Smeary and dry. As far as we can tell, based on the sound of this copy, Swingin’ on the Moon is not an album worthy of a Hot Stamper shootout. If we hear a better one down the road, we would certainly be open to the possibility.
If you want a better sounding moon-themed album, Sinatra made a very good one.
This particular Mel Torme album came out in 1960, along with a great many wonderful titles from the Golden Age of vacuum tube recording. Although we love the cover, this unfortunately doesn’t happen to be one of the better releases from that year.
We play mediocre-to-bad sounding pressings so that you don’t have to, a public service from your record-loving friends at Better Records.
We also have an audiophile record hall of shame for records that were marketed to audiophiles for their putatively superior sound. If you’ve spent any time on this blog at all, you know that these records are some of the worst sounding pressings we have ever had the displeasure to play.
We routinely play them in our Hot Stamper shootouts against the vintage records that we offer, and are often surprised at just how bad an “audiophile record” can sound and still be considered an “audiophile record.”
