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Love Over Gold – 180 Gram Vinyl Review

2010 – Love Over Gold – 180 Gram

Vinyl surface noise:  4

Dynamic Range: 4+

Stereo Imaging: 4+

Image depth/perspective: 4

Overall frequency response: 4

Side One

1. Telegraph Road
2. Private Investigations

Side Two

1. Industrial Disease
2. Love Over Gold
3. It Never rains

This 2010 re-issue was mastered from the original 30ips analog master tapes by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering and plated and pressed on 180gram vinyl by Pallas, Germany.

Warner Bros. catalog number: 47772-1. Barcode: 093624969693

Musicians:

• Vocals/Guitar  – Mark Knopfler
• Drums – Pick Withers
• Bass – John Illsley
• Guitar – Hal Lindes
• Keyboards – Alan Clark
• Vibes & Marimbas – Mike Mainieri
• Synth Programming – Ed Walsh

Reviewed using the Hana SL and MX-VYNL pre-amp.

As a Dire Straits ‘fan boy’ I already owned the original vinyl release by Vertigo that I purchased in 1982 in the UK – Catalog number: 6359 109, which still sounds very good. The lacquers were cut at Sterling Sound and it was mastered by Robert Ludwig at Masterdisk NY. I also own the Re-Mastered CD released by Warner Bros in 2000, catalog number 9-47772-2. Barcode 0-9362-4772-2-9. So why did I need another copy?

After reading a number of excellent reviews of this Warner Bros. 180gram re-release, and having been mastered at the infamous Bernie Grundman facility and plated and pressed by Pallas, what could go wrong? I had high hopes for the sonic quality of this album. Were my hopes justified? Read on.

It looked like a great pressing, ruler flat, bright and shinny. As soon as the stylus hit the vinyl I was not too impressed with the background vinyl noise and the pops and clicks. They were all far too high for a Pallas pressing.

Rather than analyze the playing, musicianship and performance, which many of us are familiar with, I shall compare it against my original 1982 vinyl copy. I listened to each track, one at a time, from each pressing. The following improvements were heard from the 180gram pressing:

1. The bass was cleaner, more forward and extended.
2. The kick drum was more full and prominent, providing more beater impact.
3. The kit had a ‘larger’ sound with the toms in particular being more resonant and deeper in texture.
4. The overall sound and staging was more open but stereo imaging and depth placement was only marginally improved.
5. Vocals were much more open, clean and a lot less harsh.
6. Guitars and keyboards were slightly cleaner and again more open and transparent.
7. The top end for snare, cymbals etc. was slightly brighter and more detailed.
8. There seemed to be less compression on the 180 gram pressing with the average level slightly lower and the dynamics slightly greater than my Vertigo pressing.

Ignoring the less than stellar vinyl pressing, overall only a moderate improvement over my UK Vertigo release which had been played far too many times on mediocre equipment. My concern here is that the vinyl comparison may be stilted by the warn vinyl of my Vertigo release. Never the less, as a Dire Straits die hard I wasn’t too disappointed, I was just expecting more.

I came away with the overall feeling of a more open pressing with more “air” around every instrument, slightly improved dynamics, a more solid and extended bottom end, more detailed top end and with the vocals sounding much less strident.

I am sure you noted that I didn’t mention how my CD copy held up against both of these vinyl discs. I played this back on my Oppo 205 comparing both its analog and HDMI outputs to the 180 gram pressing.

As a vinyl enthusiast it pains me to say that my CD copy sounds better than the 180 gram pressing! So I saved my comments to last.

This CD was remastered at Gateway Mastering by Bob Ludwig and pressed by WEA Olyphant.

The audio only HDMI “jitter free” output from the Oppo 205 sounded very good (but had a very slight tendency to be a little ‘hard’), the dedicated stereo analog output was excellent. It was much closer to what I had expected to hear from the 180 gram version. So to summarize, compared to the 180 gram pressing the CD provided:

1. More extended bass that was really tight and clean.
2. The vocals were natural and warm.
3. Significantly better dynamics. It sounded as if the only compression was that of the analog tape.
4. The entire kit sound was far more impactful, toms rang on in the same fashion, with a much deeper and solid kick drum and beater sound.
5. All instruments were slightly brighter and more detailed.
6. Top end detail was slightly improved as was imaging and depth.
7. There was a notable increase in levels of reverb, its decay and detail.
8. It was just as open and ‘airy’ as the 180 gram album.
9. Being a CD there was zero background noise even during quiet passages. This gave the CD more dynamic ‘impact’.
10. Better still I didn’t have to leave my chair to repeatedly listen to all the tracks; not even to switch between the HDMI to analog inputs.

I have to say that I would be pleasantly surprised if the pending 45RPM release exceeds the performance of this CD, and being Mo-Fi it should. However, after three copies a 4th isn’t currently in my future unless it’s a review sample.

So after TWENTY EIGHT years the technology and techniques of record production managed to pull a little something extra off those analog tapes. Do they have anything else in store for the pending 45RPM re-release?

It’s a shame, but if I had to buy this album right now I would choose my CD version. A very different viewpoint to my review of the Mo-Fi 45RPM version of Money for Nothing.

If you want a better sounding 331/3 RPM pressing, this 180 gram version is probably the one to buy, pending the release of the 45RPM version by Mo-Fi. 

Buy from Amazon.

Available on vinyl and CD from Elusive Disc, Acoustic Sounds, Music Direct and Discogs.

See my other vinyl reviews here.