Month: October 2023

Steve Miller Band – Book of Dreams

More Steve Miller Band

  • This original pressing was doing everything right, with both sides earning KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades on both sides
  • Present and lively with full-bodied tonality and plenty of three-dimensional studio space, only the better originals have the potential to give you this kind of sound
  • “Jet Airliner,” “Swingtown,” “Jungle Love” and “Sacrifice” all sound the way they should – big and rockin’
  • 4 stars: “It is here, on this 1977 blockbuster, that Steve Miller shored up his ‘Space Cowboy’ moniker and cosmic person …a highlight of the ’70s classic rock era and one of Miller’s finest releases.”

When you hear a copy that sounds like this, you don’t need a pair of golden ears to know it’s right.

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The L.A. 4 – Pavane Pour Une Infante Défunte (45 RPM)

More L.A. 4

More Audiophile Records

  • This 45 RPM Japanese import copy is one of the BEST we have ever heard, with both sides earning KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Lee Herschberg recorded these sessions direct to disc – he’s the guy behind the most amazing piano trio recording I have ever heard, a little album called The Three
  • Transparency; absolute freedom from smear and distortion; clarity; presence; frequency extension high and low; correct tonality – everything you want in an audiophile recording is here!
  • This 45 RPM version is shorter than the original album, with five of the original’s seven tracks
  • And it sounded better than any of the Direct to Disc pressings we had on hand, which is exactly what happened when they mastered The Three at 45 RPM from the backup tapes – pretty wild, don’t you think?

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It’s Records Like This that Give Decca Reissues a Bad Reputation

More of the music of Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Hot Stamper Classical Imports on Decca & London

Apparently mastered with no regard to sound quality, this Decca SPA reissue is a mess.

How do we know that? We go out of our way to play every pressing we can get our hands on, even cheap reissues such as this. That’s our job.  We play everything to find the best sounding records so you don’t have to.

And some of these cheap reissues win shootouts!

But you can’t guess which ones will. You have to play them to find out.

And that’s how we know that some of them are good, some of them are mediocre, and some, like this one, are just awful.

Want to be assured of getting good sounding pressings of the greatest classical recordings of all time?

Step right up and order anything classical or orchestral you see here, Every one of them is guaranteed to please.

We play mediocre-to-bad sounding pressings so that you don’t have to, a free service from your record-loving friends at Better Records.

You can find this one in our hall of shame, along with others that — in our opinion — are best avoided by audiophiles looking for hi-fidelity sound. Some of these records may have passable, but the music is weak.  These are also records you can safely avoid.

We also have an audiophile record hall of shame for records that were marketed to audiophiles with claims of superior sound. If you’ve spent much time on this blog, you know that these records are some of the worst sounding pressings we have ever had the misfortune to play.

We routinely put them in our Hot Stamper shootouts, head to head with the vintage records we offer. We are often more than a little surprised at just how bad an “audiophile record” can sound and still be considered an “audiophile record.”

If you own any of these so-called audiophile pressings, let us send you one of our Hot Stamper LPs so that you can hear it for yourself in your own home, on your own system. Every one of our records is guaranteed to be the best sounding copy of the album you have ever heard or you get your money back.

Further Reading

If you’re searching for the perfect sound, you came to the right place.

Kraftwerk – Self-Titled

More Kraftwerk

More Art Rock

  • These original UK Vertigo pressings of the band’s first two German albums boast KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on THREE of the four sides
  • We shot out a number of other imports and the presence, bass, and dynamics on this copy placed it head and shoulders above the competition
  • All four of these sides are huge, spacious and rich, with prodigious amounts of bass, guaranteed to sound better than any other copy you’ve heard
  • “Kraftwerk [1970] is an exploratory art rock album with psych roots first and foremost, with Conny Plank’s brilliant co-production and engineering skills as important as the band performances. Hütter’s work on the [organ] can especially be appreciated with the extended opening drone moan of the all-over-the-place ‘Stratovarius’ combined with Schneider’s eerie violin work.”
  • “Stripped down to the Hütter/Schneider duo for this release [Kraftwerk 2, 1972], and again working with Conrad Plank as coproducer and engineer (this album alone demonstrates his ability to create performances combining technological precision and warmth), Kraftwerk here start exploring the possibilities of keyboards and electronic percussion in detail. Given that the band’s drummers were gone, such a shift was already in the wind, but it’s the enthusiastic grappling with drum machines and their possibilities that makes [the album] noteworthy.”

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Metallica – Master of Puppets

More Metallica

More Rock Classics

  • This vintage Elektra pressing was doing just about everything right, earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • If you want to hear this music explode out of the speakers and come to life the way Metallica wanted you to experience it, this record will do the trick
  • 5 stars: “[T]he band’s greatest achievement, hailed as a masterpiece by critics far outside heavy metal’s core audience. It was also a substantial hit, reaching the Top 30 and selling three million copies despite absolutely nonexistent airplay. Instead of a radical reinvention, Master of Puppets is a refinement of past innovations.”

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Rodrigo / Guitar Concerto / Fantasia Para Un Gentilhombre / Argenta / de Burgos

More of the music of Joaquín Rodrigo (1901-1999)

More Classical and Orchestral Music

  • Both sides of this wonderful classical guitar masterpiece on lovely boxed Decca UK vinyl boast outstanding Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER
  • The sound of the orchestra is as rich and sweet as would be expected from the Decca engineers, yet the guitar is clear, present and appropriately placed relative to the ensemble around it
  • Glorious sound from the first note to the last, brimming with the wonderful qualities that make listening to classical music in analog on top quality audiophile equipment so involving and pleasurable
  • Marks 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

If you were only to be allowed one Guitar Concerto recording, the Concierto De Aranjuez would probably be the one to own. You will recognize the main theme instantly; it’s the one Miles Davis appropriated for the astonishingly innovative Sketches of Spain album he did with Gil Evans.

The second picture in this listing is the original London, CS 6046, from which the piece is taken. It is a longtime member of the TAS List, and deservedly so.

This vintage Decca pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs 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 studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound.

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Nirvana – In Utero

More Nirvana

More Rock Classics

  • An original copy of Nirvana’s third and final release with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it from start to finish
  • It also plays fairly quiet at Mint Minus Minus considering the clear vinyl
  • If you want to hear this music explode out of the speakers and come to life the way the band wanted you to hear it, this record will do the trick
  • ANALOG at its Tubey Magical finest – you’ll never play a CD (or any other digitally sourced material) that sounds as good as this record as long as you live
  • 5 stars: “…In Utero remains a shattering listen, whether it’s viewed as Cobain’s farewell letter or self-styled audience alienation. Few other records are as willfully difficult as this.”

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The Beatles – With The Beatles

More With The Beatles

More of The Beatles

  • This vintage UK import copy was doing practically everything right, with a KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side one mated a solid Double Plus (A++) side two – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Superb space and immediacy, rich and (relatively) smooth and oh-so-Tubey Magical lead and harmony vocals – this is the right sound for With The Beatles
  • So many great songs: “All My Loving,” “Please Mr. Postman,” “Til There Was You,” “You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me” “Devil In Her Heart”… fourteen in all
  • Marks 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
  • 5 stars: “It was clear that, even at this early stage, the Beatles were rapidly maturing and changing, turning into expert craftsmen and musical innovators.”
  • Far from the best album the band ever released, it’s still full of great songs and must be seen as a Classic from 1963 with strong appeal to any fan of the early Beatles

This is a tough album to get to sound right, as long-time readers of our site surely know, but here are the sides that prove this album can sound very good indeed. Looking for the best sound? Try “Till There Was You” on side one and “You Really Got A Hold On Me” on the flipside.

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Peter Gabriel – So

More Peter Gabriel

More Art Rock


  • Amazing sound for Gabriel’s breakthrough album from 1986, with an INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side one mated an excellent Double Plus (A++) side two
  • Both of these sides are lively, solid and rich – drop the needle on any track and you’ll see what we mean
  • Great songs including “Don’t Give Up,” “Sledgehammer,” “Big Time,” “Mercy Street,” “Red Rain,” “In Your Eyes,” and more
  • 4 stars: “…[Gabriel’s] most accessible and…catchiest, happiest record he ever cut. “Sledgehammer” propelled the record toward blockbuster status, and [it] had enough songs with single potential to keep it there.”

Here is a copy of So with the Big and Bold Peter Gabriel sound we love. If you want your Art Rock to actually rock (as well as be arty), this is the copy for you.

It’s not a perfect recording by any means, but when it sounds this good you can easily forget its shortcomings and marvel at how consistently good the material and the production are.

No Mean Feat

It’s exceptionally hard to find good-sounding copies of this album, as you can read about below. With a digital recording such as this, the margin for mastering error is very slim. Most copies just aren’t worth the vinyl they’re pressed on. They can sound harsh, gritty, grainy, edgy, and thin.

We did a shootout years ago that taught us a few things. The most surprising finding? The Brit copy I had in my own collection sucked — how about that! As a rule, I like the Brit pressings best for PG, but that rule got broken after playing all these domestic copies, some of which really sound good, clearly better than the average Brit.

Recording Issues

This is a digital recording, and most of the time it is bright, spitty, and grainy like a typical digital recording, which plays right into our prejudices. After hearing a bad copy, what audiophile wouldn’t conclude that all copies will have these bad qualities? After all, it’s digital. It can’t be fixed simply by putting it on vinyl.

Ah, but that’s where logic breaks down. Proper mastering can ameliorate many if not most of a recording’s shortcomings. When we say Hot Stampers, we are talking about high-quality mastering doing exactly that.

Mass-Produced Plastic Problems

But of course the mastering is only one part of the puzzle. I have multiple copies with the same stampers. Some of them are terrible, some of them are wonderful — you just can’t rely on the numbers to guide you with a piece of mass-produced plastic like this. You have no choice but to play the record to know what it sounds like. (And that’s a good thing. Keeps you honest. There’s no “cheating” when you have nothing to go by but the sound.)

This album sold in the millions. They stamped it out until the metalwork was as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Those badly pressed copies are not going to have any high-frequency extension, which leaves them with all the harsh upper mids sticking out of the mix to peel the paint in your living room and make your ears bleed.

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Lincoln Mayorga – An Audiophile Record with Honest-to-Goodness Real Music

More Lincoln Mayorga

More Direct-to-Disc Recordings

  • An outstanding pressing with Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • This Limited Edition Sheffield Lab Direct Disc recording has some of the better sound we have ever heard for Volume III, clearly the best sounding title in the series
  • Both of these sides have energy and presence that just jumps right out of your speakers – this is but one of the qualities that separates the truly Hot Stampers from the pack
  • Many copies of this album tend to sound a bit thin and somewhat bright – on this copy, the sound is rich, full, and tonally correct from top to bottom
  • If you’re a Lincoln Mayorga fan, and what audiophile wouldn’t be?, this title from 1974 is clearly one of his best, both musically and sonically
  • The complete list of titles from 1974 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

What do Hot Stampers give you for this album? It’s very simple. Most copies of this album are slightly thin and slightly bright. They give the impression of being very clear and clean, but some of the louder brass passages start to get strained and blarey. This copy is rich and full. The sound is balanced from top to bottom. You can play it all the way through without fatigue.

Trumpets, trombones, tubas, tambourines, big bass drums — everything has the true tonality and the vibrancy of the real thing. The reason this record was such a big hit in its day is because the recording engineers were able to capture that sound better than anybody else around at the time.

That’s also the reason this is a Must Own record today — the sound holds up, and there are not many audiophile recordings you can say that about.

Just listen to the astoundingly powerful brass choir on Oh Lord, I’m On My Way. It just doesn’t get any better than that. If ever there was a Demo Disc, this is one. (more…)