Month: June 2020

The Best Sound Here Is Everything But the 1812

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Tchaikovsky Available Now

The real stars here are NOT the 1812, but the three coupling works, which demonstrate, on this copy at least, The Real Power of the Orchestra. The remarkably rich, Tubey Magical and oh-so-rosiny Living Stereo strings and powerful, dynamic brass make this a real demo quality orchestral heavyweight.

Lizst’s Mephisto Waltz, Mendelssohn’s The Hebrides Overture, and the Tragic Overture by Brahms are the Must Own 36 minutes worth of music on the record.

A rare and wonderful early Living Stereo Shaded Dog pressing containing an outstanding performance from Reiner and the CSO on everything but the 1812.

Say what?

Yes, it’s true. After hearing the amazing Decca pressing with Alwyn conducting (currently on the site at $400 and worth every penny of it but with completely different coupling works) we knew early on that Reiner and the CSO were simply not competitive in terms of performance, and the RCA engineers also failed to capture the deep bass of the organ on their pressing.

What we were impressed with were the three other works, all played with verve and technical skill and as enjoyable as any music you can find on this site. Go to youtube to listen to them if you are not familiar with the works. All of them belong in a serious music collection, and these recordings (and our Hot Stamper pressings) do them proud.

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Billie Holiday – Stormy Blues

  • Outstanding throughout with Triple Plus (A+++) sound on the second side and solid Double Plus (A++) sound on the other three sides
  • All four sides here have intimate, relaxed, breathy vocals – the only way to hear Lady Day in her prime sounding the way she should
  • This double LP set captures Billie from 1954-1955 and features Benny Carter, Jimmy Rowles, Tony Scott, Harry Edison, Chico Hamilton and other jazz greats
  • “The first popular jazz singer to move audiences with the intense, personal feeling of classic blues, Billie Holiday changed the art of American pop vocals forever.”

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Tea For The Tillerman – A Hall of Fame Pressing from 2004!

More of the Music of Cat Stevens

We’ve learned a lot about this record in the last thirty years or so. Here is what we thought we knew back in 2004.

This is a superb sounding original Brown Label A&M pressing. If you didn’t know better you might think you were listening to a Pink Label copy: it’s that good! In fact, having just played a Pink label Island 3U/3U original, I’m going to say that this pressing actually sounds better on side one than that famous import. This will no doubt shock many of you. But I have known of a better sounding brown label domestic pressing for close to 10 years.

But what surprised me in this case was that these particular stampers are different from the domestic original that I discovered all those years ago. This is an entirely new finding. Dropping the needle on side one of this record and hearing the delicate strumming of the guitar and the smoothness and sweetness of the vocals, I knew immediately that I was hearing a Hot Stamper. A VERY Hot Stamper. Listening to it all the way through a few times and playing some other copies convinced me that indeed it was As Good As It Gets. On side one anyway.

Side two is excellent, but the bass is not quite as well defined and there is a slight loss of transparency in comparison to the best copies I have heard. The song Father and Son can be a bit sibilant. On the ultimate copies the sibilance is under control. This one has a little more of that sibilance than the best stampers I have heard. It’s not bad, but it’s not the equal of the best pressings.

Another track I like to play on side two is Into White. With this song, you hear into the music on the best copies as if you were seeing the live musicians before you. The violinist is also a key element. He’s very far back in the studio. When he’s back where he should be, and the sound of the wood of his violin and the rosin on the strings is still clearly audible, without any brightness or edginess to artificially create those details, you know you are hearing the real thing. 

This is, I hope it goes without saying, one of the greatest rock records of all time, music that belongs in any collection. I’ve been playing this album for 30 years and I can honestly say I’ve never once been tired of hearing it. I get tired of hearing bad copies.

I become absolutely incensed when I have to play the Mobile Fidelity version of this album, because what they did to this record is a travesty. If you want to know what the guitars on this album are NOT supposed to sound like, play the MOFI. And if you want to hear an even worse version, play the UHQR.

Big Joe Williams – Blues For 9 Strings

 

  • Blues for 9 Strings, featuring the great Willie Dixon on bass, makes its Hot Stamper debut with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on both sides
  • Tubier, more present, more alive, with more of that “jumpin’ out of the speakers” quality that only The Real Thing (an old record) ever has
  • Big Joe Williams was an incredible blues musician: a gifted songwriter, a powerhouse vocalist, and an exceptionally idiosyncratic guitarist… When appearing at The Fickle Pickle, Williams played an electric nine-string guitar through a small ramshackle amp with a pie plate nailed to it and a beer can dangling against that. The total effect of this incredible apparatus produced the most buzzing, sizzling, African-sounding music one would likely ever hear.”

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Tom Jones – What’s New Pussycat?

  • A killer early pressing with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from the first note to the last
  • These sides are doing everything right — big, full-bodied, clean and clear with wonderfully present vocals and a solid bottom end
  • We guarantee you’ve never heard the Burt Bacharach/Hal David penned title track sound better than it does here!  

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David Bowie / The Man Who Sold The World – On the Real Mercury Pressing

More David Bowie

The sound is rich and full, just the way the Brits like it. The heavy compression that both Bowie and Scott favor works its magic at every turn, adding fatness and richness and lovely harmonics to the guitars and the drums.

Not many Bowie albums from his “classic” period sound good on domestic vinyl, nothing I know of before Diamond Dogs with the exception of this album and the occasional copy of Space Oddity. Strangely enough, from then on practically every one of Bowie’s albums sounds best on domestic vinyl, all the way through to Let’s Dance, after which we more or less check out — don’t know those albums well and don’t plan on finding out more.

Ah but here, here we have some truly prime period Bowie, recorded, mastered and pressed with Top Quality sound!

Side One

Mick Ronson’s guitars are wonderfully clear. The vocals can get a bit hot on the first track (as is often the case), but by track two the sound has settled in and is rich and smooth, just the way we like it. Very present and lively vocals are a strong point.

Side Two

Listen to the big bass, richness and Tubey Magic of the third track — that is some Ken Scott studio wizardry at play.

Note that the second track seems to be where Alice Cooper found his “sound.” More power to him I say. You could get away with ripping off Bowie in 1970; nobody bought this album in the states, which is why it’s so damn rare and expensive.

And that is the reason there are so many bootlegs. Practically every copy on ebay is a bootleg.  They sound terrible by the way.

How to Spot the Bootleg Copies, Courtesy of Discogs

This release has stamped matrix numbers in the dead wax. All other versions with this cover are counterfeits (with etched matrix numbers) and should not be listed here.

This US release is the first release on LP of The Man Who Sold the World. It was only released in two countries – US and Japan (SFX-7345) – with this original cover. The building in the background is the Cane Hill Hospital where David Bowie’s half-brother Terry was a patient.

The album was released in a further three countries on the Mercury label – Germany (David Bowie – The Man Who Sold The World) in a large circular fold-out cover and the United Kingdom and Australia with a picture of David reclining in a dress. This latter cover is the one used on contemporary releases.

The US Mercury album was counterfeited (see David Bowie – The Man Who Sold The World) in the early 1970s after Bowie became popular. It was possible for a potential buyer to choose between the official RCA reissue (in yet another cover, see David Bowie – The Man Who Sold The World) and the widely distributed counterfeit.

The following visual indicators can be used to confirm an original US Mercury LP:
• The matrices in the runout (the space between the label and the grooves) are machine stamped (the counterfeits are hand etched).
• The space between the final lyric line of The Supermen and the cartoon bubble “Oh By Jingo” on the back cover is approximately the height of a line of text, while on the counterfeits the space is notably wider.

There are other differences, though these can be more easily seen and described in a side-by-side comparison.
Rights Society: ASCAP

Matrix / Runout (Side A, Runout, Stamped): SR 61325-A- M2
Matrix / Runout (Side B, Runout, Stamped): SR 61325-B- M1

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The Paul Butterfield Blues Band – East-West

More Butterfield Blues Band

More Electric Blues

  • You’ll find outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound on this Gold Label stereo pressing of the band’s sophomore release – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • It’s tough to find an original with good sound and audiophile surfaces – a copy that plays this quietly is almost unheard of!
  • Big and full-bodied with a huge bottom end – Elektra was killing it in ’66
  • 5 stars: “… it was the Paul Butterfield Blues Band’s greatest achievement… East-West captures a great group in high flight as the bandmembers join together in something even more remarkable than their estimable skills as individuals would suggest, and its importance as a nexus point between rock, blues, jazz, and world music cannot be overestimated.”

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Petula Clark / Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 – Surprisingly Good Sound on the Early WB Label

More Compilation Albums with the Potential for Very Good Sound

SURPRISINGLY GOOD SOUND! I didn’t expect this music to sound so smooth and sweet. The only versions I’ve ever heard were the 45 mixes on the radio.

Of course, the sound of those is quite suspect, but seeing as how these are mid-’60s pop recordings, one might assume that they’re the kind of midrangy artificial productions that were common in those days.

But one would be wrong — this material is actually quite well recorded. Stick to the early Green Label pressings. The reissues are godawful in exactly the way most reissues of albums from this era are.

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.)

We were often wrong back in those days, something we have no reason to hide. Audio equipment and record cleaning technologies have come a long way since those darker days, a subject we discuss here.

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The Jacques Loussier Trio – Brandenburg Concerto No. 5

  • This jazzy, innovative interpretation of three of Bach’s most famous works boasts Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound throughout – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Baroque genius meets jazz pioneer in this unique confluence of musical conventions
  • Full-bodied and warm, exactly the way you want your vintage analog to sound – the piano is surprisingly real here, solid and dynamic
  • Born from his love of classical works and improvisation, Loussier “loved to play the music, but add my own notes, expanding the harmonies and playing around with that music,” and the results should be interesting to fans of jazz and classical music alike

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Ten Years After / Cricklewood Green – Reviewed in 2010

This very nice looking original Deram British Import LP has that good old Heavy British Rock sound. It’s lively if a bit crude, but that’s pretty much the way these bands were recorded. The sound varies quite a bit from track to track, with some sounding noticeably better than others. Not much new there.

’Me and My Baby’ is a particularly good sounding song here. It sounds like it was recorded live in the studio, and it probably was!   (more…)