Month: July 2024

Grieg – Peer Gynt / Gruner-hegge / Oslo Philharmonic

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

More Orchestral Spectaculars

griegpeerg_rca_1508_1357735538

  • You’ll find STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides of this vintage pressing, offering orchestral sound that is gloriously big and bold like no other recording of this music you have ever heard (or your money back)
  • It’s also fairly quiet at Mint Minus Minus, a grade that even our most well-cared-for vintage classical titles have trouble playing at
  • Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this killer copy in our notes: “huge and tubey”…”textured and transparent strings”…”lots of room and space”…”big and lively and dynamic”…”sweet and rich”
  • Rich and tubey, yet open and clear, with lovely string textures, especially in the lower strings, as would be expected of any Living Stereo record from this era
  • The Living Stereo Tubey Magical sonics from 1959 are hard to fault here – they don’t make ’em like this anymore
  • Our favorite performance – Gruner-Hegge and the Oslo Philharmonic understand this music at the most profound levels, making it an absolute Must Own for those of who appreciate the sublime experience of being able to listen to the greatest classical music recordings ever made without ever leaving the house
  • There are some bad marks (as is sometimes the nature of the beast with these early pressings) on Suite No. 2’s “Arabian Dance,” but once you hear just how incredible sounding this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting ticks and just be swept away by the music

As much as I like Fjeldstad’s Peer Gynt on Decca/London with the LSO, I have to say that Odd Gruner-Hegge (love that first name!) and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra turn in the better of the two performances. To these ears, theirs is more lyrical; it flows more naturally both within and between the individual movements.

This vintage Living Stereo 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.

If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.

Joy

The Oslo Phil also gives me more of a sense that they are feeling the joy in the playing of these works; I do not get quite the same feeling from the LSO. As we worked our way through more and more Living Stereo copies, the Oslo Phil.’s enthusiasm and love for the music became recognizably stronger, and, as one would expect, more agreeable and involving.

Our preference for this performance is, of course, a matter of taste; we cannot be sure you will feel the same. No doubt, you have a version of the Fjeldstad on hand for comparison purposes, perhaps the Speakers Corner pressing (which we used to like quite a bit), but any will do. I expect that playing a handful of select movements from the two performances back to back will show this one to be superior.

To be fair, both are superb. A sizable group of other recordings were auditioned, but we found no others that were comparable in terms of both sound and performance.

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The Doobie Brothers – What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits

More of The Doobie Brothers

More Rock Classics

  • This copy finished miles ahead of the pack in our most recent shootout, earning INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Forget the cardboard-y reissues and whatever crappy Heavy Vinyl pressing they’re making now – if you want to hear all the Tubey Magic and energy of these recordings, you need a vintage Hot Stamper pressing like this one
  • “Black Water” was the big hit on their breakthrough fourth album, and it sounds wonderful here – “Eyes of Silver” and “Another Park, Another Sunday” are killer too
  • “The Doobies team up with the Memphis Horns for an even more Southern-flavored album than usual…”

These songs sound every bit as good now as they did thirty-plus years ago when they came out. Better, because we can clean these old records and play them so much better than we could back then. I’ll be the first to admit that back in the day I was a bit of a snob when it came to bands like this. Too mainstream. Too radio-friendly.

Now I realize that the best of this kind of pop rock has stood the test of time very well. One listen and we think you’ll agree: this is good music that belongs in your collection. (more…)

Genesis – Foxtrot

More Genesis

More Prog Rock

  • Outstanding sound throughout this early Peter Gabriel-led Genesis album from 1972, with both sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades
  • One of the tougher Genesis albums to find with good sound – this British Charisma LP is much more impressive than most of what we played in our most recent shootout, and guaranteed to trounce any domestic or Heavy Vinyl pressing you may have heard
  • 5 stars: “Foxtrot is where Genesis began to pull all of its varied inspirations into a cohesive sound — which doesn’t necessarily mean that the album is streamlined, for this is a group that always was grandiose even when they were cohesive, or even when they rocked, which they truly do for the first time here. This is the rare art-rock album that excels at both the art and the rock, and it’s a pinnacle of the genre because of it.”

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Add Made in Japan to the List of Ridiculously Bad DCC Titles

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Deep Purple Available Now

What a murky mess. The sound is dead as a doornail.

It’s yet another audiophile record hall of shame pressing, a Heavy Vinyl disaster if there ever was one.

Is it the worst version of the album ever made?

That’s hard to say. But it is the worst sounding version of the album we’ve ever played, and that should be good enough for any audiophile contemplating spending money on this kind of trash. Take our advice and don’t do it.

If you like the sound of old McIntosh tube equipment such as the Mac 30s shown here, a sound Steve Hoffman apparently cannot get enough of, DCC is the label for you.

We don’t sell junk like this, but every other audiophile record dealer does, because most of the current group of mastering engineers making records for audiophiles have somehow gotten into their heads that this is the way records should sound.

We’ve been telling them they are wrong about that for years now, that good records have never sounded this way, but the collectors and audiophiles of the world keep buying their wares, so why should they listen to us?

What a Fool Believes

I used to like some of the DCC vinyl titles just fine too. Didn’t play them very often, but I liked what I heard when I did.

Then my stereo got a lot better. Eventually it became obvious to me what was wrong with practically all of the Heavy Vinyl pressings put out by that label. (That story from 1998 gets told in some detail here.)

Heavy Vinyl

The good Heavy Vinyls can be found in this group, along with other Heavy Vinyl pressings we liked or used to like.

The bad Heavy Vinyls can be found in this group. And those in the middle end up in this group.

Audio and record collecting (they go hand in hand) are hard. If you think either one is easy you are very likely not doing it right, but what makes our twin hobbies compelling enough to keep us involved over the course of a lifetime is one simple fact, which is this: Although we know so little at the start, and we have so much to learn, the journey itself into the world of music and sound turns out to be both addictive and a great deal of fun.

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Pink Floyd – Piper at the Gates of Dawn

Pink Floyd Hot Stamper Pressings Available Now

Reviews and Commentaries for Pink Floyd

  • A superb UK import pressing of Floyd’s debut studio album with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER from top to bottom
  • Side two was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be amazed at how big and powerful the sound is
  • This shockingly well-recorded album is a big step up from many that followed, and surely the best sounding Floyd until Meddle came along four years later
  • We made a huge breakthrough during our shootout, discovering a very special label and stampers that took the sound to a whole new level
  • 5 stars: “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn successfully captures both sides of psychedelic experimentation — the pleasures of expanding one’s mind and perception, and an underlying threat of mental disorder and even lunacy; this duality makes Piper all the more compelling in light of Barrett’s subsequent breakdown, and ranks it as one of the best psychedelic albums of all time.”

Outstanding sound for this classic early Floyd album featuring Syd Barrett! We did not expect to hear sound this good for the album. If you’ve played other versions of this one you’re going to be surprised — shocked even — at how big, rich and solid the sound is. “Astronomy Domine” and “Interstellar Overdrive” are especially impressive. We don’t think you’ll have much luck finding a copy with even one side this good, let alone two!

Without a doubt, this is by far the best sounding early Floyd recording we’ve ever played — the credit of course belongs with longtime Beatles engineer, Norman Smith.

Once the 70s arrive, the band went on to release four of the best sounding albums of the decade: Meddle, Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall. All four are in our Top 100. Dark Side I would put in any Top Ten worthy of the name.

The Beatles may have owned the 60s but the 70s clearly belong to Floyd.

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The Personification of the Dunning-Kruger Effect

Presenting the poster boy for the Dunning-Kruger effect. Mr. Hutchison fancies himself an audiophile/mastering engineer.

Mind you, he’s a mastering engineer in the same sense that a person who makes mud pies is a piemaker.

I have not played any of his classical albums. I have in fact only played one title, a jazz record I happen to know well, and his remastered version is no better than the other records that get an F grade for sound and can currently be found in our bad sounding audiophile records section.

I will publish a review one of these days, but until then, I recommend you steer well clear of this man’s records.

Update 2024:

We’ve reviewed three of this man’s releases to date. None of them should be acceptable to anyone who describes himself as an audiophile. If you “love sound,” these titles should make you sick to your stomach.

We’ve reviewed ERC’s My Favorite Things. (For the benefit of our readers, this is what a good pressing should sound like.)

Robert Brook also reviewed the album, and you can find his review here. (He didn’t like it any more than we did.)

We’ve also reviewed ERC’s Forever Changes. (For the benefit of our readers, this is what a good pressing should sound like.)

And we’ve reviewed ERC’s Quiet Kenny. (Again, this is what a good pressing should sound like.)

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Berlioz – Symphonie Fantastique / Argenta

More Imported Pressings on Decca and London

  • With two INSANELY GOOD Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides, this copy of this orchestral spectacular (the first to hit the site in over two and a half years) is certainly as good as we have ever heard
  • Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this amazing copy in our notes: “big and spacious with textured strings”…”fully extended from top to bottom”…”tubey bass and brass”…”huge and open”…”rich and transparent”
  • We love the performance of The Paris Conservatoire Orchestra under Argenta, and this original London pressing shows you just how well recorded that performance was back in 1958
  • The sound is clear and open and wonderfully smooth and the bottom is big — the tympani and lower strings are powerful and dynamic
  • You will have a hard time finding better sound in the lower registers for this work — most of the pressings we’ve played were simply too anemic to take seriously
  • Marks and problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these early pressings, but once you hear just how stunning sounding this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting ticks and pops and just be swept away by the music
  • It’s worth noting that this is the only copy from our shootout that will make it to the site this time ’round – all of the others had far worse issues that rendered them unacceptable for listing, so those of you hoping for a Nearly White Hot or Super Hot copy with audiophile surfaces and no marks that play are going to be almost as disappointed as we were

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Harry Nilsson – Harry

More Harry Nilsson

More Rock and Pop

  • A vintage pressing of Nilsson’s wonderful 1969 LP with excellent Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides
  • You’ll have a hard time finding a copy that sounds remotely as good as this one – it’s clean, clear, and present with boatloads of Tubey Magic
  • Full-bodied and rich, with plenty of space around the various instruments, this is the sound vintage analog can give you, and only vintage analog
  • 4 stars: “…Harry is where Harry Nilsson began to become Nilsson, an immensely gifted singer/songwriter/musician with a warped sense of humor that tended to slightly overwhelm his skills, at least to those who aren’t quite operating on the same level.”
  • This is a Must Own album from 1969. The next time you see it on the site, grab it, because it is rarely up there. Until then, buy the DCC CD. It’s excellent.

This forgotten gem sank like a stone in 1969, but time has treated this album well. It holds up to this very day. The production is superb throughout. Judging by this early album and the one before it, it appears he was already a pro in the studio, as well as an accomplished songwriter, and, most importantly, the owner of one of the sweetest tenors in popular music, then or now.

Harry checks off a number of important boxes for us:

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Letter of the Week – “The sound was simply amazing! I was listening to the master tapes!”

More of the Music of The Doobie Brothers

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

Hey Tom, 

The Doobie Brothers album “Livin’ on the Fault Line” has been my favorite album from one of my favorite bands of all time. It is full of great songs, phenomenal musicianship, and Michael McDonald at his best.

As a retiree who has very modest means today I have “shot out” more than a dozen copies of this lp and have a very good copy and backup. So last week Tom put up a double sided Triple Plus White Hot Stamper of “Livin’ on the Fault Line”. Could it be THAT much better than my best copy considering that my copy was the best of over a dozen and when played really sounds great? AND the Better Records copy would be almost 100 times the cost of my used record store “finds”.

But I couldn’t resist so I pushed the button and the Better Records White Hot copy arrived yesterday. I couldn’t wait to play it. It was in minty condition. I heated up the rig and sat down and laid my Jan Allearts “needle” (economy model $3000 cartridge with its Fritz Geiger stylus, ruby cantilever and hand wound gold coils that extract just about everything a record groove contains) on the band of the song “Little Darlin”.

Suddenly Michael McDonald was in the room in front of me. The sound was simply amazing! TOTALLY transparent. Dynamics were fantastic…..harmonics were great without losing the high end or low end to the midrange. I was listening to the master tapes!

Now this record was not one of the Doobies biggies. It’s a sleeper… a lot were made but you can find them easily and the used prices in bins are dirt cheap. Your average copy sounds pretty good and a good one sounds great BUT this White Hot Stamper just put ALL of them to shame!

This makes it a RARE find and Tom has alluded to how he hasn’t found many that sound this good. And that brings me to the thing that is most disturbing about collecting vinyl (forget CDs)… WHY could the record companies do such a really poor job shipping a majority of poor to good records when they also shipped a minority of fantastic Hot Stamper LP’s. I could say it’s the 80/20 rule where 20% of anything is great and 80% of everything is much less to awful. Like you want your car mechanic or your brain surgeon to be in the 20%! Then with vinyl you have to find the small percentage of the 20% that survived stems, twigs, coke, and horrible record players that destroyed most of all the records ever produced including the 20%.

But hey… there’s Tom Port and Better Records to do the hard work of finding a tiny percentage of a tiny percentage.

Are they expensive? Sure.

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Cecil Taylor Quartet – Looking Ahead!

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Piano

More Contemporary Label Jazz Recordings

  • Looking Ahead! is back on the site for only the second time in years, here with incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound from start to finish – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • We play a lot of vintage Contemporary recordings, but this one surprised us right from the first track with sound that stands out — this on a label that produced many of our favorite standout recordings
  • Both of these sides are clean, clear, and transparent, with an abundance of energy and wonderful clarity in the mids and highs
  • This is not an easy record to come by, as evident by how long it took us to get our most recent shootout going, and they usually don’t sound anywhere near this good when you manage to track one down
  • 4 1/2 stars: “It’s an amazing document of a talent fairly straining at the reins, a meteor about to burst onto the jazz scene and render it forever changed.”

These Nearly White Hot Stamper pressings have top-quality sound that’s often surprisingly close to our White Hots, but they sell at substantial discounts to our Shootout Winners, making them a relative bargain in the world of Hot Stampers (“relative” meaning relative considering the prices we charge). We feel you get what you pay for here at Better Records, and if ever you don’t agree, please feel free to return the record for a full refund, no questions asked.

This vintage Contemporary 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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