More of the Music of The Beatles
More Stamper and Pressing Information, Gratis
Reviews and Commentaries for With the Beatles
In our experience, the stereo pressings with -2/-2 stampers are terrible sounding. We do not have any on hand, but we doubt that -1/-1 — the original, the first, the one approved by George Martin himself! — is any better.
With -2 stampers this is a Hall of Shame pressing, as well as another early LP reviewed and found wanting.
We’ve auditioned countless pressings like this one in the 33 years we’ve been in business — buying, cleaning and playing them by the thousands. This is how we find the best sounding vinyl pressings ever made.
Not the ones that should sound the best. The ones that actually do sound the best.
If you’re an audiophile looking for top quality sound on vintage vinyl, we’d be happy to send you a Hot Stamper pressing guaranteed to beat anything and everything you’ve heard, especially if you have any pressing marketed as suitable for an audiophile. Those, with very few exceptions, are the worst.
And if we can’t beat whatever LP you own or have heard, you get your money back. It’s as simple as that.
That Old Canard
The early pressings are consistently grittier, edgier and more crude than the later pressings we played. So much for that old canard “original is better”. When it comes to With The Beatles it just ain’t so, and it doesn’t take a state of the art system or a pair of golden ears to hear it.
The audiophile community seems not to have caught on to the faults of the early Beatles pressings, but we here at Better Records are doing our best to correct their all-too-common misperceptions, one Hot Stamper pressing at a time.
It may be a lot of work, but we don’t mind — we love The Beatles! We want to find the best sounding copies of ALL their records, and there is simply no other way to do it than to play them by the dozens.
What We’re Listening For on With The Beatles
Less grit – smoother and sweeter sound, something that is not easy to come by on With the Beatles.
A bigger presentation – more size, more space, more room for all the instruments and voices to occupy. The bigger the speakers you have to play this record the better.
More bass and tighter bass. This is fundamentally a Pop record. It needs at least some weight down below to rock the way Norman Smith, The Beatles long-suffering engineer, wanted it to.
Present, breathy vocals. A veiled midrange is the rule, not the exception.
Good top end extension to reproduce the harmonics of the instruments and details of the recording including the studio ambience.
Last but not least, balance. All the elements from top to bottom should be heard in harmony with each other. Take our word for it, assuming you haven’t played a pile of these yourself, balance is not that easy to find.
Our best copies will have it though, of that there is no doubt.
TRACK LISTING
Side One
It Won’t Be Long
All I’ve Got to Do
All My Loving
Don’t Bother Me
Little Child
Till There Was You
Please Mr. Postman
Side Two
Roll over Beethoven
Hold Me Tight
You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me
I Wanna Be Your Man
Devil in Her Heart
Not a Second Time
Money (That’s What I Want)