Month: December 2024

The CBS Half-Speed of Off the Wall Is a Joke

Hot Stamper Pressing of the Music of Michael Jackson Available Now

Sonic Grade: F

Pure MUD. No top end whatsoever!

I remember when we audiophiles looked down our noses at CBS Half-Speeds because they weren’t pressed in Japan and sold at a notable discount to the offerings of Mobile Fidelity and their competitors.

But we were so desperate back then for top quality pressings that we bought them anyway!

Are audiophiles any less desperate today? They seem pretty desperate to me. They approach these new Heavy Vinyl records naively instead of skeptically, assuming they will be better sounding in exactly the same way I assumed the Half Speeds I was buying forty years ago would be better sounding.

The more things change…

If you are buying these modern pressings, take the advice of some of our customers and stop throwing your money away on Heavy Vinyl and Half-Speed masters.

At the very least let us send you a Hot Stamper pressing — of any album you choose — that can show you what is wrong with your copy. And if for some reason you disagree that our record sounds better than yours, we will happily give you all your money back and wish you the best.

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The Early London Pressings Of Schubert’s 9th Are Awful

Hot Stamper Classical and Orchestral Imports on Decca & London

There are plenty of Deccas and Londons that we’ve cleaned and played over the years that were disappointing, and some of them can be found here.

What was most striking about this shootout was how poorly the original London Bluebacks (CS 6061) fared when going head to head with the best vintage reissues. In fact, they were so obviously inferior I doubt we would have even needed another pressing to know that they could not possibly be considered Hot Stampers.

The two we had were crude, flat, full of harmonic distortion, and both had clearly restricted frequency extremes.

In other words, it just sounded like an old record, and not a very good one at that. The world is full of them.

But I remember liking the Blueback pressings I played ten or twenty years ago.

Did I have better copies, or was my system not capable of showing me the shortcomings I so clearly heard this time around? Since this is a question that cannot be answered with any certainty, we’ll have to leave it there.

Our favorite performance of the work is this one with Krips and the LSO, but on a much later reissue pressing produced by Decca in the 70s. Imagine that!

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Could This Be the Sound Audiophiles Complain About with RVG’s Mastering?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of John Coltrane Available Now

A rare and expensive early mono pressing that we put into our most recent shootout was dreadful sounding.

Our main listening guy owns the record and made the note you see below, saying that his personal copy is every bit as bad.

The sound of the original was painfully midrangy and crude. It was not the worst of all the pressings we played, but it was nevertheless pretty bad, sounding nothing like our shootout winners.

We had a pressing on an early Prestige label in stereo, also mastered by Rudy Van Gelder, that was reasonably good sounding, earning grades of 1.5+ to 2+. It was sweet and relaxed, but relatively small and lacked the weight of the best.

For this music, we’ve found the best sound on the better Two-Fer pressings and the right OJC.

That Two-Fer budget reissue pressing, remastered by David Turner in 1972, can do very well in a shootout, but it can also fall far short of the mark on some sides, as you can see from the grades for these three other copies.

If you have the Two-Fer, how does yours sound compared to the four we auditioned (a shootout we were doing for the third or fourth time I might add), and how could you possibly know such a thing without a great many more copies at hand to clean and play?

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Paul McCartney – Wings at the Speed of Sound

More Paul McCartney

More Beatles

  • Killer sound throughout this vintage Capitol pressing of Wings’ follow-up to Venus and Mars, with a Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side one mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side two
  • This copy has a “cinematic” quality – it’s just plain bigger, with more depth to the soundfield, and more energy than we remember from the last time we did the shootout
  • The big hits, “Let ‘Em In” and “Silly Love Songs,” as well as minor gems such as “Beware My Love,” are outstanding here, with good body and a smoother, more natural, but still extended top end
  • The right stampers are key on this title, and these are definitely the right ones
  • Problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs, but once you hear just how superb 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
  • “…At the Speed of Sound ostensibly invites the listener to spend a day with McCartney and Wings—a day in which the listener is gently harangued as well as entertained.” – Rolling Stone

The better copies such as this one had the qualities that really make the songs come to life and give you a taste of the old McCartney magic.

Import Vs. Domestic

We’ve played plenty of both and in our experience the best domestic pressings are clearly superior. This is not true for many of McCartney’s albums but it is definitely true for this Wings at the Speed of Sound and his first, McCartney.

The copies that were flatter, more transistory, more opaque, less present; the ones that had no real extension up high or down low, or little in the way of Tubey Magic — here we are basically describing the all-too-common typical pressing — simply did not make the cut and ended up in the trade pile. That’s not our sound and never has been.

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Tony Mottola / Warm, Wild and Wonderful

More Exotica Albums with Hot Stampers

  • You’ll find solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER throughout this original Project 3 pressing
  • Both of these sides are tubier, more transparent, and more dynamic than most others we played, with plenty of that “jumpin’ out of the speakers” quality that only The Real Thing (an old record) ever has
  • We have never heard the electric guitar sound more real than it does on the better copies of this very album
  • The arrangements of these mostly familiar songs are clever and innovative – the last thing this music could be called is boring or obvious
  • When you’ve played as many records as we have, you’re bound to run into this kind of amazingly good sound from time to time – it’s what makes record collecting fun

The hottest stamper pressings of this album are Demo Discs for three important qualities we listen for in our record auditions. Each of the links below will take you to other recordings we have found to be potentially superior in these areas of reproduction.

  1. Size and space,
  2. Correct timbre and
  3. Tubey Magic.

This is clearly one of the best sounding guitar records we’ve ever had the pleasure to play here at Better Records. Project 3 was an audiophile label in the truest and best sense of the word: a label that not only cared about the sound of their recordings, but actually proved they could produce title after title of the highest quality, equal or superior to anything on the market.

This, of course, places them in stark contrast with the audiophile labels of the modern era, the last forty years say, which only on rare occasion produce records of any real quality. (Here’s one, which proves it can be done!)

Instead these modern labels endlessly grind out one mediocrity after another to the consternation of those of us who know the difference.

But I digress.

We had a mind-blowing percussion record on the Somerset label years ago that raised the bar for us regarding that genre, and this jazz guitar record on Project 3 has achieved the same effect. Some of the following is borrowed from the listing for that Somerset record.

Soundfield, Timbre and Dynamics

The spaciousness of the studio is reproduced with uncanny fidelity, with both huge depth and width, but there is another dimension that this record operates in that few others can — the instruments here are capable of jumping out of your speakers seemingly right into your listening room.

The effect is astonishing. I have never heard the electric guitar sound more real than it does here. The timbre is perfection. The dynamics are startling.

The One Per Cent

Obviously we are charging a lot of money for this kind of Exotica/Bachelor Pad record. Let me make the case by saying that there is likely to be no better sounding record on the site as you read this, and not that many that can compete with it. Out of the thousands and tens of thousands of records we have played over the years, we put this copy in the Top One Per Cent.

It is our belief that no one with an up-to-date, highly tweaked big system, a properly setup front end (with the VTA adjusted specifically for this record), and a carefully treated listening room can fail to have his mind blown by the sonics of this pressing.

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Letter of the Week – “So dynamic and real it’s scary.”

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

Tom

So dynamic and real it’s scary. An extraordinary recording. This copy is a bit long in the tooth and worn, but the sound is overwhelming. 

Phil

Phil,

That copy won a shootout, that’s why it was so good. They don’t all sound like that.

In fact, only that one sounded like that in our last shootout, if memory serves.

Here is more on Sheffield’s first direct to disc.

Doug Sax Is The Man

The Mastering Lab was one of the greatest cutting houses to ever master records.

Doug Sax knew how to keep his lathes and amplifiers working at state-of-the-art levels. The sound quality is unsurpassed.

And he did it all with tubes.

He was very proud of his custom-made tube-driven cutting amps, designed by none other than his brother, Sherwood. His amps cut many of my favorite records of all time, including this one, an album that I have been using to test and improve the playback quality of my system for more than forty years.

To this day we get taken to task by some regrettably misguided individuals for criticizing his work on the awful audiophile records he made in the 90s, many of them for Analogue Productions. We stand firmly behind the criticism we made of those albums decades ago. Their sound has not improved with age, nor is it likely to.

Those records from the 90s sound nothing like the records Doug and his crew were making in the 70s.

According to the logic of our critics, if you made great records in the 70s, then you must have been making great records in the 90s, whether your name is Doug Sax, Bernie Grundman, George Marino, Robert Ludwig or any other.

This is a very crude way of understanding the work of these exceptionally talented men.

The fact that this kind of sophistry is taken seriously by supposedly grownup adults in the audiophile community is embarrassing. To those of us who have been in the hobby for decades, it comes as no surprise.

Audiophiles have always embraced bad ideas (Half-Speed mastering!) and bad records (like those found here.) Our hobby attracts large numbers of True Believers, and many of them — too many of them — latch onto conventional ideas about records and audio which are attractively convenient and comforting.

Self-evident, convenient and comforting ideas — so beautiful and beguiling — rarely get put to the test. They are a ball some audiophiles have unknowingly chained to themselves.

These superficially attractive ideas do not hold up well to scrutiny. They are mostly assumptions, and we take issue with assumptions when it comes to finding better sounding records.

For those who would like a more thorough explanation of our approach and the heterodox views it produces, we wrote about it here.

Uniquely among audiophile reviewers, empirical evidence, using large pools of data, all of it acquired scientifically, is at the heart of everything we think we know. And, as we freely admit, we sometimes still get it wrong.

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Fleetwood Mac – Tusk

More of the Music of Fleetwood Mac

  • A Tusk like you’ve never heard, with excellent Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER on all FOUR sides
  • Side two was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be shocked at how big and powerful the sound is
  • These vintage pressings have the MIDRANGE MAGIC that’s surely missing from whatever 180g reissue has been made from the 43 year old tapes (or, to be clear, a modern digital master copy of those tapes)
  • 5 stars: “McVie and Nicks don’t deviate from their established soft rock and folk-rock templates, and all their songs are first-rate… Because of its ambitions, Tusk failed to replicate the success of its two predecessors, yet it earned a dedicated cult audience of fans of twisted, melodic pop.”
  • If you’re a fan of late-70s pop, especially the kind with a harder edge, this is a Must Own from 1979 that belongs in your collection.
  • The complete list of titles from 1979 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

This is one of the more controversial albums in the history of pop music — some people love it, others despise it, and some still don’t know what to make of it. You may not put it up there with Rumours, but when you hear these songs on a copy this good it’s easy to see why the All Music Guide gave Tusk five big stars!

Tusk suffered from high expectations and disappointed those looking for Rumours II. There is much on this album that compares to the best of Rumours but the weak material somewhat drags the album down as a whole. About three-quarters of Tusk is excellent. I made a 60-minute tape of that material and play it with great pleasure. I could tell you about lots of wonderful qualities the best tracks on the album have, but it would take too long. Sorry!

Sonically, the best sounding material ranks right up there with anything the band ever did, but there are more experimental moments such as What Makes You Think You’re The One that are never going to be tracks you demo your system with.

One high point (musically and sonically) is “Beautiful Child,” quite possibly the best song Stevie Nicks ever wrote. If you listen carefully and give yourself over totally to the sentiment of the song, and your eyes don’t well up, try opening up a vein and letting some ice water pour out. Then try it again. Repeat if necessary. If that doesn’t work just give up and go back to the Diana Krall CD you were playing.

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Letter of the Week – “This has to be the most dramatic improvement over a typical recording I’ve ever heard!”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of David Bowie Available Now

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

Hey Tom, 

Picked up your SHS of “Ziggy” last week–my daughter is 13 and starting to get into Mick Ronson, and I got this to show her what I think is his best work, not just on guitar, but in essentially creating the overall sound for the “Ziggy Stardust” album.

What I didn’t expect was how fantastic this album sounds. I’ve had other copies and they sound like I’m wearing a blanket over my head. Alongside my HS copy of “Freak Out” (first record I ever bought from you guys, I think), this has to be the most dramatic improvement over a typical recording I’ve ever heard!

Records like this justify Better Records in spades–wow!!

Stephen F.

Stephen, thanks for your letter.

Let’s face it: the average copy is pretty average. We wouldn’t even bother to play the average copy. Who needs it? Audiophiles want something that sounds good and record collectors can find records like these on ebay for under $10 or thereabouts, so no one in either group needs to come to our site to get some run-of-the-mill pressing of a title as common as this one.

Audiophiles come to us for the best, the copies that beat the Remastered Heavy Vinyl Con Jobs, the Half-Speeds, the whatever Audiophile BS pressing may be out there. We take them all on and beat them with ease.

You don’t need to spend a fortune to get a great record from us. It helps — don’t get me wrong, our Top Dollar copies are OUT OF THIS WORLD. But for the price of a good dinner (maybe an especially good dinner), you can have a record that will give you joy and pleasure far out of proportion to its cost.

UPDATE 2023

The bit about the record costing the price of a dinner is no longer true, unless you are in the habit of spending $1000 or more at dinner. Rarely are Hot Stamper pressings of Ziggy priced under that nowadays. Trying to balance the small supply with the high demand has resulted in the price getting somewhat out of hand, at least for those of us in the middle class.

If we could find more of the good pressings and sell them for cheaper, believe me, we would. At under $1000 the record would probably not last a day on the site. At $1500 and up, it’s there for those who love the album enough to pay the admittedly premium price we’re asking.

Stephen, we look forward to finding you more better sounding pressings of your favorite music.

TP

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Fifth Dimension – More Dead as a Doornail Sundazed Sound

Hot Stamper Pressings of Sixties Pop Recordings Available Now

This review was written probably more than twenty years ago, back in the day when we actually would order up the latest Sundazed title in the hopes of finding something worth offering to our customers. Looking back, it’s hard to imagine a bigger waste of our time. So few were any good and so many were terrible, why were we bothering to fish where there weren’t any good fish?

Through it all, through the worst of those dark days, somehow we managed to learn some important lessons.

The main lesson we learned was that there was no record with sound so bad that it could not be released.

Even worse, there was no record with sound so bad that it would prevent the better known reviewers from raving about it. (If you think anything has changed, just pull up the latest TAS Super Disc list. The bad souding Heavy Vinyl pressings to be found there far exceed the good sounding vintage pressings they’ve nominated for inclusion over the last 50 years. A small sample.)

Our days playing and selling even the best of these kinds of modern reissues are long gone. By 2007 everything had changed.

Our Old Review

The best stereo copies are rich, sweet and Tubey Magical — three areas in which the Sundazed reissues are seriously lacking.

If anyone still cares, anyone besides Michael Fremer, that is. He seems to like some of their remastered records. We can’t be bothered with mediocrities such as this and the rest of their sorry output, but apparently people are still buying these records. The label is still in business and cranking out more dreck with each passing year. 

And none of the Columbia monos we’ve played did much for us either. Congested and compressed, with no real top, who in his right mind could possibly prefer that sound?

Audiophiles? Record collectors? What in god’s name are they listening with, or for?

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Rockin’ Out to Victim of Love

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Eagles Available Now

This commentary was written more than ten years ago. Wouldn’t change a thing though!

Victim of Love is a classic case of yet another in the long list of recordings that really comes alive when you turn up your volume.

It’s the sound of this five piece tearing it up LIVE IN THE STUDIO. It’s also the track where the DCC just falls apart for us. Where did the rock and roll energy go? The DCC makes it sound like the band just doesn’t care, which was certainly not our experience when we were playing any of the killer Hot Stampers we came across.

Just the reverse was true; we had them turned up full blast and they ROCKED.

One reason the turn up your volume test is such a great test — in this case, the problem being the kind of lifeless sound that Heavy Vinyl pressings more often than not suffer from — the harder it is to ignore.

I might go so far as to say that Victim of Love is the best sounding track on the whole album. It’s punchy, real and MUSICAL in a way that nothing else on the album is, because it’s being played by a real band, live. The energy and coherency of the sound is like nothing else you will hear on Hotel California, and possibly on any other Eagles record. (more…)