Month: June 2023

Richard & Linda Thompson – Shoot Out The Lights

More Richard Thompson

  • An outstanding copy of The Thompsons’ final album with big, bold, energetic Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER on both sides – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Without a doubt this is the best record Richard and Linda Thompson ever made
  • Dynamic, huge, lively, powerful and musical – a real Demo Disc
  • A Top 100 album, and clearly Thompson’s Masterpiece of Grungy Guitar Rock
  • 5 stars: “Shoot Out The Lights found them rallying their strengths to the bitter end; it’s often been cited as Richard Thompson’s greatest work, and it’s difficult for anyone who has heard his body of work to argue the point.”

Without a doubt, this is the best record Richard and Linda Thompson ever made together, possibly the best record Thompson was ever involved with, but it also holds one other important distinction, one of great interest to us audiophiles: it’s the BEST SOUNDING record he (they) ever made as well.

Turn it up good and loud and you will be amazed at how dynamic the guitar solos are.

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Listen for Smeary Piano Notes on Closing Time

Hot Stamper Pressings of Singer-Songwriter Albums Available Now

Some of the more common problems we ran into during our shootouts for this album were slightly veiled, slightly smeary sound, with not all the top end extension that the best copies have.

You can easily hear that smear on the attack of the piano. More often than not the piano notes are a tad blunted, a quality you notice when you finally hear a pressing with the piano notes rendered clearly.

The Piano

If you have full-range speakers some of the qualities you may recognize in the sound of the piano are WEIGHT and WARMTH. The piano is not hard, brittle or tinkly. Instead the best copies show you a wonderfully full-bodied, warm, rich, smooth piano, one which sounds remarkably like the ones we’ve all heard countless times in piano bars and restaurants.

In other words like a real piano, not a recorded one. This is what we look for in a good piano recording. Bad mastering can ruin the sound, and often does, along with worn out stampers and bad vinyl and five gram needles that scrape off the high frequencies.

But a few — a very few — copies survive all such hazards. They manage to reproduce the full spectrum sound of the piano (and of course the wonderful performances of the musicians) on vintage vinyl, showing us the kind of sound we never expected from a old Tom Waits albums like this.

Lately we have been writing quite a bit about how pianos are good for testing your system, room, tweaks, electricity and all the rest, not to mention turntable setup and adjustment.

Other records that we have found to be good for testing and improving your playback can be found here.

Simon and Garfunkel – Sounds of Silence

More Simon and Garfunkel

More Folk Rock

  • Boasting two excellent Double Plus (A++) or BETTER sides, this vintage 360 Stereo pressing was giving us the sound we were looking for on S&G’s sophomore release
  • Forget that critical listening stuff and just notice that these hot copies are simply more relaxed, musical and involving
  • Although the rock tracks come to life and really do sound good, the Tubey Magical folkie tracks are the real reason to play the album
  • “A work of finely expressed folk. It’s arguably the duo’s big breakout, a crossover success with some handsome hits.” — COS

The sound is big, open, rich and full, with the performers front and center. This 360 Stereo pressing also has the MIDRANGE MAGIC that’s no doubt missing from whatever 180g reissue has been made from the 50+ year old tapes. As good as that pressing may be, we guarantee that this one is dramatically more REAL SOUNDING. It gives you the sense that Simon and Garfunkel are right in the room with you. (more…)

Big Speakers and Loud Levels Bring Out the Power of the Orchestra

Hot Stamper LPs that Sound Their Best on Big Speakers at Loud Levels

The darker brass instruments like tubas, trombones and french horns are superb here. Other Golden Age recordings of the work, as enjoyable as they may be in other respects, do not fully reproduce the weighty quality of the brass, probably due to limiting, poor eq, poor miking, or some combination of the three.

The brass on this record has the powerful weight and energy of live music like practically no other orchestral pressing we have ever played.

It’s also tonally correct. It’s not aggressive. It’s not irritating. It’s just immediate and powerful the way the real thing is when you hear it live. That’s what really caught my ear when I first played the recording.

There is a blast of brass at the end of Catacombs that is so big and real, it makes you forget you’re listening to a recording. You hear every brass instrument, full size, full weight. I still remember the night I was playing the album, good and loud of course, when that part of the work played through. The power of it was truly startling.

Back then I had the Legacy Whisper speaker system, the one with eight 15″ woofers. They moved air like nobody’s business. If you want to reproduce the power of the trombone, the loudest instrument in the orchestra, they’re the speaker that can do it.

Some of Ansermet’s recordings with the Suisse Romande are absolutely the best I’ve ever heard. It was a magical combination of the right hall, the right engineers, the right orchestra and the right technology — the pure tube ANALOG technology of the 50s and 60s!

Dynamics

Another thing this recording has going for it is dynamic power. This is a dynamic piece of music. Few recordings I have ever heard have the dynamic contrasts that this one does. It really gets loud when it needs to. The best pressings sound completely uncompressed. Although I’m sure there has to be compression of one kind or another, the listener is rarely made aware of it.

Dynamics such as these are thrilling. They let the music come alive.

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Letter of the Week – “The sound is better than any other White album I have heard.”

More of the Music of The Beatles

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:

Hey Tom,   

I am pleased with the great sounding albums I have purchased from your company and I have followed your advice and purchased 2 products from Walker Audio. The prelude record cleaner kit and the talisman. Today I received my latest album, the Beatles White Album ($399.99).

The sound is better than any other White album I have heard. I am concerned about the pronounced warp on the A/B record. I would think that would affect the tracking of the needle. I wonder what your feelings are about this.

With warm regards,

Ed B.

Ed,

Glad you liked our White Album!

As for a pronounced warp, I’m guessing — I have no way of knowing how warped the record actually is, so guessing is the best I can do — I’m guessing we thought the warp was so slight as to not merit a mention. Many records have light warps. Modern arms track them perfectly with no audible effects, and so we don’t bother to talk about them in our listings.

I’m assuming the record plays perfectly for you the way it did for us.

There should be no effect on the needle, if by effect you mean potential damage.

Hope that helps!

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Joan Baez – Vol. 2

More Joan Baez 

More Pure Folk Recordings

  • This vintage copy of Baez’s sophomore album boasts incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound from first note to last – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • Tonally correct, Tubey Magical, clear and present – here’s a copy that can put a living, breathing, 20-year-old Joan Baez right between your speakers
  • Richer, smoother yet still very clear and highly resolving in precisely the way so few copies are
  • 4 stars: “[Vol. 2] is a hearty helping of folk masterpieces that give ample evidence to exactly how she was established as a leader of the contemporary folk scene of the day.”

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Dave Brubeck – Time In

More Dave Brubeck

  • Boasting superb Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last, this early 360 Stereo pressing will be very hard to beat
  • Big, full and lively, with bottom end weight and plenty of space around all the members of Dave’s classic quartet, this pressing of Time In (the last of the albums recorded in Brubeck’s “Time” series) proves that the engineering skills of all concerned at Columbia in 1966 were as strong as ever
  • This copy allows you to hear the clean, clear, solid, lively, smear-free piano that makes Brubeck’s records from the era such a delight for the analog devotee
  • 4 stars: “Though it is seldom celebrated as such, this is one of Brubeck’s finest moments on Columbia.”

This vintage Columbia 360 stereo pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records cannot even BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing any sign of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the audience at the live show, this is the record for you. It’s what Live Jazz Recordings are known for — this sound. (more…)

Are Reviews Objective?

Robert Brook has a blog which he calls

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

Robert recently addressed an issue that came up when someone left a comment about the sound of Tone Poets reissues vis-a-vis the the pressings that Rudy Van Gelder mastered, to wit:

“To say anything other than the difference (between the T.P. and the RVG) is subjective is misleading the audience.”

Robert explains in the post linked below that he has worked very hard to make his system as neutral as he possibly can, and why he thinks that is a good idea. He also notes that he isn’t done, that there is plenty of work left to do, and that a more revealing, more truthful system is his one and only goal.

Any piece of equipment, or tweak, or setup adjustment that brings him closer to the sound his critical listening skills tell him are an improvement is to be adopted. They have passed passed the “more truthful” test.

Are My REVIEWS Objective?

There are scores, maybe even hundreds of posts on this very blog to explain what we do and how we do it.

We tell you about our playback system and why it’s good at its job.

In addition, practically every listing on our site has standardized text detailing the three areas that are key to understanding our vintage vinyl offerings. They include:

  1. What sonic attributes our Hot Stampers have.
  2. How we go about finding records with these attributes, and
  3. What we’re listening for in order to distinguish superior pressings from common ones.

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The Command All-Stars – Reeds and Percussion

More Jazz Recordings of Interest

More Records That Sound Better Loud

  • This original Stereo Command pressing was doing pretty much everything right, with both sides earning excellent Double Plus (A++) grades
  • Take the best sound you ever heard from the best authentic Mercury classical record and translate it into pop arrangements for clarinets, flutes, saxes, oboes, bassoons, and what do you have? Sound that leaps out of the speakers with absolutely dead on tonality
  • But what is most shocking of all is how vivid and accurate the timbre of every instrument is
  • Kudos to the exceptional skills of both Robert Fine (recording engineer) and George Piros (mastering engineer), two of the All Time Greats
  • If you appreciate exceptionally well recorded reed and percussion instruments, and what audiophile doesn’t?, this title from 1961 clearly belongs in your collection

This is one of the most phenomenal sounding records I have ever heard in my life. 

Yes, it’s multi-miked, and sometimes the engineers play with the channels a bit much (especially at the start of the first track).

That said, if you have the system for it, it’s very possible you have never heard most of these instruments sound this real, as if you were standing right in the studio with them. It’s that crazy good.

Which brings up a question: Who but Better Records is finding incredible Demonstration Quality recordings like these nowadays?

Harry Pearson used to. Jim Mitchell did back in the ’80s.

Are the Audiophile Reviewers of today picking up the baton that the giants of the past have dropped at their feet? I see little evidence of it. They seem more interested in discussing the newest Heavy Vinyl mediocrity to be released.

Is it really that much of a bother to look back to the Golden Age of analog recording and actually find a good sounding record to recommend? Apparently.

Not to worry. We are happy to fill the shoes of the greats who have passed, and here is a record that proves we have the chops to succeed in our endeavor, chops that no one else alive today seems to have.

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Time Further Out – We Was Wrong Again

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Dave Brubeck Available Now

UPDATE 2023

About five years ago we wrote:

The monos we played in our last two or three shootouts didn’t do much for us. They tended to be thin and hard sounding, and of course much of the space of the studio disappears completely. One side of one copy did well enough I suppose, but my advice would be to avoid them if you’re looking for top quality sound.

Years before we had discovered an outstanding mono copy and described it this way:

This Columbia Six-Eye pressing is THE BEST SOUNDING MONO COPY OF THIS ALBUM WE’VE EVER HEARD! The better Mono pressings of this album give you extra immediacy, more solidity to the drums, and energy like you wouldn’t believe. That makes the drum solo on side two sound OUT OF THIS WORLD. Most copies are congested and veiled, but not this one! The sound is spacious and transparent with wonderful presence. You will not believe how lively it is! 

Both sides are rich and full-bodied with lots of sweetness and extension up top. The energy and transparency are wonderful. The bass is a bit tubby, but that’s what you get on these vintage Six Eye pressings. It’s worth it when there’s as much tubey magic as you get on this pressing.

Fast forward to 2023 and once again we manage to stumble upon a rare 6 Eye Mono pressing in our shootout that had the Time Further Out goods:

  • With superb Double Plus (A++) sound throughout, this vintage 6-Eye Mono pressing will be very hard to beat – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • It’s extremely unlikely that any mono pressing will win a shootout, but just to keep us on our toes, we like to put some monos of famous albums in our shootouts from time to time to see how they measure up
  • This 2+ early pressing was the best of the bunch, and it’s guaranteed to beat the pants off any modern Heavy Vinyl pressing ever made

So there you have it. The right mono pressings can sound very good indeed.

Apparently, we was wrong to think we was wrong.

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