Month: July 2023

Julie London in 1957 – Make Love To Me

More Julie London

More Pop and Jazz Vocal Albums

  • Boasting KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it throughout, this original Liberty Turquoise Mono pressing is one of the BEST we have ever heard
  • Julie is in the room with you – her voice is intimate, breathy and Tubey Magical like practically nothing you’ve ever heard, and for that you can thank the amazing engineering of Ted Keep
  • 4 stars: “Julie London’s concise and melodic versions of standards were quite popular during the latter half of the 1950s. Her subtle sensuality and lightly swinging style made for a potent combination.”
  • If you’re a fan of Miss London’s, or vintage Pop and Jazz Vocals in general, this 1957 release belongs in your collection

Thanks to superb engineering and vintage All Tube mastering, this 1957 LP is wonderfully rich and sweet, with a breathy, intimate Julie London performing live in your listening room.

This original Liberty Turquoise Mono pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern pressings cannot BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing any sign of coming back.

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Blondie – Eat To The Beat

More Blondie

More Women Who Rock

  • Outstanding sound for the band’s followup to Parallel Lines, with both sides of this original pressing earning Double Plus (A++) or BETTER grades – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Turn it up as loud as you want – the top end and vocals are balanced, smooth and tonally correct, not gritty or edgy
  • The drums and bass of “Die Young Stay Pretty” are as real sounding as if you were standing five feet from the band
  • It’s an amazingly punchy, lively Demo Disc for Big Speakers that Play at Loud Levels
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The British… made Eat to the Beat another chart-topper, with three major hits, including a number one ranking for Atomic and almost the same success for Dreaming.”

This is Mike Chapman’s Big Beat Sonic Masterpiece — yes, the sound is actually bigger and better than the sound on Parallel Lines — akin to the debuts of The Knack and The Cars, and every bit as huge and punchy as either.

Eat to the Beat lives and dies by its energy, its bass and above all by its transient snap. The drums and bass of “Die Young Stay Pretty” are amazing. On the best copies it’s hard to imagine that song sounding any better. The drums and bass are massive in their attack. It’s the very definition of punch.

If you’re a fan of big drums in a big room, with jump out of the speakers sound, this is the album for you.

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Jimmy Cliff, et al. – The Harder They Come (Original Soundtrack Recording)

More Jimmy Cliff

More Soundtrack Albums of Interest

  • Both sides of this vintage Mango pressing were giving us the big and bold sound we were looking for, earning superb Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER
  • We shot out a number of other copies and this one had the presence, bass, and dynamics that were missing from most of what we played
  • The sound is lively, punchy, and powerful – with all due respect, it should MURDER whatever copies you may have
  • 5 stars: “In 1973, when the movie The Harder They Come was released, reggae was not on the radar screen of American pop culture. The soundtrack went a ways toward changing that situation. Collections don’t come much better than this.”

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Listening in Depth to Loggins & Messina’s Classic Yacht Rockers

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Loggins and Messina Available Now

The elements that make up a good sounding Loggins and Messina album can be found, in varying degrees, on all the Hot Stamper pressings we offer. Permit us to break them down for you. (We’ve borrowed heavily from ourselves here so if this material looks familiar don’t be surprised, we’ve used it before.)

Top End Extension

Absolutely critical to this record. Most copies of this album have no extreme highs, which causes the percussion and guitar harmonics to be blunted and dull. Without extreme highs the percussion can’t extend up and away from the other elements in the mix. Consequently these elements end up fighting for space in the midrange and getting lost in the dense mixes that Jim Messina favors (and we audiophiles love).

Clarity and Presence

Equally critical. So many copies are veiled in the midrange, partly because they may have shortcomings up top, but also because they suffer from blurry, smeary mids and upper mids. With so many stringed instruments; horns and woodwinds (oboe, saxes, flute, recorder); as well as plenty of percussion elements in the mix for practically every song, dull, dead sounding L & M pressings can’t begin to communicate the musical values in their superb recordings. Boredom will set in before long.

With a real Hot Stamper the sound is TOTALLY INVOLVING, and so is the music! You hear the breath in the voices, the pick on the strings of the guitars and mandolins — these are the things that allow us to suspend our disbelief, to forget it’s a recording we’re listening to and not living, breathing musicians.

Transparency

Although this quality is related to the above two, it’s not as important overall as the one below, but it sure is nice to have. When you can really “see” into the mix, it’s much easier to pick out each and every brass and wind instrument, and hear all the effects on the guitars, in order to gain more insight into the arrangement and the recording of the material.

Seeing into the mix is a way of seeing into the mind of the artist. To hear the hottest copies was to appreciate even more the talents of all the musicians and producers involved, not to mention the recording engineers.

Bass

No rock or pop record without good bass can qualify as a top quality Hot Stamper. How could it? It’s the rhythmic foundation of the music, and who wants a pop record that lacks rhythm? L&M are famous for putting plenty of bass on their records; this album is no exception. Bass is a big part of their sound. The best copies have prodigious amounts of deep, note-like, well-controlled bass. If you have a high-fidelity full-range system, this is some serious Demo Disc Quality Pop Sound.

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Letter of the Week – “I have a priceless collection of music that makes me smile every time I spin one.”

What Exactly Are Hot Stamper Pressings?

More Hot Stamper Testimonial Letters

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

Hey Tom, 

I am one of Tom’s longest customers. I own hundreds of his Hot Stampers, imagine that… I could have put one of my kids through college or bought a car or two, taken up cocaine or heroine… and so on. Instead, I have a priceless collection of music that makes me smile every time I spin one.

Yes, they are expensive and I could do it myself. I could spend hours and days and months buying 10, 20 30 copies of each album I want and then shoot them out. I am worn out already… LA probably has the greatest stash of good lps in the world, right? Dallas has squat. I even have discount privileges at Half Price Books as they are my client and friend (I have hung out for a few hours in the receiving space with 30 or 40 4’x4’ pallets with solid records stacked 3’ high, wow, impossible task as I thumbed through the top layer of 1 pallet…).

Tom and his people are paid for their time to collect, sort and listen. It is all about access, time and good ears. I have neither access nor time, so Tom gets my business. My ears are getting smarter, but they are not even close to Tom’s. He has been LISTENING for decades.

Gary C.

Thanks, Gary, for your letter, and for not putting your kids through college or buying a new car you didn’t really need, although I have the feeling you did all of those things and just don’t want me to know that all your money did not go to records.

Best, TP

Further Reading

Letter of the Week – “Hard to believe it can sound much better.”

More of the Music of Deep Purple

More of the Music of Jackson Browne

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently. He bought two Jackson Browne albums — The Pretender and Late for the Sky, not sure which he is talking about below — as well as the Deep Purple album you see pictured. (Emphasis added.)

Hey Tom, 

I am taking my time going through all my hot stampers one by one. Still waiting for my cartridge to break in so I know things will only get better.

This album is amazing. I forgot how good it was. Only had the cassette back in the day and loved playing it in the car. The overall tonal balance is fantastic. Big, room filling sound. Jackson’s voice is just so well centered in the mix.

I think your rating may have been a bit conservative. Hard to believe it can sound much better.

Side 2 is probably my favorite and sounds even better than side 1 to my ears–but it is close. Another winner for sure.

Thanks!

Rob

Rob,

So glad you liked it!

As for the grades, we don’t keep them around, but we liked two copies better than that one, which just goes to show you never know how good a record can sound until you hear a better sounding copy, and we heard two.

This is something the forum posters of the audio world have always had trouble understanding.

They think they have a Hot Stamper when what they probably have is a good sounding record.

The word “probably” in the sentences above and below is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

Nothing in audio or record collecting could be more important than appreciating how little we can really know and how much there is to learn. [3]

The forum posters of the audio world simply have no way to know how amazing the recording can sound — so much better than the record they own, probably — so they assume [1] they have the best.

They probably do not, but no one can actually know for sure, and that includes us.

We do not judge records we have never played (although we do like to make educated guesses about some of them from time to time, for sport if for no other reason).

A shootout would provide some of the evidence they need in order to know where on the bell curve their copy sits, and they have simply never conducted one. They have an anecdote, and not a very trustworthy one. What they lack is data [2].

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Chet Baker and Art Pepper / Playboys

More Chet Baker

More Art Pepper

  • An outstanding Boplicity reissue that boasts dynamic and lively West Coast Jazz sound from start to finish – it earned Double Plus (A++) grades and plays on exceptionally quiet vinyl to boot
  • Both of these sides have close to the best condition grade we give out, Mint Minus – there may not be another record on the site with vinyl that quiet!
  • The label may say stereo, but the sound on both of these sides is pure, glorious 1958 Tube-recorded MONO
  • Bigger and more present and energetic than most of the other copies we played, the horns sound fuller and have more space to play into – it’s the Tubey Magical classic 50s jazz sound, the only sound that ever works for this kind of music in our experience
  • This album was reissued with a different title in 1961 as Picture of Heath — we’ve played both the original and the Pure Pleasure Heavy Vinyl reissue from 2006
  • 4 stars: “These thoroughly enjoyable and often high-energy sides are perfect for bop connoisseurs as well as mainstream jazz listeners.”

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Song for Beginners Was Remixed and Ruined on Classic Records

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Graham Nash Available Now

I’ve listened to Nash’s first solo outing countless times over the last thirty years, even more than Crosby, Stills and Nash’s first album. As I was listening to the Classic pressing, I recall thinking “Wow, I don’t remember that sound being there; this version is so much better I can hear things I never heard before!”

Well, owners of this album (all five of you) will certainly hear things you never heard before, because some of the tracks on this album have been remixed and some of the instruments re-recorded. How about them apples.

Both the snare and the kick drum on some songs are clearly too “modern” sounding for anything recorded in 1971. For Pete’s sake, they’d be right at home on Nevermind.

Sometimes the vocal tracks are different—probably alternate takes I would think, as Graham obviously can’t sing like he did thirty years ago to even attempt a re-recording.

As you can imagine, remastering a well-known title and creating a new sound for it is a huge bête noire for us here at Better Records. This Classic Records release is like nails on a blackboard to me now.

No doubt the idea was Graham’s but it was a very bad one indeed. (If you can get hold of the original unadulterated CD, I highly recommend it. The sound is excellent.)

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In 2005 We Were (Probably) Way Off the Mark for Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Titles Available Now

UPDATE 2024

This is a very old review. We would no longer agree with the assertion that the White Dog pressings are better sounding than the Shaded Dogs. In our recent shootout, the first one I can remember since 2005 — that was 19 years ago! — the White Dogs did not do nearly as well as the Shaded Dogs we have on hand.

This White Dog pressing is the best sounding copy I’ve ever heard, much better than the earlier pressings. The piano doesn’t break up like it does on those, especially in the second movement.

Finally the piano sounds right – solid and with the correct overtones. It goes without saying that this is an exceptionally good performance as well.

One of the best of the Cliburn recordings which, as you may know, are rarely any good, the worst of them being LSC 2252 and the best of them being, probably, LSC 2507.

This is an Older Classical/Orchestral Review

Most of the older reviews you see are for records that did not go through the shootout process, the revolutionary approach to finding better sounding pressings we started developing in the early 2000s and have since turned into a veritable science.

We found the records you see in these older listings by cleaning and playing a pressing or two of the album, which we then described and priced based on how good the sound and surfaces were. (For out Hot Stamper listings, the Sonic Grades and Vinyl Playgrades are listed separately.)

We were often wrong back in those days, something we have no reason to hide. Audio equipment and record cleaning technologies have come a long way since those darker days, a subject we discuss here.

Currently, 99% (or more!) of the records we sell are cleaned, then auditioned under rigorously controlled conditions, up against a number of other pressings. We award them sonic grades, and then condition check them for surface noise.

As you may imagine, this approach requires a great deal of time, effort and skill, which is why we currently have a highly trained staff of about ten. No individual or business without the aid of such a committed group could possibly dig as deep into the sound of records as we have, and it is unlikely that anyone besides us could ever come along to do the kind of work we do.

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Tom Waits – Nighthawks At The Diner

More Tom Waits

  • Excellent sound for this Tom Waits classic, with Double Plus (A++) grades on all FOUR sides of these vintage Asylum pressings – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • A superb recording, with much credit due to Waits’ constant collaborator Bones Howe, who produced and engineered
  • It’s a live-in-the-studio romp through Los Angeles with Waits playing the role of tour guide, and the results are wonderful
  • “As entertainment, Nighthawks at the Diner is one of Waits’ most thoroughly enjoyable albums … it’s hard to imagine anyone not being charmed by it.”

At its best, this album has the immediacy and energy of a real live performance, but the typical copy just doesn’t bring it to life. This one is a big step up on all four sides, with the kind of life and clarity we just don’t hear often enough.

This album was recorded live at The Record Plant back in 1975, and while I can’t be certain, it sure seems there are no overdubs or post-performance additions. There’s a touch of hardness to the vocals at times, but it was on every copy we played and it’s obviously on the tape. It’s the kind of sound we hear on Johnny Cash records and it just seems like a by-product of the microphones these guys used. It doesn’t seem to far a reach to imagine that an iconoclast like Waits might prefer an old-timey microphone sound that doesn’t soften or smooth his vocal style. (For those in search of buttery vocals, there’s usually an Al Stewart record or two on the site. This ain’t the one for you.)

We played quite a few copies and while we were absolutely blown away by the better pressings; the typical copies left us cold. When you have a copy that’s veiled and lacks presence, the magic is gone.

I’m not very familiar with the musicians that make up the backing band here, but they are a top-notch crew. The way they interact with Waits as he spins stories, songs, and even a few jokes is in the very best jazz tradition. Waits actually hooked up with the great drummer Shelley Manne to record his next album (the classic Small Change) so this is a man who clearly knows how to pick a band.

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