Men At Work Business As Usual 1982 CBS 1/2 Speed Master Audiophile HC 47978

$

20

• Men At Work.
• Business As Usual.
• CBS Half Speed Mastered Recording.
• With Printed Lyric Sheet & Color Photo Collage Of The Band.

Item Details
Manufactured in: USA
Recorded: 1981 at Richmond Recorders, Melbourne, Australia
Original Issue: 1981
This Issue: 1982
Label: CBS HC 47978
Runout Deadwax Matrix Numbers:
Side 1: (etch:) HAL 47978-1F BIAMC A11 0 G1
Side 2: (etch:) HBL 47978-1C BIAMC A8 0 G
Was bought new by this seller many years ago and now offered from his private collection (you have absolutely known provenance). Has had just a few plays only on an expertly setup high-end audiophile turntable, arm, and cartridge. Has never been exposed to heat or tobacco smoke and always stored vertically in a specially designed record cabinet (Rackit) to prevent warpage.
Was cleaned on a VPI HW 16 with Audio Intelligent solutions and ultra-pure water rinse (50X purer than distilled water) before my pre-sale sound check. I wear nitrile surgical gloves while cleaning and play testing to avoid any chance of transferring finger oils to the vinyl.

Very sensitive play testing was performed straight off my Ayre P-5xe fully balanced phono preamp over Sennheiser HD 600 headphones using a Schiit Audio Valhalla 2 tube headphone amp fitted with Voskhod Soviet matched tubes (see last photo).

Track list
1: Who Can It Be Now?, I Can See It In Your Eyes, Down Under, Underground, Helpless Automaton.

2: People Just Love To Play With Words, Be Good Johnny, Touching The Untouchables, Catch A Star, Down By The Sea.

I never take "distant" photos nor the so-prevalent type with the LP sticking halfway out of the jacket. I take close-ups under photo lamps so you can see nearly everything I describe in the jacket grading. It is virtually impossible to know the true vinyl condition from any photograph. That takes very bright and close visual inspection PLUS play testing with thorough coverage on high resolution equipment.
Grading Details
Note: Grading LPs by text characters is subjective and at best are only a guide as no two used records are of exactly the same quality. Please, refer to both my photo evidence and detailed descriptions to judge by YOUR OWN grading standards. Questions are always welcome. eBay no longer allows me to enter separate grades for each side of the sleeve or record so you may not see any in the box above but are listed below. Play quality is personally most important to me so vinyl visual qualities are graded and described in detail separately for your complete assessment.

Outer Jacket Inspection/grading:
NM-/NM-
The front face is near perfect except for 4 spine creases that do not break color. The rear face has a very faint trail of beginning ring wear confined to the top right corner. There is a light 1/2" crease  at the top right corner going into the yellow bar code. The spine side has 2 light creases that do not break color. The two bottom corners have light rub wear. The halos you see on the sides are not surface defects but simply reflections from my two photo lamps. I could not eliminate them by moving my lamps to the very edges of my table. Top and bottom jacket edges have no rubbing wear.

Vinyl visual inspection/grading:
NM/NM
Both side looked visually perfect - "like new." Each side has a LAST vinyl wear prevention treatment sticker. This is because  my regular practice was to treat each new record with LAST before the very first play.

Play Testing:
NM/NM
Extensive play testing was performed after visual inspection. I listened to the beginning, middle, and end of each track for a few minutes on each needle drop. I also listened to all lead-in, lead-out and transition grooves between each track. Some tracks were played all the way thru when digitizing my favorites to 96k/24-bit WAV files. Continuous written notes were taken. Here is rundown of each side from my notes.

Side 1 Play
From the very first drum hit on T1 I was aware of high audio quality. The music sounded crystal clear and boldly incisive with crisp and fast transient edges. The mix separated all instruments and voices into their own individual places. They never got thick and bunched up. I could tell right away this copy was going to play exceptionally clean because the lead-in and 1st transition grooves were dead quiet. The half speed mastering made full use of dynamic range for the medium. The peaks hit highest limits without distortion while lowest level passages were still above the vinyl noise floor. Because this pressing is so quiet that kept any residual noise artifacts out of play. T2 had great stereo spread and depth, especially on the vocal chorus parts. T3 is the most well known track, but with this mastering the bass and drums had a "meaty" punch that drove the rhythm with full power. The track had a very long fade-out trailing into a whisper. I heard no ticks or crackle as it finally faded to zero. T4 was my favorite of the side because of the driving bass and lead guitar. The final lead-out grooves were the usual near dead quiet.

Side 2 Play
The first side had many of the band's most popular tracks but I felt that musically and for the quality of mix/mastering this was the stronger side. I recorded most of it to digital because of that. T2 had an awesome drum whack at the very end. T4 was my top musical pick of the side for its delicious instrumental break. T5 had the best audio quality because if its clarity and 3D stereo imaging effects. That last track was the only one where I heard any vinyl ticks but they were barely perceptible and there was at most 3 of them within its long length.

I'd say this copy qualifies as a "hot stamper" because of its clarity, dynamics, and very quiet vinyl background. For me this is the definitive version. The grade is a rock-solid NM.

Packaging

• Record will be placed outside the jacket to protect against seam splitting.
• Original inner sleeve is included.
• Record has been placed into a new MFSL-style "rice paper" plastic sleeve, as the original may be holding onto some dust. This will keep vinyl surfaces clean during shipping and ultimate buyer usage.
• Outer jacket is contained in a new clear polyethylene protective sleeve.
• Sent in good quality record mailer with cardboard stiffeners.

Shipping

• Shipping will be via USPS Media Mail for a flat charge of $3.98 per single album sale.
• A combined shipping discount is available on multiple sales completed on the same day($3.98 plus $0.50 for each additional LP).
• If you do buy more than one LP  on the same daydo not pay immediately but wait for my all-combined invoice. A discount for the combined items will show on that invoice. Then, once payment is received, the items will ship.