Take it from us, it is the rare pressing that manages to get rid of the harshness and congestion that plague so many copies.
Look for a copy that opens up the soundstage — the wider, deeper and taller the presentation, the better the sound, as long as the tonal balance stays right.
When you hear a copy sound relatively rich and sweet, the minor shortcomings of the recording no longer seem to interfere with your enjoyment of the music. Like a properly-tweaked stereo, a good record lets you forget all that audio stuff and just listen to the music as music. Here at Better Records, we — like our customers — think that’s what it’s all about.
And we know that only the top copies will let you do that, something that not everyone in the audiophile community fully appreciates these days, what with one Heavy Vinyl record sounding worse than the next.
We’re doing what we can to change that way of approaching the pursuit of high quality audio playback in the home, but progress has always been, as you can imagine, slow.
This is no Demo Disc by any means — we grade on a curve, and considering the limitations of a heavily-processed pop record designed to be heard over the radio, the best copies are very good sounding for what they are.
What To Listen For
The best copies have superb extension up top, which allows the grit and edge on the vocals to almost entirely disappear.
Some of it is there on the tape for a reason. That’s partly the sound they were going for. This is, after all, a Bob Clearmountain mix and a Jimmy Iovine production.
Heavy handed processing is what you hire them to do. You want a hit album, don’t you?
But bad mastering and pressing add plenty of extra grit to the average copy, enough to ruin it in fact.
You can test for that edgy quality on side one very easily using the jangly guitar harmonics and breathy vocals of “My Baby.”
If the harmonic information is clear and extending naturally, in a big space, you are very likely hearing a high quality copy.
Testing Help
- More records that are good for testing midrange congestion here.
- More records that are good for testing harshness and shrillness here.
- More records that are good for testing ambience, size and space here.
- More records that are good for testing for extended high frequencies here.
Want to find your own top quality copy?
Consider taking our moderately helpful advice concerning the pressings that consistently win our Hot Stamper shootouts.
This record has been sounding its best for many years, in shootout after shootout, this way:
Further Reading