Month: October 2024

Yet Another James Taylor Desert Island Disc

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of James Taylor Available Now

Musically this is one of Taylor’s best. Every track is good and many are wonderful. (More on that here.)

There are five or six James Taylor records that are Desert Island Discs for me. I know they probably wouldn’t let me take six of the same artists’ records to my island, but I would hope they would make an exception for James Taylor’s LPs, because they really do set a standard that few other popular performers can meet.

JT is an album we think we know well, one that checks off a number of boxes for us here at Better Records:

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This Sibelius Violin Concerto Was Big and Lush but…

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin Available Now

We love the way RCA recorded Heifetz back in the day, the day in this case being 1960. We usually have a good supply of vintage Heifetz titles on the site at all times. They often have our favorite performances, and the best copies, as the notes for the one below make clear, can have absolutely amazing sound.

As you can see from the notes, side one of a recent shootout winning copy was doing everything right.

However, we had a side two that was slightly better than the side two you see here. When we played the two best copies back to back, this side one came out on top, earning a grade of 3+, but the side two of another copy showed us there was even more three-dimensionality to be discovered in the recording than we thought. Consequently this side two was dropped a half grade to 2.5+.

This is exactly why we do shootouts. If you really want to be able to recognize subtle (and not so subtle!) differences between pressings, you must learn to do them too.

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Elvis Costello – Imperial Bedroom

More Elvis Costello

More 5 Star Albums

  • Imperial Bedroom is back on the site for only the second time in nearly two years, here with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on both sides of this UK pressing
  • These are just a few of the things we had to say about this incredible copy in our notes: “spacious and detailed piano and vox”…”up front and breathy”…”huge, rich bass”…”fully extended from to to bottom”…”can’t complain!” (side two)
  • Geoff Emerick engineered, creating a unique sound – forget the painfully bad domestic pressings, these imports are the only way to go
  • This dense, darkly serious album contains some of the best songs EC ever wrote – the last of his True Classics
  • 5 stars: “Costello’s music is complex and intricate, yet it flows so smoothly, it’s easy to miss the bitter, brutal lyrics…the detail and the ornate arrangements immediately peg Imperial Bedroom as Costello’s most ambitious album.”
  • If you’re an Elvis Costello fan, and what audiophile wouldn’t be?, this title from 1982 is surely a Must Own
  • The complete list of titles from 1982 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

Six of Elvis’s first seven albums received a Five Star rating from Allmusic, the exception being Almost Blue, and we generally would agree with that assessment (although Get Happy should probably also get Four Stars, not Five).

Which is to say that Elvis Costello is a brilliant artist whose albums work as albums, a fact that is in danger of being lost in a world of single-song downloads and greatest hits packages. We record-playing audiophiles are inclined to start at the beginning of a side and let it flow through to the end, and that is clearly the best way to appreciate and enjoy the work of this very gifted man.

Check out the Tracklist below to see a sample of some of the lyrics to a few of the songs on the album.

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Vivaldi / The Four Seasons / I Solisti Di Zagreb / Janigro

More of the Music of Antonio Vivaldi

  • With two solid Double Plus (A++) sides or close to them, this superb Vanguard recording of one of our favorite performances of the work (and only one of a handful of copies to hit the site in over three years) will be very hard to beat
  • Side two of this pressing has all the qualities that make analog so involving and pleasurable – the warmth, the richness, the naturalness, and above all the realism, and side one is not far behind in all those areas
  • The sound here has the power to transport you completely, with solid imaging and a real sense of space, qualities that allow us to forget we are in our listening rooms and not in the concert hall (particularly on side two)
  • There is a long story to be told about how this recording compares to the famous Living Stereo (LSC 2424), but the short version is that we may just prefer it for the phenomenal immediacy and richness it exhibits in the midrange
  • The dubious vinyl these records are pressed on is the main reason it has sometimes taken us ten years to do a shootout for this potentially amazing sounding LP
  • The bottom line: we know of no better recording of the work, and if you can stand some ticks, you are in for a very special sonic and musical treat
  • 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.

Paul Shoemaker wrote about this recording:

Nothing I have heard changes my view that the best Seasons ever was performed by Jan Tomasow and I Solisti di Zagreb and beautifully recorded by Vanguard at the very beginning of the stereo era. If you have almost every other version of the Seasons, you’ll want this one, too.

Folks, we have some good news for those of you who have been waiting for one of the best-sounding, most beautifully performed Four Seasons ever recorded. Let’s just say that this small ensemble recording is as close to perfect as any we have ever heard. The harpsichord is especially good on the Vanguard recording, better than the RCA I would venture. Its placement in the soundfield is subtly natural, precisely the way one would expect to hear it in performance.

All four movements are performed with great spirit, and other than a sour note right at the start — listen for it! — the playing is of the highest quality. I prefer the performance — slightly — to the famous RCA. (more…)

Ziggy Stardust – MoFi Reviewed

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of David Bowie Available Now

Sonic Grade: C-

The MoFi pressing is decent, probably better than the average domestic copy I suppose, since those are clearly made from dubbed tapes.

The colorations and limitations of their cutting system would make it far too painful for me to listen to it though, especially the sloppy bass and dynamic compression.

You can do worse but you sure can do a whole lot better, hence the C grade.

MoFi did two of the greatest Bowie albums of all time, Ziggy and Let’s Dance, and neither one of them can hold a candle to the real thing. If you want to settle for a mediocre imitation of either or both of those albums, stick with Mobile Fidelity.

If you want to hear the kind of Demo Disc sound that Bowie’s records are capable of, try a Hot Stamper pressing. It’s guaranteed to blow your mind or your money back.

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Letter of the Week – “…this pressing truly captures the large and tonally balanced sound like nothing I have ever heard.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Santana Available Now

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

Hey Tom, 

Listening to Moonflower now and you are spot on with your review. I have seen Santana in concert a couple of times and this pressing truly captures the large and tonally balanced sound like nothing I have ever heard.

Can’t stop listening : )

Rob

Rob, thanks for your letter. Santana in concert is exactly the sound we look for.

Best, TP

PS

Our Turn It Up Commentary

Santana’s albums, at least the ones we sell as Hot Stamper pressings, are records that only really come alive when you turn up your volume.

Many years ago I used to demonstrate this very effect for my audiophile friends with a shockingly good copy I found back in the late ’90s. I would play the first minute or so of track one at a pretty good level. There’s lots of ambience, there’s a couple of guys who shout things out, there’s a substantial amount of deep bass, and the whole recording has a naturally smooth quality to it (which is precisely what allows you to play it at louder volumes).

Then I would turn it up a notch, say about 2-3 DB. I would announce to my friends that this is probably louder than you will ever play this record, but listen to what happens when you do. The soundstage gets wider and deeper, all those guys that shout can be heard more clearly, you start to really feel that deep bass, and when the song gets going, it REALLY gets going. The energy would be fantastic.

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Les Brown – Goes Direct to Disc

More Large Group Jazz Recordings

More Reviews of Century Direct to Disc Records

  • Excellent sound throughout this original Great American Gramophone Company (later Century Records) pressing, with both sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Great energy, but the sonics are relaxed and tubey sweet at the same time, never squawky, with plenty of extension on both ends – that’s analog for ya!
  • Both sides here fulfill the promise of the Direct to Disc recording technology in a way that few – very, very few – Direct to Disc pressings can
  • Try “Tickle Toe” and “Gonna Fly Now” on side two to hear the best combination of excellent sonics and superb musicianship

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The Absolute Sound Was Half Right about Desperado

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Eagles Available Now

As we all know, the best sound on an Eagles record is found on the first album. For whatever reason, that record was left off the TAS Super Disc list, even though we feel that sonically it beats this one by a bit, and musically it beats it by a mile.

On the TAS Super Disc list, Harry Pearson recommends the British SYL pressings for this album. SYL pressings can sound very good; we’ve previously found one that rated a Double Plus on both sides.

But our champions for both sides were domestic, both this time and last time.

Does that mean the best domestics will always beat the best SYL pressings? Not at all. Only critical listening can separate the better pressings from the more typical ones. After playing more than a dozen copies of this album this week, we can definitively tell you that there are FAR more mediocre copies of this record — both domestic and import — than truly exceptional ones.

The typical pressing of this album, whether the domestic or SYL, falls far short of belonging on a Super Disc List.

There are killer domestic copies AND killer SYL imports out there, and the only way to know which ones sound good is to collect ’em, clean ’em, and play ’em.

Remember: TAS List doesn’t guarantee great sound, but Better Records does.

If you don’t think a record sounds as good as we’ve stated, we’ll always happily take that record back and refund your money. Good luck getting ol’ Harry to send you a check when the TAS-approved pressings you pick up don’t deliver.

Want to find your own killer copy?

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Side One Is Actually In Phase (Usually) and You Read It Here First (Probably)

Hot Stamper Pressings of Direct-to-Disc Recordings Available Now

This is a well recorded jazz album that should be able to find a home in any audiophile’s jazz collection.

It is also one of the pressings we’ve discovered with reversed polarity

According to the liner notes, this Dave Grusin album has reversed absolute phase. They tell you to switch the positive and negative at the speaker for the best transient response and spatial clarity. But get this: most side ones are NOT in reversed phase.

That out of phase quality is as plain as the nose on your face when you know what to listen for.

There’s an unpleasant hardness and hollowness to the midrange, a lack of depth, and an off-putting opaque quality to the overall sound.

With our EAR 324p phono stage, the click of a button reverses phase, also known as polarity. I can’t tell you how handy it is to have such a tool at your disposal. Checking the phase for Discovered Again couldn’t have been easier.

An Amazing Discovery

But get this: most side ones are NOT reversed phase. (All the side twos we played were however.) How about them apples! We could not have been more shocked. Here is the most famous out of phase audiophile recording in the history of the world, and it turns out most copies are not out of phase at all!

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Roger Waters – The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking

  • Boasting solid Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides, this original UK pressing is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other The Pros and Cons… you’ve heard
  • Like the recordings of Floyd, the sound is big, with lots of energy, excellent midrange presence and real weight down low
  • A tough album to find with this kind of sound, which is why so few copies have ever hit the site (this is the first in four years)
  • 4 stars: “The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking continues to showcase Waters’ unprecedented knack of addressing his darkest thoughts and conceptions in a most extraordinary fashion.”

Let me tell you, it is no walk in the park to find a copy of The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking that sounds as good as this one and plays as quietly. Those of you who like Floyd’s The Final Cut will probably get a lot out of the album. (more…)