Month: March 2022
Barney Kessel / Let’s Cook – What a Guitar Sound!
- Tubey Magic, richness, sweetness, dead-on timbres from top to bottom — this is a textbook example of Contemporary Stereo sound at its best
- For some reason, the guitar sound from this era of All Tube Chain Recording is seems to have died out with the times – it can only be found on the best of these vintage pressings, and the better the guitar sounds, the more likely it is that the record will win our shootout
- For those of you who appreciate what Roy DuNann were able to achieve in the ’50s at Contemporary Records, this LP is a Must-Own
- “[A]n excellent session from guitarist Barney Kessel…matched with vibraphonist Victor Feldman, pianist Hampton Hawes, bassist Leroy Vinnegar, and drummer Shelly Manne.”
We were simply blown away by this pressing. The transparency and clarity are SUPERB, and the amount of Tubey magic is unbelievable! Folks, if you like guitar jazz, do not miss out on this album. I guarantee you will be absolutely knocked out by the sound of this pressing, not to mention the fantastic music!
Barney Kessel comes out SWINGIN’ on this album — he is up for this gig! The energy you hear in his playing is partly the Hot Stamper pressing, of course. When you get a record that has all of its dynamics and transients intact, the musicians just come alive in a way that the typically compressed, dead-as-a-doornail Heavy Vinyl reissue cannot begin to communicate. We HATE that reissue sound; it’s the main reason we stopped carrying them.
Where is the life of the music you ask? It’s on the kind of Hot Stamper pressings you are reading about right now. The band is cookin’, and because the pressing is so transparent, so open and spacious, you can hear each and every player’s contribution clearly and effortlessly. The cool air of the studio surrounds every instrument. They’re in a nice-sized room and you can really hear the sound bouncing around, just as you would if you were sitting in with the band.
Identical Stampers and New Vinyl Somehow Produce Clearly Different Sounding Records?
More Milestone Events in the History of Better Records
In this listing from 2007 we recount our experience with some copies of Nirvana’s Nevermind album. It was an important milestone in the evolution of Better Records.
We learned our lesson – no more sealed records. Not if you’re the kind of audiophile record dealer who cares what his records sound like (which appears to put us in a class of exactly one.)
That same year we decided to stop carrying any new Heavy Vinyl release, prompted mostly by the mediocrity of the Rhino reissue of Blue.
So, all in all 2007 was a good year for us. We stopped playing their game and invented a new one all our own. Judging by the enthusiastic response of our customers we think we did the right thing.
Nevermind Circa 2007
The dirty little secret of the audiophile record biz is that the purveyors of these pressings cannot possibly know with any certainty the quality of the sound of any sealed record they are selling. (Whether they can tell what the sound quality is of any record they sell is an open question, and one we would have to answer in the negative based on the hundreds of audiophile pressings we’ve auditioned over the last 40 years.)
They turn a blind eye to the fact that some copies are simply not going to measure up to the sound of the review copy that they auditioned and described.
This is a good reason not to sell sealed records, which, of course, we don’t.
That’s because we’ve done the experiments and found out the things they cannot be bothered to learn.
But wait a minute. Even that’s giving audiophile record dealers far too much credit. Only a small fraction actually review the records they sell. Most cut and paste a review from the manufacturer and let it go at that. And the few that do write reviews are often so far off the mark that they might as well be talking about another pressing entirely.
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Ornette Coleman – Something Else!
More Ornette Coleman
Contemporary Jazz Records Available Now
- With its presence, clarity, space and timbral accuracy, this pressing is guaranteed to be one of the best sounding jazz records you’ve heard in a very long time
- It’s not as ‘out there’ as some of his better known albums, but those of you with a taste for adventurous jazz will still find much to love here
- 4 1/2 stars: “… the most important thing about Something Else! was that, in its angular, almost totally oppositional way, it swung and still does; like a finger-poppin’ daddy on a Saturday night, this record swings from the rafters of the human heart with the most unusually gifted, emotional, and lyrical line since Bill Evans first hit the scene.”
For us audiophiles the sound is shockingly good. If you’re looking to demonstrate just how good 1958 All Tube Analog sound can be, this killer copy will do the trick. (more…)
Jackie McLean Quintet/Bill Hardman – Jackie’s Pal
More Jackie McLean
- Dynamic, transparent, spacious and musical throughout – you won’t believe how good this Jazz Classic from 1956 sounds
- Another top jazz recording from Rudy Van Gelder – big, bold and lively, just the right sound for this music
- “… no one could execute complex melodic lines with the speed and precision of Bill. He was a human “bebop machine,” a player who could improvise for hours on a single chord and not run out of ideas…”
The Kinks – Kinks-Size
More of The Kinks
More Titles that Sound Best in Mono
- Kinks-Size returns to the site with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on side two and excellent Double Plus (A++) sound on side one
- This tri-color label MONO Reprise pressing is lively, balanced and vibrant, with a healthy does of the Tubey Magical Richness the Kinks’ recordings need in order to sound right
- Surface issues are more often than not the nature of the beast with these early pressings – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
- “From the raw, slurred ‘Louie Louie’ to the pounding rave-up of ‘Come on Now,’ this record rocks, showing off the better sides of the group’s R&B output and early, formative, Beatles-influenced experiments as well.”
Letter of the Week – “I have to admit, I now listen nearly exclusively to your records.”
Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Pink Floyd Available Now
One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased starting in 2021:
Hey Tom,
Last December on the 3rd I think it was I ordered my first Hot Stamper, a White Hot Pink Floyd The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.
From January this year on I bought quite a lot more, as it was with the first, any of these records was a pleasure to me.
I have to admit, I now listen nearly exclusively to your records.
In line with the collection of Hot Stampers I improved my stereo. Let me say, it became an obsession.
Many, many thanks for your help, which brought me really forward and helped me over some points of design with the will of throwing all out of the window.
Kind regards from Austria,
Hans
Paganini / Concerto No.1 – Testament Records
The Music of Paganini Available Now
More Reviews of the Music of Paganini
Sonic Grade: C
We used to sell the Testament pressing you see pictured to the left. Many years later, in our review for the budget Angel Seraphim pressing, we said:
This copy KILLS the out of print Testament 180 gram version from circa 2000 (which is not a bad record by any means). Can’t say how it compares to the original — we haven’t had one in years.
When I was selling the Testament Heavy Vinyl pressing all those years ago, I had never heard an original.
But doesn’t it strike you as sad that even the cheapest domestic reissue from the ’70s (I think that’s when it was released), put out on a budget label, absolutely mops the floor with the higher priced, much more prestigious, ostensibly superior, imported from the UK Testament LP?
I was an audiophile then and I’m an audiophile now, and I am glad to say I’ve learned a few things about records in the last twenty or so years.
One of the things I leaned was that most Heavy Vinyl pressings are a fraud perpetrated on a far-too-credulous segment of the record buying public, principally made up of record buyers who describe themselves as audiophiles.
I fell for the hype twenty years ago but, as I say, I’ve learned a few things since then and now I know just how easily fooled most audiophiles are when it comes to buying records, especially the ones marketed to them by the major audiophile record dealers (who, truth be told, make even worse sounding records than this Testament. I’m looking at you, Mobile Fidelity and Acoustic Sounds).
Our Most Recent Review of a Hot Stamper Seraphim Pressing
The AMAZING Michael Rabin is the principal violinist. His playing of these exceptionally difficult pieces is legendary. Recorded by Capitol in the late ’50s, his fiery performance is breathtaking, with the kind of energy, excitement and technical proficiency that is second to none in our experience.
There’s a very good chance that you have NEVER heard a better sounding violin concerto record than this one. It’s clearly superior to most of the pressings that audiophiles would hold dear; we’ve played them by the score. The fact that it’s on a budget label reissue label, to my mind, is the icing on the cake. (There’s a valuable lesson here to be learned if only more audiophiles will make the effort to learn it.)
There are two recordings of the Paganini Concerto No.1 we like currently; this one, and the Menuhin on EMI. We prefer Rabin’s sound and performance, but the EMI engineers managed to record their orchestra with slightly more natural fidelity. Both are of course superb. (We love the mono recording Ricci did for London in the mid-’50s but the sound and surface quality are not competitive with the two recordings above.)
Julie Is Her Name, Volume 2 – Notes from Our First Shootout
More of the Music of Julie London
On side one listen to how rich the bottom end is. The Tubey Magic on this side is off the charts.
Some copies — or, to be more precise, some sides of some copies — can be dry, but that is clearly not a problem on this one.
The naturalness of the presentation puts this album right at the top of best sounding female vocal albums of all time.
To take nothing away from her performance, which got better with every copy we played.
Clap Hands
If only Ella Fitzgerald on Clap Hands got this kind of sound!
As good as the best copies of that album are, this record — like the first volume, the 1955 mono recording — takes the concept of intimate female vocals to an entirely new level.
The notes I took during this shootout lay out just how impressed I was with the sound of this remarkable copy:
- Wide stereo.
- Big Bass.
- Swingin’.
- Just the right amount of reverb.
- Tonal perfection.
- The stereo kills the mono (on this album, on the copies we played anyway).
Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band – Like A Rock
More Bob Seger
- We guarantee there is dramatically more space, richness, vocal presence, and performance energy on this copy than others you’ve heard, and that’s especially true if you made the mistake of buying whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing is currently on the market
- Features an A-list of rock and rollers, including Don Henley, Timothy B. Schmit, and Pete Carr, just to name a few
- Per Seger, Like A Rock “expresses my feeling that the best years of your life are in your late teens when you have no special commitments and no career. It’s your last blast of fun before heading into the cruel world.”
- If you’re a Bob Seger fan, this title from 1986 is probably the last in a long run of albums you might want to play