More of the Music of Michael Jackson
Reviews and Commentaries for Off the Wall
Sonic Grade: F
Pure MUD. No top end whatsoever!
I remember when we audiophiles looked down our noses at CBS Half-Speeds because they weren’t pressed in Japan and sold at a notable discount to the offerings of Mobile Fidelity and their competitors.
But we were so desperate back then for good sounding pressings that we bought them anyway!
Are audiophiles any less desperate today? They seem pretty desperate to me! They approach these new Heavy Vinyl records naively instead of skeptically, assuming they will be better sounding in exactly the same way I assumed the Half Speeds I was buying would be better sounding forty years ago.
The more things change…
If you are buying these modern pressings, take the advice of some of our customers and stop throwing your money away on Heavy Vinyl and Half-Speed Masters.
At the very least let us send you a Hot Stamper pressing — of any album you choose — that can show you what is wrong with your copy. And if for some reason you disagree that our record sounds better than yours, we will happily give you all your money back and wish you the best.
FURTHER READING
We play mediocre-to-bad sounding pressings so that you don’t have to, a public service from your record loving friends at Better Records.
You can find this one in our Hall of Shame, along with more than 350 others that — in our opinion — qualify as some of the worst sounding records ever made. (On some records in the Hall of Shame the sound is passable but the music is bad. These are also records you can safely avoid.)
Note that most of the entries are audiophile remasterings of one kind or another. The reason for this is simple: we’ve gone through the too-often unpleasant experience of comparing them head to head with our best Hot Stamper pressings.
When you can hear them that way, up against an exceptionally good record, their flaws become that much more obvious and, frankly, that much more inexcusable.
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Record Collecting for Audiophiles – A Guide to the Fundamentals