On the LJC Discussion, I think their posting of this
S&G Album is actually a great example of who this site in all actuality is meant for and, in my view, some of the good and bad of it all. This is an album you can regularly find in thrift bins and they are charging about 75-80x the median price (and 8x the max price) for what I think (more on that in a bit) the
variant is.
So I go into the listing and they make the argument for why this record, which only has MoFi Listings above the pricing of this Columbia copy, is worth the money they're charging.
- Failure Rate: They indicate a 70-80% failure rate (presumably not making it to the website) and high cost of acquisition. The former I can believe, the latter I am not as sure on. As I said, the Columbia 360 variant I listed (or one of the other 12 Columbia 360 variations...), and they seem to cite doesn't sell for over $100 ever and I am doubting a private collector would be negotiating that either.
- None Of The Other Pressings Match Up Or Are Even Close: They are suggesting that the modern pressings are missing some elements to them that these Columbias 360s have. I think this is hard to prove as well. There are hundreds of variants on Discogs and Mobile Fidelity (the Discogs rating on it is about .5 higher than the Columbia 360 copies I saw) has taken a crack at this twice. I find it hard to believe they've run through not only the audiophile pressings but also all the international releases and all of the variants within the CBS/Columbia realm to make this determination
- The condition on these are great compared to the usual versions you find: OK, this one's probably right, S&G took a beating.
- They then get into a lot of "tubey magic". I'm not really feeling like I want to dignify that with much other than to say it sure seems hard to prove and justify the assertions. They get into a ton of fuzzy language without much of actual data or evidence behind it - things like energy, big sound, transient information, etc.
- They admit it's not going to be as quiet as a mint repressing due to the nature of the release.
- They close with this note "you're going to need a hi-res, super low distortion front end with careful adjustment of your arm in every area -- VTA, tracking weight, azimuth and anti-skate -- in order to play this album properly"
- They run substantial testing and comparisons to only pick out the absolute best copies up to those standards.
There's a "prove it" element to all of this, not just on the underlying premise but on their overall output. One of the many tough aspects of this
disease hobby is that, for the most part, it's rare that we will end up with more than one copy of any specific pressing. This isn't to say we don't own multiple copies of an album but there's usually some marked, distinct difference between those copies that justifies owning multiple copies whether it's a physical element or an aural one. And in these cases I think that there is an obvious and provable difference. Like with e.s.' point on original jazz issues vs jazz reissues - different tape quality (if there's tape at all), different mastering artists, different vinyl quality, and a myriad of other provable differences between Run A and Run B. I can probably count on one hand the number of records I have multiple copies of in the same pressing and I suspect most others are the same. What LJC is saying is that even when all of these elements are the same...there's still enough of a difference that to some customer, they should be willing to pay upwards of 100x the value of the same pressing for it because it's a particularly strong copy. And they're not backing up - there's no audio rips from the pressing, there's not even a photo of the record or its cover*. It's words. They do offer a no-questions 30 day return policy at least which is honestly better than I expected but I think it goes back to my thought of: how many people own enough different copies of this album to know that this $550 copy is an absolute banger to the point that it's actually worth it and how many people would be happy with, say..
.this $40 pressing with the 360 markings in NM shape (or one of the billion VG+ ones)
*Of note, you're not guaranteed to actually get the cover that matches the exact record in question. They ship nicer covers with higher priced records. So there's a reasonable chance you're getting a Frankencopy.
Also to touch on it and jbraswell's point...they don't give pressing info. With what they gave in the S&G you can get it down to a handful of options but they distinctly make it a point not to do this. I am assuming it's for the reasons posited - they don't want people taking their pressing research and doing this themselves for much cheaper. You can buy a LOT of good copies of S&G here if you know what pressing they're pushing and play it yourself.
To that point, I am thinking the actual people who should even be using this website is a very distinctly small population - those with exceedingly high quality rigs and set-ups (likely matching whatever they listen on) who love certain classic albums and want a "buy it for life" copy but whose time isn't worth spending to find it. I've never bought from them, probably never will, so my words mean pretty much nothing. But man it's a tough hill to climb when you're really relying on the subjective opinions of a listener here.
In short, let's say you order the $550 record...maybe it's a true top-of-class sounding pressing. Are you going to know that with any confidence when you spin it? And if so, is getting that top-of-class sound 2x better than the most recent MoFi, or 4x better than the original MoFi, or 100x better than the bargain bin Columbia pressing you can find in every used record store in the country? Well...to the ears of the beholder.
ontherecord.co
True story folks!
