Hey! Good that you've bought this subject up. I ask that question every time I buy new LP. I think its only fair to buyer that they disclose the source used to cut the LP. Maybe they should start putting the "SPARS Code" ... (remember this on CD)... on the LP jacket. If the analog master and mastering was used than is should be "AAA" and so on.

The same problem exists for audiophile CD reissues also. There has been a long history of decpetive marketing, as we are slowly finding out. I wonder if DCC used an original master tape on more than just a handful of their releases.

I commend Mobile Fidelity for their Silver Series for not trying to pass these releases as being sourced from the original master tapes.

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Great article Michael.  Thank you for shining light on this topic. 

The past 10 years, as vinyl picked up popularity again, it seemed like an onslaught of companies offering "audiophile 180G" vinyl.  I remember purchasing some, and quickly learning my lesson.  Capitol had some reissues that were wretched (Heart - Dreamboat Annie).  There are so many records with that common "180G" gold on black sticker..when I see that sticker, I assume its straight up transfer of a CD to vinyl by whichever summer intern in the office shows a bit of apptitude. 

The "sourced from" designation pretty much means:

1) it is not cut from the original master

2) we don't know what we cut this LP from.

 eck, any version of an album is "sourced" at some point from the master, regardless of how many copies, remixes of digitizations have occcured.  One could put out a 180G album that was cut from a 30 years old cassette copy of your college roomate's cassette, which was 35th gen copy made at the record company factory...and say the 180G album was "sourced" from the 1st gen master.

Even with the good audiophile companies that Michael listed, one needs to check carefully.  I remember when MFSL reissued several John Lennon LP's about 10 years ago.  They didn't sound right to me.  In an email exchange with MFSL, they admitted the LP's were not cut from the "original masters" but from a remix provided by Yoko Ono (who knows if digital was involved).  So not really "original masters".

If you spend $25-$50 on a reissue, all the info should be printed on the album jacket, or available in plain sight on the reissue companies, and dealers, websites, including source tape, mastering chain (absence of digital), mastering engineer (s), manufacturing plant.  If all the information is not available, there is probably a reason.  Trust your ears. 

The Hoffman/Gray re-issues from Analogue Productions and Music Matters are spectacular, and a benchmark for how an audiophile re-issue should be made and marketed.

A truly great article and responses. And there there are those boots with those 180 gram gold and black stickers used by gray area companies like Scorpio. I was quite excited when I saw many of the classic blues titles from Yazoo being reissued. I bought one, a Blind Willie McTell. The source was some kind of digitally sourced, noise reduced flat sonic wash with all the life and dynamics sucked out. Yazoo appears to have nothing to do with these as their ability to coax fantastic sound out of old 78's set the gold standard on vinyl back in the 70's. A couple of obviously legit reissues II recently bought are two outstanding Johnny Winter reissues, Second Winter and Johnny Winter And Live from Friday Music that are the best I have ever heard these recordings by a mile. Yet they state quite clearly on the back that they were pressed at RTI and mastered by Kevin Gray and Joe Reagoso from the original Columbia Tapes. They sound fantastic to me, but note they do not say original analog masters. This is not a case of semantics and again leaves one to wonder. If they were taken directly from the original two track analog masters, I believe they would have said so. 

Readers of Audiostream.com know the subject of "what's in a name?" has been recently discussed regarding "HD" downloads and of other digital files (and even including analog formats). Lack of provenance and of relying on familiar "Good Housekeeping"-style labels are pervasive.

I'm reminded that not until sometime in the '70s did amplifiers advertise comparable power and distortion specs based on common criteria and that it didn't happen for car audio until the '90s. Although none of that describes sound quality it's still a help on some level knowing what's what.

Perhaps one day the reissue and "HD" music businesses will reach a level of public conscieness that similar ad hoc (voluntary, yet accurate and agreed-upon) standard vocabulary --- and its uses --- will come about.

This goes way back to the original Mobile Fidelity LP's from the 70's and 80's. A lot of The Beatles 1/2 speeds were NOT done with original EMI master tapes. They used Capitol 3 & 4th generation copies, Parlophone eq'd dubs etc. A look a the photos of the tape boxes that appered in the box set were very revealing.

Hi Michael ... Excellent article.

The only way to teach these companies that won't clearly state the source of a recording is to not buy their records. I have sent emails to Capital and 4 Men with Beards about the source of certain LPs and they never responded. And some post partial information, like on some John Coltrane reissues that have a sticker that says "Sourced by Rhino, distributed by Scorpio."

Then there are all those cheap Blue Note reissues. Heard a $12 copy of Pete La Roca's Basra in one shop on a basic system that sounded pretty flat, and a few months later I was in a store where they were spinning the 1995 reissue, and it sounded great. Why the difference? Probably different sources. I'll wait for the Music Matters reissue later this year. Sure bet.

Now when I shop and I'm not sure about a title I'll ask the vendor to hold the record behind the counter for a day or two so I can do some research on sites like this.

Let the buyer beware.

This is a really good article and makes a very good point.

Transparency in what you buy in music is not good. Apart from the ones mentioned, it gets really difficult to work out what sources are. Sometimes you buy something, put it on the platter and get confronted with 2 dimensional, harsh crap where you were expecting something decent.

It would be worth putting an area on Analog Planet devoted to this. Put on album title, record label or company, and what the sources were for the record. Say;

1. Album title, 2. Label/record company, 3. sources. 4. who mastered it.

Make it updatable by anyone. Ie., fully open. Anyone can go in, open a new record, and put in the info. And anyone can go in and update information. To my knowledge, there is no such resource anywhere on the web. Most record labels don't seem keen on the idea of any kind of transparency. Unsurprisingly, if you can pass off 44.1/16k as a full analogue chain and sell it as such, why tell people?

A few examples:

Rolling Stones - 60's catalog reissues; 2.8Mhz, DSD. great sounding
Rolling Stones - 70s and 80s; 48/24K; compressed. Not particularly good
Exile on main street - 2010 reissue; 48/24. Compressed and terrible sounding
Nirvana, Nevermind, Simply Vinyl. Digital something, and not good.
Bob Dylan Bootleg Series 8, Tell tale signs; 44.1/16k digital. The whole set.
Bryan Ferry, Dylanesque, 96/24. Great sounding, transparent, clear and full.
Rolling Stones, get your ya yas out reissue box set; 96/24. Great sounding, good dynamics.
Leonard Cohen - the 4 men with Beards reissues - "Apparently" all Hi-Rez digital
Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall recent reissues, both 96/24k
The Doors, Box set from a few years ago, 192/24k digital.
Rolling Stones, "Rarities 1971 - 2005". Digital, most likely 48/24, but Adam Ayant didn't want to say. 
 Rolling Stones, "Stripped" double LP. Digital, most likely 48/24k. No-one seems to know.
Bob Dylan, "Modern Times", digital, resolution unknown. Same with "together through life".

 Then the labels mentioned above, steer clear of anything from Doxy, it is virtually guaranteed to be 44.1/16. Simply Vinyl is pure chance, you never know what you get. Sundazed always sounds good.

I suspect Doxy is one of those labels that's sprung up in Europe to release music that's now in the public domain under EU law, which is pretty much anything pre 1961 or so, from what I understand.  

Great article, and critical subject matter. As a newb vinyl listener (largely influenced my MF articles in Stereophile, thanks!) this is fairly disconcerting. We buy the hardware and software in the hope we're avoiding the digital nasties but it would appear there's much more to this than would appear. Any info' on labels/titles is appreciated.... Thanks!

Having only just started to re-build my vinyl record collection, advice like this is invaluable! While I do try to chiefly hunt down original pressings of my favorite albums, the occasional re-release is unavoidable for the unobtainable. Of course, the CBS Mastersound LP of Dylan's Blood On The Tracks is a great example of this. Still, you would be hard-pressed to trump a well-kept, well-cleaned original. Great read Mikey, thanks!

This is a really good article, and hopefully, along with consumer pressure, it will lead to greater transparency from reissue labels.

One concern I have is that some vinyl enthusiasts will automatically reject any reissue that has been "contaminated" by digital in any way whatsoever, which might be part of the reason labels are sometimes not forthcoming with information. This is unfortunate because, as you note, LPs cut from hi-rez digital can sound fantastic.

There are a lot of factors that go into whether an LP sounds good or not, and whether digital was involved is only one of them. I have plenty of LPs from the 50s, 60s and 70s that were cut 100% analog every step of the way (obviously) and still sound horrible. Try finding a really good sounding Stones record on the London label. It's not easy! Many of them were cut at places like Bell Sound that used dupes of dupes for cutting, and they sound awful. I'd take the DSD sourced vinyl over those any day as they are way closer to the masters (unboxed Decca UK pressings are a different matter, most of those sound great if you can find them in good condition).

But I know people that will refuse on principle to buy any vinyl that they know to have had its purity of analog essence contaminated by digital. That's their right of course, but I swear it's almost like a disease.....okay, I'm probably ranting about this in the wrong place.

None of this is to excuse those reissue labels that have no interest in sound quality and simply cut LPs from commercially available CD sources. And in the end, I believe we would be better served by greater transparency about sources and mastering because the current atmosphere of mistrust and suspicion not helpful.

Nice article, Mikey. I'd like to throw in my two cents: Avoid anything released by the Italian reissue label Get Back records. Terrible sound, terrible QC. One of their LPs I bought had a blob of glue in the middle of side one, and this was a $40 Comus LP. Never again. 

Hey we need to bring back those goofy AAD designations that used to be on CDs, where it was implied that DDD was somehow the ideal, but now we need them for vinyl -- AAA implying pure analog recording, mixing, and mastering!

I completely agree with Mickey that it's dicey at best with remasters if the info is limited.  So this means I concentrate nearly all my spending on mint used LPs which is sort of a shame for the record companies and artists, I'd like to buy new vinyl but it's like a 50/50 proposition that it will be mastered and cut correctly unless, of'course, I source it from MoFi or the others Mickey mentions.   

I'd encourage the companies to provide much more information for sure.

Also, how about somebody starts a company to release 00's music that is remastered without the massive compression (provided it's not squashed for posterity in the mixing stage already) -- I know Arcade Fire and The National have put out some great releases, but just imagine how awesome that stuff would be if MoFi remastered it with 50% more dynamic range.   Just a thought...

I have had horrible luck with new issues. I use a V15 VMR on a variety of turntables, and MoFi has been pretty noisy. I just got a Carole King simply vinyl, cleaned with that $4,000 record cleaner Mikey talked about at T.H.E. Show Newport, and It's so crackly, back it goes. I would expect it to be GOUGED for that many crackles. I guess I have to stick with mainly used vinyl. At least I'm not as dissapointed when it is a dud.

There is amazing variation, the "Exile" reissue sounds like a shrill, lifeless compressed mess.

Patricia Barbers "Café Blue" is a 44.1/16k recording, but the LP is very listenable.

Bob Dylans "Modern Times" LP is much better than the CD, real dynamic range where the CD sounds squashed. Same for "together through life".

The T-Rex "Electric Warrior" reissue is also "apparently" Hi Resolution digital, though I haven't heard it.

The Leonard Cohen live stuff recently released on vinyl is a 48/24k recording upsampled to 96/24k. It sounds quite respectable.

Leonard Cohens "Old Ideas" is digital, resolution unknown, but quite nice sounding. Leonard Cohens "10 new songs" also digital. resolution unknown. In my opinion, 10 new songs suffered a bit from some wierd Pro-tools sounding stuff. "Old Ideas" sounds better.

The Friday Music Elvis reissues are analog and great sounding.

Simply Vinyl has done some Elvis reissues and other LPs. The ones I have heard are uniformly crap. I have some Elvis gold CDs that sound better.

A number (most?) of the "Chess master" reissues from the mid '80s are actually analog, although it says "digitally mastered by..." on the back. They sound great. I recommend Muddy Waters sings Big Bill Broonzy. The Chess Masters reissue, it was done all analog by Steve Hoffman.