Month: February 2022

Brian Eno – Another Green World

More Brian Eno

More Art Rock Records

  • An outstanding Polydor UK import pressing with Double Plus (A++) sound or very close to it throughout
  • We shot out a number of other imports and this one had the presence, bass, and dynamics that were missing from many other copies we played
  • 5 stars: “A universally acknowledged masterpiece, Another Green World represents a departure from song structure and toward a more ethereal, minimalistic approach to sound… Eno’s gift for melodicism and tight focus here keep the entirety of the album in the forefront of the listener’s consciousness, making it the perfect introduction to his achievements even for those who find ambient music difficult to enjoy”
  • Note that the reviewers are mistaken. Eno’s One True Masterpiece is Taking Tiger Mountain
  • If you’re an Eno fan, or perhaps a fan of mid-’70s Art Rock, this title, a personal favorite of mine from 1975, is surely a Must Own.
  • The complete list of titles from 1975 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here

(more…)

Creedence Clearwater Revival – Cosmo’s Factory

More Creedence Clearwater Revival

  • The sound is present and punchy, with plenty of bass, grungy guitars that jump out of the speakers, and the kind of swamp rock energy that no audiophile record on the planet can claim
  • So many great songs: Run Through the Jungle, Lookin’ Out My Back Door, Who’ll Stop the Rain, etc.
  • A 5 star album and arguably the best record the band ever made: “…an album made during stress and chaos, filled with raging rockers, covers, and intense jams.
  • If you’re a CCR fan, this masterwork from 1970 belongs in your collection.
  • The complete list of titles from 1970 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

In 2015 we achieved a major breakthrough for some of CCR’s albums, especially this one. With improved cleaning technologies and continued playback improvements, we’re finding that the right copies of Cosmo’s are sounding better with every shootout.

Note that the Hoffman reissues and the MoFi pressing sound nothing like the Creedence records we all grew up with, and records that sound that small, lifeless, boring or just plain wrong can’t really be what audiophiles want, can they?

Judging by the robust sales of those ridiculously lame LPs, I’m sorry to say they can.

(more…)

The Ultimate Recording of The Four Seasons

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin Available Now

Folks, we have some good news for those of you who have been waiting for one of the best sounding, most beautifully performed Four Seasons ever recorded. THIS IS IT! White Hot on both sides, I can’t say the sound is better than the White Hot Shaded Dog pressing we heard in our recent shootout. It’s certainly different, and one could easily make the case for either. Of course one’s taste enters into the calculation, so choosing a clear winner is simply not possible with markedly superior pressings such as these.

Let’s just say that this small ensemble recording is as close to perfect as any we have ever heard. The harpsichord is especially good on the Vanguard recording, better than the RCA I would venture. Its placement in the soundfield is subtly natural, precisely the way one would expect to hear it in performance.

All four movements are performed with great spirit, and other than a sour note right at the start — listen for it! — the playing is of the highest quality. I prefer the performance — slightly — to the famous RCA. 

It should be noted that this is only the second time we have heard a good pressing of this Vanguard title. Normally the vinyl is abysmal — not just noisy, but grainy and lacking in top end. (You can listen for the sound of the vinyl itself on the lead-in grooves before the music starts.) This pressing is an absolute FLUKE. It gets all the sound of the tape onto the vinyl in a way that we have never heard before and would not have thought possible. But, as we never tire of saying, hearing is believing! (more…)

Bach – Partitas And Sonatas For Unaccompanied Violin / Milstein

More of the music of J.S. Bach (1685-1750)

More Recordings Featuring the Violin

  • With some Triple Plus (A+++) sides, as well as some Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sides, all six of these sides are the winners of our Shootout since there was no other performance of the complete works that could compete with the sonics of these Capitol pressings from 1962
  • Milstein’s 1957 recording on three discs in a lovely box simply could not be beat – fairly quiet vinyl too considering the age of the vinyl
  • The original pressing in this kind of condition — uncleaned, of unknown sound quality — easily sells for $1500, making the pricing here “attractive” for fans of Bach’s violin showpieces
  • The box is in excellent shape by the way

This vintage Capitol mono 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 performance, and feeling as if you are listening live in Geneva’s Victoria Hall, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound. (more…)

Letter of the Week – “If I were to just buy one album by the Band this would be it for sure!”

Hot Stamper Pressings of The Band Available Now

One of our good customers recently took our advice to turn up the volume on this classic by The Band.

Hi Tom,

Wow. another winner!  But first I have to completely agree with you that this album has to be turned up!  When I started listening at a lower volume the soundstage was congested and small and the highs were hidden.

Crank it up and all of a sudden the entire room fills up with the Band.

I would not have imagined what a difference it would make by just turning up the volume.  The air around the vocals, as you pointed out, makes this album sing (pun intended).

A good test for me is when I don’t notice the speakers in my room but just hear the band on stage with no fake boundaries, and this is another one of those good examples.  The uber-talented horn players on this album also add tremendously to the entire vibe of the album.

I seem to recall buying this record on CD decades ago and being so disappointed that there was no bass and no dynamics to the music.

Fast forward 3 decades plus and I feel I finally hearing this album for the first time and understanding why all of the reviews were so positive back in the day (but I bet most reviewers did not hear it the way it should sound!).

So glad you told me to take a chance with this one.  If I were to just buy one album by the Band this would be it for sure!

Rob

Dear Rob,

The differences you heard are the same ones we heard, and it’s the main reason we never tire of imploring audiophiles everywhere — not just our customers, but everybody — to acquire the biggest dynamic speakers they can find (or horns; although I am not a fan, they will probably do the job) and turn them up good and loud.

How on earth is a speaker system like this one going to reproduce a live rock concert with a horn section blasting behind them?

(more…)

My Stereo from the 70s and the Audio Cult I Was In

Basic Audio Advice – These Are the Fundamentals of Good Sound

A somewhat strange coincidence occurred not long ago. I found an old commentary describing the speakers I used to own, part of a discussion explaining why I have never wanted to settle for small speakers.

At the same time, I saw that a fellow on Audiogon was selling the electrostatic tweeter array for the very same speaker I owned, the RTR 280DR.

Let me tell you, it really took me back; I haven’t seen a pair in over twenty years. The RTR 280DR you see pictured below plays full range, but there is an optional electrostatic tweeter array that is designed to sit on top of it, which provides a radical improvement in the mids and highs. 

The sound of the 280DR with the electrostatic array was dramatically better than any speaker I had ever heard up to that time.

Here is the story from the old listing talking about the RTRs, sparked by a discussion of Demo Discs.

Fooled Again

I was duped into buying my first real audiophile speaker, Infinity Monitors, when the clever salesman played Sheffield’s S9 through them. I desperately wanted sound that incredibly real in my playback system, and so I agreed to buy them then and there.

It was only later when I got home with them that none of my other records sounded as good, or even good for that matter. That was my first exposure to a Direct to Disc recording. To this day I can still picture the room the Infinity’s were playing in; it really was a watershed moment in my audiophile life.

And of course I couldn’t wait to get rid of them once I’d heard them in my own system with my own records. I quickly traded them in for a pair of RTR 280DR’s. Now that was a great speaker! A 15 panel RTR Electrostatic array for the highs; lots of woofers and mids and even a piezo tweeter for the rest. More than 5 feet tall and well over 100 pounds each, that speaker ROCKED.

(more…)

Gordon Jenkins Is One of Our Favorite Arrangers

Recordings with Arrangements by Gordon Jenkins

More of Our Favorite Arrangers

Gordon Jenkins is one of the All Time Great Arrangers.

He’s the man behind the scenes for Nilsson’s Must Own classic, A Little Touch Of Schmillson in The Night, a Desert Island Disc for yours truly.

His work for Nat King Cole is beyond fault.

Jenkins worked with Nat King Cole on four albums for Capitol: Love Is the Thing (1957), The Very Thought of You (1958), Every Time I Feel the Spirit (1959) and Where Did Everyone Go? (1963). 

He did three albums with Sinatra for Capitol: A Jolly Christmas From Frank Sinatra (1957), Where Are You? (1957) and No One Cares (1959) and five more after Sinatra moved to Reprise: All Alone (1962), September of My Years (1965), Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back (1973), “Future” suite – Trilogy: Past Present Future (1980) and She Shot Me Down (1981).

Loggins and Messina – So Fine

More Loggins and Messina

More Country and Country Rock

  • This shootout winning White Hot Stamper side two will show you just how good this album can sound
  • Side two has space and energy like no other, with plenty of weight down low (an L&M trademark)
  • Side one is richly Tubey Magical, with the kind of breathy vocals that are critical to the better copies
  • The last of the good Loggins and Messina albums and well worth a listen

The reading here of A Lover’s Question is one of my favorite tracks on any L&M album. The music on side two might be somewhat better than side one, so start your listening on that side to get the most from this collection of favorite early rock and roll tracks.

Side Two

This copy is so big, clean, clear and rich it makes the mix work like magic. Here everything is laid out perfectly. No other copy could do what this copy was doing, which is basically showing you just how good the master tape must be.

Side One

Rich vocals, an extended top end, with good clarity and presence, this side was getting the heart of the music right.

(more…)

An Import in 2004 Killed the Speakers Corner Reissue of Ella and Basie

More of the Music of Count Basie

More of the Music of Ella Fitzgerald

And back in 2004 that actually surprised us!

This review was written in 2004. We had never heard a clean, domestic original copy up to that time, mostly because they were always in such poor condition. Eventually we did, figured out how to clean it, and never looked back.

You might consider this a Wake Up Call. By 2007 we were awake enough to stop buying Heavy Vinyl to sell. The better our system became, the less competitive those modern remasters sounded. It was yet another Milestone Event in the history of Better Records. Please to enjoy our commentary.

This early British import (similar to the one you see above) KILLS the Speakers Corner 180 gram reissue.

I still like their version, but this is what it should have sounded like: tonally much fuller and richer.

The 180 gram copy suffers from the standard reissue MO — brighter is not necessarily better, and definitely not when you have a big band and a vocalist, as is the case here.

I’ve never heard this album sound better and I doubt that it really can sound much better than this. This copy makes me want to turn it up as loud as the stereo will go and let those wonderful Quincy Jones arrangements come to life.

UPDATE 2025

To doubt that the record can sound much better than the import we played? That was a silly thing to say. Of course it can. That’s what shootouts are for. Here is what we had to say about our last White Hot Stamper pressing of the album.

(more…)

America – Hideaway

More America

  • Both of these sides are clean, clear and full-bodied with breathy, less gritty vocals and more transparency than every other copy we played
  • “Hideaway is the sixth original studio album by American folk rock trio America, released in 1976. The album was produced by legendary Beatles producer George Martin. The album was a hit in the US, peaking at number 11 on the Billboard album chart and being certified GOLD by the RIAA.” – Wikipedia

(more…)