In a way this is Part 2 of the previous thread.
On the "60's and 70's songs that stand out" thread, I was tickled to see that someone mentioned "Laugh Laugh" by The Beau Brummels. I'm pretty sure that my uncle, Leo Kulka, recorded that one at Golden State Recorders, his studio in San Francisco. (A recent Mix article gives him credit for it, though I have also seen Coast mentioned -- maybe someone else knows.)
I'm not sure whether I've mentioned Leo on this forum, but he was a recording veteran with many decades as a recording engineer. I won't get into the story of his career, but anyone who's interested can find an article about him on my site, in the Scrapbook section.
Leo was very active and recorded a number of Beau Brummels tracks. At the time the band was signed to Autumn Records, which was run by the amazing Tom Donehue. Sly Stone was involved in a lot of the productions, as was Bobbie Mitchell. All three were well known DJ's in SF. (Tom Donehue was an amazing talent who had a tremendous influence on 60's music, and not just in San Francisco. But that's another story.)
As a kid I watched the Beau Brummels record at Golden State and I agree that some of their old tracks sound really, really fine, and I can tell you why. For one thing, Leo deeply understood all the aspects of recording - the music itself, mic'ing, EQ, editing, tape bias and levels, and mastering. He was a hi-fi "nut" who was always fooling around with one system or another at the house and an afficianado and producer of classical music, and also made a lot of experimental hi-fi and sound effects records. I really believe that background gave him a huge edge in making pop records that sounded especially good. (And not to disparage Motown, but I'm certain that he'd never have used a cheap phonograph to check the sound of a disk - that just wasn't where he was coming from.)
I guess what I'm trying to say is, I think in the 60's and 70's there may have been two camps -- older, established engineers who were grounded in the fundamentals and all but wore lab coats, and younger upstart talents who pushed the boundaries and got exciting new sounds, at the expense perhaps of some basics. Both sides made a lot of great records but maybe something was lost in the transition. (Perhaps this same something is also missing from some of today's recordings...)
By the way, the 60's and 70's San Francisco recording scene hasn't really been discussed in this forum, but there's a whole universe of history, stories, and great music there to be mined there. New thread?