Cowboy Junkies – Lay It Down

Heads up, Real Gone's website and Amazon seem to have these on sale for $15-17 if you're on the fence about this due to the reviews below.

I took advantage of the sale, and this sounds fine to my ears, though it isn't as great as the stunning, recent reissue of Pale Sun, Crescent Moon. Vinyl does have a little bit of noise, mastering sounds fine, though will second the complaint about the artwork and particularly the inner sleeve looking scanned. Real Gone has a mixed track record for reissues with me, but hey, for $15 I'm happy.

Another stunning installment in Cowboy Junkies cannon. Lots of comments about a noisy pressing. Honestly, I’m not hearing it. I cleaned my copy in a first generation HumminGuru prior to listening. Sounds virtually dead quiet. As with any record you will hear an occasional, and I mean occasional slight tick or slight pop.

Any way, stunning production, lively sound stage. Some have commented that the soundstage is flat but I would disagree. My setup is nothing exceptional:

Marantz Model 30
Rega P3 w/Exact cartridge
Klipsch Heresy III speakers

This is a highly recommended release!

So crackly at first I thought I wasted 25 bucks. Grades B/B+ with a Puffin Phono DSP after a good wet cleaning though. Turned up, the mastering sounds very good to me. Was unlistenable before it was cleaned. Still irritating that there’s some audible crackle with a brand new record.

unacceptable!
it had better not circulate!
the cd is enough!

Terrible pressing. Flat and lifeless. An over 50 minute album like this should have been on two discs. Disappointing since this is such a nice album. It deserves better.

sleeve has a blurry picture and the innersleeve is full of moiré patterns as of it is amateur wise scanned from the CD booklet.
the sound of my cassette sounds better too...

Received it today, the pressing is good, flat and well centered. I had not much surface sound, at the end of side one there were some clicks and pops which went away after cleaning the record once.

The sound quality does not reach the level from Black Eyed Man or Pale Sun Crescent Moon LP reissues which is obviously because these two wer pressed on two disks. For an album > 50 minutes of music this would have been a better choice.

Compared to the CD I think it still sounds a bit better, not much but noticeable listening for example to the more defined parts within the drums (Hi-Hats?) and the overall soundstage. Also, Margos voice has more detail. But this all could also be because may turntable is on a better level than my cd player.

What I dislike is the Cover reproduction. Especially the inner sleeve pictures are badly reproduced showing an awful lot of grids/raster just as it was simply copied very badly on a copy unit using the cd booklet.

My copy is a bit noisy on the lead in and between tracks but that noise is essentially undetectable in the music, and for the price I've sadly come to expect some pops and ticks here and there (clearly it's not a $50 audiophile pressing), but it's not terrible and I'd still buy it without reservation. I'm guessing this is a digitally sourced LP, but I think the mastering on the album is well above average. Lots of air around all the instruments, decent depth in the soundstage, nice full bass and the guitars sound almost live on my set up. Margot's vocals are crystal clear and float over everything. The music is great but I agree with the others, the vinyl could be better. (VPI Scout, Dynavector 20X2 HO ctg, Prima Luna Dialogue amp, B&W 702 S2's, JL Audio Sub).

My guess is the price point of a 2 lp set would not have made financial sense. It sounds maybe marginally better than the CD, but fortunately for me, the surface noise is very minimal which is good since it is cut so low, I gotta jack the volume.
(Rega RP6 with Ortofon black cart through McIntosh MA5200 amp & Axiom M60 v2 speakers.)

As with most Junkies albums on Vinyl I find too much surface noise.