Month: December 2025

Various Composers – Balalaika Favorites

More Mercury Label Recordings

  • This delightful collection – a longstanding member of the TAS list of Super Discs – returns to the site for only the second time in nearly four years, here with solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER from start to finish
  • It’s also fairly quiet at Mint Minus Minus, a grade that even our most well-cared-for vintage classical titles have trouble playing at
  • Both sides here are wonderful – clean, clear and present with an abundance of energy and lots of space around all of the players
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these early pressings – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • “For what it is, it doesn’t get any better than this. What it is, of course, is a collection of Russian folk music played with astonishing artistry by the Ossipov State Russian Folk Orchestra…”

What do you hear on this pressing that you don’t hear on others? It’s very simple: the Balalaikas are delicate and sweet. There’s air all around them.

They have the kind of midrange magic that you hear on the best pop guitar records, the Tea For The Tillerman’s and the After The Gold Rush’s of this world. When you hear that sound there’s no mistaking it. It’s what we audiophiles live for.

The Classic Records Reissue Was a Real Bust

It’s been quite a while since I played the Classic pressing, but I remember it as unpleasantly hard and sour. Many of the later Mercury reissues pressed by Columbia had some of that sound, so I was already familiar with it when their pressing came out in 1998 as part of the just-plain-awful Mercury series they released.

I suspect I would hear it that way today. Bernie Grundman could cut the bass, the dynamics, and the energy onto the record. Everything else was worse 99% of the time.

The fast transients of the plucked strings of the Balalaikas was just way beyond the ability of his colored and crude cutting system. Harmonic extension and midrange delicacy were qualities that practically no Classic Records Heavy Vinyl pressing could claim to have.

Or, to be precise, they claimed to have them, and whether they really believed they did or not, they sure fooled a lot of audiophiles and the reviewers that write for them.

The better your stereo gets the worse those records sound, and they fall further and further behind with each passing year.

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These Two Return to Forever Albums Didn’t Make the Grade

Hot Stamper Pressings of Jazz Rock Fusion Albums Available Now

Pictured are two Return to Forever albums we auditioned at some point — who knows when? — and found wanting (especially at the prices we charge).

Without going into specifics — our notes are long gone at this point — we’ll just say these two albums suffer from weak music, weak sound, or both, and therefore do not deserve a place in most audiophile collections — unless that audiophile happens to be a huge fan of the band.

My guess is that if these two records are sitting in your collection, they have not been played in many years, if ever. If you own either of these two albums, pull them out and play them. You may find that making more room on your shelves for records you actually enjoy is easier than you thought.

Our Pledge of Service to You, the Discriminating Audiophile 

We play mediocre-to-bad sounding pressings so that you don’t have to, a free service from your record-loving friends at Better Records.

Having the wherewithal to audition so many records puts us in a unique position to help audiophiles looking for higher quality sound. (Or, more accurately, that small subset of audiophiles looking for the highest quality pressings who also have a great deal of disposable income to devote to them.)

Yes, we have the obvious resources that would be needed, the staff and the budget.

More important than either of those, we came up with a new (sort of) and much more successful (definitely) approach.

We’ve learned through years of experimentation that there is no reliable way to predict which pressings will have the best sound for any given album.

The impossibility of predicting the sound of pressings is something that we’ve learned to accept as axiomatic. As a scientifically-oriented person and a born skeptic, this was a concept I was quick to embrace.

The more time I spend in this hobby, the more I realize it is beyond dispute. Like it or not — and, based on what I read on forums and such, there are apparently a goodly number of audiophiles who don’t like it — it is the undeniable reality underlying the nature of vinyl pressings.

Our Seven Step Program

With that in mind, finding better sounding pressings of any given recording can be achieved by following these seven steps:

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Botnick and Levine Knocked Equinox Out of the Park

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Sergio Mendes Available Now

The music is of course wonderful, but what separates Sergio from practically all of his ’60s contemporaries is the AMAZING SOUND of his recordings. Like their debut, this one was engineered by the team of Bruce Botnick and Larry Levine.

Botnick is of course the man behind the superb recordings of The Doors, Love and others too numerous to mention. 

Levine is no slouch either, having engineered one of the best sounding albums on the planet, Sergio Mendes’ Stillness.

Just play the group’s amazing versions of Watch What Happens, Night and Day, or Jobim’s Wave to hear the kind of Mendes Magic that makes us swoon. For audiophiles it just doesn’t get any better. (Well, almost. Stillness is still the Ultimate, on the level of a Dark Side of the Moon or Tea for the Tillerman, but Equinox is right up there with it.)

Only the best copies are sufficiently transparent to let the listener hear all the elements laid out clearly, with each occupying a real three-dimensional space within the soundfield. When you hear one of those copies, you have to give Botnick and Levine their due. These guys knew what they were doing like few that have come along since.

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I Was Wrong about a Half-Speed Mastered Record – Not for the First Time, But I Hope for the Last

dixiedregsdd

Hot Stamper Pressings of Jazz Rock Fusion Albums Available Now

A classic case of live and learn.

I’d always preferred the famously rare Half-Speed to the domestic copies I had auditioned back in the day, the day being the 80s and 90s. That’s all changed now of course.

Now, with changes to the stereo and better cleaning techniques and all the rest, that Half-Speed’s weaknesses are hard to ignore.

Where is the rock ’em, sock ’em bottom end that the best originals have?

Gone without a trace.

Yes, the smeary, veiled quality of the typical original pressing is gone too, which is why I used to like the DD Labs version better. It’s simply another case of a reasonably good Half-Speed beating a bad domestic pressing, and in turn being beaten (soundly) by The Real Thing, the kind of record we like to call a Hot Stamper.

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Donald Byrd – Black Byrd

More of the Music of Donald Byrd

  • Black Byrd is back on the site after a nearly five year hiatus, here with solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER throughout this vintage Blue Note pressing
  • Both of these sides are Tubey Magical, lively and clear, with three-dimensionality that will fill your listening room from wall to wall
  • 5 stars: “Never before had a jazz musician embraced the celebratory sound and style of contemporary funk as fully as Byrd did here – not even Davis, whose dark, chaotic jungle-funk stood in sharp contrast to the bright, breezy, danceable music on Black Byrd. Byrd gives free rein to producer/arranger/composer Larry Mizell, who crafts a series of tightly focused, melodic pieces often indebted to the lengthier orchestrations of Isaac Hayes and Curtis Mayfield.”

We played a bunch of these recently and only a few had the kind of sound we were looking for. This one was one of the better we heard — big, bold and lively with excellent presence. The bottom end is meaty and punchy, the highs are sweet and extended, and the mids sound right on the money. Most copies didn’t jump out of the speakers the way this one does! You’ll have a hard time finding such rich, smooth sound for this wonderful jazz album.

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Laurindo Almeida – Virtuoso Guitar

More of the Music of Laurindo Almeida

  • A killer copy of this 45 RPM direct to disc recording featuring Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on both sides – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Some of the tubiest, warmest acoustic guitar sound you could ask for from a “modern” record – this is the sound of analog done right
  • It has the kind of sound we prefer, with none of the razor sharpness that you get on some direct to disc recordings
  • One of the best Almeida albums we know of and probably the best Crystal Clear title (which we know isn’t saying much)

Volume Is Key

This recording has very little processing or EQ boost, and the studio is somewhat dead sounding (all too common in the late 70s). That combination can mean only one thing: If you don’t play this record loud enough, it will not sound right.

The famous Sheffield S9 is exactly the same way. It sounds dead and dull until you turn it up. When you do, lookout — it really comes alive.

The best pressings can sound shockingly like live music, something one just does not hear all that often, even when one plays records all day long as we do.

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Analogue Productions Fails Spectacularly Right Out of the Gate with Jazz Giant

Hot Stamper Pressings of Contemporary Albums Available Now

You may remember what a disaster the Analogue Productions version of Jazz Giant from the 90s was.

Or maybe you agree with a certain writer that they were god’s gift to the record lovers of the world in need of higher quality pressings. We thought they were crap right from the get-go and were not the least bit shy about saying so,

I haven’t heard the new 45 RPM version and don’t intend to play one, but I seriously doubt that it sounds like our good Hot Stamper pressings. We have yet to hear a single Heavy Vinyl 45 that sounds any good to us, judged by the standards we set in our shootouts.

Actually, to run the risk of sounding even more pedantic than usual, the records themselves set the standards.

We simply grade them on the curve they establish for themselves.

We guarantee that none of their LPs can hold a candle to our vintage records or your money back. If you have one of the new pressings and don’t know what’s wrong with it, or don’t think that anything is wrong with it, try one of ours.

It will show you just how much better a real record can sound, with more space, more transparency, more energy, more presence, more drive, more ambience — more of everything that’s good about the sound of music on vinyl.

It is our contention that no one alive today makes records that sound as good as the vintage LPs we sell. Once you hear one of our Hot Stamper pressings, those Heavy Vinyl records you bought might not ever sound right to you again.

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The Rolling Stones – Tattoo You

More of the Music of The Rolling Stones

  • Both sides of this vintage copy were giving us the big and bold sound we were looking for, earning incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • The midrange is both rich and clear, with Jagger’s vocals front and center, exactly where they belong
  • The piano has real weight, the grungy guitars are suitably distorted, and the tonal balance is correct from top to bottom – our classic Hot Stamper sound in a nutshell
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Tattoo You captures the Stones at their best as a professional stadium-rock band… ‘Waiting on a Friend’ and the vigorous rock & roll of the first side make Tattoo You an essential latter-day Stones album, ranking just a few notches below Some Girls.”
  • If you’re a Stones fan, this title from 1981 is one of their better later releases

In the tradition of other late-70s / early-80s Stones albums (Some Girls, Goats Head Soup, It’s Only Rock And Roll), the sound is a bit raw at times, but a copy like this one gives you the kind of energy, body and richness to make for some very enjoyable serious listening.

The sound here is big and rich, with more “meat on the bones” as we like to say. The guitars are chunky and powerful, which exactly the sound you want for a song like Start Me Up, which leads things off here. The best sides have more extension up top and more size to the soundfield as well.

As with any Stones album, don’t expect any sonic miracles. Hot Stampers aren’t going to turn this into Tea For The Tillerman. If you want to hear an amazing sounding Demo Quality record, this ain’t it, but if you love this music and are frustrated with the sound of the typical pressing, I bet you’ll enjoy the heck outta this one. (more…)

Sting – The Dream Of The Blue Turtles

More Sting and The Police

  • An original A&M pressing that was doing just about everything right, with both sides earning outstanding Double Plus (A++) or BETTER grades – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Remarkably big, full-bodied and musical, with wonderful presence for the most important element of the recording, Sting’s voice
  • Even though the album was recorded at studios all over the world, the best sound can be found on the domestic pressings Robert Ludwig cut for Masterdisk
  • It was a wise move on Sting’s part to pick RL, a man who could bring the best aspects of analog to a modern recording that could really use them
  • Don’t waste your money on whatever dead-as-a-doornail Heavy Vinyl record they’re making these days – if you want to hear the Tubey Magic, size and energy of Sting’s debut solo album, a vintage 80s pressing like this one is the only way to go
  • 4 stars: “Sting incorporated heavy elements of jazz, classical, and worldbeat into his music, writing lyrics that were literate and self-consciously meaningful… he proves that he’s subtler and craftier than his peers.”

This album has long been a favorite among audiophiles and it’s pretty easy to see why. What Sting does here with jazz music is very similar to what Paul Simon later did with African music on Graceland.

Sting surrounded himself with legitimate jazz musicians and together they created an album that gives you the loose, relaxed feel of jazz mixed with Sting’s distinct pop sensibility.

There are elements of worldbeat, reggae, and soul here as well, but the album never feels disjointed. Sting managed to pull it all together to create a sound that is somehow unique and familiar at the same time.

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An Overview of the Reissues of Teaser & The Firecat

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Cat Stevens Available Now

It is my contention that there is no audiophile pressing on the face of the Earth that can compete with the best sounding originals of Teaser and the Firecat. 

Of ANY music. From ANY era.

The best copies of Teaser have a sound I have never experienced with any modern remastered record. There is a magic in its grooves that may simply be impossible to capture with the cutting equipment currently in use. Perhaps one day I’ll be proven wrong, but that day is clearly not yet upon us.

Island 25th Anniversary LP

I remember fifteen years ago when Acoustic Sounds was selling the then in-print 25th Anniversary Island pressing (10U, as I recall) for $15, claiming that it was a TAS list record. If you’ve ever heard that pressing, you know it has no business going anywhere near a Super Disc List. It’s mediocre at best and has virtually none of the magic of the good original pressings. I refused to sell it back in those days, for no other reason than it’s far from a Better Record. I don’t like misrepresenting records and I don’t like ripping off my customers. That pressing was a fraud and I was having none of it.

The Anadisq

In case you don’t already know, one of the worst sounding, if not the worst sounding version of all time, is the Mobile Fidelity Anadisq pressing that came out in the ’90s. If you own that record, you really owe it to yourself to pull it out and play it. It’s just a mess and it should sound like a mess, whether you have anything else to compare it to or not.

It’s also on the TAS Super Disc list, which is sad. Really, really sad. (more…)