Month: April 2023

American Pie – What to Listen For

Hot Stamper Pressings of Folk Rock Albums Available Now

More Records with Specific Advice on What to Listen For

Beware of copies that are thin, dry or edgy; they take too much of the fun out of the music.

Full vocals and a big, solid piano are key to balancing the singers and musicians correctly.

Tubey Magical Acoustic Guitars can be heard on all the better copies.

Of course they can. This is 1971 after all: they still remembered how to get that sound on tape. On the better copies, Vincent can have rich, sweet, harmonically correct guitars to rival the best recordings from that era.

A little smear, thickness or opacity is not the end of the world — lots of very enjoyable records from 1971 have such issues and they still sound right. Tapestry, Mud Slide Slim, and Tupelo Honey come immediately to mind. It would not be hard to name dozens of others.

You want to keep what is good about a Tubey Magical analog recording from The Golden Age of Popular Music while avoiding the pitfalls so common to them:

  • poor resolution,
  • compression,
  • thickness,
  • opacity,
  • blubber,
  • compromised frequency extremes,
  • a lack of space and
  • a lack of presence.

How’s that for a laundry list of all the problems we hear on old rock records, old classical records, and old jazz records? 

What record doesn’t have at least some of these faults? Not many in our experience. A copy with few or none of these problems would do very well in our Hot Stamper shootouts indeed.

How come we never see Hot Stamper pressings of this album on the site?

Some records are just too noisy to find in the kind of numbers we need for our shootouts, no matter how good they sound. We do the best we can, but the reality is that we have had very little luck with finding early pressings of American Pie for years now. Things do not seem to be getting better in the market either.

Which simply means that if you do ever see this title show up on our site, best to jump on it. It could be ten years before we find the next shootout winners.

(more…)

What I Couldn’t Hear on My 90s Tube System

Hot Stamper Pressings of Contemporary Jazz Albums Available Now

I have a very long history with Bells Are Ringing, dating back to the 90s. My friend Robert Pincus first turned me on to the CD, which, happily for all concerned, was mastered beautifully and comes highly recommended if you want to work on your digital playback or other non-vinyl aspects of your system such as your room, electricity, speaker placement and such like. (More recommended CDs here.)

Back in the day we often used it to test and tweak some of the stereos in my friends’ systems.

Playing the original stereo pressing, all I could hear on my 90s tube system was

  • blurred mids,
  • lack of transient attack,
  • sloppy bass,
  • lack of space and transparency,
  • and plenty of other shortcomings too numerous to mention.

All of which I simply attributed at the time to the limitations of the vintage jazz pressing I owned.

A classic case of me rather foolishly blaming the recording.

I know better now. The record was fine. I just couldn’t reproduce it.

Well, things have certainly changed. I have virtually none of the equipment I had back then, and I hear none of the problems with this copy that I heard back then. This is clearly a different LP, I sold the old one off years ago, but I have to think that much of the change in the sound was a change in cleaning, equipment, setup, tweaks and room treatments, all the stuff we prattle on about endlessly on this blog.

(more…)

Albert King – King, Does The King’s Things

More Albert King

More Electric Blues

  • An outstanding copy of King’s 1970 release with solid Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it throughout – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • This pressing boasts the kind of rich, full-bodied, lively and present sound that brings out the best in the man’s music
  • A collection of Elvis Classics, respectfully reimagined as the King of Blues meets the King of Rock
  • “Because King’s style is so irreducible, the concept actually works, as he fills this album with his traditional, high-voltage guitar work and strong vocals. No matter what the original sources may be, though, this is a strong showing in King’s catalog.”

(more…)

The Best Sounding Album Geoff Emerick Ever Recorded?

Hot Stamper Pressings of Top 100 Titles Available Now

We had been wandering around in the dark for more than a decade with Bridge of Sighs — that is, until we found a clean early UK Chrysalis pressing around about 2015.

Now we know just how good this album can sound, and that means ASTOUNDINGLY good. Off the top of my head I can’t think of any Geoff Emerick album that sounds as big and clear as this one.

The three dimensional space is really something on the better UK copies.

That same year, 2015, we found the best sounding pressing of a Pink Floyd album we had ever heard, and it too blew our minds.

There is a substantial amount of Tubey Magic and liquidity on the tape, recalling the kind of hi-rez vintage analog sound that makes the luminous A Space in Time such a mind-expanding experience. Recorded a few years earlier, both albums have the kind of High Production Value sound that we go crazy for here at Better Records.

(more…)

Jethro Tull – One of the Worst Releases on DCC (and That’s Saying Something!)

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Jethro Tull Available Now

Sonic Grade: F

The DCC pressing is a complete disaster, one of the worst sounding versions of the album ever made.

As bad as the MoFi is, the DCC is even worse. Murky and bloated, to my ear it does almost nothing right, not on vinyl anyway. The DCC Gold CD is better, and it’s certainly nothing to write home about. 

Our Hot Stamper commentary below sorts out the DCC, the Classic Records Heavy Vinyl pressing and the MoFi Half-Speed Mastered LP, as well as British and domestic originals.

We love this album and we’ve played every kind of pressing we could get our hands on. The winner? Read on!

Over the course of the last 25 years we was wrong three ways from Sunday about our down-and-out friend Aqualung here. We originally liked the MoFi.

When the DCC 180g came along we liked that one better, and a few years back I was somewhat enamored with some original British imports.

Our first big shootout disabused us of any notion that the British originals were properly mastered. As we noted in our Hot Stamper commentary, “The original Brits we played were pretty hopeless too: Tubey Magical but midrangy, bass-shy and compressed.”

Another myth bites the dust.

The same is true for Thick As A Brick; the best domestic copies are much more energetic and tonally correct.

Joni Mitchell – Night Ride Home

More Joni Mitchell

 More Singer-Songwriter Albums

  • This original import copy of Joni’s hard-to-find 1991 release boasts STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it throughout – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Both of these sides are rich, full, and Tubey Magical for days, with exceptional immediacy to the wonderfully breathy, clear vocals
  • ANALOG at its Tubey Magical finest – you’ll never play a CD (or any other digital sourced material) that sounds as good as this record as long as you live
  • “Cutting back on the guest musicians of her previous effort and paring down to a basic small group of musicians helps add immediacy to Night Ride Home. Very involved and a rather tough listen, but well worth the attention….”
  • Our Overview of Joni Mitchell‘s albums can be found here

(more…)

The Classic Records Pressing of Finlandia Is Dreadful

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

More of the music of Edvard Grieg (1843-1907)

Sonic Grade: F

Classic Records ruined this album. Their version is dramatically more smeared and low-rez than our good vintage pressings, with almost none of the sweetness, richness and ambience that the best RCA pressings have in such abundance.

[This turns out not to be true, as we discovered to our chagrin in 2014.]

In fact their pressing is just plain awful, like most of the classical recordings they remastered, and should be avoided at anything other than a nominal price.

Our current favorite pressing is this one on a budget Decca reissue. Go figure.

(more…)

Joan Baez – In Concert, Part 2

More Joan Baez

  • This vintage Vanguard pressing of Joan’s 1963 live release boasts a KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to a superb Double Plus (A++) side one
  • You’d be hard-pressed to find a copy that’s this well balanced, big and lively, with Joan reproduced as solid and as real as only the better vintage vinyl pressings can present her
  • Marks and problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • 4 stars: “Her repertoire was evolving from purely traditional folk to encompass significant work by contemporary folksinger/songwriters. Most prominent among those … was Bob Dylan, and In Concert, Pt. 2 features her first two Dylan covers, ‘With God on Our Side’ and ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.’ For that alone, the album was notable, but there were other notable expansions into interesting new territory, like the country classic ‘Long Black Veil,’ Derroll Adams’ great melancholy ‘Portland Town,’ the civil rights anthem ‘We Shall Overcome,’ and bossa nova great Luiz Bonfá’s ‘Manha de Carnaval.'”
  • Fans of the early Folk stylings of Ms Baez will surely want to have this album from 1963 in their collection

(more…)

Machine Head on Rhino Vinyl Sounds Like a CD

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Deep Purple Available Now

Mastered by Kevin Gray, this record has what we would call ”modern” sound, which is to say it’s clean and tonally correct, but it’s missing the Tubey Magic the British originals are swimming in.

In other words, it sounds like a CD.

I’m guessing that very few people have ever heard this record sound the way our best Hot Stamper pressings can sound.

For one thing, the domestic pressings are made from dubbed tapes, and that’s what most of us Americans would have owned. The original domestic pressings are smeary, veiled and small as a rule

Yes, the average copy may be nothing special, but this one is a boring, lifeless mess, so save your money.

Rhino Records has really made a mockery of the analog medium. Rhino touts their releases as being pressed on “180 gram High Performance Vinyl.” However, if they are using “performance” as a synonym “sound quality,” we have found the performance of their vinyl to be quite low, lower than the average copy one might stumble upon in the used record bins.

Who can be bothered to play a record that has so few of the qualities audiophiles should be looking for on vinyl?

Back in 2007 we put the question this way: why own a turntable if you’re going to play mediocrities like these?

Further Reading

Records are getting awfully expensive these days, and it’s not just our Hot Stampers that seem priced for perfection.

If you are still buying these modern remastered pressings, making the same kind of mistakes that I was making before I knew better, take the advice of some of our customers and stop throwing your money away on Heavy Vinyl and Half-Speed mastered LPs.

(more…)

Mel Torme / Swings Shubert Alley – Another Reissue that Kills the Original

More Mel Torme

Mel Torme Albums We’ve Reviewed

  • Outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound brings Torme’s 1961 release to life on this vintage Verve Stereo pressing
  • One of our favorite male vocal albums – exceptionally well recorded and really involving on a copy that sounds as good as this one does
  • Lovely richness and warmth, you may just find yourself using it as a Analog Demonstration Disc – Mel is in his prime and magnificent throughout
  • 5 stars: “Though the nominal concept for Swings Shubert Alley is Broadway standards, this last moment of pure Mel Tormé brilliance swings much too fast and hard for the concept to be anything but pure swing. The overall mood is unrestrained enthusiasm, and it makes for an excellent record.”
  • These are the top titles from 1961 we’ve reviewed to date. From an audiophile perspective, depending on your taste in music, most should be worthy of a place in your collection
  • We’ve recently compiled a list of records we think every audiophile should get to know better, along the lines of “the 1001 records you need to hear before you die,” but with the accent on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. Swings Shubert Alley is a good example of a record many audiophiles may not know well but would benefit from getting to know better

Mel Torme Swings Shubert Alley is one of our very favorite male vocal albums, and a great copy like this will show you why — the audiophile quality sound and swinging jazz vocal music are simply hard to beat.

This album from 1961 finds Mel in his prime. By the ’70s he was a shadow of himself, and more modern (read: less natural) recording technology wasn’t doing him any favors. None of those later albums means much to us here at Better Records.

His Bethlehem recordings can have outstanding sonics and music to match, but try to find a clean one. It’s been years since one came our way that wasn’t noisy or groove damaged. (more…)