,
which is where you get a bit of non-cyclical surface noise if the heat isn’t up
as it should be. So there’s all these variables and within that there’s the
finished product!”
Pete adds that, “I don’t evaluate the pressing on just the
surface noise. I might personally prefer a pressing that I find engaging,
dynamic, if it moves me emotionally, that has a little bit more noise – than a
flatter, quieter pressing. You can make the pressings quieter by polishing the
lacquer, but when you polish, you roll off high frequencies; so there’s all
these different variables. I’m actually having this problem right now with the
Beethoven, because I’ve got two pressings and I like both of them.”
