This vintage Shelter Recording pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound. (more…)
This record is pristine and amazing! A great choral record. DEMONSTRATION QUALITY SOUND. TAS List of course.
Here is a complete list of the Living Stereo titles we have available on the site at this time On our blog you can find reviews for hundreds more that we have auditioned over the years.
Superb live ROCK ’N ROLL sound. It’s so clean, clear and transparent with deep punchy bass. The guitars here sound excellent. And hey, let’s be honest, if the guitars don’t sound right on a Hendrix record. You’re in trouble!
Fortunately, that ain’t the case here. Everything sounds tonally right on the money. I can’t imagine this record sounding any better. It just sounds right. Just drop the needle on Freedom for a taste of that real Hendrix magic.
This Saxophone Ballad session from 1960 has to be seen as yet another recording triumph for Rudy Van Gelder
The best pressings of these OJC reissues from the ’80s sound like the vintage jazz albums they emulate, and sometimes they even beat the originals at their own Tubey Magical game. They can be every bit as rich, sweet and spacious as their earlier-pressed brethren in our experience.
In the case of Hawk Eyes we simply have never seen an original copy clean enough to buy, so we have no reference for what an original would sound like.
That said, having critically auditioned literally hundreds and hundreds of vintage jazz records over the course of the last few years, we’re pretty confidant we know what they are supposed to sound like.
And they sound just like the best copies of this very pressing. (more…)
We’ve been playing a lot of Aretha Franklin records lately, working our way through her catalog, but it’s hard to find pressings that separate themselves from the pack to give you audiophile-friendly sound. Too many seem to be optimized more for the radio than for your hi-rez audio rig.
Every now and then, however, we luck into a copy that has the real soul magic in its grooves. On this album, that means Chain Of Fools and Aretha’s great version of Natural Woman will sound just the way you want them to. (more…)
More of the Music of Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66
This copy is ALIVE! The drums and percussion are powerful and punchy with lots of room around them, and the bass is PERFECTION. There’s plenty of whomp and lots of extension on the top end.
This side two really conveys a sense of the amazing performances of these great musicians. It’s rich, full, smooth, sweet, open, spacious — everything you’d expect from an A+++ / A+++ record.
Funky Brazilian Music For Audiophiles
This is one of my favorite albums, one which certainly belongs in any Audiophile’s collection. Better sound is hard to find — when you have the right pressing. Unfortunately those are pretty hard to come by. Most LPs are grainy, shrill, thin, veiled and full of compressor distortion in the louder parts: this is not a recipe for audiophile listening pleasure.
But we LOVE this album here at Better Records, and have since Day One. One of the first records I ever played for my good audio buddy Robert Pincus (Cisco Records) to demonstrate the sound of my system was Sergio’s syncopated version of Day Tripper off this album. That was close to twenty years ago [now more than 30], and I can honestly say I have never tired of this music in the intervening decades.
We’re glad to see that our customers share our enthusiasm for the band; note that there is not a single good sounding used Mendes record on the site at present (September ’08). They all seem to have sold, and most of the Hot Ones flew out of here.
[We do regular shootouts for the band’s albums, but their debut is tough to find in clean shape and it’s been years since we’ve had enough to play for a shootout.]
