Daryl Hall, John Oates* – Private Eyes

Pet peeve of mine - bonus tracks in the wrong order. This remaster is a great example. In of both album running order AND single release, 13 should come before 12. We just heard the album version of 12 and then after a mere one more song we hear it again as a remix. Sorry but bonus tracks should always be in the same order as they appear on the album, so the listener has more space between hearing the same damned track! The unreleased single mix of track 2 would have been a nice track 12 actually, but they held on to that until "The Box Set Series". Also the UK single mix of track 1 which can only be found on CD brickwalled to death on the Japanese 12" Collection as far as I know.

A really solid album and it sounds great. Looks like this 1997 reissue narrowly avoided the loudness wars.

Fantastic sound quality and pressing. What you would expect from a lovely Japanese pressing.
I made a needledrop of one of the tracks from this vinyl record - You can find it on the right side in the videos - Under the name: Hall & Oates - I Can't Go For That (No Can Do) (Private Eyes) (1981 Japanese Vinyl)

I have a clean copy of this one, in my opinion the pressing is a bit flat. Not a ton of lower end depth. Even cranked up. Amazing songs, but wish I had more out of it.

I found a pretty moldy funky basement selling copy that I brought back from the dead. No damage to the record itself so, it was easy to salvage. It sounds amazing. I mean, it's 80's era Hall & Oates. The songwriting and the production of this era was top notch. There was no way that this was going to sound like a bad record any way.

I have a clean copy of this and although I don’t have a different press to compare it to, after comparing it to their H20 album, this pressing sounds quite boxy with a limited soundstage. Could be production, could be mastering, but I’m not very impressed with the sound quality on this one. Songs are great though.

These guys are solid gold. This early recording from '81 shows their amazing writing skills and great singing. A bit of synth pop which ultimately becomes very much their thing.
Highlights of course are "I Can't Go For That", the title track, and "Mano".

Pressing is a good one

Some mastering notes from Rob Loverde about this album, as well as H₂O, posted on the MFSL Facebook page:

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Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab
August 15, 2013 ·
Rob LoVerde in Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab's Studio C editing Daryl Hall John Oates Private Eyes.

"I’m here at MoFi working on 3 Daryl Hall John Oates projects. Each of these albums’ master tapes contains a full complement of calibration tones, enabling me to precisely align my playback tape machine to match the set-up of the recording machine used during the original mixing session. Nothing makes a mastering engineer happier than finding set-up tones on the master! However, each album was mixed to a slightly different analog format. “Voices” was mixed to ¼”, 15 i.p.s. tape using Dolby A Noise Reduction, while “Private Eyes” is ½”, 15 i.p.s., no Dolby. The “H2O” master was printed to ½” at 30 i.p.s., also without Dolby. Interestingly, the sonic characteristics were equally varied and all equally impressive. “Voices” has great impact on songs such as “Kiss On My List” and “You Make My Dreams” but also softer, “pillow-y” sounds on songs like “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” and “Everytime You Go Away”. “Private Eyes” has more aggressive, tighter mixes, printed hot to tape. And “H2O” is particularly interesting, with slicker production and smoother mixes (done by Hugh Padgham). As always, I paid close attention to aligning the playback head’s azimuth at each edit point in the master tapes to ensure that I was capturing all the musical information possible during the transfers. And absolute polarity was auditioned for each and every song, allowing me to choose whatever sounds best.

I was fascinated by how different things sounded from album to album and song to song, considering that they all were recorded and mixed at Electric Lady and mostly by Neil Kernon. But, more than anything, I was thrilled to hear what they heard back in the day right off the master tapes and to hear the clear intent behind every engineering decision. It was all different, yet all appealing. One of my favorites, “I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do)” is a real knockout. I had never heard all the individual instruments (not to mention Daryl’s and John’s voices) sounding so distinct but also meshing seamlessly."
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Link: https://www.facebook.com/MobileFidelitySoundLab/photos/a.225949434168583/481109851985872/?type=3

vocals seem a bit hot on this one. otherwise, brilliant.

My copy is very different but appears to be Indiana Press.
Side A - AFL1-4028A-30 ΛΩ V V I
Side B masterdisk scratched out brutally AFL1-4028 BS-11 I
Same custom labels. Color inner sleeve with lyrics.