Month: October 2019

Sketches of Spain – Our Mono Shootout Winner from Way Back in 2008

More Vintage Columbia Pressings

This Mono Six Eye Columbia original pressing is the WINNER and [not-at-all] CURRENT CHAMPION of our Sketches of Spain shootouts. This record always sounded so thin and aggressive, with Miles’ horn always somewhat pinched and sour, but now it sounds wonderful. Who knew this record could sound so good?

Let’s talk about this mono copy. It is clearly more transparent, with less distortion, than any other copy we heard (and this means out of more than twenty!) There may be better sounding pressings out there, but I would be surprised to find one that would be more than a marginal improvement over what I’m hearing on this copy — and that goes for both sides. (more…)

Ibert / Divertissement / Martinon – Reviewed in 2011

More of the music of Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921)

This London LP has a very good side two.

Lively and not too bright with nice space and clarity, the Jeux D’Enfants is very enjoyable.

Le Rouet D’Omphale (the Spinning Wheel) which follows is even better! Natural and dynamic with rich strings, the tonality is wonderfully balanced. 

Performed with the Paris Conservatory Orchestra under Jean Martinon, this record also features Saint-Saens’ Danse Macabre.

Side one, unfortunately, is not up to the same standard. Both sides, of course, have been through our extensive cleaning process and should sound substantially better than average.

This is an Older Classical/Orchestral Review

Most of the older reviews you see are for records that did not go through the shootout process, the revolutionary approach to finding better sounding pressings we started developing in the early 2000s and have since turned into a veritable science.

We found the records you see in these older listings by cleaning and playing a pressing or two of the album, which we then described and priced based on how good the sound and surfaces were. (For out Hot Stamper listings, the Sonic Grades and Vinyl Playgrades are listed separately.)

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Bellybutton – Maybe Not a Perfect Recording, a Good One for Testing Though

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Jellyfish

I spent quite a few hours tuning up the stereo with side two of the album, specifically the song Now She Knows She’s Wrong, with its glockenspiel, loudly clanging tubular bells and yelling chorus at the end. 

It’s exceedingly hard to get everything right at the same time: the energy, the deepest bass, the extension at the very top of the top end, the greatest transparency, just to mention a few of the main ones. There are always trade-offs, and being able to balance the trade-offs against the gains in these areas and others is a real test of your critical listening skills.

It’s not a perfect recording, and those are usually the ones that can teach you the most about your system’s strengths and weaknesses.

DMM

The problem with the typical copy of this record is gritty, grainy, grungy sound — not the kind that’s on the master tape, the kind that’s added during the mastering and pressing of the record. When that crap goes away, as it so clearly does on side one of the copy we played recently, it lets you see just how good sounding this record can be. And that means REALLY good sounding.

While during the shootout I had completely forgotten that all the domestic pressings of Bellybutton are direct metal mastered. (The import pressings are clearly made from copy tapes and are to be avoided.) It was only afterwards, when looking for stamper variations, that I noticed the DMM in the dead wax .

On most copies the CD-like opacity and grunge would naturally be attributed to the Direct Metal Mastering process; that’s the conventional wisdom, so those with a small data sample (in most cases the size of that data sample will be no more than one) could be forgiven for reaching such a conclusion. Based on our findings, it turns out to be completely erroneous.

The bad pressings do indeed sound more like CDs. The better pressings do not. All are DMM, so the conventional wisdom, a term of disparagement here at Better Records to start with, again shows how little probative value it actually brings to the discussion.

We would love to hear a version of the album that was not Direct Metal Mastered, just for comparisons sake. That unfortunately is an experiment that cannot be run. What we can do is play the CDs — I have several, the earliest ones being the best — and note that they are clearly grungier and grittier sounding than the better LP pressings. Some of that sound is on the Master Tape, how much we will probably never know.

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Antonio Carlos Jobim – Tide – Our Shootout Winner from 2008

More Antonio Carlos Jobim

Reviews and Commentaries for Antonio Carlos Jobim

GREAT SOUND ON BOTH SIDES! We’ve been trying our hardest to find a Jobim record with Hot sound, because we love the music so much. It’s taken some time, but we’ve finally found a few magnificent copies of Tide — and this one’s the champ!    

Viva Brazil!

Jobim is the master of samba music, and this is one of his best albums! Normally I don’t like flute jazz. The L.A. Four bores me to tears. Herbie Mann has one good album, Live at the Villiage Vanguard (with two string bass players, the only record of its kind that I know of), but the flute works great for Brazilian music, because the music itself is so light and airy, it just fits. You don’t see us recommending too many CDs around here, but the 3-disc Man From Ipanema set is WONDERFUL. (For those looking for Brazilian music with more of a rock influence, we definitely recommend starting with Sergio Mendes’ early A&M albums. If you want to go a bit further, search for some Gilberto Gil or Caetano Veloso.)

One Tough Ticket

It’s beyond difficult to find great sounding copies of Jobim’s albums, but we keep on picking up his records because we love to play them so much. Many of the pressings we bring back are weak sonically, too noisy, or both. Recently, we threw a copy of Tide on the table just for fun, and were thrilled when we heard some promising sound. We hit the shelves and the stores determined to pull together enough copies with the right stampers to make this shootout happen.  (more…)

Martin Denny / A Taste of Honey – Our Shootout Winner from 2010

This early stereo Liberty label pressing has BETTER than Super Hot Stamper sound on side two, earning a sonic grade of A++ to A+++. This is not just another exercise in Bachelor Pad Exotica; there is some fun, swingin’ jazz here. The pianist — whoever he is, he’s uncredited along with the rest of the band — has real jazz chops and sympathetic sidemen to play with. 

The music is indeed excellent but the real thrill of course is to hear the richness and sweetness of a 1962 Tubey Magical pressing such as this one. Folks, as you well know, they don’t make ’em like they used to. (more…)

Gerry Mulligan – And His Concert Jazz Band On Tour

White Hot on side two, nearly White on side one, this live album is crazy good sounding on this copy. Huge space, size and clarity, with Tubey Magical richness befitting its 1960 recording dates. On the second track of side two the swingin’ Zoot Sims is as immediate and real as any sax player can be. 

Even though this is an All Tube Vintage Jazz recording, some copies tended to get a bit dry and midrangy. Some of this no doubt has to do with the different venues the songs were recorded in.

The sound is not particularly wide — some of it sounds almost mono — but it is tall and deep, and certainly more than spacious enough. (more…)

Paganini / Caprices / Ricci

More Performances by Ruggiero Ricci

Reviews and Commentaries for the Performances of Ruggiero Ricci

This London White Hot Stamper pressing has DEMO QUALITY SOUND on side two! Sound of this calibre is nothing less than SHOCKING. If you like the sound of solo violin — and who doesn’t — you will have a VERY hard time finding a better sounding recording of it than this. That’s assuming you can get your Vertical Tracking Angle (VTA) dead on the money, not something every audiophile can manage. If you can, lookout — you are in for a sonic treat.

And when one side of a record sounds this good, what are the chances that the other side will also be as good? Slim is the flip answer, but flip or not, it’s no less true. Although quite good in many respects, side one is clearly a step down. The statistical law of “regression toward the mean” would tell us it almost had to be. Side two is simply an outlier in the world of violin records. I would not expect to hear many that sound as good in my lifetime, or at least in my audio lifetime. (more…)

TAS List Thoughts on Stardust

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Willie Nelson Available Now

There’s a reason Willie Nelson’s Stardust is on HP’s TAS List of Super Discs, but you’d never know it by playing the average Columbia pressing. Most copies of this record just sound like an old Willie Nelson record. You wouldn’t have a clue how magical this recording can be if you dropped the needle on the average copy, a copy that for all intents and purposes appears to be exactly the pressing that Harry Pearson recommends on his Super Disc list. The catalog number may be the same, but the sound won’t even hint at Super disc status. (Which, sad to say, most audiophiles don’t seem to notice.)

Get real. Unless you have at least a dozen copies of this record (and we had more than double that) you have very little chance of finding even one side with truly exceptional sound.

This has always been the problem with the TAS list. The pressing variations on a record like this are HUGE and DRAMATIC. There is a world of difference between this copy and what the typical audiophile owns based on HP’s list. I’ve been complaining for years that the catalog number that Harry supplies has very little benefit to the typical audiophile record lover.

Without at least the right stampers, the amount of work required to find a copy that deserves a Super Disc ranking is daunting, requiring the kind of time and effort that few audiophiles are in a position to devote to such a difficult and frustrating project.

The average copy of Stardust just plain sounds wrong, and finding one that sounds right is no mean feat. 

Here are some Hot Stamper pressings of TAS List titles that actually have audiophile sound quality, guaranteed. And if for some reason you disagree with us about how good they sound, we will be happy to give you your money back.

Here are some others that we do not think qualify as Super Discs.

Philippe Entremont – Chopin: The Favorite Polonaises

  • This superb 1970 release from master pianist (and Chopin expert) Phillipe Entremont arrives with outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound and fairly quiet vinyl from first note to last
  • The transparency and clarity of this vintage pressing are wonderful – sound this good makes it easy to appreciate the subtlety of the Entremont’s remarkable virtuosity 
  • So big, rich and real – we guarantee this will become one of the best sounding solo piano recordings in your collection, and, of course, the performances are beyond reproach

This vintage CBS Masterworks pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records rarely even BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the artist, and feeling as if you are sitting in the concert hall with Mr. Entremont, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound. (more…)