Month: June 2018

The Mehta Planets – Sealed with the Pioneer Booklet

More Gustav Holst

More The Planets / Mehta

xxxxx

Factory Sealed CS 6734 with the super rare Pioneer spacecraft booklet inside the shrink!

There’s a very good chance this is the last such copy on the planet. I have never seen one before, and I remember when this record came out, so probably few were made with this special booklet included. I’m guessing it has about a dozen pages or so, and probably talks about the Pioneer mission to Jupiter.

“Launched on 2 March 1972, Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to travel through the Asteroid belt, and the first spacecraft to make direct observations and obtain close-up images of Jupiter. Famed as the most remote object ever made by man through most of its mission, Pioneer 10 is now over 8 billion miles away.” 

We Heap Scorn Upon Chesky Records

More of the music of Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)

Our Favorite Performance of Scheherazade – Ansermet with the Suisse Romande

xxxxx

Sonic Grade: F

Chesky is one of the WORST AUDIOPHILE LABELS in the history of the world. Their recordings are so artificial and “wrong” that they defy understanding. That some audiophiles actually buy into this junk sound is equal parts astonishing and depressing. Their own records are a joke, and their remasterings of the RCA Living Stereo catalog are an abomination. If there is a more CLUELESS audiophile label on the planet, I don’t know what it could be, and I don’t want to find out. 

The Recordings of Chet Baker – These Four Didn’t Make the Grade

More Chet Baker

More that Didn’t Make the Grade
xxxxx
xxxxx

xxxxx

xxxxx

These are just some of the recordings by Chet Baker that we’ve auditioned recently and found wanting. Without going into specifics we’ll just say these albums suffer from poor performances, poor sound, or both, and therefore do not deserve a place in your collection, and may even belong in our Hall of Shame.

A Free Service provided to the Audiophile Public, courtesy of Better Records.+

Chet Baker Albums with Hot Stampers

Chet Baker Albums We’ve Reviewed

Rod Stewart / Atlantic Crossing – Thick, Dull and Dubby on British Vinyl

xxxxx

The copies we liked best were the biggest and richest, the least thin and dry. Many of the brighter copies also had sibilance problems which the richer and tubier ones did not.

On some of the Rod Stewart albums that we happen to know well, the British pressings are clearly superior; the first two Rod Stewart albums come immediately to mind. After that, strange as it may seem, all the best pressings are domestic. This album is certainly no exception.

I remember bringing back a few Brit copies from England many years ago and being surprised that they were so thick, dull and dubby sounding. Of course, they were; the album was recorded right here in the good old US of A. The master tapes are here. The Brit pressings sound dubby because they are made from copy tapes.

If there is any doubt, the following is a list of the studios in which Atlantic Crossing was recorded.

  • A&R, NY
  • Criteria, Miami, FL
  • Wally Heider, Los Angeles, CA
  • Hi Recording and
  • Muscle Shoals Sound, AL

(more…)

The Three – Liner Notes and a Rave Review

 

xxx

The Three – The Three

Excerpts from the Liner Notes

On a windy and unusually cold night in Los Angeles, each of the three musicians arrived before the session start time of 10 PM on November 28, 1975. At exactly 10 PM, The Doobie Brothers session that was going on since morning ended. Two assistants immediately started setting up for the session. The Steinway concert grand piano, delivered the previous day, was wheeled in to the center of the room and got tuned. Shelly Manne’s drum kit was assembled in a makeshift “booth.” Microphones were set up, checked and positions adjusted. (more…)

Steely Dan / Gaucho – Taking a Stand for the Last Good Dan

More Steely Dan

More Gaucho

xxxxx

  • Amazing Triple Plus (A+++) sound from beginning to end for the last of Steely Dan’s insanely well recorded Classic Seven Albums
  • This copy offers tons of ambience, amazing richness, you-are-there immediacy, tight bass, clear guitar transients, silky highs, and truckloads of analog magic
  • 4 stars in the AMG, 4 1/2 in Rolling Stone, and one of their Three Best Sounding Albums – a true Must Own
  • “Despite its coolness, the music is quite beautiful. With its crystalline keyboard textures and diaphanous group vocals, ”Gaucho” contains the sweetest music Steely Dan has ever made.” New York Times

What do these high grades give you for this album? Mindblowing, DEMO QUALITY, Steely Dan Magic, baby! Tons of ambience, amazing richness, ‘you are there’ immediacy, note-like bass, clear guitar transients, silky highs, and truckloads of analog magic. The bottom end is punchy, and even on this, their most laid-back album, the bass and energy let these songs come alive like they never have before. (more…)

Simon & Garfunkel’s Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme – A Demo Disc for Tubey Magical Voices and Guitars

More Simon and Garfunkel

More Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme

xxxxx

  • A stunning Triple Plus (A+++) side two backed with a solid Double Plus (A++) side one – a remarkably good sounding early pressing
  • This Columbia 360 is incredibly big and present, with excellent clarity, wonderfully breathy vocals and low levels of spit (the result of clean cutting)
  • A Demo Disc for Tubey Magical voices and guitars, as well as a longtime Better Records Top 100 album
  • 4 1/2 stars Allmusic: “[I]t is an achievement akin to the Beatles’ Revolver or the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds album, and just as personal and pointed as either of those records at their respective bests.”

More superb sound from the legendary CBS 30th street studios in New York!

Turn up the volume, turn down the lights, and you’ll have one of the best — if not THE best — folk duos of All Time performing right there in your listening room for you. The sound is open, spacious, and transparent with breathy vocals and unusually low levels of spit. The strings are more dynamic than we’re used to hearing and the bottom end has a really nice weight to it. (more…)

Johnny Hodges & Wild Bill Davis – Blue Rabbit from 1964

More Johnny Hodges

xxxxx

  • This KILLER jazz pressing boasts shootout winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from first note to last
  • The sound here is Tubey Magical, lively and clear, with three-dimensionality that goes deep and fills the listening room from wall to wall
  • This copy plays on relatively quiet vinyl, Mint Minus to Mint Minus Minus throughout
  • “One of altoist Johnny Hodges’ many solo records in the 1960s… Tasty and swinging music.” – Allmusic

For us audiophiles both the sound and the music here are wonderful. If you’re looking to demonstrate just how good 1963-64 All Tube Analog sound can be, this killer copy will do the trick. (more…)

Steely Dan and Pretzel Logic – Donald Gets Dynamic on Rikki

More Steely Dan

More Donald Gets Dynamic on Rikki

xxxxx

Rikki Don’t Lose that Number — yet another in our series of Home Audio Exercises.

This is one knockout recording. After having done shootouts for every Steely Dan title, I can say that sonically this one has no equal in their canon. 

Which is really saying something, since Becker and Fagen are known to be audiophiles themselves and real sticklers for sound. No effort in the recording of this album was spared, that I can tell you without fear of contradiction. They sweated the details on this one. The mix is PERFECTION.  (more…)

Dexter Gordon – One Flight Up

More Dexter Gordon

More One Flight Up

xxxxx

  • You’ll find outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER on both sides of this vintage Blue Note pressing
  • With its presence, clarity, space and timbral accuracy, this is guaranteed to be one of the best sounding jazz records you’ve heard in a very long time
  • One of our very favorite Blue Note recordings for both music and sound, a Dexter Gordon Classic of soulful hard bop
  • Turn it up good and loud and it’s as if you are right up front at one of the best ’60s jazz concerts imaginable

Both the sax and the trumpet sound unbelievably good — airy and breathy with lots of body and clearly audible leading edge transients.

It’s hard to find a Blue Note where the horns aren’t either too smooth or too edgy, but here they have just the right amount of bite. The overall sound is open, spacious, tonally correct from top to bottom and totally free from distortion. (more…)