Quote from Casper on November 16, 2025, 3:57 am

I've been meaning to make one of these posts for years now, but there's just so many rips I'm always downloading the next one before I can express my gratitude for the ones I have.

For most records released before roughly 1985, I prefer to listen to the PBTHAL rips of first editions. I have a decent pair of Klipsch bookshelf speakers of which I run GNU/Linux with Pipewire so that the sample rate of the files are not altered in any way - I have dynamic sampling rates enabled so the 96000kz are played back without any resampling.

That being said, I'm currently listening to Love It to Death, which kind of sounds like a proto punk rock record, but the rhythm section really holds it together, suggesting they have a bit more technical skill than the future Germs and GG Allins that took such inspiration from them. I can kinda see why Frank Zappa signed them on his Straight label.

I feel like I'm not missing anything out by listening to a "vinyl rip" of this album. The lows and especially the midrange sound as crisp and as warm as they would on a CD of the 80s or any other loudness-war resistant pressing would. It's nearly impossible to tell that this is a vinyl rip without prior knowledge - that's how good these rips are. And this one is only from the Dressed to the Nines era, so 6-7 years ago now, well before PB seriously upgraded his hardware.

Anyway thanks for these rips over the years. I've been listening for at least 5 years now, and I always check here before DocRob's (RIP) site or anywhere else when I want to listen to older records. Hell, I've even started checking out some of the more recent bands/remasters just to see what they sound like. They are also spectacular.