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Adele 25 – Vinyl Review

Adele 25 – November 2015

Vinyl surface noise: 4-  (not pops and clicks)

Dynamic Range: 4-

Stereo Imaging: 4

Image depth/perspective: 4-

Overall frequency response: 4-

Side One

1. Hello
2. Send My Love (To Your New Lover)
3. I Miss You
4. When We Were Young
5. Remedy

Side Two

1. Ware Under The Bridge
2. River Lea
3. Love In The Dark
4. Million Years Ago
5. All I Ask
6. Sweetest Devotion

Originally released in 2015 this recording was created at the following studios:

In track order:

• Metropolis Studios, London
• MXM Studios, Stockholm and Eastcote Studios, London
• The Church Studios, London
• Dean Street Studios, London
• Air Studios and British Groove Studios, London
• Metropolis Studios London
• West Point Studios and Dean Street Studios, London
• Sam’s Studios and Smecky Studios, London
• Metropolis Studios, London
• Glenwood Recording Studios, LA
• The Church Studios, London

The CD and vinyl mastering was carried out at Sterling Sound, NYC.

Musicians:

• Adele – Vocals, keyboard, drums, guitar
• Others – Too many to list!

25 is the third studio album by English singer Adele. Globally, 25 was the biggest-selling music release in 2015, and 2016 selling over 22 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of all-time. It was certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), denoting equivalent sales of ten million copies in the United States.

For more on this world wide top selling albums’ history and facts click here.

With such a large number of musicians, studios and engineers involved in this albums production was the sonic quality and musical performance consistent from track to track? Read on.

I had high hopes for the sonic quality of this album based upon the who’s who of recording studios, musicians and engineers. It was mastered at Sterling Sound and it was rumored that much of the vinyl was pressed at RTI with Audio Acoustics creating the plated masters. I opened the album to see what looked to be a pristine pressing, no marks, no dust and a beautifully shinny finish. Dropping onto my turntable it was ruler flat and perfectly concentric. Well that was where all my excitement stopped DEAD!

As soon as the needle hit the vinyl I knew things were not right. The vinyl noise on both sides was much higher than I would EVER have expected from an RTI pressing on 180gram, and the sonic dynamics of most of the mixes were, let us say, less than stellar. The vinyl noise was virtually the same on both sides with side two seeming a little less and with slightly improved dynamics; but that could have been my wishful thinking.

What was more than interesting was that despite most of the tracks being recorded in different studios, on different equipment, with different engineers, they all possessed a remarkably similar sound, slightly muffled, restricted dynamics and with some vocals having hard upper mid-range and even several sounding distorted with what sounded like tracing distortion, mostly third harmonic. Overall the album sounded dull, lacked sparkle, had marginal HF detail and a lack luster bottom end.

Did the mastering process simply crush, read compress, the life out of all the tracks? Which is strange considering Adele’s voice had some reasonable dynamics. Maybe it was just the instrumental mixes that were poor? But how could that be on almost all the tracks?

Musically and lyrically the tracks were good, but sonically, from an audiophiles point of view, they “sucked”. Adele has a really good voice that came through on several tracks as they were all mixed with her front, center and well forward with lots of presence. As for the rest of the instruments, most were weak or recessed back with layers of reverb. The kit(s) got their shot on a number of tracks like S1T3 and S2T6 but overall there is no exceptional instrumental performances; it is ALL about Adele’s vocals with the musician’s providing a warm blanket to wrap them up in. Not surprising I suppose!

I have to assume that most people that bought this album are in love with Adele, her lyrics and musical style, as the overall sound and sonics of this vinyl are poor. Maybe the younger generation all listen to it on MP3! I do not understand how such poor vinyl gets created these days with the array of modern technology and pressing techniques that are available to the distinguished engineering fraternity

If you are not an audiophile, but you are into Adele, I am sure this album will light your fire. For the rest of us its just another to put at the back of our vinyl cupboards.

Purchase from Amazon.

Available on vinyl and CD from Discogs.

See my other vinyl reviews here.