Month: August 2021

Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell / Easy – Reviewed in 2009

More Marvin Gaye

This Minty looking Tamla LP has AMAZING SOUND on both sides. Some songs sound better than others here but the ones that do sound good, WOW, they are out of this world!

Drop the needle on California Soul on side one to hear some tubey magical and sweet sound.

The best sounding track on side two is How You Gonna Keep It.

Some of the tracks have that slightly pinched Motown vocal EQ but that’s a small price to pay for this kind of sound.

We rate both sides A++ (on the best sounding songs). 

AMG Review

Along with the hit, the best songs here are “This Poor Heart of Mine,” an uptempo number and good workout for the duo, and “Love Woke Me Up This Morning,” an endearing exercise in romanticism.

Edmundo Ros / Latin Hits I Missed

More Exotica

More Imported Pressings on Decca and London

Another Record We’ve Discovered with (Potentially) Excellent Sound…

and a Record We Will Probably Never Shootout Again

It’s unfortunate that Edmundo Ros and his orchestra command so little respect these days from the general record buying public. As for audiophiles, it’s doubtful that many even know who he or they is/are. We at Better Records are doing our best to change all that, continuing with this, the second Ros title we’ve managed to find with amazing sound and music since the first one went up in 2013.

It’s one of the liveliest, best sounding Phase 4 titles we have heard in quite a while. Stampers simply do not get much hotter than these.  

From the perspective of a level playing field, I cannot think of too many rock records that sound as BIG and DYNAMIC as this very pressing, nor many that are as spacious and clear. As good as the best German pressings of Dark Side of the Moon may be, the White Hot eight hundred dollar killer copies we have from time to time, this recording is every bit as exciting and in most ways more lifelike, with uncannily accurate instrumental timbres. (more…)

The Original Beatles Albums Are the Best Sounding, Right?

beatles help labelMore of the Music of The Beatles

Nope. We think it’s just another case of mistaken audiophile thinking.

Back in 2005 we compared the MFSL pressing of Help to a British Parlophone LP and were — mistakenly, as you may have already surmised — impressed by the MoFi. We wrote:

Mobile Fidelity did a GREAT JOB with Help!. Help! is a famously dull sounding record. I don’t know of a single original pressing that has the top end mastered properly. Mobile Fidelity restored the highs that are missing from most copies.

The source of the error in our commentary above is in this sentence, see if you can spot it:

I don’t know of a single original pressing that has the top end mastered properly.

Did you figure it out? If you’ve spent much time on our site of course you did.

Original pressing?

Is that the standard?

Why? Who said so? Where is it written?

Cut It Right

The domestic original Capitol pressings are awful and the original British import pressings of Help NEVER have any real top end. The Yellow and Black Parlophone pressings have many wonderful qualities, Tubey Magic for days being one of the most pleasurable, but frequency extension up top is not among them. Neither is tight, articulate bass. The old tube cutting systems just didn’t seem to have what it takes to cut the highs and lows well.

The middle may be glorious, but the rest of the frequency spectrum is a mess.

Stop the Presses

In 2021 we found an exception to that rule.

In 2022 we found a copy on the original label that was as good as our best 70s reissue pressing on one side.

And in 2023 we found a copy on the original label that was as good as our best 70s reissue on both sides.

To date, this is the only title of an original studio album that can have the highest quality sound on the early label.

We are not ruling out the possibility of other titles being this good, but no other early pressing we have played outside of For Sale has caused us to abandon our belief that such a pressing, so different from the others, would be findable as a practical matter.

We could spend a lot of time and money trying to dig up such a superior pressing, but why go to all that trouble when the right reissues sound so good and have beaten everything we have been able to throw at them for decades?

And, just to be thorough, there is one record we’ve always preferred on the Yellow and Black label, this one.

I’ve Been Told…

Now if you’re an Audiophile Record Collector — and by that I mean an Audiophile who is also a Record Collector, not a person who collects Audiophile Records — you may have been told that the original British pressings of The Beatles albums are the best way to hear their wonderful music. They are not. Any Hot Stamper pressing of The Beatles will eat those originals for lunch. The originals are simply not a very good representation of what is really on the master tape, and a good reissue — the kind we sell all day long — should easily convince you of that fact once the needle gets going in the groove. This should not take long.

Bigger Issues

If you own some of these early Parlophone pressings and they sound “right” to you, however you choose to define that term, then you have problems that extend well beyond The Beatles.

There is simply no way a modern, high-quality audiophile system can play those early imports without exposing their flaws.

If you have what we like to call an old school audio system, the kind that you could buy twenty or thirty years ago (or today if you go into the record audio salon), then your early Parlophones might sound just fine to you. But you sure don’t know what you’re missing. 

Audio has come a long way. If you love The Beatles’ music you owe it to yourself to upgrade, tweak or modify your system and listening room sufficient to take it to a higher level, a level that will let you hear more of what the boys actually recorded. Not what an “old stereo” will let you hear, but what’s really on those amazing almost fifty year old tapes. That’s the sound that we hear every day on the vinyl we play. There’s no reason that you can’t too. (Our revolutions in audio commentary can help get you going in the right direction.)

Want to find your own top quality copy?

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Eagles – A Top Ten Title

More of the Music of The Eagles

More Top Ten Titles

You will be floored by the huge, rich, Tubey Magical guitars exploding out from your speakers on Take It Easy.

One of the best sounding rock records ever made, a member of our Top Ten and without a doubt Glyn Johns’ engineering (and producing) masterpiece.

A Top 100 Tubey Magical Demo Disc that is guaranteed to blow your mind on a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.

A Top Ten Title

You may have seen our Top 100 list of the best sounding rock records elsewhere on the site. We picked out a Top Ten from that list and you will not be surprised to learn that this record made the cut. (Top Two or Three is more like it.)

At one time this was my single favorite Demo Disc. A customer who bought one of these one time told me it was the best sounding record he had ever heard in his life. I don’t doubt it for a minute. It’s certainly as good as any rock record I have ever heard, and I’ve heard some awful good ones.

There’s an interesting story behind this album, which I won’t belabor too much here. Suffice it to say, one listen to some of the later reissues or — god forbid — a Heavy Vinyl pressing or Greatest Hits album and you’ll know I speak the truth when I say that the tape used to cut this pressing was not the same one that was used to cut those.

It no longer exists. It was lost a long time ago. Most copies of this album are mediocre at best, and positively painful to listen to once you’ve heard the real thing, an early pressing cut from the actual master tape.

Our Checklist

The Eagles’ first album is an album we think we know well. It checks off a number of important boxes for us here at Better Records:

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Alice Cooper – Killer

More Alice Cooper

  • Cooper’s fourth studio album finally arrives on the site with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on side one mated to an outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound on side one
  • Bigger and bolder, with more bass, more energy, and more of the “you-are-there-immediacy” of ANALOG that sets the best vintage pressings apart from reissues, CDs, and whatever else you care to name
  • 4 1/2 stars: “With Killer, they became one of the world’s top rock bands and concert attractions; it rewarded them as being among the most notorious and misunderstood entertainers, thoroughly despised by grownups.”

(more…)

Genesis – The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway

Hot Stamper Pressings of Genesis Available Now

Reviews and Commentaries for Genesis

  • This KILLER pressing boasts Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on ALL FOUR SIDES
  • An album that’s nearly impossible to find with good sound – this UK copy is guaranteed to kill any pressing you’ve ever heard or ever will hear
  • Considered by many the high point of Peter Gabriel’s tenure with the band
  • 5 stars: “In every way, it’s a considerable, lasting achievement and it’s little wonder that Peter Gabriel had to leave the band after this record: they had gone as far as they could go together, and could never top this extraordinary album.”

Stunning sound on all four sides! This album — and Genesis in general — can be difficult to find good sound for. Most copies struggle — or make you struggle — to get the sense of the material and what the band is trying to accomplish, but when you find a killer pressing such as this one, the complexity and theatricality of the music really WORKS.

Bigger and more present, richer and fuller, with more space and transparency, this copy is doing everything we want the album to do.

Certain tracks — particular the more rocking, guitar-heavy material — are often going to get a little hard in the midrange, but on a good copy the issue is much less apparent and doesn’t get in the way of the music. And the more open, spacious keyboard-based and acoustically driven songs which comprise the bulk of the album can sound really wonderful.

Latest Finding

We came across an original British pressing, Porky/Pecko and everything, that was a major letdown sonically. Yes, folks, some pressing that are supposed to be good just aren’t. You got to play them to which is which, and that’s where we come in.

We never assume anything about a record. We play it and find out for a fact how good it sounds. Any other approach will be too error prone to be of any real use, assuming you set high standards for the sound of your records. (more…)

Letter of the Week – “Crystal clear, musical as hell, huge sound, dynamic… What a record!”

More of the Music of Count Basie

Labels We Love – Pablo

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:

Hey Tom,   

Good Lord, this Basie! Holy smokes!! Crystal clear, musical as hell, huge sound, dynamic …. wowow.

What a record!

I agree completely, it’s a knockout.

This is the only one I like as well, maybe a bit better

Farmers Market Barbecue

Dennis Sands’ engineering is a bit more natural to my taste, bigger space, all the players sound like they are in the same room more.

Both are great though. (more…)

Extreme Record Collecting: Confessions of an Analog Vinyl Snob

Writing for Dangerous Minds, Richard Metzger recounts his journey though the world of audiophile equipment and his lifelong search for better sounding pressings of his favorite albums.

The first paragraph had me hooked:

Sorry, but this is not going to be one of those analog vs. digital rants that goofball audiophile types like to indulge in at the drop of a hat. In fact I probably should have just called it something like “Why you should never buy new vinyl versions of classic albums.”

Seems pretty clear he knows what he is talking about. Later on he adds this bit:

Nothing trumps empirically comparing a stack of different pressings of the same album in a shootout. This is why you should take what Tom Port of Better Records has to say very seriously. Whether or not you’re willing to pay his Hot Stamper prices, Port probably knows more about records than anyone on Earth and his On The Record blog is one of the very best repositories of hard won empirical evidence relating to audiophile vinyl that’s out there. It might take weeks to read everything, but it’s quite an education.

I couldn’t agree more. The whole story can be found here. I suspect that if you have spent any length of time on this blog, you will get a lot out of it.

I hope to add a few comments of my own down the road, especially in the form of rebuttals to uncharacteristically bad advice such as this:

Michael Fremer’s Analog Planet website is a great resource for finding out about new and upcoming quality vinyl releases. He is one of the most knowledgeable people in the world when it comes to vinyl and he’s also produced a handy YouTube guide to AAA mastered new vinyl releases that you should definitely watch.

I guess it makes sense to play nice with the heavy hitters in the audiophile world. Seriously though, Fremer is the last person that anyone should take advice from. He may be one step ahead of the audiophiles who follow him, but that doesn’t mean he can tell a good record from a bad one. I have been reading him off and on (mostly off) for twenty five years and I see no evidence that he has learned much about records in all those years, or improved his critical listening skills in the slightest.

That fact that this list of crap vinyl is still to be found on his site, with neither corrections nor apologies, should tell you that he never had a clue and is not likely to come into possession of one any time soon

I have a section devoted to Reviewer Malpractice which contains a goodly portion of quotes from this so-called expert. Any attempt to correct the positive things Fremer has written for the kind of third-rate records he tends to review would quickly turn into a full time job. I might even have to hire an assistant.

If Fremer recommends a Heavy Vinyl reissue that we have a corresponding Hot Stamper pressing of, there is not a chance in the world that our record won’t beat the pants off his for sound quality. He has opinions, most of which are way off the mark. We have better sounding records, so good they are guaranteed to beat any other copy you have ever heard or you get your money back.

We have to be right, or we wouldn’t still be in business, owing in large part to the fact that we sell records for ten times as much money as the ones he recommends. He has never had to pay a price for getting the sound of record after record wrong.

The only people that suffer for his mistakes are the credulous audiophiles who bought the mediocre-at-best Heavy Vinyl pressings he’s been promoting for years and are now stuck with. They have a collection of junk vinyl he recommended to them and few of them will ever know something better exists because they think they already have the best.

As Richard goes out of his way again and again to make clear in his piece, empirically comparing pressings is the only way to learn anything of real value when it comes to the sound of record pressings. If you own any Heavy Vinyl LP, it would be my honor to send you the vintage pressing that will help you to hear everything that’s wrong with the sound of it.

It’s what we do. That’s why the business is called Better Records. And we’re still here because we actually do sell the best sounding records in the world. You don’t need to believe a single word of what we say about records, ours or anybody else’s. You just need to put one of our Hot Stampers on your turntable and play it.

Hundreds of audiophiles have done just that and they seem to be pretty darn pleased with the records we’ve sent them.

Want to know more about Hot Stampers? Check out our new introductory page.

Yes / Close To The Edge – A MoFi Winner, Or Was It? I Don’t Think We’ll Ever Really Know

Hot Stamper Pressings of Close to the Edge Available Now

Reviews and Commentaries for Close to the Edge

Sonic Grade: Side One: B to B+ / Side Two: C

Many, many years ago (2005?) we wrote the commentary you see below. We can’t say if we would still agree with the sentiments expressed, so take what you read with a grain of salt, and remember that no two records sound the same. If your copy is better or worse on either side it will not come as a surprise to us here at Better Records!

This is a great MOFI! (On side one anyway.) I have to admit I was partly wrong about this pressing. I used to think it was mud. Either the copy I have here is much better than the copy I played years ago, or my stereo has changed. I’m going to guess that it’s the stereo that has changed. I used to like the original American copies of this album and now I hear that they are upper midrangy and aggressive. [1] So my stereo must have been too forgiving in that area, which in turn would have made this MOFI sound too dull. [2]

Side one is as good as I’ve ever heard it outside of the best British originals. [We don’t even buy those anymore. Maybe that’s the problem with this comparison.] Since almost none of those have survived in clean enough condition to be played on modern audiophile turntables, there isn’t much of an alternative to this pressing.

And it should be noted that there is distortion on the tape. It’s on every LP copy and it’s on the CD too. There are cacophonous passages that have what sounds like board overload, mike preamp overload, tape saturation or something of the kind.

Eddie Offord, the recording engineer, is famous for complaining that the boys in the band were totally out of control when it came to adding layer upon layer and track upon track to their recordings, running the risk of creating such a dense mix that nothing would be heard above the din. He was always fighting a losing battle trying to rein them in. Although he did his best, it appears his efforts failed in some of the musical passages on this album.

So here’s a MOFI I like, but I only really like side one. Side two, although it’s decent enough, errs a little on the smooth, dull side. I have copies in which the guitars have wonderfully extended harmonics and sweeter tone. Some of them are even domestic pressings! On the MOFI there is a “blunting” of the acoustic guitar transients.

[1] Some pressings are indeed bright and aggressive, but that just shows how little I knew about the album in 2005. The later domestic pressings, and even some of the 4 digit catalog pressings, can indeed sound that way. Eventually I would figure out what the good stampers were and then I would no longer be as ignorant as I so clearly was when I wrote this. As for more stuff we’ve gotten wrong, you can find some of it here, under the heading: Live and Learn.

[2] My stereo was indeed too dark and forgiving back in those days. The way I know that is that records that are too bright and upper-midrangy to play now played just fine twenty years ago.

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Gershwin / Rhapsody In Blue – We Changed Our Minds Again

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of George Gershwin

More Spectacular Orchestral Recordings

I’ve always loved these performances, but the crude, smeary and painfully-shrill-at-louder-levels Columbia sound quality had always been a powerful barrier to my enjoyment of them.

So many copies suffer from upper-midrangy, glary, hard sound and blary brass. I had come to accept that this is nothing more nor less than “The Sound of Columbia Classical.” As a consequence we rarely put much effort into cleaning and testing their vintage pressings; the good ones were just too hard to find.

I won’t say all that’s changed; it really hasn’t. The vast majority of Columbia classical pressings are still going to sound more or less as awful as they have in the past.

However, there are properly mastered pressings of this album that display little of the “Columbia sound” we describe above. They would obviously be the ones that would do well in our shootouts, as long as they are not too thin, bright and modern sounding.

There was a time when we thought the Red Label Seventies pressings were the best way to hear these performances. This time around that was not the case, as none of them had the heft and Tubey Magical strings and brass of our best early pressings.

Nothing could touch this amazing sounding Six Eye pressing.

Nothing could touch the Six Eye pressing of the Bernstein recording we played either, for what that’s worth.

(more…)