Month: August 2019

B.B. King – Blues On Top Of Blues

More B.B. King

More Electric Blues

  • You’ll find outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it from first note to last on this 1968 pressing, BB King’s fourteenth studio album
  • This is the album he made right before Lucille, so the man was definitely on a roll and doing some great work in the late ’60s
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Featuring brassy arrangements by Johnny Pate, it presents King’s sound at its fullest without sacrificing any of his grit or sophisticated swing … the material is very strong throughout.”

Watch for more B. B. King albums coming to the site soon. Some of the Bluesway pressings we’ve auditioned recently have had exceptionally big, rich, lively sound, and that’s the way we like to hear our music. There are plenty of dogs in the King canon, especially in the ’70s, so you have to be a bit careful with the man’s recordings, but good titles in the ’60s with excellent sound can still be found if you’re willing to do the work (or you’re willing to let us do it for you). (more…)

Chet Baker & Art Pepper / Playboys – Our Shootout Winner from 2015

More of the Music of Art Pepper

Side one is White Hot, side two nearly so, and both contain swingin’ West Coast Jazz from 1956. These 1983 reissues on Boplicity are dynamic and lively, perfectly suited to the energy of the music. The 1956 All Tube mono recording here has this Hot/Cool jazz sounding the way it should.

The 1983 version we are offering here says stereo on the label, but the sound is pure mono, a good reason not to trust labels!  (more…)

Ella Fitzgerald – Ella At Duke’s Place

We have a very hard time doing the famous Ella Fitzgerald Songbooks due to the fact that so many pressings don’t sound good, and the ones that do sound good are usually noisy.

That’s why it came as a pleasant surprise that Ella At Duke’s Place had the potential for excellent sound and reasonably quiet vinyl on the best copies.

We hope to do more in the future but with the reissues from the ’70s being mostly awful and the originals being harder and harder to find we are not at all sanguine about our chance of success. (more…)

Massenet / Le Cid Ballet Music – Excellent on Stereo Treasury

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Jules Massenet (1842—1912)

Hot Stamper Classical and Orchestral Imports on Decca & London

This is an older review, perhaps from before 2010. We did a shootout for Le Cid, but it wasn’t remotely as comprehensive as the kind of shootouts we do now.

Our current favorite for performance and sound of Le Cid is the one on EMI Studio 2 with Fremaux conducting.

Superb Hot Stamper sound for Les Patineurs, and the Le Cid is just a step behind at A+ to A++. We had a copy of the famous Greeensleeves pressing for our shootout, along with a number of Londons, and this Stereo Treasury had the highest overall sonic grades of all of them. The original Blueback pressing — true, we only had the one, so take it for what it’s worth — was a complete disaster: shrill, with no top or bottom to speak of.

Both these pieces are audiophile Must Own Demonstration pieces, full of depth, ambience, and wonderfully correct instrumental timbres, especially from the woodwinds. Add explosive dynamics and deep bass and you have yourself a genuine audiophile recording.   (more…)

Dave Brubeck – Tonight Only!

More Dave Brubeck

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Piano

  • This superb Brubeck recording, with Carmen McRae on vocals, finally returns to the site with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from start to finish
  • This Six-Eye Stereo pressing was richer and tubier and just plain more musical than every other copy we played (which is exactly why it won the shootout)
  • The first of three collaborations between Brubeck and McRae in the early ’60s
  • Billboard notes that “Brubeck teams up with canary Carmen McRae on this package and the results are eminently tasteful and listenable”.
  • Every reviewer on Amazon for this album (on CD of course) gave it Five Stars – how often does that happen? 

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Bill Evans – California Here I Come

More Bill Evans

  • This wonderful live double album boasts outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it from start to finish 
  • You’d be hard-pressed to find a copy that’s this well balanced, yet big and lively, with such wonderful clarity in the mids and highs
  • Recorded live at Village Vanguard in New York City in August of 1967, this LP captures this stellar trio’s superb sound
  • 4 1/2 stars: “[Evans] trades introspection for upbeat on this entertaining live set featuring the propulsive drumming of ‘Philly’ Joe Jones and Evans’ new young bassist Eddie Gomez… This trio swings and sparkles through a varied song-list that includes show tunes, some jazz standards and a few originals.”

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Stravinsky / The Firebird Suite / Freccia – Our First Reader’s Digest Offering

More of the music of Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

Reviews and Commentaries for The Firebird

More Records on Readers Digest

This is the first time a disc from a Reader’s Digest box set has made it to the site, and we’re starting off with a bang — The Firebird Suite and La Mer are the two pieces on record 7 of the set, and both of them are knockouts. We have a devil of a time finding good recordings of either work, and to find SUPERB better than Super Hot Stamper sound (A++ to A+++) for both back to back on one disc is a surprise indeed.

You may remember that recordings from these sets were reissued by Chesky back in the ’90s, with mediocre sound of course, as all their reissues are mediocre at best. We never carried a single one of them, even when we were carrying reissues.

I remember the first time I heard some of the records from this Scheherazade set and was knocked out — here was Tubey Magical RCA Living Stereo sound at a fraction of the price the real RCAs were commanding, a price I could not begin to afford.

The problem — and it’s still a problem, though less so — is the vinyl. These sets were produced cheaply in order to be priced affordably (under $20 for 10 LPs in a box!), and that means the best vinyl was simply not part of the budget. To find pressings that play even Mint Minus Minus is not easy, even today. Back then, before the advent of modern enzyme-based cleaning fluids and expensive record cleaning vacuum machinery, there was no way to get most of the vinyl to play even that well. (more…)

Letter of the Week – “The Aurios actually seem to enlarge the scale of the music…”

Basic Audio Advice — These Are the Fundamentals of Good Sound

One of our customers had this to say about the Aurios we used to sell.

Hey Tom,  

Wow! Were you ever right when you said the Aurios MIBs are “Quite Possibly the Biggest Analog Upgrade Out There.” After listening with the MIBs in place for about 3 hours, there’s no doubt they make a huge difference.

Every record/track I heard on LPs I know very well sounded more dynamic. I don’t want to use the worn phrase “on steroids.” The music had much better pace and sounded more real and natural. The contrasts from high to low across the bandwidth were more apparent. The timbre of the instruments also sounded more real and natural. Soundstage became more dimensional in all directions. I heard details that previously were not as audible or were not audible at all.

One thing that was most impressive is that the Aurios actually seem to enlarge the scale of the music; it sounder bigger. LPs I listened to: Love Over Gold (Dire Straits); Slow Train Coming (Bob Dylan); The Hunter (Jennifer Warnes); One Flight Up (Dexter Gordon).

All of these sounded significantly better than I had ever heard before adding the MIBs. Love Over Gold was just incredible! It simply was not the same record without the Aurios MIBs.

It blew me away. After listening to both sides, I had to listen again and asked my wife to join me. She was as impressed as I was. So your string of satisfied customers remains intact. I will not let these out of my sight!

John A.

The Planets – Our Four Plus Shootout Winner from 2013

More of the music of Gustav Holst (1874-1934)

Reviews and Commentaries for The Planets

We award this copy’s side two our very special Four Plus A++++ grade, which is strictly limited to pressings (really, individual sides of pressings) that take a given recording to a level we’ve never experienced before and had no idea could even exist. We estimate that about one per cent of the Hot Stamper pressings we come across in our shootouts earn this grade. You can’t get much more rare than that.

We no longer use this grade for a number of reasons we won’t go into here. Suffice to say, if you buy a White Hot Stamper pressing from us, you are getting the best sounding pressing we know to exist.

This Beyond White Hot Stamper Planets has Out Of This World sound on side two, where it earned a Four Plus sonic grade for its MINDBLOWING orchestral power, especially from the brass section, a subject we discuss at length below. 

This is some of the best sound I have ever heard coming out of my two speakers, if not THE best. Side two of this very copy takes the recording to a level we had no idea was possible. Out of the fifty or so copies of The Planets we’ve played in the last decade or so, this is without a doubt the best side two of them all.

We can only hope to find a side one as good in the next ten years. It probably exists, but will it take us another fifty copies to run into it? Only time will tell! (more…)