The OJC of All Night Long Is Just Not that Good

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Donald Byrd Available Now

Not long ago we dropped the needle on an early OJC copy of the album you see pictured and thought the sound would not be good enough for the serious audiophiles we cater to, especially at the prices we like need to charge.

As far as we can tell, based on this single pressing, All Night Long is not an album that’s worth the costs associated with finding, cleaning and playing enough copies for a shootout.

It was dry and bright. This is a sound a many OJC pressings tend to have. They more often than not sound more like CDs than vintage vinyl pressings.

This title would be more or less passable, even to some degree enjoyable, if it were being played on the old school audio systems of the 60s and 70s. However, it would not begin to cut it on the high quality modern equipment we (and hopefully our customers) use.

Don’t get us wrong. We can’t say that there aren’t good sounding OJC pressings of the album. If we happen to hear a good one down the road, we would certainly consider spending the money to do a real shootout. Based on what we’ve heard so far, that’s not in the cards for now.

Perhaps you have a pressing of the record you like. If so, please tell us more about it. You can email me at tom@better-records.com

We Do The Work

We’ve easily played more than a hundred OJC pressings in the 39 years we’ve been in the record business. The reviews for those we’ve auditioned to date are divided into three categories, good (potentially anyway), passable and bad (probably, but you never know).

We’ve even found some of the more recent pressings on OJC that have good — not great mind you, but good — sound. (Just to be clear, any OJC produced this century is to our way of thinking a recent release.)

We’ve cleaned and played thousands of pressings in the 39 years we’ve been in business.

This is how we find the best sounding vinyl LPs ever made, through trial and error. It may be expensive and time consuming, but there is simply no other method for finding better sounding pressings that works. If you know of one, please write me! (On second thought, don’t write me. I already know what you’re going to say.)

We are not the least bit interested in pressings that are “known” to sound the best.

Known by whom? Which audiophiles — hobbyists or professionals, take your pick — can be trusted to know much of anything about the sound of the pressings available for just about every title ever made.

I have never met one, outside of those of us who work for Better Records. I remain skeptical of the existence of such a creature.

We’re looking for the pressings of albums that do sound the best. You know, when you pull them off your record shelves and play them.

If you’re an audiophile with an ear for top quality sound on vintage vinyl, we’d be happy to send you the Hot Stamper pressing guaranteed to beat anything you’ve ever heard, especially if you have any LP made for the audiophile market. Those, with few exceptions, are rarely better than mediocre, and a great many are just awful, especially these.

And if we can’t beat whatever LP you own or have heard, you get your money back.  It’s as simple as that.

UPDATE: 2026

Woops, my bad. I have met one, a certain Mr. Robert Brook. He has been conducting his own shootouts for a few years now and has made his findings available on his blog, The Broken Record. This is information you can trust.

Further Reading

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