To my ear, nothing sounds better than original Warner Brothers pressings on the green labels. There's a warmth and fullness to the sound I don't hear coming from other companies - even UK or German pressings from other labels.
The common perception (at least by me so that means everyone else) is there was a definitive change when they switched to the gawd awful looking trees label. In reality the dip in quality and warmth happened about a year or so later.
Warner Brothers (and subsidiaries Reprise, Discreet, etc) did not operate their own pressing plants. Instead, they outsourced to others. During the 'green label' period they were using Columbia's plants.
In 1973 they switched to the gawd awful trees label. For about two years, they still pressed at Columbia. These pressings can be identified by the clamp ring on the label about 3/4 if an inch from the runout groove. See below for an early pressing of Bear's Choice by Grateful Dead. If you squint, you can see the ring passing through Vol.1 and the skull logo.
Sometime in 1975, Warner's switched their outsourced pressing to Capitol. Capitol pressings can be identified by the clamp ring closer to the middle - at about the same place a 45 spindle would go.
I first became aware of the difference when I spied a copy of Grateful Dead's Europe '72 on the Green label. I snapped it up just because it looked cooler. I had an subconscious feeling it would sound better. In comparison to the copy I bought in 1977, the warmth jumped out. Phil's bass was right there, the kick drum resonated in my chest. Wow!. From that pressing, my appreciation of the green labels grew. It was only upon geek investigation did I discover the overlap of warm pressings and gawd awful trees labels. Billion Dollar Babies had the warmth as did Zappa releases prior to Zoot Allures.
Fortunately, during this period Warners did not use Columbia for 45's. Columbia pressed on styrene. Warner's 45's are on vinyl. More to come on the use of styrene in 45's.
No comments:
Post a Comment