Breaking Through

 

The Doors - The Doors [AAPP 74007-45 USA 2020 24-Bit 176.4kHz FLAC]

I recently paid forty-five quid for this album, the last copy that I bought of The Doors was a WEA mid-price copy (you know, the one with the exclamation sticker) for a tenth of that price around 1982.This version is a very recent deluxe packaged remaster from the original analogue tape pressed at 45rpm onto two virgin platters, my first is likely a West German pressing from a master cut by Strawberry in London.  I wonder which copy sounds best? 

Without waiting for some of you to twiddle those thumbs whilst this downloads, and then do your a/b comparisons, I'll cut to the chase and say this 2020 Analogue Productions re-release, cut by the late Doug Saxe at The Mastering Lab in California around 2012 wins hands down. Who says modern vinyl pressings are awful ....possibly me a few years back?

This is really a post about how a mastering engineer can make such a difference to the final product, after all, nearly all of you should know this album so no need for my usual track-by-track breakdown. Many of the world's very best are getting on a bit in years (R.I.P. Doug) and if we are not careful all we will be left are lathe cutting technicians who ply their trade on a laptop using compressed digital files of dubious lineage.

Let's not get too technical now, after all it is all about how good the music sounds....

A1 Break On Through (To The Other Side)

A2 Soul Kitchen

A3 The Crystal Ship

A4 Twentieth Century Fox

B1 Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)

B2 Light My Fire

C1 Back Door Man

C2 I Looked At You

C3 End Of The Night

C4 Take It As It Comes

D1 The End