Month: October 2024

The Moody Blues – A Question of Balance

More of The Moody Blues

Reviews and Commentaries for The Moody Blues

  • With outstanding Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides, this vintage UK pressing (one of only a handful of copies to hit the site in about a year) will be very hard to beat
  • Huge and spacious, as well as wonderfully Tubey Magical – to our way of thinking, if this isn’t exactly the way the band wanted to sound in 1970, we can’t imagine what would be
  • This pressing has some of the best Moody Blues sound we’ve ever heard – it’s a truly exceptional recording in their canon
  • Includes the big hit “Question,” one of the all time greats by the band, which sounds fantastic here of course

Achieving just the right balance of “Moody Blues Sound” and transparency is no mean feat. You have to be using the real master tape for starters. Then you need top end extension, a very rare quality on these imports, and finally, good bass definition to keep the bottom end from blurring and bleeding into the midrange. No domestic copy in our experience has ever had these three qualities, and only the best of the British imports (no Dutch, German or Japanese need apply) manages to get all three on the same LP.

Allow me to steal some commentary from a Moody Blues Hot Stamper shootout we did years ago, for the wonderful In Search of the Lost Chord, in which we say that, on the best Hot Stamper pressings, the clarity and resolution come without sacrificing the Tubey Magical richness, warmth and lushness for which the Moody Blues recordings are justifiably famous.

We guarantee this copy will take the Moodies’ wonderful music to a level you have never experienced in all your music-loving days.

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Berlioz / Symphonie Fantastique / Monteux

More Living Stereo Recordings

  • Boasting two solid Double Plus (A++) Living Stereo sides, this original Shaded Dog pressing was giving us the sound we were looking for on Monteux and the Vienna Phil’s performance of this orchestral spectacular
  • An outstanding pressing, with gorgeous Golden Age Tubey Magical strings and lovely hall acoustics
  • This is our favorite performances of Berlioz’s masterwork
  • Ansermet’s recording for Decca (CS 6025) is also a favorite, but when you play the best of them against the top Shaded Dogs, the differences are clear and so is the winner, the RCA
  • The hall is huge, the brass solid and powerful, the top and bottom extends properly, the stage is wide and clear — what more can you ask for?
  • There are about 150 orchestral recordings we think offer the best performances with the highest quality sound. This record is certainly deserving of a place on that list.

This is a piece that’s difficult to squeeze onto two sides of a single LP, clocking in as it does at around 45 minutes, which means that the mastering engineer has three options when cutting the record: compress the dynamics, lower the level, or filter out the deep bass.

The RCA mastering engineer for this pressing managed to hold on to the powerful dynamics captured by the Decca (as far as I know) recording team, seemingly without doing harm to dynamics, levels or deep bass. How, I have no idea.

Maybe it’s the gorgeous Living Stereo strings and hall acoustics that let us forget about the possibility of compromises in other areas.

Of course this was always the downfall of the Classic Records RCA remasterings. Their records had bass and dynamics, no one could deny it, but the strings were usually shrill and smeary, and the hall a fraction of the size the vintage pressings had.

We found out some years ago that there was a new series of recuts coming from Acoustic Sounds. Based on their dismal track record, I will be very surprised if they are much better than mediocre.

UPDATE 2024:

We finally got one in — no less than LSC 2446, Scheherazade — and put it right into a shootout.

The results: a mediocre side one, a bad side two. Not worth the vinyl it’s pressed on. Almost any White Dog or Shaded Dog will beat it (although it should be noted that there are plenty of vintage pressings of the album on those two labels that don’t sound much better than mediocre. Still, no matter what early vintage pressings you have, on side two it should be no contest.)

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Grieg / Peer Gynt Suites – Were We Wrong? Probably

Hot Stamper Pressings of the music of Edvard Grieg Available Now

Below are the notes for a later pressing we played many years ago. I doubt if we would like this Red Seal pressing much now. The later RCA pressings we’ve played lately left much to be desired.

I get the feeling it lacks Tubey Magic, as well as weight in the lower registers, and we are much less tolerant of those two shortcomings now than we were then.

Our review from 2008

Fiedler is wonderful here, which is to be expected. What’s unusual about this Red Seal is how good the sound is. It’s extremely transparent and tonally correct.

It sounds to me like a flat transfer.

Some tubey colorations would be nice, especially in the louder passages.

The sound also lacks a bit of weight in the bottom end.

But these faults are mostly made up for by the tremendous clarity and freedom from distortion that this pressing has. I doubt if the Shaded Dog has those qualities.

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Dave Brubeck Quartet – Time Further Out on 360

More Dave Brubeck

Reviews and Commentaries for Time Further Out

  • Excellent sound throughout this black print 360 Stereo pressing, with both sides earning Double Plus (A++) grades – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • It’s bigger, richer, more Tubey Magical, and has more extension on both ends of the spectrum than most other copies we played
  • This copy demonstrates the big-as-life Fred Plaut Columbia Sound at its best – better even than Time Out(!)
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The selections, which range in time signatures from 5/4 to 9/8, are handled with apparent ease (or at least not too much difficulty) by pianist Brubeck, altoist Paul Desmond, bassist Eugene Wright, and drummer Joe Morello on this near-classic.”

Time Further Out is consistently more varied and, dare we say, more musically interesting than Time Out.

If you want to hear big drums in a big room, these Brubeck recordings will show you that sound better than practically any record we know of. These vintage recordings are full-bodied, spacious, three-dimensional, rich, sweet and warm in the best tradition of an All Tube Analog recording.

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Letter of the Week – “I cannot recall a purchase that’s made me happier since I went back to vinyl a year ago. It’s THAT good.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of Sgt. Peppers Available Now

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

Hey Tom, 

You’ve done it again. I thought the Hot Stamper copy I bought back in June sounded extraordinary. But this White Hot Stamper puts it to shame. This is truly unbelievable.

Paul’s bass on the opening track blew me away. Ringo’s drums are so strong it’s scary. I ALMOST had to turn it down (I live in a top-floor apartment and push my neighbors below me right to the edge), but screw it, this sounds so good at my regular listening volume I’ll happily put up with a complaint if I must. Hell, I’ll invite him in and put him in The Chair, and that’ll be the end of THAT.

And you weren’t kidding about George’s vocals and his sitar on Within You, Without You. That’s always been one of my least-favorite cuts on the album, but I’ll skip it no longer.

I cannot recall a purchase that’s made me happier since I went back to vinyl a year ago. It’s THAT good.

Now what am I gonna do with this Hot Stamper copy I bought back in June? It’s been played twice since you sent it. Come to think of it, I’m keeping it as an insurance policy, just in case. You never know!

Thanks, gentlemen. Exquisite, just exquisite.

Bill P.

Bill,

Fantastic news, we could not be happier for you.

Within You Without You has always been a favorite of mine. I never got around to writing about playing a very special copy many years ago, probably in 2007.

I played a copy of the album that magically — or so it seemed — created a swirling cloud of sitar harmonics floating above the speakers, close to the ceiling, something I had never heard before I hooked up the Townshend Super Tweeters and started cleaning records with the Prelude System and the Odyssey machine.

All those changes revealed top end information I had simply no idea existed on the record.

With all those changes to the system and cleaning, it was only a matter of time until the right reissue pressing came along to show me what I had never heard before.

I can still remember the experience very clearly. You never forget the feeling you get from something like that.

Right around that time I heard a pressing of Meddle with the same mind-boggling extension going all the way up into the stratosphere. That one I did write about.

White Hot Stamper pressings have long been known to have a powerful effect on those who play them. To back up everything we say, here is a sampling of some of the letters we’ve received, sounding very much like your own.

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Turntable Setup – What It Takes for Mind Blowing Sound

Robert Brook runs a blog called The Broken Record, with a subtitle explaining that the aim of his blog is to serve as:

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

We know of none better, outside of our own humble attempt to enlighten that portion of the audiophile community who love hearing music reproduced with the highest fidelity and are willing to go the extra mile to make that happen.

Here is Robert’s latest posting.

Turntable Setup: What It Takes For MIND BLOWING Sound!

Robert’s Approach

Robert has methodically and carefully — one might even say scientifically — approached the various problems he’s encountered in this hobby by doing the following:

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Billy The Kid / Rodeo – How Do the Record Club Copies Sound?

Hot Stamper Pressings of Classical Masterpieces Available Now

Without anyone knowing, a Record Club pressing found its way into one of our shootouts a few years back. Because the person doing the listening has no idea what pressing is on the table, biases and prejudices cannot affect the grading or the outcome of the shootout.

It earned Two Pluses, not enough to win a shootout, but enough to put practically any orchestral record made in the last thirty years to shame. We noted at the time:

This spectacular Demo Disc recording is clear, rich, dynamic, transparent and energetic – here is the BIG, BOLD sound we love. There is a note on the inner sleeve that says this was a Record Club of America purchase in 1973.

Can you imagine that a Record Club was offering records in 1973 that were better sounding than anything being made today? Astonishing.

There are about 150 orchestral recordings we think offer the best performance coupled with the highest quality sound. This record has earned a place on that list.

If you’re a fan of orchestral showpieces such as these, this recording from 1967 belongs in your collection.

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Earl Fatha Hines – Fatha

More Earl “Fatha” Hines

More Direct-to-Disc Recordings

  • A seriously good M&K direct to disc recording with Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER from first note to last – remarkably quiet vinyl too
  • Both sides are clean, clear, lively, and super transparent, with sound that was smoother, sweeter, and richer than we are used to hearing for this album
  • You won’t believe how dynamic this copy is – when Fatha’s really pounding on the keys, you might just jump out of your chair
  • The opening track, “Birdland,” with just a high hat, a tuba and Fatha on piano is worth the price of the disc alone (well, maybe not at these prices…)

The overall sound is clean, clear, lively, and super transparent. The edgy, hard piano sound that plagued our lesser copy is nowhere to be found.

One of the BEST Direct to Discs on M&K. This is especially good jazz piano music; Earl Hines plays up a storm on this album. The opening track, “Birdland,” with just a high hat, a tuba and Fatha on piano is worth the price of the disc alone.

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Discovering Reversed Polarity on Music for Bang, Baaroom and Harp Was a Breakthrough

schorymusic

Percussion Recordings with Hot Stampers Available Now

Music for Bang Baaroom and Harp is yet another one of the pressings we’ve discovered with reversed polarity on some copies. This happened many years ago, and as you can see from the commentary we wrote back then, it came as quite a shock to us at the time.

Are audiophile reviewers or audiophiles in general listening critically to records like this?

I wonder; I could not find word one about any polarity issues with this title, and yet we’ve played four or five copies with reversed polarity on side two. How come nobody is hearing it, apart from us?

We leave you, dear reader, to answer that question for yourself.

This listing has the latest information on the stamper numbers to avoid.

More stamper and pressing information can be found here.

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Carly Simon / Another Passenger

More of the Music of Carly Simon

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Carly Simon

  • An original Elektra pressing of Simon’s underrated release from 1976 with solid Double Plus (A++) grades from start to finish
  • Both of these sides are rich, full-bodied and warm, with real immediacy to Carly’s wonderfully present and breathy vocals
  • You get lovely extension up top, good weight down low, as well as exceptional transparency in the midrange, all qualities that were much less evident on the average copy we played
  • “Another Passenger is Carly Simon’s best record. The sniffs of ‘So what?’ that that assertion may provoke are exactly what Simon is confronting with this album.” – Rolling Stone
  • We’ve recently compiled a list of records we think every audiophile should get to know better, along the lines of “the 1001 records you need to hear before you die,” with an accent on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. Another Passenger is a good example of a record audiophiles may not know well but we think might benefit from getting to know better

This is my personal favorite of all of Carly’s albums. It’s her most consistent work in terms of her singing and songwriting. Nothing too heavy, just well crafted and enjoyable Singer Songwriter pop. If you like the kind of albums Paul Simon used to make before Graceland, or middle period James Taylor, you should like this.

Some of her albums can be badly overproduced, with big echoey drum thwacks; thankfully this is not one of them, so we think most listeners will find that the album wears very well. I can personally attest to that fact because I have a tape of this album in my car and I’ll bet you I’ve played it two hundred times or more.

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