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Re-issues of Springsteen LPs

ex brickie

ex brickie

pfm Member
Any Bruce officianados out there who can comment from experience on the sound quality of Springsteen re-issues or remastered LPs? I’m particularly after Darkness on the Edge of Town but have (elsewhere) read mixed reviews on sound quality. I’m reluctant to buy initial pressings as they are either very expensive or I’m wary of how they are described (bad experiences of people describing their albums as Ex)

I think there have been different reissues so if anyone can recommend a particular version it would be very useful

(If anyone has a decent copy for sale at a sensible price I’m interested too but I’ll wait before putting up a WTD advert)

Thanks
 
Springsteen records are seldom great in terms of sound quality so if you must have on vinyl then I would just look for the cleanest pressings.

Worth having a play with some of the content on streaming services like Qobuz.
 
Thanks all. I’ve already looked extensively on eBay and Discogs. I wanted to know whether any particular pressings or reissues had better sound quality (or reissues/versions to avoid) than others
 
gavreid said:
The Boss albums were never hifi. I'd go for good OG's myself.
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Agreed, and until fairly recently they were an easy find. I‘ve sold a loads of most of them, but very little over recent years. Even so I suspect they should be findable with a little patience in high st second hand record shops. There are certainly a lot of them out there. These are not rare records (other than maybe the first two)!
 
The first two are quite good too along with Darkness but none of them are anything special. BitUSA is pretty compressed. Actually the Live boxset might be the best of the bunch!
 
Springsteen, when he's great he's great.

Darkness is good sound quality, and my favourite album by him. Nebraska, recorded on a four channel cassette portastudio, probably running at double speed, sounds surprisingly immediate. The Ghost of Tom Joad is a return to Nebraska form, stripped down arrangements and songs that are strong enough to take that. It's also an excellent recording. Devils and Dust is good too, but IMHO not quite as strong. I think there was a supercut of Born to Run produced at some point, but don't remember it being impressive in terms of SQ.
I have Live at the Agora, a digital download from his website, a live recording from the 70s which shows what a talent, and force of nature he and his band were around the time they made Darkness. I think is a digital download only though, not vinyl. Decent live SQ though, and a must have if you rate this era of the man's output.
 
I'm just listening to my Terre Haute pressing of The River - what more could you want? These used to go for strong money but they've dropped considerably over the past few years...
 
The number of nice UK first pressings of The River I found in £1 bins was astonishing. That one and Born In The USA were always the easiest to find. So much harder to find this sort of stuff now!

My favourite two are the first two. They have such a great groove to them. Those are the ones you never see good originals of. I’m pretty sure I’d have kept one of each had they come in. All I have myself is the CD box set, and really only for the first two.
 
Tony L said:
My favourite two are the first two. They have such a great groove to them. Those are the ones you never see good originals of. I’m pretty sure I’d have kept one of each had they come in. All I have myself is the CD box set, and really only for the first two.
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Even the nice price reissues from the early 80s were really decent. I remember there was always a copy of The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle at my local record shop bitd. OGs must be quite rare but won't be too expensive these days.
 
I've got the half speed mastered version of Born To Run, which is an improvement on the standard pressing I had before (mind you, this is from memory - I've not heard them back to back in years).
 
guey said:
I've got the half speed mastered version of Born To Run, which is an improvement on the standard pressing I had before (mind you, this is from memory - I've not heard them back to back in years).
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I've got an OG but also the 30th anni HiRes from 10 years ago. It doesn't add anything, which kind of says the limitation is the masters. Side 1 is meant to be quite thin sounding by choice, I think. Side 2 should hit like a fist and the last two tracks are very dynamic!

Incidentally, Dave Sanborn gets a credit for Baritone Saxophone on Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out!
 
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Prompted by this thread, I had a look at what vinyl I still have of his; and it's mostly bootlegs - so not much use to the OP I'm afraid.
The CD boxset that came out in *checks* 2010 is pretty decent sounding I seem to remember - not played it in a while though.
 
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