Month: May 2020

The Not-So-Magnificent Thad Jones – More Dreck on Heavy Vinyl

Hot Stamper Pressings of Blue Note Albums Available Now

After discovering Hot Stampers and the mind-blowing sound they deliver, a new customer generously sent me a few of his favorite Heavy Vinyl pressings to audition, records that he considered the best of the modern reissues that he owns.

He admitted that most of what he has on Heavy Vinyl is not very good, and now that he can clearly hear what he has been missing, having played some of our best Hot Stamper jazz pressings, he is going to be putting them up on Ebay and selling them to anyone foolish enough to throw their money away on this kind of junk vinyl.

We say more power to him.  That money can be used to buy records that actually are good sounding, not just the ones that are supposed to be good sounding, perhaps because they were custom manufactured with the utmost care and marketed at high prices to soi-disant audiophiles.

Audiophile records are a scam. They always have been and always will be.

The three of us who do the critical listening here at Better Records dropped the needle on the first disc in this set and, once the VTA was properly adjusted, gave it a chance to show us just what expert remastering from vintage mono tapes, at 45 RPM, on two slabs of luscious, thick vinyl, could do for the sound of Thad Jones’s trumpet, circa 1956.

The reissue we are playing is the one Music Matters released in 2010. There was a single disc version released by them in 2016, recut by Kevin Gray and Ron Rambach. At the time of this writing, there is one for sale on Discogs for $235.

None of us had ever heard the album on any media, vinyl or otherwise, but we know a good sounding jazz record when we hear one, and we knew pretty early on in the session that this was not a good sounding jazz record.

Two minutes was all it took, but we wasted another ten making sure it was as bad as we thought.

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Sarah Vaughan – You’re Mine You

  • Vaughan’s wonderful 1962 album on the original Roulette stereo pressing makes its Hot Stamper debut with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Both sides are exceptionally low-distortion, solid and dynamic, with the natural, relaxed, analog warmth and richness missing from the Classic Records pressing (and most likely missing from whatever current reissue is on the market)
  • “This LP finds Sarah Vaughan backed by big-band and string arrangements from Quincy Jones that could easily have been used for a Frank Sinatra date. Vaughan’s voice is typically wondrous… In the repertoire are such tunes as “The Best Is Yet to Come,” “The Second Time Around” and “Baubles, Bangles and Beads.”

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XTC / Drums and Wires – Reviewed in 2010

This is an original Minty Virgin British Import LP that includes a bonus 7-inch single. The record plays quietly and sounds EXCELLENT! 

“The album that followed the lineup change, Drums and Wires, marks a turning point for the band, with a more subdued set of songs that reflect an increasing songwriting proficiency. The aimless energy of the first two albums is focused into a cohesive statement with a distinctive voice that retains their clever humor, quirky wordplay, and decidedly British flavor.” – AMG

This is an Older 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 developed in the early 2000s and have since turned into a fine art.

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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Carpenters – Now & Then

More Carpenters

Pure Pop Albums Available Now

  • Insanely good sound and the first copy to ever hit the site; Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from start to finish!
  • “The Carpenters, with their finger on the pulse of the changing pop fashions as always, were one of the first acts to identify the new appetite for fond reminiscence of times gone by, and brilliantly combined the past and the present with their fifth album, Now & Then…”

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Mendelssohn / Scotch Symphony & Fingal’s Cave / Dorati

Hot Stamper Mercury Pressings Available Now

The sound of this side one came as a bit of a surprise to us. It’s so BIG and RICH — this is a Mercury?

It sounds like a good Decca/ London.

It’s actually instead a bit of a hybrid. The recording takes place in a famous London hall with superb acoustics (Walthamstow Town Hall) in which the Mercury recording team merely set up their usual three mics and recorded to half-inch tape. Gone is the dryness and upper-midrange nasality of so many Mercury’s; no doubt that sound was caused in large part by the halls in which they were recorded.

This is some Tubey Magical Decca orchestral sound from 1956, here on a Colorback early Mercury pressing. Go figure.

Side One

With a grade of A++ this side was KILLER. A little smear but so rich, musical and enjoyable you will find yourself lost in the performance. The London Symphony is hard to beat.

Side Two

A+ for the fourth movement of the symphony, with more smear than we heard on side one. Fingal’s Cave Overture sounds better though, more like side one. We gave it an A++ grade.

This is a truly wonderful copy of one of the rarest and best Mercury recordings. (more…)

Letter of the Week – “The immediacy of the music was an order of magnitude better than my version.”

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:

Hey Tom,  

About the only good thing I can say during the time of “COVID” is that I have been listening to a lot of music. Well today I ran my first shootout. I was listening to The Incredible Jimmy Smith, Back At The Chicken Shack.

First, I played the title track from side one on the LP I have had in my collection for about 5 years. I know every note and just love this record. Then, I played my Better Records copy, same track.

To anyone who does not understand what a hot stamper actually is, I feel sorry for you. Those folks are missing out.

First, the immediacy or the presence of the music on the disk I bought from you was an order of magnitude better than my library version. It was also just flat out louder.

Stanley Turrentine’s playing was alive in way I’ve never truly heard before. Jimmy Smith’s solo’s were absolutely stunning. As I said, I know every note and yet it was like a new listening experience.

I think about all the thousands of dollars people spend on gear but ultimately what’s the point if your source material is compromised ? I know I am preaching to the choir with you but I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate what you’ve figured out and made available to people like me.

Thanks so much and take care.

Art

Mississippi John Hurt – Today!

  • Hurt’s superb sophomore release makes its Hot Stamper debut with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on both sides
  • Smooth, relaxed and full-bodied – practically no other copy in our shootout had this kind of exceptionally natural, analog sound
  • Hard to imagine any reissue, vintage or otherwise, can beat the sound of this LP – we sure couldn’t find one
  • 4 stars: “Today is Mississippi John Hurt’s first and finest studio release since his “rediscovery” on his Avalon farm by folklorist Tom Hoskins in 1963… his voice retains its characteristic Buddha-esque warmth and it is still difficult to believe that there is just one man playing on the seemingly effortless guitar work… A truly essential album of the folk revival, unrivaled in its beauty and warmth.”

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Grateful Dead – Go to Heaven

  • With Triple Plus (A+++) Shootout Winning sides or close to them, this copy had some of the best sound we have ever heard for Go to Heaven – exceptionally quiet vinyl too 
  • Bill Kreutzmann noted, “If you go back and (re)listen to it, you’ll find that time has been very kind to Go to Heaven. It plays better now than it did back then. That’s still no excuse for the cover, though – all six of us, dressed all in white disco suits against a white background.”
  • Classic Rock Review wrote, “While this may be a far cry from the group’s lauded stage improvisation, it made for an enjoyable studio album which holds up decades later…. It still sounds good today and shows that this band had some vast talent away from the stage.”

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Richard “Groove” Holmes – Spicy

  • An incredible sounding copy with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it throughout
  • “The intensity which launched Groove’s cover of “Misty” into such a huge hit is thoroughly in evidence throughout this smoking set and Holmes is firmly in his element during this poppy, but cooking session. A welcome addition to a great organist’s too-thin catalog.” – All About Jazz

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Katy Lied – Our Four Plus Shootout Winner

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Steely Dan Available Now

This White Hot Stamper side one of Katy Lied is an ABSOLUTE KNOCKOUT. Even our usual top grade of A Triple Plus was not enough to tell the story, so we awarded this side one the rare Four Plus (A++++) grade.

The sound is HUGE — big, bold, dynamic, and lively. The clarity and transparency exceeded all our expectations; we felt as if we were hearing every last Steely Dan-sweated detail. The overall sound is natural, relaxed, and musical. The highs are as sweet as they come (which is not as sweet as they should have been, more about that later) and the bottom end has the weight and punch this music needs to rock.

(Although rocking is not quite what Steely Dan are up to here. Cameron Crowe calls it “…absolutely impeccable swing-pop”, a four word description that gets to the heart of the music far better than any combination of words containing the word “rock”.)

One quality this copy had that no other copy in our shootout managed to convey: on Chain Lightning the voices stretch from wall to wall and fill out the space between the speakers like we have never heard before! Wow. On this copy that song is a Demo Disc Quality Thrill like you will not believe.

A Tough Nut? You Better Believe It

This is one of the TOUGHEST NUTS TO CRACK in the entire Steely Dan catalog, if not THE toughest. We manage to do this album about once a year; it takes us at least that long to find a dozen or so clean, decent-sounding original copies. Most copies are beat and most copies don’t sound good anyway.

It’s easy to blame DBX for the bad sound of so many copies, but this is a cop-out. Most of the bad sound comes from ABC’s bad pressings. This music can sound awfully good; more than enough proof can be provided by simply playing this amazing side two.

Side Two

This side two earned an A++ grade. It was one of the few copies we played with real extension on the top end, a serious shortcoming on practically every copy we auditioned. The music on this side comes ALIVE like nobody’s business.

You will have no trouble hearing why we fell in love with this copy. The sound is so RICH and FULL. This is, more than anything else, what Katy Lied really gets right. The pianos and congas and toms have tremendous weight and body, along with plenty of rhythmic energy to drive the music. Everything is working so well you may find yourself singing along with abandon to classics like Everyone’s Gone to the Movies and Chain Lightning. We did.

Michael McDonald is a wonderful accompanist. His soaring harmonies on this album are breathtaking, even more so here than on Aja.

Of special note is Phil Woods’ sax solo on Doctor Wu. On most copies it is too thin, with not enough body, too much bite and sourness or hardness, but here it is smooth and natural — easy on the ears you might say. (more…)