AUDIOPHILE VINYL

splendid, slip-cased taps easily emerging from Lewis’ box set of 10, 7” whole-hearted vocal and thunderous singles from the piano blows, while Little Richard’s rock’n’roll era. Each ‘Lucille’ remained coherent and single is ‘dinked’ and so requires precise despite the raucous screams Aa spindle adaptor, while featured of the man himself. The Everly artists include Buddy Holly, Eddie Brothers’ own ‘Wake Up Little Cochran, Chuck Berry, Bill Haley, Susie’, meanwhile, provided a sense Carl Perkins, Fats Domino and Gene of transparency that keyed into the Vincent. duo’s vibrant youth, giving a wholly I was generally impressed with musical, foot-tapping experience. the mastering and pressing of these I’m glad my wife wasn’t in range, singles. There is a perception that 7” otherwise she would have been discs are printed from the leftover lifted, flipped and thrown around vinyl cuts swept up off the floor by the room, worrying our low-energy the cleaner after hours, but these lightbulbs and mowing a heel-shaped examples have been well produced stripe down the cat’s back as she - being quietly pressed with no was swung around in an ambitious crackling or spitting or excessive circle. This box set requires a health ROCK ’N’ ROLL background noise. While the warning! inherent format lowers the quality Also look out for the sister box of the signal itself, reducing detail set ‘The Blues: Classic 45s’, similarly by degrees, that level of detail did presented and featuring Muddy manage to surprise. Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Lightnin’ There was a remarkable amount Hopkins, Buddy Guy, Jimmy Reed, of instrumental separation on Jerry Elmore James, John Lee Hooker, Classic 45s Lee Lewis’ ‘[Whole] Lotta Shakin’ Sonny Boy Williamson, B.B. King and Demon Goin’ On’ with the fragile cymbal Willie Dixon. AUDIOPHILE VINYL

riginally released The tracks released as the as a CD in a more Ronettes include ‘I’m on the expanded form (17 Wagon’, ‘Silhouettes’, and ‘Good tracks instead of Girls’. All good songs but all the 11 tracks featured on this remained regional hits. vinylO pressing) by Sequel in 1994. In audiophile terms, the music That collection was called ‘The has been pushed through the Complete Coolpix and Buddha compression mill. Sessions’ and that’s the essence of It is squeezed to increase the this release. It tracks the history effect of the detail around the of the girl group before they were upper mids for those playing this signed up by Phil Spector, who music through those new fangled would place them in front of his transistor radios and early record Wall of Sound and then issue one players at the time. As such, the of most romantic rock’n’roll tracks mastering reflects a time and of all time in ‘Be My Baby’ – a song a place. You can’t criticise the that was also Beach Boy Brian sound quality (well you can but Wilson’s all-time favourite single, it would be churlish to do so). incidentally. The mastering hits all of the right THE RONETTES This compilation tracks the nostalgia buttons. sisters Veronica (aka Ronnie) and Underneath the source Estelle Bennett and their cousin mastering, though, Bear Family has Nedra Talley after their 1959 done a stirling job by placing the formation as The Darling Sisters mastering on the best available starting with ‘I Want A Boy’ for sonic platform, so you don’t lose Veronica Coolpix in 1961 as Ronnie & the any frequency that might be in the Bear Family Relatives. offing.

64 HI-FI WORLD NOVEMBER 2016 www.hi-fiworld.co.uk

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