Pink Floyd – The Dark Side Of The Moon

Having the Uk's A2/B2 - A3/B3, The MFSL 1-017, EU 30th Anniversary edition + 2016 PFRLP8 EU to compare with i must say this one is a keeper. Warm and as said below crystal clear. Love it!

This pressing is amazing and definitely worth your money! The sound is crystal clear!

Awesome album and seller was really helpful will purchase more Pink Floyd and more records from the seller I got it from

Very clear and all around great sounding press. An iconic album for good reason, very well composed, mixed, and produced. What really drives it home for me are the drums. This is a prime example of an album that just sounds leagues better on vinyl than it does anywhere else.

My matrix / runout is A side - SMAS-1-11163-F18#5 –––◁
matrix B side - SMAS-2-11163-F3#2 –––◁ Wly

Obviously this is one of the greatest albums of all time, still sounding astonishingly vibrant even tho' it's almost 50 years old. So I'll focus this review on this particular pressing (Wly, 1973 Winchester): well it was like hearing it for the first time again! I've listened to this classic album countless of times, mostly on CD (90's release), sometimes streaming or ripped-audio. Never on vinyl...until now...

For gear info: I was running the vinyl (in near-mint condition) on a modest cheapo turntable with own pre-amps in its line-out (a DJ Tech USB10 with AT3600L cartridge). Those RCA outs were adapted to 6.3mm L&R jacks at the other end and went into my Allen & Heath mixer, where I EQ'd to taste (increase highs & lows, keep mids steady). The mixer's XLR-outs went into my ESI Near08 active monitors (8" woofers, range 40hz-20khz). And I had it on loud! Dialled to 11, even.

What did it sound like? In short: it was thrilling and emotional. The 43 minutes absolutely flew by, it felt like mere minutes...i was on a high the whole time.

So what are the differences? This is all subjective, of course...

The sounds feel more 'analog', it sometimes felt like the music was really happening in my room, as opposed to merely listening to a recording. Most noticably with Clare Torry's iconic Great Gig, but also with all the myriad sounds like the talking samples, breathing & footsteps. On The Run sounds HUGE, that hi-hat loop which so seduced me back in 1994 now sounded actually alive! It seemed to have so much space around it. The final swooping sound felt (actually felt) like an airplane flying low overhead.

Generally the guitar solos are crunchy as hell, and spatially in their own realm, rather than 'in the mix'. The whole album sounded quite airy, and also raw: less glossy high-definition than the CD version, less balanced, more in-your-face. The drums & bass of Money absolutely walloped me, I've never heard it so powerful! Has a similar crunchy raw quality of a White Stripes album. Tho' Money's famous cash-register intro didn't quite impact, that sounds more 'present' on the CD version. But once that bass & drums land...wow...really takes you on a ride. Time was never one of my favourites once the singing got going, despite loving the long intro, but I enjoyed it a lot here.

Strangely, Us & Them sounded more compressed and squashed than every other track on the album: the drums are in the background, 'sticking' to the wall-of-sound, rather than pounding the proceedings along from above as per the other tracks. Perhaps a mastering-decision by Traugott (pre-digital), maybe the frequency dynamics of Us & Them is now better suited to high-definition formats, or maybe that particular song isn't suited to what I was doing with the mixer-EQ. Whatever the case may be it's the only song where I can say I preferred the CD version as the crescendos impact more. The closing trio of songs on the vinyl returned to that crunchy raw airy quality of the first 5 tracks...Rick Wright's synth soared!

I, like some of you, see/feel colours when I listen to music: I always perceived DsotM to be quite red up until the final trio, when things got more yellow. Same sensation with the vinyl play, maybe even more intensively so. I always wondered why the song is called Any Colour You Like, maybe Rick also saw colours in music, just maybe different ones to what I see.

Conclusion: I absolutely loved listening to this timeless album with new ears, thanks to the change of format. I can't say if other vinyl pressings from other plants/engineers sound different, but I can say with certainty that there is a significant difference between my particular CD and LP, and if you're a big fan of this album, then it's worth having it in both formats. At the moment I prefer the vinyl as it sounds so fresh to me, but that's not to say vinyl is objectively better than CD. It has that characteristic crackle & noise throughout, noticable during quiet moments. I like it, has a certain ambience and adds to the overall flavour...tho' I expect records in worse condition than mine will have rather harsher crackles & noise, perhaps putting paid to any ambient effect. That's a potential issue with all vinyl, of course.

I also enjoyed the ritualistic changing sides after the long fade-out of Great Gig...it means a longer pause before Money starts, which I appreciated. I don't understand why Us & Them sounded differently-mastered to the others, could be just my ears playing tricks.

If you're reading this and have the same pressing, let me know if you agree with my impressions, or where you have different ideas.

This LP is best in my collection.
I have it 5 years ago.

This LP was still in the Australian charts on September 20, 1974, at 20 dropping from 15 the previous week. Source - 5KA, Adelaide, chart list.

High School . . . I'm a Sophomore . . . "Frankenstein" by the Edgar Winter Group just ended on the radio . . . and now we got "The Joker" by the Steve Miller Band playing . . . and we're riding down "D" Street to a Drive-in . . . . . . those were the best days of my life that I'll never forget! And this one Album defines my teenage years as the sound-track of my life! "The Dark Side Of The Moon" went on to become one of the most listened to, and most purchased Albums in history and rightly so! If you have never heard this Album, you must hear it from the first track . . . to the very ending track! You will never forget the event of your first hearing of this OUTSTANDING Album! And it is so much better heard if you are a bit mentally altered to another level of experience! So . . . sit back . . . settle in . . . and close your eyes . . . for you are about to set sail to another realm of reality! Enjoy!!!

This album was part of the period that Pink Floyd entered as a group that marked a change in direction when the musical style is considered and the form of the songwriting that defined the concept of the album's creative influence following the passing of the original and early member of the group Syd Barret. During this point in the bands creative design to their music marked the period when David Gilmour took over as guitarist and principal songwriter.