- An original M&K Real Time pressing with stunning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound from first note to last – just shy of our Shootout Winner
- Tubier, more present, and more alive than practically all other copies, with more of that “jumpin’ right out of the speakers” quality that only The Real Thing (The Real Thing being An Old Record) ever has
- “. . . this album features a true all-star lineup. Each artist solos in this heartfelt tribute session. . . one of those rare albums that you can enjoy over and over without losing your smile.”
Month: March 2023
I Left My Heart In San Francisco – Notes from Our First Hot Stamper Circa 2010
More Vintage Hot Stamper Pressings on Columbia
Everything that’s good about All Tube Vocal Recordings from the ’50s and ’60s is precisely what’s good about the sound of this record.
The huge studio the music was recorded in is captured faithfully here. The height, width and depth of the staging are extraordinary. We are not big soundstage guys here at Better Records, but we can’t deny the appeal of the space to be found on a record as good as this.
Transparency and Tubey Magic are key to the sound of the orchestra and you will find both in abundance on these two sides.
Some quick notes:
Side One
Highly resolving; tonally balanced; rich bottom end; breathy vocals; instruments are jumping out of the speakers; dynamic; with a touch of grain and spit on even the best copies.
Killer. Can’t be beat.
Side Two
Might be slightly better, but let’s just leave the grade at Triple Plus.
The first track is not as well recorded as those that follow.
The violin is sweeter on the second track here than on any other side we played.
The whole production is so immediate, so right, and so real it may just take your breath away.
The third track is rich, solid and tonally correct, which pretty much sums up the sound we heard on the best copies of the album.
Albums such as this live and die by the quality of their vocal reproduction. On this record Mr. Tony Bennett himself will appear to be standing right in your listening room, along with the 38 other musicians from the session (actually they’re probably sitting).
The space of your stereo room will seem to expand in all directions in order to accommodate them, an illusion of course, but nevertheless a remarkably convincing one.
Aerosmith – Rocks
More Aerosmith
More Rock Classics
- Boasting KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them from start to finish, this early Columbia pressing is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other Rocks you’ve heard – fairly quiet vinyl too
- The sound here is tonally Right On The Money – big, rich and Tubey Magical, with plenty of driving bass
- 5 stars: “Few albums have been so appropriately named as Aerosmith’s 1976 classic Rocks… Aerosmith produced a superb follow-up to their masterwork Toys in the Attic, nearly topping it in the process… out of all their albums, Rocks did the best job of capturing Aerosmith at their most raw and rocking.”
Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge – Full Moon
More Kris Kristofferson
More Rita Coolidge
- You’ll find excellent Double Plus (A++) sound throughout this early A&M pressing
- The vocals are wonderfully breathy and sweet, the bass is killer and everything is natural and musical
- 4 stars: “Despite Kristofferson’s greater celebrity, the LP was made with Coolidge’s strengths in mind. . . The songs were set in her key, with Kristofferson crooning along in an unusually high register. The tempos were mostly slow, emphasizing the dreamy quality of Coolidge’s voice.”
Crosby, Stills and Nash – Self-Titled
More of the Music of Crosby, Stills, Nash
- A vintage copy of CS&N’s self-titled debut LP that was doing just about everything right, with both sides earning superb grades
- The sound is big and rich, the vocals breathy and immediate, and you will not believe all the space and ambience
- We love the album, but it is a cryin’ shame, as well as a fact, that few were mastered and pressed well, and that includes none of the originals in our experience
- The reason you don’t see this title on the site more frequently is simply that it has become nearly impossible to find copies in audiophile playing condition with the right stampers
- The right stampers for this album are at least ten times more rare than those for Zep II, but for some reason everybody thinks that record is rare!
- We’ve discovered a hundred or more titles in which one stamper always wins, some of which we’ve identified, and no, we have no intention of giving out that information, sorry
- The fact that only one specific later pressing ever wins our shootouts is proof that freeing your mind from unscientific thinking is the only way to find the highest quality pressings
- 5 stars: “A definitive document of its era.”
- This is a Must Own Hippie Folk Rock Masterpiece from 1969 that belongs in every right-thinking audiophile’s collection
Although millions of copies of this album were sold, so few were mastered and pressed well, and so many mastered seemingly with no regard to sound quality, that only a vanishingly small number of copies have ever made it to the site with Hot Stampers.
We consider this album a Masterpiece. It’s a recording that should be part of any serious Popular Music Collection.
Others that belong in that category can be found here.
Lee Hulko Cut All the Best Sounding Cat Stevens Albums, Regardless of Label
Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Cat Stevens Available Now
UPDATE 2020
This commentary was written many years ago, circa 2005 I would guess.
Way back then, doing Hot Stamper shootouts was much more difficult than it is now. We didn’t have the right cleaning machine, and we hadn’t discovered the Prelude Record Cleaning System.
Is the Pink Label Island original pressing THE way to go? That’s what Harry Pearson — not to mention most audiophile record dealers — would have you believe.
But it’s just not true. And that’s good news for you, Dear (Record Loving Audiophile) Reader.
Hot Stamper Commentary for John Barleycorn
Since Barleycorn is a Lee Hulko cutting just like Tea here, the same insights, if you can call them that, apply.
Here’s what we wrote:
Lee Hulko, who cut all the Sterling originals, of which this is one, cut this record many times and most of them are wrong in some way. A very similar situation occurred with the early Cat Stevens stuff that he cut, like Tea & Teaser, where most copies don’t sound right but every once in a while you get a magical one.
Lee Hulko cut all the original versions of this album, on the same cutter, from the same tape, at the same time.
Carlos Montoya – Flamenco Concert
More Carlos Montoya
More Living Stereo
- You’ll find seriously good Double Plus (A++) Living Stereo sound throughout this early White Dog pressing
- The overall sound here is incredibly big, rich and Tubey Magical with tons of space and plenty of energy; Montoya’s guitar is really jumping out of the speakers!
- “Montoya is credited with having transformed flamenco guitar music into a separate music style, beyond being a traditional dance accompaniment. He adapted flamenco to other genres of music to create his own recognizable style, becoming an international star.” – Wikipedia
- If you’re a fan of the music of flamenco, this title from 1964 is clearly one of Montoya’s best, and one of his best sounding
- The complete list of titles from 1964 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.
Leonard Bernstein – West Side Story
More of the music of Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)
More Soundtrack Recordings of Interest
- This vintage Columbia 360 Stereo pressing boasts excellent Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it from the first note to the last – remarkably quiet vinyl too
- Side one is spacious, rich and smooth, and side two is not far behind in all those areas
- If you want to hear what a healthy dose of Tubey Magic, energy, and full-bodied vocals set on a huge stage (the famed Columbia 30th Street Studio) sounds like, this pressing should do the trick
- If you’re a fan of Leonard Bernstein’s music, this superb All Tube Recording from 1957 belongs in your collection.
- The complete list of titles from 1957 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.
SUPERB sound can be found on this vintage Columbia 360 stereo pressing of the Broadway Cast recording. This is a huge, spacious, natural, exciting All-Tube Golden Age recording that impressed us to no end here at Better Records.
We heard an amazing sounding copy many years ago, and the only reason we haven’t done the shootout since then is that we just couldn’t find enough clean copies with which to do it. To be clear, we’re not talking quiet vinyl, we’re talking about not beat-to-death, not all-scractched-up vinyl. People loved this music and they played the hell out of it.
Imagine our surprise when the good sound of these copies turned out to not only have superb sound, but reasonably quiet Mint Minus Minus vinyl too! Don’t expect to see another of this quality any time soon. If we can’t find them, who can?
Dynamic Vocals Like Thelma Houston’s Require Really Big Speakers
Hot Stamper Pressings of Direct-to-Disc Recordings Available Now
Unlike most Direct to Disc recordings, this album actually contains real music worth listening to — but only when the pressing lets the energy of the musicians through, accompanied, of course, by fidelity to the sound of their instruments.
Brass without bite is boring.
Drummers who drum too delicately will put you to sleep.
But the focus of this commentary is on dynamic vocals.
To Know You Is to Love You has the potential to come right at you in a shockingly powerful way. This lady can sing as loud as the best of all the greats.
It sounds like there is virtually no compression on Ms Houston’s vocals whatsoever. There has to be a limiter of some kind, but when she starts to really belt it out, you will not believe how powerfully she can sing. Might just give you goosebumps.
Don’t Misunderstand on side two has an equally dynamic vocal. It’s probably my favorite track on the album.
The loudest choruses of Got to Get You into My Life / I’ve Got the Music in Me are a tough test for any system as well.
This could easily be the most dynamic vocal album you have ever heard. It’s right up there at the top for us too.
Bob Dylan – Desire
More Bob Dylan
More Rock and Pop
- This copy of Dylan’s 1976 release was doing just about everything right, with both sides earning outstanding Double Plus (A++) grades
- Both sides are exceptionally clean, clear, full and lively with excellent bass and lots of space around the instruments
- Desire spent five weeks at Number One, mostly on the strength of the powerful and provocative “Hurricane”
- 4 1/2 stars: “…one of [Dylan’s] most fascinating records of the ’70s and ’80s — more intriguing, lyrically and musically, than most of his latter-day affairs.
As I’m sure you know, Desire is one of those Dylan albums from the ’70s that generally gets less respect than his earlier work, except from the All Music Guide, who gave it 4 1/2 big stars. Not sure we would go quite that far, but it is clearly a more enjoyable and compelling album when the experience comes from a high quality analog pressing. This one should do nicely.
It’s probably not fair to lump it in with later ’70s albums like Street Legal (1978) and Slow Train Coming (1979). It is, after all, the follow-up to the brilliant (and very good sounding, good enough to make our Top 100) Blood on the Tracks. And it did spend five (5!) weeks at Number One. And Rolling Stone did call it one of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (#174 to be exact).
All of which makes it hard to deny that Desire has a lot going for it.
The album kicks of with the raging “Hurricane,” one of Dylan’s most passionate political songs, and doesn’t let up for a good twenty five plus minutes until the side is over. Most copies lacked the energy and presence that this music needs to really come to life, but not this one.
Drop the needle on “Hurricane” and you will quickly see how much the violin player (Scarlet Rivera) contributes to the song. I can’t think of another hard-rockin’ track from the era that has such a well-recorded violin. If you have an overly smooth copy (there’s tons of ’em out there and we’ve heard plenty of them) you aren’t going to hear the rosiny texture that gives the instrument its unique character.