Things have changed. The exact same 200 gram review copy now sounds every bit as tonally correct as it used to, and fairly clean too, as described above, but where's the magic?
The heavy vinyl pressing is lifeless and boring. The subtleties of both the music and the sound are missing. In a word, the Classic just sounds second-rate next to the real thing. You can adjust the VTA of your rig until you're blue in the face, you'll never get the Classic to sound better than passable.
Relatively speaking of course. For twenty eight bucks (when it was in print) can you buy something better? Probably not. (Now the Classic is $100+ on ebay and at that price you are definitely not getting your money's worth.) The average IV is really a piece of junk. And if you don't have at least $6-8k in your front end (with phono), forget it. It takes top quality equipment to bring this album to life, and you better be prepared to go through a dozen or more copies to find a good one.
