Speakers Corner / CBS - 62402 - 180 Gram Virgin Vinyl - AAA 100% Analogue
Limited Edition - Audiophile Mastering - Pressed at Pallas - CBS S BPG 62402
Speakers Corner 30 Years Pure Analogue This LP is an Entirely Analogue Production
As for the LP itself, it maintains the high standards set by Speakers Corner, which uses the pressing facilities of the highly respected Pallas Group in Diepholz, Germany. The resulting vinyl is dead quiet, ruler flat, blemish free, and it also sounds great. A sticker on the shrink-wrap proudly proclaims "This LP is an entirely analogue production," and it sounds it. Sourced from original master tapes and cut using Neumann cutting consoles, the LP's sound reminds me of pop albums I listened to in the late '60s (in a good way) -- exaggerated channel separation, accentuated midrange, multi-miked to the extreme -- except cleaner, free of artifacts and with much greater dynamic range. There is something special and fundamental about recordings made before the advent of digital bits. Other than frequent manipulation of the sound both in the studio and mixing booth, they sound primal, evoking memories in anyone over the age of 40. This album's artwork and labels are accurate facsimiles of those for the 1966 stereo UK pressing. The LP is protected with a very nice rice-paper-lined sleeve. An eight-page insert, cataloguing Speakers Corner releases, shares space in the sleeve with the record.If you are a fan of John Barry’s film music, you’ll want this album because you’ve never heard it sound better. If you’ve lived in a cave for the last four decades and are not familiar with this music, grab a copy of this LP and bring yourself up to date. You’ll be happy you did. - The Audio Beat
He had them all — the James Bond girls and the incomparably smart Sean Connery. But also Marlon Brando, Michael Caine, Robert Redford and Jane Fonda, who all more or less danced after the director's pipe, acted certainly with his music in their ears. John Barry started his career in the most British manner possible — as a film composer in the service of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. The characteristic "Bond Theme" for Dr. No, with its mysterious, clacking guitar trailer supported by powerful brass, was indispensable for all following films and rang in the ears of the villains and their henchmen for all time.
Alongside the fully orchestrated numbers from the James Bond films, the album offers a wealth of very different music, such as the collage-like "The Chase" with its intense "walking" sound and the melancholy theme from "King Rat." Barry lets the flutes rise up with airy and and subtle clouds of dissonant chords ("Séance On A Wet Afternoon"), creates barbed motives out of gentle sounds ("The Ipcress File") and rolls out a warm carpet of strings for the programmatic terrain of "Born Free," a true adventure story set in a game ward in Africa.
This Speakers Corner LP was remastered using pure analogue components only, from the master tapes through to the cutting head. All royalties and mechanical rights have been paid.
Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
AAA 100% Analogue This Speakers Corner LP was remastered using pure analogue components only, from the master tapes through to the cutting head 25 Years pure Analogue
MADE FROM THE ORIGINAL MASTER TAPES
AAA 100% ANALOGUE - PURE ANALOGUE AUDIOPHILE MASTERING
We use the Original Tapes and work with only the Best Mastering Studios Worldwide
180 GRAM VIRGIN VINYL PLATED & PRESSED AT PALLAS GERMANY
Faithful Reproduction of the Original Artwork and Labels
LIMITED EDITION Released in Limited Quantities
All Licences and Mechanical Rights Paid
Are your records completely analogue?
Yes! This we guarantee!
As a matter of principle, only analogue masters are used, and the necessary cutting delay is also analogue. All our cutting engineers use only Neumann cutting consoles, and these too are analogue. The only exception is where a recording has been made – either partly or entirely – using digital technology, but we do not have such items in our catalogue at the present time
Are your records cut from the original masters?
In our re-releases it is our aim to faithfully reproduce the original intentions of the musicians and recording engineers which, however, could not be realised at the time due to technical limitations. Faithfulness to the original is our top priority, not the interpretation of the original: there is no such thing as a “Speakers Corner Sound”. Naturally, the best results are obtained when the original master is used. Therefore we always try to locate these and use them for cutting. Should this not be possible, – because the original tape is defective or has disappeared, for example – we do accept a first-generation copy. But this remains an absolute exception for us.
Who cuts the records?
In order to obtain the most faithful reproduction of the original, we have the lacquers cut on the spot, by engineers who, on the whole, have been dealing with such tapes for many years. Some are even cut by the very same engineer who cut the original lacquers of the first release. Over the years the following engineers have been and still are working for us: Tony Hawkins, Willem Makkee, Kevin Gray, Maarten de Boer, Scott Hull, and Ray Staff, to name but a few.
At the beginning of the ‘90s, in the early days of audiophile vinyl re-releases, the reissue policy was fairly straightforward. Companies such as DCC Compact Classics, Mobile Fidelity, Classic Records and others, including of course Speakers Corner, all maintained a mutual, unwritten code of ethics: we would manufacture records sourced only from analogue tapes.
Vinyl’s newfound popularity has led many other companies to jump on the bandwagon in the hope of securing a corner of the market. Very often they are not so ethical and use every imaginable source from which to master: CDs, LPs, digital files and even MP3s.
Even some who do use an analogue tape source employ a digital delay line, a misguided ’80s and ‘90s digital technology that replaces the analogue preview head originally used to “tell” the cutter head in advance what was about to happen musically, so it could adjust the groove “pitch” (the distance between the grooves) to make room for wide dynamic swings and large low frequency excursions. Over time analogue preview heads became more rare and thus expensive.
So while the low bit rate (less resolution than a 16 bit CD) digital delay line is less expensive and easier to use than an analogue “preview head”, its use, ironically, results in lacquers cut from the low bit rate digital signal instead of from the analogue source!
Speakers Corner wishes to make clear that it produces lacquers using only original master tapes and an entirely analogue cutting system. New metal stampers used to press records are produced from that lacquer. The only exceptions are when existing metal parts are superior to new ones that might be cut, which includes our release of “Elvis is Back”, which was cut by Stan Ricker or several titles from our Philips Classics series, where were cut in the 1990s using original master tapes by Willem Makkee at the Emil Berliner Studios. In those cases we used only the original “mother” to produce new stampers.
In addition, we admit to having one digital recording in our catalogue: Alan Parsons’ “Eye in the Sky”, which was recorded digitally but mixed to analogue tape that we used to cut lacquers.
In closing, we want to insure our loyal customers that, with but a few exceptions as noted, our releases are “AAA”— analogue tape, an all analogue cutting system, and newly cut lacquers.
60 Years Pallas
Audiophile Vinyl - Made in Germany For over 60 years the family business in the third generation of the special personal service and quality "Made by Pallas" is known worldwide. Our custom PVC formulation produces consistently high pressing quality with the lowest surface noise in the industry. Our PVC complies with 2015 European environmental standards and does not contain toxic materials such as Lead, Cadmium or Toluene. Our vinyl is both audiophile and eco-grade!
