Month: December 2020

Jules and the Polar Bears / Fenetiks – A Great Album (That You’ve Probably Never Heard Of)

Desert Island Discs Available Now

Desert Island Discs – The Complete List

This is a real Desert Island Disc for me. I’m a giant fan of this band, which never got the acclaim they deserved from the public, although they were critics’ darlings from day one. If you like adventurous pop this should be right up your alley. If you’re the kind of person that was into the Talking Heads in the ’70s, this band is every bit as original and compelling.  

“Shear’s songwriting is top-notch ranging from the pure pop of ‘Good Reason’ to the beautiful ballad ‘Real Enough to Love.'” — AMG  

John Renbourn – The Hermit

More Pentangle

More British Folk Rock

  • Renbourn’s 1976 solo album makes its Hot Stamper debut with outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish
  • These British sides have the vintage analog sound we love – rich and natural, with plenty of Tubey Magic and studio space
  • Renbourn’s brilliant guitar stylings illustrate this collection of originals, classics, and variations with consummate skill and artistry
  • “John Renbourn’s first post-Pentangle (or nearly post-Pentangle) solo album… is one of his most beautiful recordings, and also among his most spare guitar instrumentals The mood of much – though not all – of Hermit is one of serious introspection, as Renbourn stays generally within a classical guitar mode.”

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Supertramp / Indelibly Stamped – Reviewed in 2010

More of the Music of Supertramp

This is a British Original pressing with the best sound I have ever heard for this album. It’s sweeter, smoother, more delicate and more tonally correct overall than any American copy I have ever heard.

After doing the shootout with some other domestic copies, I put this record in the pile to be cleaned, and today I played it. Like many British pressings of British Rock albums, there is a whole layer of grunge and distortion that has been removed. A veil has been lifted, and you hear into the music in a way that was never before possible. There is no question this record is made from the master tape and the domestic pressings are made from dubs.

This is only the 2nd British copy I have ever seen (in clean condition anyway). My experience with British mastering is that it is all over the map, just like American mastering. Other British copies probably do not sound like this one, but I have no way of being sure.

I thought my last Hot Stamper copy was better sounding than this one, but that was only true for the track Potter, which on this Brit copy sounds a bit tame. Everything else is better here. It’s easy to make a mistake like that when you’re only comparing one song. (more…)

Modern Jazz Quartet – European Concert, Volume 1

  • The Modern Jazz Quartet’s superb live 1960 release returns on the rare Blue and Green Atlantic label
  • With two nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sides, this copy is close to the BEST we have ever heard, right up there with our Shootout Winner
  • Exceptionally spacious and three-dimensional, as well as relaxed and full-bodied – this early stereo pressing was a noticeable step up over every other copy but one
  • Recorded live in Sweden, this is the first of two volumes and widely considered among the group’s greatest performances
  • 5 stars: “Long considered one of, if not the classic album from the Modern Jazz Quartet, European Concert defines them simultaneously as a recording entity as well as a working band. MJQ presented jazz in the context of a formally structured environment, much like a chamber group in the classical context.”

A nearly impossible record to find on the original label in audiophile playing condition, especially in stereo. (more…)

Simon & Garfunkel – Wednesday Morning, 3 AM

More Simon and Garfunkel

  • Earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades for sound on both sides, this early 360 stereo pressing is outstanding from first note to last
  • It’s clean, clear, open and spacious with lovely breathy vocals and plenty of Columbia Tubey Magic
  • You won’t find this kind of transparency or clarity on the typical vintage pressing, and the red label reissues are completely hopeless
  • Their one true Folk Duo album, featuring the original version of The Sound Of Silence

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Leonard Cohen – Live Songs

  • This outstanding pressing boasts solid Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides
  • Drop the needle anywhere and you’ll notice the impressive immediacy to the vocals, the clear transients of the guitar notes, two areas that most modern heavy vinyl reissues struggle with (and fail most of the time)
  • Cohen’s voice sounds just right, deep and gravely
  • “… for those who’ve formed a friendship with the words and wisdom of Leonard Cohen, this album finds him raw and naked in one of his finest hours.”

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Wheels of Fire and its Glaring Lack of Bass

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Eric Clapton Available Now

It’s EXCEPTIONALLY difficult to find even decent sounding copies of this album. We’ve played SCORES of original domestic copies, original imports, and all kinds of reissues — trust me, most of them would make you cringe.

When you get a good copy, this music is AWESOME! For ’60s power trio hard rock, you just can’t do much better than the studio material.

White Room, Sitting On Top Of The World, Politician, Born Under A Bad Sign — this is the very essence of Classic Blues Rock. Unfortunately, the typical copy barely hints at the potential of this recording, and the audiophile pressings are even worse.

The DCC Gold CDs are especially bad in our opinion; they sound nothing like the good pressings we’ve played over the years.

Where’s The Bass?

Most early pressings you find these days are thrashed beyond belief. We used to pick up every clean Plum & Gold label copy we’d find back in he day, but no more. We gave up. The Cream magic was just plain missing from the early domestic pressings. The problem is simple: a glaring lack of bass.

Let’s think about that. Cream is a power trio. The music absolutely demands a solid, weighty bottom end. Sacrifice the bass and the sound is just too lean to rock.

We can sum up the sound of the whomp-less copies in a word: fatiguing. As is always the case, some copies sound better than others, but none could give us the kind of bass that we were hoping for. (more…)

Frank Sinatra and Count Basie – Sinatra-Basie

  • You’ll find Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on both sides of this beloved Sinatra/Basie collaboration
  • Tubey, warm and smooth, with an extended top and solid down low, the louder you play this record the better it sounds, because it’s recorded, mastered and pressed properly
  • 4 stars: “The long-awaited first collaboration between two icons did something unique for the reputations of both. For Basie, the Sinatra connection inaugurated a period in the 1960s where his band was more popular and better-known than it ever was, even in the big band era. For Sinatra, Basie meant liberation, producing perhaps the loosest, rhythmically free singing of his career.”

A Historic Musical First!

As the liner notes mention – “sizzling tenor-sax solos by Frank Foster and Eric Dixon”, and they aren’t kiddin’!

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Harry Nilsson – A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night

More of the Music of Harry Nilsson

  • A lusciously Tubey Magical Top 100 album with orchestral arrangements by the superbly talented Gordon Jenkins
  • One of our favorite Nilsson releases (of which there are many) – it’s The Ultimate latter-day standards album
  • If you could only have one album of standards from the Great American Songbook, wouldn’t it have to be this one?
  • “This is a must have disc pure and simple as it is the best standards album any contemporary artist has ever recorded. All the ingredients were woven together for a remarkable vision.”

After our first big shootout for this album many years ago we were so blown away by what a great copy could do that we immediately added it to our Rock & Pop Top 100 list and have never once regretted doing so. It’s the only Nilsson album to make the cut. Even more unusual, considering it was recorded in 1973, it’s actually one of the better sounding orchestra-backed male vocal albums that we know of. (more…)

Chicago Transit Authority on MoFi – Or Is It The Glade Spray Mist Septet?

More of the Music of Chicago

UPDATE 2020

The last time I played a copy of the MoFi Chicago debut was about twenty years ago. My all tube system was much darker and dramatically less resolving than the one I have now, having made score upon score of improvements since then.

I suspect I would not be so kind to the MoFi today, and in that way I would surely be much more in agreement with Roger than I was about ten years ago when his letter arrived.

Our good customer Roger wrote to tell us of his Chicago shootout which included the MoFi, some later pressings and our Hot Stamper. Here is his story.

HI Tom

Got a chance to listen to your Chicago Transit Authority hot stamper and compare it to regular US and MFSL pressings. It has been a while since I last listened to this recording, but I listened to a lot of Chicago; Blood, Sweat, and Tears; and The Ides of March when I was in high school and college. I loved this music back then, as short-lived as it was, unfortunately.

Maybe this was because my two brothers played horns in concert bands, as does my youngest son now. A real shame that Chicago, at least, morphed into a whiny, wimpy, sappy Top 40 radio ballad band after their first two records. Anyway, it was fun listening to it again.

I recently picked up a couple of US copies of CTA to compare against my Mobile Fidelity version and the hot stamper. Both regular US copies had later Columbia labels, and had I only heard these, I might never have listened to this record again. Dull, compressed, murky, detail-challenged would be descriptive words for both copies. Muddy bass and absolutely no highs, I mean none.

The MFSL version did not have this lack-of-highs problem. In fact, it sounds like a lot of MoFi’s, the treble completely overcooked, sounding like cans of spray mist being actuated and overwhelming the rest of the music. This has to be one of the most hideous recordings in existence. With the MFSL version, Chicago has been transformed into the Glade Spray Mist Septet, with a psst psst here, a psst psst there, here a psst, there a psst, everywhere a psst psst. Arrggg! I was getting more and more psst off listening to this sonic detritus. Unless you have a Mattel Close-And-Play record player, how can anyone listen to this thing? Did MFSL engineers moonlight as gunnery sergeants on the artillery range? And the MoFi’s complete lack of bass left the overwhelming treble out to hang and dry. Unreal.

So the Hot Stamper was next, and you know what, it sounds like my son’s high school concert band (only a lot better but don’t tell him). After the MoFi, the highs sounded somewhat recessed, but more in line with the rest of the sonic spectrum. There was real bass weight, maybe not the lowest bass, but good just the same, and the midrange was much more full and weighty, something this recording needs. Trombones sounded like trombones and saxes like saxes. So perhaps the hot stamper will make my new regular record rotation now and my listening room won’t smell like a Glade pine forest. (more…)