After the final reception of the master tapes from England STERLING SOUND in 1969.... the favoured Atlantic records mastering house received it and assigns Robert Ludwig to master the album.
The master lacquer was plated and the stampers were sent to pressing plants like the one in Terre Haute facility.
Two weeks later the plant had shipped out 3,500 copies of the Ludwig Hot Stamper version all over the US. One night the Atlantic head Ahmet Ertegun played a copy on his daughters all in one cheap record player and the rocking Ludwig mastering caused the record to skip.
Ahmet called Lee Hulko at Sterling and had a new master cut, a castrated over compressed version. Millions of these shipped out and the remaining copies of the initial 3,500 Ludwig versions were recalled and destroyed.
The GOOD NEWS is that the Ludwig Hot Stamped sound became known all over and it was used as a reference for all remastered Led Zep II reissues, including this reissue supervised by Jimmy Page Himself .
Order Led Zeppelin II album here:
About the Author
Romeo Babao is a Mastering Engineer, record producer, composer and jingle maker. He graduated Doctor of Medicine from Lyceum Northwestern. He writes multiple pressing comparisons and reviews for the US based MusicStack 6 times a year and produces EDM for a label and club in Japan.