Month: January 2021

The Fifth Dimension – Live!!

  • Live!! finally makes its Hot Stamper debut here with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on all FOUR sides
  • Bones Howe once again engineered, which means you can be sure the tonality is correct from top to bottom and the breath of life is captured beautifully in the midrange
  • The sound here is rich and full-bodied with much less grain and much more Tubey Magic than every other copy we played
  • Hal Blaine on the drums, Joe Osborne on bass and Larry Knechtel on keyboards – not too shabby!
  • 4 stars: “The performance offers an adequate sampling of the 5D’s classics and concurrent pop songs that attendees would likely be familiar with.”

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Tim Buckley – Greetings From L.A.

More Tim Buckley

  • This outstanding early WB Green Label pressing boasts solid Double Plus (A++) sound on both sides – exceptionally quiet vinyl too, easily the quietest original pressing we have ever had the good fortune to run into (after about ten years of trying)
  • Recorded for Warners in 1972, if you’re looking for vintage analog Tubey Magical richness and smoothness, look no further
  • 4 stars: Stepping back from the swooping avant-garde touches of Starsailor for a fairly greasy, funky, honky tonk set of songs, the opening lines of Greetings from L.A. set the tone: “I went down to the meat rack tavern/And I found myself a big ol’ healthy girl.”

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Letter of the Week – ‘Tubey excellence!”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Clash Available Now

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Steely Dan Available Now

A new customer had this to say about his first Hot Stamper purchase:

Hey Tom, 

Super fucking happy with my two purchases: Combat Rock and Can’t Buy a Thrill.

Tubey excellence!

Best,

Mike S.

Mike,

Tubey excellence is exactly what we try to find on our Hot Stamper pressings.

Thanks for your letter!

TP

Further Reading

Anderson / The Music of Leroy Anderson Vol. 3 / Fennell

Hot Stamper Mercury Pressings Available Now

More Recordings Conducted by Frederick Fennel

Volume Three (SR 90400) of Anderson’s recordings for Mercury with Fennell conducting has long been a favorite or ours here at Better Records. The first volume is of course on the TAS Super Disc list, and when you get a good copy of it you will have no trouble believing it is a Super Disc. But so is this one, provided you play the right pressing of course.

On this RFR-1 Maroon label pressing STILL IN THE SHRINK, side two has the Super Hot stamper sound. The sound is shockingly rich, smooth and sweet. Where is the Mercury dryness and screechiness and upper-midrange nasality we’re all so used to from their records? It’s nowhere to be found on this copy, and that’s a good thing!

The strings are huge on this side as well, wall to wall and not bright. The sound is clear and correct from top to bottom!

Side one is not even close I’m sorry to report. The sound is huge and 3-D but there is just much too much smear to qualify as a Hot Stamper pressing. We rate it A to A+. (more…)

Letter of the Week – A $100 Hot Stamper Is Now My Reference Album!

More of the Music of Cat Stevens

More Reviews and Commentaries for Tea for the Tillerman

More Reviews and Commentaries for Teaser and the Firecat

[This letter is from a long time ago, 2005 perhaps. A killer copy may have been a hundred bucks back then, but times have changed!]

One of our best customers, Gerardo, who has to have his Hot Stampers shipped all the way to the Philippines where he lives, asked recently about Tea for the Tillerman. He wanted to know if we had something that would beat the MoFi pressing. Having recently played one (for condition; we already know how bad the sound is) we said HELL YEAH!

In fact, about the cheapest clean plain old American copy we can dig up for you will beat the pants of the MoFi. So we charged him $100 and sent it on out. Not having heard back, we followed up with this email:  

Hi Gerardo,

We were just wondering if you ever got to have the Tea For The Tillerman Hot Stamper vs. MoFi / UHQR shootout. Hope it went well.

His reply can be seen below.

Hi Tom and Crew,

I have already listened to my Hot Stamper copy and have forwarded the MFSL pressing to my friend. However, we have not done the shootout because I’m out of Manila now… We should be able to do the shootout as soon as I return.

I have listened to my copy the day it arrived. I’m not very good at describing the sound of an album, that’s why I love reading your commentaries, because it accurately describes what I actually hear. The HS Tillerman is now my reference album where I test all improvements/adjustments I make in my system or my turntable.

All the hot stamper copies I have bought from you really beat all other copies I have. A good example is my Hot Stamper Santana. The instruments sound tonally right, distinctly separate from each other. There is no harshness on the top end and the bass is tight and defined. I had five copies of the album before I got my HS copy, all are”360″ including a WLP copy. None of the five came close to the sound of my Hot Stamper.

I will definitely update you as soon as we finish the shootout next year.

Happy holidays,
Gerardo

Gerardo, so glad to hear you liked your Tea for the Tillerman. It’s always been one of my favorite test discs as well, although I would say Teaser and the Firecat is even better in that respect. [Not really.]

As for Santana’s first album, that is a record that typically sounds terrible — dull and smeary. We have to work very hard to find a good copy like the one we sent you, and the proof of our efforts is that it beat the five you already owned. As far as stampers go, ours was hot, yours were not! No surprise there. Most copies suck, 360 or otherwise. We look forward to hearing your full report on the Tillerman shootout.

Best,
TP

Ella Fitzgerald – Ella Swings Lightly

Hot Stamper Pressings of Ella Fitzgerald’s Albums Available Now

Ella Fitzgerald Albums We’ve Reviewed

  • This original Bow Tie Verve Stereo pressing is going to be very hard to beat – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Lovely All Tube sound from 1958, with a huge, rich orchestra conducted by one of our favorite arrangers, Marty Paich 
  • Grammy Award for Best Improvised Jazz Solo – these were the days when Ella was on top of the world
  • “The bright, sunny optimism of Fitzgerald’s style comes through in several tracks, including ‘If I Were a Bell’ (which also includes several remarkable variations on the melody), and ‘Teardrops From My Eyes’ (which alternates between rock and jazz beats—not a big leap back then!)”

When you are lucky enough to find an album chock full of standards from the Great American Songbook, you cannot help but recognize that this era for Ella will never be equaled, by her or anyone else.

The recording is excellent, with space and midrange richness that might just take your breath away. (more…)

Terry Snyder / Persuasive Percussion – A Knockout Percussion Extravaganza from Command

More Exotica and Easy Listening

More Amazing Percussion Recordings We’ve Reviewed

  • Persuasive Percussion makes its Hot Stamper debut with STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from start to finish
  • Explosive energy, but surprisingly the sound is both relaxed and sweet at the same time, never squawky
  • Exceptional extension up high and down low — this is the copy that showed us just how good the album could sound
  • Simply amazing space, ambience and depth – if you have never heard one of these kinds of records, you are really in for a treat with this one
  • “This album was one of the early examples of “hi-fi” back in the late 50’s and early 60’s. How vivid is my memory of the bongos first playing from the left speaker…and then from the right one. And that wonderful sound! I could close my eyes now and relive a moment in time”

We’ve just created a new section. In it you will find records with exceptional sound and music that we’ve discovered over the years, records that are probably not well known to most audiophiles. You might consider it our version of 1001 Records to Hear Before You Die, except that there are only 120 titles or so, and the common theme is that the right pressings of these titles have truly audiophile sound. Please to enjoy.

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Duke Ellington – Up In Duke’s Workshop

More Duke Ellington

  • Stunning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) Ellington Big Band sound or very close to it, taken from 1969-1972 recordings, can be found on both of these outstanding sides
  • Pablo has here compiled some of Ellington’s best later music and mastered and pressed it wonderfully – you will not be disappointed with this one
  • “At first listen it is rougher, seems to be less evolved than his earlier easier-to-notice stylistic approach. If you give this a couple of plays, you will find it totally mesmerizing.”
  • “Duke Ellington was the most important composer in the history of jazz as well as being a bandleader who held his large group together continuously for almost 50 years.”

On every copy we played, the first track on side two is not quite up to the standard set by some of the other pieces. The top end is a little boosted and you can hear it most clearly on the cymbals. But by track two all is well sound-wise. (more…)

This My Fair Lady on the Early Label in the Stereo Cover Could Not Be Beat

More of the Music of Shelly Manne

  • Incredible Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on vinyl that’s about as quiet as these vintage stereo pressings ever play
  • The piano sounds lifelike right from the start, a beautiful instrument in a natural space, tonally correct from top to bottom
  • This copy of My Fair Lady makes it clear that this is an exceptional Demo Disc for Contemporary, and that’s saying a lot
  • Recorded entirely in one session, this album was the first jazz recording using only songs from a Broadway musical
  • 5 stars: “This trio set by Shelly Manne & His Friends… was a surprise best-seller and is now considered a classic…The result is a very appealing set that is easily recommended.”

This vintage Contemporary Stereo LP from 1956 has DEMO DISC QUALITY SOUND.

It’s all tube, live-to-two-track direct from the Contemporary studio. It’s pretty much everything you want in a recording from this era.

How can you beat a Roy DuNann piano trio recording? The timbre of the instruments is so spot-on it makes all the hard work and money you’ve put into your stereo more than pay off. This Shelly Manne album marries Jazz with Broadway in an unexpected, yet sublime union.

Which Contemporary Label Won the Shootout?

What color label — black, green, yellow, orange — won the shootout, you ask?

The person who buys this pressing will find out. There were no other Triple Plus sides on any other copy in the shootout, so those of you looking for White Hot Stamper sound will have to wait. This is going to be it for a while.

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Aerosmith – Get Your Wings

  • This outstanding copy of Aerosmith’s dynamic sophomore release boasts excellent Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER from top to bottom – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • This album launched the band’s collaboration with Jack Douglas, who helped develop their distinctive sound and propel them from obscurity to stardom
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Get Your Wings, is where Aerosmith became Aerosmith … it’s where they shed much of their influences and developed their own trademark sound, it’s where they turned into songwriters…they’re doing their bloozy bluster better and bolder, which is what turns this sophomore effort into their first classic”

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