Month: October 2020

Audiophiles Might Want to Give This Sarah Vaughan Album a Miss

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Sarah Vaughan

Hot Stamper Pressings of Outstanding Pop and Jazz Vocal Albums

This is just one of the recordings by Sarah Vaughan that we’ve auditioned and found wanting. Without going into specifics, we’ll just say this album suffers from a poor performance, poor sound, or both, and therefore is unlikely to  deserve a place in an audiophile record collection.

For more than 35 years we’ve been helping music loving audiophiles the world over avoid bad sounding records.

To see the records with bad sound or bad music we’ve reviewed, click here.

Mostly we write about good sounding records, and there are thousands that can be found here.

It’s yet another public service from Better Records, the home of the best sounding records ever pressed. Our records sound better than any others you’ve ever heard or you get your money back.

Further Reading

Gabor Szabo – The Sorcerer

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Guitar

Reviews and Commentaries for Gabor Szabo

  • With two nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sides, this original Impulse pressing is close to the BEST we’ve ever heard, right up there with our Shootout Winner – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Szabo’s best albums are full of Tubey Magic and dead-on-the-money instrumental timbres – this live one puts you smack dab in the middle of an intimate jazz club in 1967, your very own time machine
  • If you want to hear the warmth, size and energy of the tape, this vintage LP is the way to go
  • “Gabor Szabo’s quintet featuring Jimmy Stewart was one of the guitarist’s very best units. Live performances like this, recorded at Boston’s Jazz Workshop, document some of the excitement the group stirred in 1967-1968. The playing seems inspired, and the interplay within the group is something to behold…”

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Jethro Tull – Benefit

More Jethro Tull

  • A superb copy of the band’s third studio album, with outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish
  • The sound is big and rich, yet still wonderfully clean, clear and open with fantastic energy – you will not believe all the space and ambiance here
  • Huge, rich, tubey and solid, the best track on the album – To Cry You a Song – rocks like you will not believe
  • “Benefit forms the perfect bridge between the rolling, tumbling Tull of old and the tightly braided riffs and prickly lyrics presented by Aqualung.” Record Collector

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Thelonious Monk – Straight, No Chaser


  • This early 360 Stereo Columbia pressing boasts stunning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on side one and an outstanding Double Plus (A++) side two – relatively quiet vinyl too
  • If you want to hear just how good Monk’s big, rich piano sounds, this copy can show you like nothing by Monk you’ve heard
  • Four Stars in Allmusic, with Teo Macero producing and top Columbia engineering to ensure audiophile standard sonics
  • “Thelonious Monk’s Straight, No Chaser is the pinnacle of his recordings for Columbia Records…” — TheAudioBeat.com

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Lenny Breau Trio – Recorded Direct to Disc

This is a SUPERB SOUNDING Limited Edition Direct Disk Labs LP with a fold-open cover.  

Breau is an extraordinarily gifted guitarist, and the sound is excellent, so we are happy to recommend this audiophile record, something you won’t see us doing very often.

“Breau mixed together elements from country music and jazz to develop an original sound and style. This album gives listeners a strong example of his legendary artistry.” – AMG

This is an Older Jazz 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.

Currently, 99% (or more!) of the records we sell are cleaned, then auditioned under rigorously controlled conditions, up against a number of other pressings. We award them sonic grades, and then condition check them for surface noise.

As you may imagine, this approach requires a great deal of time, effort and skill, which is why we currently have a highly trained staff of about ten. No individual or business without the aid of such a committed group could possibly dig as deep into the sound of records as we have, and it is unlikely that anyone besides us could ever come along to do the kind of work we do.

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Letter of the Week – “Everyone is amazed and surprised”

One of our good customers who runs his own stereo store in the Netherlands had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently as demo discs for his customers:

Hey Tom, 

It is really great to play your records and explain how it works for you. Everyone is amazed and surprised. Our presentation is still small in relation to covid rules. But I hear that a number of customers are already finding their way to you and that is good news. I will make a newsletter to my customers about you early next year. We’ll stay in touch.

Greeting
Harry

Harry,

Glad you are enjoying our amazing and surprising Hot Stampers! So much better than all that crappy Heavy Vinyl they play in audio salons these days.

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Jefferson Starship – Spitfire

More Jefferson Airplane

Reviews and Commentaries for The Jefferson Airplane

  • Insanely good sound for this Shootout Winning copy of the Starship’s 1976 release — Triple Plus (A+++) sound on the first side and solid Double Plus (A++) sound on the second
  • Forget whatever dead-as-a-doornail Heavy Vinyl they’re making – the Tubey Magic, size and rock and roll energy of this very special vintage pressing simply cannot be beat
  • “Spitfire was Jefferson Starship’s 1976 follow-up to the chart-topping Red Octopus (1975), and it found the band in a cooperative mood… [it] was more than the sum of its parts, boasting the sort of vocal interplay and instrumental virtuosity that had always been the hallmarks of Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship.” 

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The Rolling Stones – Steel Wheels

More Rolling Stones

  • With two Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides, we would be very surprised if you’ve ever heard Steel Wheels sound remotely as good as it does on this pressing
  • We guarantee there is dramatically more space, richness, vocal presence, and performance energy on this copy than others you’ve heard
  • 4 1/2 stars in Rolling Stone: “All the ambivalence, recriminations, attempted rapprochement and psychological one-upmanship evident on Steel Wheels testify that the Stones are right in the element that has historically spawned their best music – a murky, dangerously charged environment in which nothing is merely what it seems. Against all odds, and at this late date, the Stones have once again generated an album that will have the world dancing to deeply troubling, unresolved emotions.”

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Richness Or Transparency – On Why Can’t We Be Friends You Need Both

More of the Music of War

Below we discuss two qualities essential to the sound of War’s Masterpiece of jazzy soul, Why Can’t We Be Friends? 

As usually happens in these shootouts we learned that there’s so much more to this album than just big bass. What really makes this music come alive on the best copies was the result of two qualities we found were in fairly short supply: richness and transparency 

When the vocals sound thin and pinched as they do on so many copies of this album, possibly the result of the grainy crap vinyl UA is infamous for, that sour sound takes all the fun out of the music. Many tracks have group vocals and choruses, and the best copies make all the guys sound like they are standing in a big room, shoulder to shoulder, belting it out live and in living color.

These are not classically trained singers. These are guys who love their music, who make up in enthusiasm what they lack in polish. I say more power to them. Smoke ’em if you got ’em and turn it up!

The good copies capture that energy and bring it into the mix with the full-bodied sound it no doubt had live in the studio. When the EQ or the vinyl goes awry and their voices start to take on a lean or gritty quality, the party’s over.

Seriously; this album has a party atmosphere; it’s overflowing with fun energy. If you can’t play it loud enough to rock because the sound is fighting you with every click of the volume knob, what is the point of playing it all? (more…)

Listening in Depth to The Soft Parade

Hot Stampers of The Soft Parade

Letters and Commentaries for The Soft Parade

doorssoftinner

Our shootout from way back (2014) included a minty Gold Label pressing, which did reasonably well, but not great, on side one. Side two however was OFF THE CHARTS and won the shootout on that side handily. The fact that side one wasn’t a knockout is yet more evidence that individual pressings with the same label — even the “right” label — vary dramatically in sound.

In-Depth Track Commentary

Side One

Tell All the People

Jim Morrison, a man with no professional experience as a singer before he formed The Doors, was blessed with one of the most beautiful baritones in the history of Rock and Roll. If his voice isn’t rich, full and Tubey Magical on this track, the sound on side one isn’t likely to be either. If that’s the case you are not in for an easy ride my friend. Chuck that sucker in the trade-in pile and move on.

Touch Me

There’s big bass on this track; you need to be able to hear it right from the start or this track is going to sound like it’s playing through a car radio.

Listen also for the texture on the strings. If you have that rare, tonally correct early pressing with a real top end, the strings won’t sound steely, strident or smeared (the three S’s, don’t you know).

Shaman’s Blues
Do It
Easy Ride

Side Two

Wild Child
Runnin’ Blue

Fiddle and mandolin (we thought it might be a banjo at first but we’re pretty sure it’s a mandolin; listen for strumming at the end) accompaniment on a Doors song? Hey, why not? Let the guys stretch out a bit.

That’s what this album is all about. They’re not trying to be Blood Sweat and Tears. They’re trying to add some new colors to their palette, and I for one am glad they did. (When they went back to the basics for Morrison Hotel, they turned in one of their weakest efforts ever, if not The Weakest.)

Wishful Sinful

Bruce Botnick Tubey Magic To Die For! Does it get any better for audiophiles than this?

Listen for the lovely timbre of the oboe, a featured element of this track. The orchestral arrangements here rival those of the legendary George Martin (himself an accomplished oboist). If large scale orchestral arrangements are good enough for The Beatles, how can The Doors be criticized for incorporating them into their music?

The Soft Parade

Ya gotta love that spoken word intro. Once you’ve heard it you’ll never forget it as long as you live. The best early copies (gold label or big red E) have echo bouncing off every wall of the studio endlessly.

The weight the best copies have below 250 cycles is where much of the studio ambience is. Play the typical leaned-out copy and all that space collapses.