Sold Date: April 5, 2020
Start Date: March 29, 2020
Final Price: £23.00 (GBP)
Bid Count: 13
Seller Feedback: 705
Buyer Feedback: 13

Abbey Road/The Beatles MFSL Original Master Recording 1979 Japanese Vinyl. Condition is Used. Dispatched with Royal Mail 2nd Class.

Here we have a copy of the 1979 pressing of The Beatles' 1969 masterpiece, "Abbey Road". This is the Original Master Recording pressed onto 100% virgin vinyl by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab under special licence.

Unfortunately this copy is not perfect which I’ll now proceed to describe in detail.

The Good:

I have played this copy twice in the last 24 hours before putting it up before sale, to check what exact condition it’s in. I’d like to say that the record itself is 90% perfect.

Side One is flawless. It plays through without issue and as you might expect from this version, sounds totally fantastic. Rich, detailed with a wonderful vocal presence. Absolutely immaculate. The record is supplied with its original Japanese inner sleeve.

The Bad:

First off, the sleeve has not survived the years very well. Made of a particularly heavy cardboard, it has split on top and below as can be seen in the photos I have provided of the side view. Front and rear views are fine and perhaps the potential buyer might choose to glue the sleeve together once more.

This split is unfortunate but as many will say, you can’t play sleeves.

As for Side Two, it is almost as flawless as Side One but not quite. There is an odd scratch extending over several tracks towards the end of the medley. The tracks affected are "Bathroom window", "Golden Slumbers" and "Carry That Weight". Here are the details.

Bathroom Window: while the scratch can be heard if you pay attention, it is somewhat lost as this is a noisy track. I think also that it starts to kick in just towards the end of "Polythene Pam".

Golden Slumbers: this track suffers as the scratch kicks in in the form of a repeating tick present on the rill and then right into McCartney on piano. It is noticeable especially on the quieter sections but can quite definitely be heard throughout the song.

Carry That Weight: The tick continues into this track but is somewhat lost as the track is quite loud again. Not so noticeable. Peters out towards the end of "Carry"and is gone by The End.

I call the scratch odd because while it is visible (see the final photo of the LP surface) and audible as described it is not feelable. I’m surprised therefore that it can be heard at all. Of the three tracks affected, two are not so bad, with only "Slumbers" being the worst affected. This is a slightly irritating repetitive tick, not a jump, stick or skip.

Otherwise this LP plays magnificently. It was always a great-sounding LP, MFSL went one step further with the master tapes themselves.

Why then am I selling ? Simple reason, I have two copies and the other one is flawless. It is ridiculous to hang on to two copies when this near-perfect copy could bring pleasure to someone else. The other reason is because I’ve just bought a new cartridge and am trying to raise funds to pay for it.

To summarise - this is a near -EXCELLENT copy of this MFSL classic. It is only marred by that unfortunate scratch which mainly impacts on just one track. Even then it’s not awful, as it doesn’t skip or jump.

So - grab yourself a bargain :

As ever, any questions, do not hesitate to ask.

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