Month: October 2022

Stravinsky / The Firebird Suite on Speakers Corner

More of the Music of Igor Stravinsky

This is probably one of the better Speakers Corner Deccas.

We haven’t played a copy of this record in years, but back in the day we liked it, so let’s call it a “B” with the caveat that the older the review, the more likely we are to have changed our minds.

Not sure if we would still agree with what we wrote back in the ’90s when this record came out, but here it is anyway.

“Excellent sound with a wonderful performance from Ansermet.”

Currently our favorite Firebird is the original pressing on Mercury with Dorati conducting. Our opinion is very unlikely to change concerning the best combination of sound and performance. The record is simply a monster on the right pressing.

We have never heard an especially good sounding London or Decca of Ansermet’s performance, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. We tend to avoid judging records we have not played and we encourage the audiophile community to do the same.

As a general rule, this Heavy Vinyl pressing will fall short in most of the following areas:

Curiosity and the Pursuit of Perfect Sound

One of our good customers has started a blog which he calls

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

He invited a friend and colleague to talk about his own personal journey through the twin worlds of audio and records, and we expect you will find his story excellent reading.

This bit caught my eye:

On my new stereo, my modern pressings and reissues sound better than they did on my old stereo. But what’s improved more, FAR more, is the sound of my vintage vinyl. Not just my Hot Stampers, but many of my other vintage records as well. Here is a sampling of the titles where I’ve been able to make a direct comparison between an early (like, pre-CD-era) pressing and a recent (vinyl resurgence) pressing: Led Zeppelin 2, Willie Nelson’s Stardust, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, E. Fitzgerald’s Clap Hands Here Comes Charlie, Carmen, played by Ruggerio Ricci, Santana Abraxas, Carole King’s Tapestry, Blood, Sweat, and Tears, and Mingus Ah Um.

Good company to say the least!

Please to enjoy.

Sibelius / Finlandia / Mackerras

More of the music of Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)

More Classical ‘Sleeper” Recordings We’ve Discovered with Demo Disc Sound

[This review is from a good ten years ago or more. Our current favorite pressing of Finlandia with Mackerras is this one, on a budget Decca reissue. Go figure.]

A shocking Stereo Treasury sleeper with a superb Shaded-Dog-beating side one. Side one is nearly White Hot – it’s exceptionally transparent and dynamic. Real Demo Disc sound and music on side one – spectacular works played with feeling.

This is yet another wonderful example of what the much-lauded Decca recording engineers were able to capture on analog tape all those years ago. The 1960 master has been transferred brilliantly using “modern” cutting equipment (from 1970, not the low-rez junk they’re forced to make do with these days), giving you, the listener, sound that only the best of both worlds can offer.

Side One

More spacious than practically any other copy we heard thanks to an extended, correct top end.

This side was also very dynamic, and it gets loud in the right way, never harsh or screechy.

Correct from top to bottom, and there are not many records we can say that about. So natural in every way.

The brass is HUGE and POWERFUL on this side. Not many recordings capture the brass this well. (Ansermet on London comes to mind of course but many of his performances leave much to be desired. Here Mackerras is on top of his game with performances that are definitive.)

The brass is big and clear and weighty, just the way it should be, as that is precisely the sound you hear in the concert hall, especially that part about being clear: live music is more than anything else completely clear. We should all strive for that sound in our reproduction of orchestral music.

Side Two

Good clarity and top extension, with full-bodied, textured strings. Gets a little hot at its loudest but manages to stay under control and enjoyable throughout.

The opening track on side two, Wedding Day at Troldhaugen, is one of my favorite pieces of orchestral music. Mackerras and the London Proms make it magical.

The Search for Finlandia

On a well-known work such as this we started by pulling out every performance on every label we had in our backroom and playing them one after another. Most never made it to the half-minute mark. Sour or thin brass on the opening salvo of Finlandia? Forget it; onto the trade-in pile you go.

(If you have too many classical records taking up too much space and need to winnow them down to a manageable size, pick a composer and play half a dozen of his works. Most classical records display an irredeemable mediocrity right from the start; it doesn’t take a pair of golden ears to hear it. If you’re after the best sound, it’s the rare record that will have it, which makes clearing shelf space a lot easier than you might imagine. If you keep more than one out of ten you’re probably setting the bar too low if our experience is any guide.)

A few days went by while we were cleaning and listening to the hopefuls. We then proceeded to track down more of the pressings we had liked in our preliminary round of listening. At the end we had a good-sized pile of LPs that we thought shootout-worthy, pressings that included Shaded Dogs, Deccas, Londons, Stereo Treasury’s and Victrolas — representing most of our favorite labels from the Golden Age.

This Decca took the top prize. It beat every recording on every pressing we could get our hands on to throw at it. That’s our shootout in a nutshell.

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How Can I Find My Own Hot Stampers?

Finding Hot Stampers is all about doing shootouts for as many different pressings of the same title as you can get your hands on.

This link will walk you through the process we’ve perfected over the last twenty years. If you’re an audiophile who wants to collect better sounding pressings, and learn a lot about records and audio in the bargain, doing shootouts is by far the best way to achieve your goals. As far as we’re concerned, it is the only sure way, since it helps take the unconscious biases and the guesswork out of the process.

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McDonald and Giles – A Sleeper Prog Album from 1970

Hot Stamper Pressings of Prog Rock Albums Available Now

More Recordings Engineered by Brian Humphries

Brian Humphries engineered the album, and although you may not be familiar with that name, if you’re an audiophile you should get to know his work better, as this guy recorded some amazing sounding albums.

Take a gander at this group:

  • Black Sabbath – Paranoid
  • Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here
  • Traffic – John Barleycorn Must Die
  • Traffic – The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys 

Two are of course on our Top 100 Rock and Pop List, and all four — five if you count McDonald And Giles — qualify as State of the Art Rock Recordings from the era.

Demo Disc Quality Sound

If you’re looking to demonstrate just how good the best early Island Label recordings can sound, this killer copy should do the trick.

This UK pressing is super spacious, sweet and positively dripping with ambience. Talk about Tubey Magic, the liquidity of the sound here is positively uncanny. This is vintage analog at its best, so full-bodied and relaxed you’ll wonder how it ever came to be that anyone seriously contemplated trying to improve it.

This IS the sound of Tubey Magic. No recordings will ever be made like this again, and no CD will ever capture what is in the grooves of this record. There may well be a CD of this album, but those of us in possession of a working turntable and a good collection of vintage vinyl could care less.

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American Beauty – An Honest-to-Goodness Killer MoFi LP

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Grateful Dead Available Now

Sonic Grade: B+

This is a Mobile Fidelity LP with SURPRISINGLY GOOD SOUND. The transparency and presence in the midrange is outstanding for a MoFi. This copy does not have the usual midrange suckout that ruins so many of their records.

The bass actually sounds mostly in control on this copy — there’s much less of the typically bloated bass caused by Half-Speed mastering to be found here.

This is the best sounding Mobile Fidelity American Beauty we have ever heard. It’s not perfect by any means, but it’s hugely better than we expected.

Any original Green Label domestic pressing is sure to be better, but sure to be noisier too, so if you must have quiet vinyl, you can do a lot worse than this MoFi.

Which means it belongs on our list of the best sounding Mobile Fidelity records we’ve ever played.

Arnold / English, Scottish and Cornish Dances

Hot Stamper Pressings of TAS List Super Disc Albums

Reviews and Commentaries for TAS Super Disc Recordings

  • The rare and highly regarded TAS List Heavyweight, Lyrita mastered as per HP’s preference
  • Full, spacious, with a HUGE hall and amazing clarity
  • Super Hot on both sides, you had better watch your levels – this copy is extremely dynamic
  • This pressing is clearly a Demo Disc for Size and Space as well as a Demo Disc for Dynamics

This Lyrita-mastered title is a member of HP’s famous TAS Super Disc list.

It includes Eight English Dances, Four Scottish Dances and Four Cornish Dances.

The sound is uncolored and natural, with a mid-hall perspective, and very little multi-miking to be heard, all to the good. 

It’s extremely fast, dynamic and clear, in those respects very much like live music. The top end is right and the overall sound balanced.

The woodwinds on the second track of side two are especially lovely.

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Thelonious Monk – Monk.

  • A wonderful early 360 Stereo pressing with seriously good Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER first note to last
  • Columbia records produced by Teo Macero in the early ’60s have consistently open, natural sound – this one from 1964 is no exception
  • The piano has real weight, the bass definition is wonderful, Rouse’s sax is full-bodied, and the overall sound is Columbia to a “T”: warm, sweet, and rich
  • Problems in the vinyl are sometimes 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
  • “The Thelonious Monk Quartet of 1964 is well featured on this excellent set… Easily recommended to Monk fans, this set is just further proof that he never made an unworthy recording.”

We’re big Monk fans here at Better Records and we wish we could get more records like this up on the site. Unfortunately, clean, vintage pressings of Monk’s music have become increasingly difficult to find, and even when you can track them down, they rarely play as quietly as this one, and of course, this being a Hot Stamper, they rarely sound as good as this one. (more…)

A Chat with Yours Truly

The Video That Started It All

Steve Westman graciously invited one of the most controversial members of the Audiophile Community — that would be me — to appear on his youtube channel for a half hour chat. When he couldn’t shut me up, it ended going for an hour.

I want to thank him for putting up with me while I spent the time mostly criticizing all the modern reissues he seems to favor.

Please read the comments and feel free to post your own if you have something you would like to say. I read them all.

Say whatever you like, I can take it!

 

Unlike the Tom Port of twenty years ago, and some rather famous reviewers still writing today, my skin has grown quite thick since I started causing trouble in the vinyl community with my crackpot ideas and uncontrolled greed. People seem to enjoy  beating up on me and the snake oil they think I am selling, but more than a thousand years ago one of the great Stoic philosophers offered his advice on how to deal with the criticisms of one’s detractors. This is advice that I have tried to heed myself for lo these many years, not always successfully.

Below is an excerpt from an article in The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday.

The secret from Marcus Aurelius for when we get flak or insults or judgment from other people? He said we should look inside their soul.

“Get inside him,” Marcus wrote. “Look at what sort of person he is. You’ll find you don’t need to strain to impress him.”

His point was that too often we blindly “accept” what haters throw at us without stopping to actually examine who these haters actually are. You wouldn’t take driving advice from a bad driver, or be guilted about your finances from someone who knows nothing about money.

Nor should you listen to people telling you you’re not good at this or that, that you’re failing here or there, whether you should act in one way or another, if you don’t respect that person and their own choices.

If you want to stop caring what other people think, take a second and actually look at those people for a second. You’ll quickly find that there isn’t much to be harried on about, that you’re doing just fine.

In response to some of my critics, I wrote a commentary entitled a kinder, gentler approach to record reviewing.

Check it out if you have time.

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Darin at the Copa / Another Great Sounding Reissue? What the Heck Is Going On!?

More Hot Stamper Pressings that Sound Their Best on the Right Reissue

More Records We’ve Reviewed that Sound Their Best on the Right Reissue

  • Darin At The Copa arrives on the site with stunning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from top to bottom 
  • Recorded live at the Copacabana in New York City, this album captures Darin’s unique charisma, as well his phenomenal music
  • With clear, present vocals, huge amounts of space, and boatloads of Tubey magic – the kind they had plenty of in 1960 – this copy blew away the competition in our recent shootout
  • “…an appearance that confirmed for the adult pop crowd that the former singer of ephemera like “Splish Splash” had made the complete transition from rock & roll to more “serious” music. Serious this record certainly isn’t, though.” 
  • If you’re a fan of Bobby Darin’s, this live album from 1960 surely deserves a place in your collection
  • The complete list of titles from 1960 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

This Shootout Winning pressing of Bobby Darin’s live album from 1960 has ENERGY and TUBEY MAGIC like you will not believe. The reissues on Bainbridge that we used in our shootout just KILL the original pressings, which are truly awful based on the ones I have heard. I started out with a copy such as this way back in the early ’90s, and when I finally tracked down a clean original on Atco, not a hard record to find really, I was shocked at just how bad it sounded.

This is, of course, one of the best reasons to own a good CD player. It’s simply a fact that some recordings, vintage and otherwise, were never mastered properly for the analog medium.

Defending Reissues

We bash reissue labels like Classic and Sundazed mercilessly on this site for making the worst kind of substandard pressings, all the while absurdly promoting them as “superior.”

Bainbridge reissued this album sometime in the early ’80s I would guess, and they did this one right. Discovery Records reissued some jazz in the ’70s (Shorty Roger’s Jazz Waltz comes readily to mind) and they did a great job.

Reissues can sound great, but they seem to be limited to the ones from back in the day when they still knew how to make good sounding records. Modern reissues, for whatever reason, almost never do, and that’s the reason we criticize them (and their apologists / promoters so relentlessly).

We are not anti-reissue. We are anti-bad-sounding-reissue.

Bobby Darin was a tremendously talented performer and this record catches him showing off his stuff to good advantage. I don’t know of a better Darin album on vinyl.

Variety Review

Darin’s finger snapping, jazzy and extremely hep delivery has its moments of humor, ease and at all times, a singular brand of charm that make it big at this particular scene.

Darin on CD

Speaking of CDs, This Is Darin from 1960 on the ’90s CD pressing is, or can be — CDs don’t all sound the same either — superb, and the record is, again, just awful. We don’t make many CD recommendations here at Better Records but we do recommend that one. We don’t know if the newer version is any good so that’s a caveat emptor situation you will have to figure out for yourself.

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