Month: September 2024

Remind Me, What Is the Point of Listening to a Quiet Record with Mediocre Sound?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Igor Stravinsky Available Now

A lackluster reissue from Philips, bad enough to qualify for our hall of shame.

This is some truly dead as a doornail sound, sound which is not remotely competitive with the real Mercury pressings we’ve played. The FR pressings of the recording can be phenomenally good.  Even the later M2 pressings from Philips can be excellent. 

Back in the 80s and 90s, I actually used to like some of the Golden Import pressings.  That was a long time go, and thankfully our playback system is quite a bit more revealing than the one I had back in those days.

After playing literally tens of thousands of records since then, my critical listening skills are better too.

Now when I play these imports, they sound veiled, overly smooth, smeary and compressed, not too different from the average Philips pressing, which of course is exactly what they are. They’re all remastered by Philips, to give the Mercury tapes the sound that Philips thinks they should have. Sadly, not much of the Mercury Living Presence sound has survived.

We complain about mixing and mastering engineers who felt compelled to bring a new sound to old favorites.

The Philips label that produced the Golden Import series are serial offenders in this regard.

The Golden Import pressings might be good for audiophiles who care more about quiet surfaces than good sound.  We are firmly staked at the opposite side of that trade-off.

Quiet vinyl means nothing if the sound is poor, or, at the very least, wrong for the recording.

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Anita Baker – Giving You The Best That I Got

  • Outstanding sonics throughout this vintage Elektra pressing, with both sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades
  • Key to the sound is richness and Tubey Magic, along with strong midrange presence, and on this pressing you get all three
  • We remembered this as a good recording and were still surprised with how good the better copies sounded
  • 4 stars: “…far superior to most of 1988’s uninspired R&B releases. Instead of tampering with Rapture’s consistently romantic and mellow soul/pop approach, Elektra brought back that album’s producer, Michael J. Powell, and kept [Baker] at the top of the charts with such sleek yet earthy fare as ‘Just Because,’ ‘Priceless,’ the haunting ‘Good Love,’ and the title song.”

We had a ton of copies for our recent shootout and can report that the typical pressings tend to be veiled, grainy, and lifeless. Most of them lacked richness, but a few of them had surprising analog qualities that gave the music a smoother, fuller sound.

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Ry Cooder – Paris, Texas

More of the Music of Ry Cooder

  • This excellent copy of Ry Cooder’s soundrack LP (one of only a handful to hit the site in close to a three and a half years) boasts solid Double Plus (A++) grades from start to finish
  • The sound on these TAS-approved sides is bigger and livelier than most others we played – above all it’s balanced, avoiding the tonality issues we heard on so many other pressings
  • 4 stars: “Suggestive of both the imagery of Wim Wenders’ movie Paris, Texas and the desert itself, Ry Cooder’s score is a peaceful, poetic journey into the soul of an acoustic guitar… a powerful and immensely evocative journey for those whose experience with the material is the album alone. “
  • If you’re a fan of Ry Cooder’s, this classic from 1985 belongs in your collection.
  • The complete list of titles from 1985 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

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Letter of the Week – “…this BR copy just lifted the veil.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Pink Floyd Available Now

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

Hi Tom,

Just a quick note about Meddle WHS. I also had an A!/B! XXX which does sound pretty good and is quiet, but this BR copy just lifted the veil.

Once I dialed in the sweet spot it was a delightful experience.

This copy is the bomb!!

Many Thanks,
Michel

Michel,

Not all A!/B!’s are created equal!

Most copies of the album with the right stampers will earn a grade of Super Hot, A++.

Some will be White Hot, A+++.

Almost all the pressings we play will have the same stamper numbers, although you may have read that we did just find another stamper for side two that can win shootouts.

Some of the difference in sound is the result of our using The Prelude Record Cleaning System, in conjunction with the Odyssey record cleaning machine we purchased in 2007 (more on that here).

Clean records sound better than they otherwise would, and properly cleaned records often sound much better than they otherwise would, oftentimes a full grade better.

Glad you liked our copy. Lifting the veil is a good way to put it.  We have a list of records we found to be veiled, and you can find it here. We describe them this way:

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Spandau Ballet – True

More Spandau Ballet

More Pure Pop Recordings

  • Boasting two surprisingly rich and natural – dare we say Analog? – sides, this early UK Chrysalis pressing had the sound we were looking for on the band’s third studio album
  • Forget the dubby domestic pressings and whatever dead-as-a-doornail Heavy Vinyl record they’re making these days – if you want to hear the Tubey Magic, size and energy of this wonderful Brit Pop album, an import pressing like this one is the only way to go
  • “… a set of tunes aimed squarely at the charts. The one that succeeded most spectacularly, of course, was the title cut, a glossily-updated Motown-style ballad that became one of the decade’s biggest hits – aided by a video that cast singer Tony Hadley as a young Frank Sinatra, crooning about the sound of his soul.”
  • This is clearly the band’s best sounding album. Roughly 150 other listings for the best sounding album by an artist or group can be found here on the blog
  • In our opinion, True is the only Spandau Ballet record you’ll ever need. Click on this link to see more titles we like to call one and done

Forget the dubby domestic pressings. Like so many British bands on the Chrysalis label, when it came time to master the album for our domestic market, not theirs, the people in charge (whoever they may have been) took the easy way out and simply ordered up a dub of the tape to send across the pond.

Too many wonderful albums by highly accomplished bands had their records ruined by sub-generation masters. (Ruined for audiophiles. The general public couldn’t care less.)

But this is the real British-pressed vinyl from the real master tape, and that makes all the difference in the world. It 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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John Coltrane / Lush Life

More of the Music of John Coltrane

  • Superb sound throughout this vintage Mono Prestige recording, with both sides earning Double Plus (A++) grades
  • The sound is everything that’s good about Rudy Van Gelder‘s recordings – it’s present, spacious, full-bodied, Tubey Magical, dynamic and, most importantly, alive in that way that modern pressings never are
  • Finding the best sounding pressings of this exceptional recording was a turning point for us – here was sound we had never experienced for the work, and what a thrill it was
  • 4 stars: “‘Lush Life’ is not only the focal point of this album, it is rightfully considered as one of Coltrane’s unqualified masterworks.”
  • If you’re a fan of vintage small-group jazz, this Coltrane LP from 1961 surely belongs in your collection

We’d been searching for years trying to find just what kind of Lush Life pressing — what era, what label, what stampers, mono or stereo, import or domestic — had the potential for good sound.

No, scratch that. We should have said excellent sound. Exceptional sound. We’ve played plenty of copies that sounded pretty good, even very good, but exceptional? That pressing had eluded us — until a few years ago.

It was early 2016, in fact, that we chanced upon the right kind of pressing — the right era, the right label, the right stampers, the right sound. Not just the right sound, though. Better sound than we ever thought this album could have.

Previously we had written:

“There are great sounding originals, but they are few and far between…”

We no longer believe that to be true. In fact we believe the opposite of that statement to be true. The original we had on hand — noisy but with reasonably good sound, or so we thought — was an absolute joke next to our better Hot Stamper pressings. Half the size, half the clarity and presence, half the life and energy, half the immediacy, half the studio space. It was simply not remotely competitive with the copies we now know (or at least believe, all knowledge being provisional) to have the best sound.

Are there better originals than the ones we’ve played? Maybe there are. If you want to spend your day searching for them, more power to you. And if you do find one that impresses you, we are happy to send you one of our Hot Copies to play against it. We are confident that the outcome would be clearly favorable to our pressing. Ten seconds of side one should be enough to convince you that our record is in an entirely different league.

By the way, the mono original we played was by far the worst sound I have ever heard for the album. By far.

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Cat Stevens – Tea For The Tillerman on the Island Pink Rim Label

More Cat Stevens

More Reviews and Commentaries for Tea for the Tillerman

 

  • This early Pink Rim Island UK pressing of TFTT, an album we consider the Pinnacle of British Folk Rock, boasts two excellent Double Plus (A++) sides
  • The emotional power of the songs is communicated completely on a pressing that sounds like this one – the experience will be like hearing the album for the first time, and how can you put a price on that?
  • Here’s your chance to relive the experience of hearing this groundbreaking album for the first time, but with much better sound than you ever thought possible
  • 5 stars on Allmusic, a stunning Demo Disc, and a permanent member of the Better Records Top 100

Hearing this Hot Stamper is a privilege that affords the listener insight into Cat Stevens’ music that is simply not possible any other way.

This album, I hope it goes without saying, is one of the greatest Folk Rock recordings of all time, the kind of music that belongs in any collection. I’ve been playing this album for 40+ years and I can honestly say I’ve never once tired of hearing it. I do get tired of hearing bad copies.

Cat’s mixes are full of subtle elements that may require many listening sessions over the course of years, even decades, to recognize and appreciate. Consider them an extra reward for having played the record so many times. I’ve played hundreds of copies over the last thirty-plus years and never tired of it once. As every music lover knows, the best albums only get better with time.

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How Can Sound This Bad Possibly Earn a 10?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Bob Dylan Available Now

Maybe if the scale goes from 1 to 100, sure, I could see it. Yeah, 10 out of 100 sounds about right.

But the scale goes to 11, which makes a grade of 10 risible to anyone who has played this seriously flawed pressing. Here is how we described its sound many years ago:

We found this mono reissue to be flat as a pancake and dead as a doornail, like most of the Sundazed records we’ve played, starting way back in the early 2000s. No, they never got any better.

In our experience, Sundazed is one of the worst record labels of all time. This pressing is just more evidence to back up our low opinion of them.

Obviously we may have a low opinion of them, but a famous audiophile reviewer seemed to find the sound to his liking. He wrote:

Sundazed’s reissue gives the original a run for the money and remains true to the original, though it suffers in the bass, which while deep and reasonably well defined, is not as tightly drawn or focused. The upper mids on the original also bloom in a way that the reissue’s don’t, giving the reissue a slightly darker, recessed sound, but there’s still sufficient energy up there since Dylan’s close-miked vocals pack an upper midrange punch. If the vocals or harmonica sound spitty and unpleasantly harsh, it’s your system, not the record [!] – though there’s plenty of grit up there. On the plus side, the overall clarity and transparency of the reissue beats the original. [!] A really fine remastering job.

Of course we find every word of this review arrant nonsense, except the discussion of the qualities he praises in the original relative to the reissue. It’s been twenty years since this remastered pressing came out, does anybody still like the sound of it? Anybody? Let’s hope not.

The intro to his review boldly declares a respect for Sundazed (and Classic Records and Analogue Productions) that we find puzzling after playing so many of their rarely-better-than-awful-sounding records. (Here is a commentary from 2007 that puts our antipathy in perspective. And no, modern records have no improved since then, if the releases from 2024 are any indication.)

Sundazed’s decision to issue Blonde on Blonde using the much sought after mono mix is indicative both of the company’s dedication to doing what’s musically correct, and of the vinyl marketplace’s newfound maturity. There was a time a few years ago when no “audiophile” vinyl label would dare issue a mono recording; audiophiles wouldn’t stand for it was the conventional wisdom. Perhaps back then it was even true. Today, with Sundazed, Classic, Analogue Productions and others issuing monophonic LPs on a regular basis (and one has to assume selling them as well) listeners are appreciating the music for music’s sake, and equally importantly, for the wonderful qualities of monophonic sound reproduction.

My grade might be 2 out of 11. No audiophile should be fooled by the crap sound of this pressing, and no audiophile should believe a word of this review.

Reviewer incompetence? We’ve been writing about it for more than 25 years. From the start we knew we could never begin to do much more than scratch the surface of preposterous record reviews in need of rebuttal. The audiophile world is drowning in this sh*t.

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Aerosmith – Live Bootleg

 

  • Seriously good sound for this 2-LP live album, with all FOUR sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Sides one, two and four are doing just about everything right – they’re big, full-bodied, dynamic and present with a huge punchy bottom end, and side three is not far behind in all those areas
  • “Unlike other live albums at the time, it’s obvious that not a lot of overdubbing was involved to fix up the tracks, which results in a refreshingly authentic representation of Aerosmith at the group’s most drugged-out and rocking… Live Bootleg is an excellent representation of one of rock & roll’s elite live acts.”

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Super Session Is the Poster Boy for Gritty, Spitty Vocals

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Al Kooper Available Now

Man’s Temptation, track 3 on side one, has got some seriously bright EQ happening (reminiscent of the first BS&T album, Child Is Father to the Man), so if that song even sounds tolerable in the midrange you are doing better than expected.

Bright, gritty, spitty, edgy, harsh, upper-midrangy vocals can be a real problem on this album.

The Red Labels tend to have more problems of this kind, but plenty of original 360 pressings are gritty and bright too. Let’s face it, if the vocals are wrong, the music on this album — like any rock and pop album — pretty much falls apart.

Most copies are far too bright and phony sounding to turn up loud; the distortion and grit are just too much at higher volumes.

On the better copies, the ones with more correct tonality and an overall freedom from distortion, you can crank the volume and let Super Session rock.

Testing with Super Session

This record, along with the others linked below, is good for testing the following qualities.

  1. Grit and grain
  2. Midrange tonality
  3. Sibilance (it’s a bitch) 
  4. Upper midrange brightness

Playing so many records day in and day out means that we wear out our Dynavector 17DX cartridges often, three or four times a year.

Which requires us to regularly mount a new cartridge in our Triplanar arm.

Once a new cartridge is broken in (50 hours minimum), we then proceed to carry out the fine setup work required to get it sounding its best. We do that by adjusting the VTA, azimuth and tracking weight for maximum fidelity using recordings we have been playing for decades and think we know well.

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