Sinatra’s Swing Along with Me is one of our favorite records from 1961.
To see our currently available Hot Stamper pressings of records from 1961, click here.
To read reviews of the top titles from 1961 that we’ve auditioned, click here. These are records that any audiophile could take great pride in owning (assuming, of course, that he has a good pressing of the album). There are more than 100 of them. (more…)
Vintage original covers for this album are hard to find in clean shape. Most of them will have at least some amount of ringwear, seam wear and edge wear. We guarantee that the cover we supply with this Hot Stamper is at least VG, and it will probably be VG+. If you are picky about your covers please let us know in advance so that we can be sure we have a nice cover for you. (more…)
More of the Music of Earth, Wind and Fire
More Recordings by George Massenburg
Another in our series of Home Audio Exercises. As is usually the case when plowing through a big pile of copies, we learned pretty quickly that what makes the sound work is having these two qualities in balance:
1) Richness / Smoothness
2) Transparency
When the vocals are thin and pinched, as they often are, the resulting edginess and harshness in the midrange take all the fun out of the music. Every track has group vocals and choruses, and the best copies make all the singers sound like they are standing in a big room, shoulder to shoulder, belting it out live and in living color.
The good copies capture that energy and bring it into the mix with the full-bodied sound it no doubt had live in the studio. When the EQ or the vinyl goes awry and their voices (and brass) start to take on a lean or gritty quality, the party’s over.
But richness and fullness are not enough. They must be balanced with TRANSPARENCY.
A fellow audiophile, who also happens to be a friend and good customer, has a blog which he calls
A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE
He recently made an attempt to hear for himself a speaker that others had spoken of highly. He was able to take part in two demos at the homes and offices of “passionate” audiophiles selling the speaker in question — stereo showrooms being a thing of the past — as well as lots of other high-end equipment.
Let’s just say that all did not go as well as Robert had hoped.
On the bright side, he now has a newfound appreciation for the listening skills, or lack thereof, of some of the folks in our hobby.
This youtube demonstration of the speakers is worth watching, or at least skimming through, which is about all I could manage. I’ve added some of my own comments at the end of Robert’s review which you may find interesting.
One quick note: the monstrous Legacy Whisper speaker system I used to own had a similar design, with four 15″ woofers per side in an open baffle array. It did some things I have never heard any other speaker do, and the free-air design no doubt was a big part of its remarkable ability to move air with great speed and authority above a hundred cycles or thereabouts.
Below that, not so much, which turns out to be a problem that is very difficult to solve.
It was fun while it lasted, but it had too many shortcomings, shortcomings its little brother, the Legacy Focus, I discovered to my endless joy, did not have. The Focus sounds right to us in every way, which is why it is our reference speaker and will likely remain so far into the future.
I freely admit that there are surely better speakers in the world. I just have not heard them.
This is a SUPERB set from Oscar Peterson’s sometimes underwhelming Pablo period. This one is from 1986 and includes the estimable Joe Pass on guitar.
Side one has the kind of sound one associates with late-’70s jazz, jazz that often seems to be recorded in dead studios.
Side two sounds much better somehow — more clear, present and lively.
The liner notes tell us it’s the same studio, even the same day, but there is simply no mistaking the better sound quality. Such are the vagaries of the vinyl record.
If you’re in the market for a top quality Oscar Peterson piano trio recording (with bonus guitar), this side two should be just the ticket.
This is an Older Jazz Review.
Most of the older reviews you see are for records that did not go through the shootout process, the revolutionary approach to finding better sounding pressings we developed in the early 2000s and have since turned into a fine art.
We found the records you see in these older listings by cleaning and playing a pressing or two of the album, which we then described and priced based on how good the sound and surfaces were. (For out Hot Stamper listings, the Sonic Grades and Vinyl Playgrades are listed separately.)
We were often wrong back in those days, something we have no reason to hide. Audio equipment and record cleaning technologies have come a long way since those darker days, a subject we discuss here.
Currently, 99% (or more!) of the records we sell are cleaned, then auditioned under rigorously controlled conditions, up against a number of other pressings. We award them sonic grades, and then condition check them for surface noise.
As you may imagine, this approach requires a great deal of time, effort and skill, which is why we currently have a highly trained staff of about ten. No individual or business without the aid of such a committed group could possibly dig as deep into the sound of records as we have, and it is unlikely that anyone besides us could ever come along to do the kind of work we do.
The term “Hot Stampers” gets thrown around a lot these days, but to us it means only one thing: a record that has been through the shootout process and found to be of exceptionally high quality.
Not just a good sounding record. A record that was played in a shootout and did well.
The result of our labor is the scores of jazz titles seen here, every one of which is unique and guaranteed to be the best sounding copy of the album you have ever heard or you get your money back.
This Shootout Winner was clearly better than every other copy we played. It’s big, full-bodied and rich; in other words, it has that classic 1970 analog rock sound that we love. Bruce Botnick and his brother are two of the many engineers on the project, along with John Haeny, the man who recorded his share of legendary albums, some of our favorites by Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Judy Collins, Linda Ronstadt and others. (more…)
