Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring Shelly Manne Available Now
Remember the 90s Acoustic Sounds Analog Revival series mastered by Stan Ricker? This was one of the titles they did, and completely ruined of course, as was the case with all the titles from that series that we played.
Ricker boosted the hell out of the top end, as is his wont, so all the percussion had the phony MoFi exaggerated sizzle and tizziness that we dislike so much around here at Better Records.
Yes, it’s the very same phony top that many audiophiles do not seem bothered by to this day.
The whole series was an audio disaster, but oddly enough, I cannot remember reading a single word of criticism in the audiophile press discussing the shortcomings of that series of (badly) Half-Speed mastered LPs — outside of my own reviews of course. Has anything in audio really changed?
If I were to try to “reverse engineer” the sound of a system that could play this record and hide its many faults, I would look for a system that was thick, dark and overly smooth, with no real extension on the top end to speak of. Stan’s 10k boost — along with other the colorations he favors — is just what the doctor ordered for such a system.
I know that sound. I had a system in the 90s with many of the same shortcomings, but of course I didn’t know any of that.
I didn’t know what I didn’t know back then.
I’m glad to say things are different now.
If you made the mistake of buying this record and can’t stand the phony top end, try covering your tweeters with something absorbent. Foam might work. Also you could try disconnecting your super tweeters in the unlikely event you have any.
This is good advice for any record mastered by Stan Ricker.
(Collections full of audiophile pressings and systems with super tweeters tend not to be found together in my experience. Once you have extended highs, many of your audiophile records will start to reveal their phony top ends, and that is a recipe for disaster. Who wants to admit that they wasted a fortune on records that get worse sounding as their stereo gets better sounding??
Since that old school vintage tube sound takes the opposite approach to music reproduction that we’ve spent the last few decades working on here at Better Records — our goal being neutrality above all else — we are clearly not playing the record back on equipment that is capable of making it sound anything but godawful. This is the reason for our relentlessly negative reaction to the record.
On any properly setup, halfway-decent stereo system, any original pressing should murder this audiophile piece of junk. If you don’t have a system like that, we encourage you to get one. You will save a lot of money by not buying crap vinyl like this, only to discover later just how bad it sounds on the higher quality equipment you eventually end up with. (Here is some good news on that subject.)
Although, to be honest, if you are buying these kinds of awful records, it’s hard to see how you will ever get out of the hole you are in. Some audiophiles manage it, but I suspect that most never do.
Further Reading
- New to the Blog? Start here
- More on the subject of Half-Speed mastering
- More albums remastered by one of the worst labels of all time, Analogue Productions
If you are still buying these remastered pressings, making the same mistakes that I was making before I knew better, take the advice of some of our customers and stop throwing your money away on Heavy Vinyl and Half-Speed mastered LPs.
At the very least let us send you a Hot Stamper pressing — of any album you choose — that can show you what is lacking on your copy of the album.
And if for some reason you disagree with us that our record sounds better than yours, we will happily give you all your money back and wish you the very best.