Month: November 2019

Holst / The Planets / Boult

More of the Music of Gustav Holst

This 1967 recording of the work has one very special quality that’s not often heard on classical vinyl — THE FEEL OF LIVE MUSIC. This is also something you will not often hear us say about EMI recordings from the late ’60s and ’70s.

Unlike HP and most audiophiles in the ’70s, we find that EMI’s recordings leave a lot to be desired, lacking in warmth, with a thin, sour, overly clear presentation. Great for muddy equipment but bad news on higher resolution modern rigs.

Super Hot Stampers on both sides means this Planets can take on any pressing you have of the piece and show you what you’ve been missing out on all these years.

There are a LOT of bad Planets out there. With its monstrously large orchestra and chorus, it’s not an easy work to capture on tape. (more…)

Physical Graffiti – Our Shootout Winner from 2008

More of the Music of Led Zeppelin

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Led Zeppelin

Zep fans, rejoice — PHYSICAL GRAFFITI HOT STAMPERS ARE HERE! We thought this day might never come. As you probably know by now, most copies of this album just plain suck!

After making some improvements in our evaluation process (minor tweaks to the room and the stereo, plus some new steps in our cleaning process) and — let’s face it — some seriously good luck, we’ve finally been able to track down a few killer copies of Zep’s monster double album.

If you’ve been waiting for The Ultimate Kashmir Experience, today is your lucky day.

Though we’ve known forever that many of you were eager for them, we just weren’t sure we’d ever have Hot Stampers for Physical Graffiti. There are a number of factors at play here. First off, you’ve gotta have a whole lot of copies around to do a shootout, and clean copies of this album sure ain’t cheap. When we’re doing a shootout for a title like The Stranger, Toto IV, or even Rumours, we can afford to pick up any nice-looking copy we see without breaking the bank. Not so with this one — minty copies don’t come cheap, and most of them sound so bad that it ain’t worth the risk. (more…)

Time Loves A Hero – Key Tracks on an Old Favorite

Little Feat Albums with Hot Stampers

Little Feat Albums We’ve Reviewed

On the better copies the title track has Demonstration Quality Sound – the soundstage is huge and the multi-tracked vocal parts are energetic, clear and free from congestion and distortion. If your copy doesn’t blow your mind on this song, try one of ours.

The next track, Rocket in My Pocket, kicks off with a big, fat drum sound that’s present and punchy on the better copies. The album finishes with the controversial jazz-rock fusion of Day at the Dog Races, a song the band used to open their live act with in order to get in the groove. If the band wants to stretch out a bit, we don’t have a problem with it.

On side two Old Folks’ Boogie rocks with the best of them; it’s a must for any Greatest Hits compilation. Red Streamliner has a strong Doobies vibe, which can be good or bad depending on how you feel about that band. (We’re big fans.)

The fourth track, Keepin’ up With the Joneses, is some good funky Feat music, and the album finishes with Barrere’s “Willin”-like Missin’ You, a mellow but still strong finish for the last good Little Feat album (save for the often amazing sounding compilation Hoy Hoy).

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Sinatra at the Sands – Mobile Fidelity Reviewed

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Frank Sinatra Available Now

It’s actually pretty good. Compressed and veiled, but the tonality is correct. I give it a B.

It will beat the vast majority of reissues, which tend to be thin, gritty, and woefully lacking in Tubey Magic.

And the vinyl will be quiet, which is something not many of the best pressings can offer. 

But who wants to listen to a B grade record when we you can buy A and better pressings from us? (more…)

Lee Morgan – The Cooker

Both sides are open, spacious and transparent, with a lovely and quite extended top end. Just listen to the trumpet solo on ’A Night In Tunisia’; you can really hear the leading edge transients. The baritone sax played by the estimable Pepper Adams also sounds particularly nice throughout the record.  

Side One – Record One

Big, open and rich, with tight bass and a huge baritone sax, we found this side Hard To Fault.

Side two of this copy badly lacked warmth, which is a deal killer for us. That “clean” Heavy Vinyl sound drives us up a wall. (more…)

Dave Mason – Let It Flow

More Dave Mason

This is a 2-pack set that gives you A+++ sound and quiet vinyl for both sides of this album. We Just Disagree and Let It Flow, Let It Go are the big hits here and they both sound great. This is one of the more consistent Mason solo albums, with more good songs and less filler than we’ve heard on some of his other works.

Side one is rich and smooth with good energy. It’s extended and open up top, punchy down low, and very clean and clear. Many copies we played were dry and grainy. None of them came to life like this side one. (more…)

Mahler / Symphony No. 2 / Walter – Didn’t Make the Grade

More of the Music of Gustav Mahler

This is a Minty looking Columbia 6 Eye stereo LP.

The sound is not very good, however. It just sounds like an old record.

Most of the Columbia orchestral pressings we play seem better suited to the old school audio systems of the 60s and 70s, rather than the modern systems of today.

Some of these records used to sound good on those older systems, and I should know. I had an Old School stereo back in the day and some of the records I used to think sounded good don’t sound so good to me anymore.

For a more complete list of those records, click here.

How Did We Figure All of This Out?

There are more than 2000 Hot Stamper reviews on this blog. Do you know how we learned so much about so many records?

We ran thousands and thousands of record experiments under carefully controlled conditions, and we continue to run scores of them week in and week out to this very day.

We play mediocre-to-bad sounding pressings so that you don’t have to, a public service from your record-loving friends at Better Records.

You can find this one in our Hall of Shame, along with others that — in our opinion — are best avoided by audiophiles looking for hi-fidelity sound. Some of these records may have passable sonics, but we found the music less than compelling.  These are also records you can safely avoid.

We also have an Audiophile Record Hall of Shame for records that were marketed to audiophiles for their putatively superior sound. If you’ve spent much time on this blog, you know that these records are some of the worst sounding pressings we have ever had the misfortune to play.

We routinely put them in our Hot Stamper shootouts, pitted against the vintage pressings that we offer, and are often surprised at just how bad an “audiophile record” can sound and still be considered an “audiophile record.”

Children of Sanchez and RL’s Meaty Low End

More of the Music of Chuck Mangione

More Demo Discs for Bass

What’s unusual about this album — shocking really — is how MEATY the bottom end is. I don’t know of a pop jazz recording with beefier, more articulate or weightier bass. The only record I can think of in this genre of jazz with comparable bass is Grover Washington’s Winelight. We played some copies of that album recently and were just knocked out with how well recorded the bass is, just the way we were knocked out with Children of Sanchez from a month or two back. Both of them really set the standard for recording this kind of music. Needless to say we loved the sound. 

Recorded at Kendun and mastered by Robert Ludwig, the audiophile sound should be no surprise.

The horn sound is also key, not only for the flugelhorn that Chuck plays but for the trombones and French horns that fill out the arrangements. When the various horns are solid and smooth (what’s smoother than a French horn?) yet even the more subtle harmonic signatures of each instrument are clear, you have yourself a Hot Stamper.

The copies that are present, clear, open, transparent and energetic, with a solid rhythmic line driving the music, are a hundred times more enjoyable than the anemic pressings that can be found sitting in most collections practically unplayed (gee, I wonder why?).

This idea that most pressings do a poor job of communicating the music still has not seeped into the consciousness of many audiophiles, but we’re working on changing that, one Hot Stamper at a time. (more…)

John Coltrane / Coltrane Plays the Blues – Our Shootout Winner from 2009

More John Coltrane

ONE OF THE VERY BEST COPIES WE’VE EVER HEARD of this phenomenal album! This is PURE GOLD for the jazz-loving audiophile. I can count the number of jazz records we’ve played this year in a league with this one both sonically and musically on one hand. Both sides here are AMAZINGLY GOOD — exceptionally rich and full-bodied with superb transparency. Coltrane’s sax sounds OUT OF THIS WORLD with the lots of that airy, breathy quality that we just love here. The immediacy is OFF THE CHARTS!

We finally found enough clean copies of this album to do a proper shootout, and this Atlantic ’70s era copy blew us away with TWO SUPERB SIDES. The only time we’ve heard better sound for this album was on a flukish original — nearly every early pressing suffers badly from tubby bass, grain and smearing, so this copy should beat the pants off of most of ’em. Most of these later pressings are pretty bad too; it takes a LOT of copies to find one that’s nearly as good as this one. That’s why it has been two full years since you’ve seen a Hot Stamper copy hit the site!

The overall sound is open and spacious with lots of ambience and room around the instruments. The piano sounds Right On The Money with lots of weight, allowing you to really appreciate the percussive qualities of the instrument. We heard far more dynamics on this copy than elsewhere, which really conveys a sense of the group’s emotional performance. The bass is punchy and well-defined, the saxes have clear leading edge transients, and the drums sound just right. Coltrane fans are going to flip out over this one — guaranteed.

The very best originals might be just a bit better, but you’d have to pick up a ton of them to find a great one and that would set you back a whole lotta dough. We’ve played a ton of early pressings and found exactly one killer copy to date.

The typical Red and Green label pressing of this album lacks a measure of life and energy, not to mention some extension on the top end. The older Green and Blue label copies tend to be a bit smeared and lack some of the body of the later reissues. The reason this copy has such transparency and such an extended top end compared to other copies is obviously due, to some degree, to better cutting equipment.

I’ve NEVER heard a better recorded John Coltrane album in my life.

Not only that, but the music is every bit as good as the sound. Not only is Coltrane really playing his heart out, but the band is every bit as amazing, with very strong contributions from McCoy Tyner on piano, Elvin Jones on drums, and Steve Davis on bass.

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McCoy Tyner – Expansions

Both sonically and musically, this is THE BEST McCoy Tyner album that we can recall ever playing! Expansions has long been a favorite around here — it’s got a great lineup (including Wayne Shorter and Ron Carter) and the most interesting set of songs that we’ve heard on a Tyner album.

Drop the needle on the last song, I Thought I’d Let You Know, for the best sound on the album. It’s rich and sweet with a BIG bottom end and a wonderful sounding cello. McCoy’s playing a lot like Bill Evans at his best on this song.

This is another album that’s frequently scooped right out of the bins by DJs and producers who like to sample the funky grooves. We almost never see this one and when we do they don’t usually sound like this, so if you like this kind of music you should jump on it! (more…)