Welcome to Better Records, Home of the Best Sounding Vinyl Ever Made
Yes, violin records are indeed great for testing your front end setup (and, to be honest, every other aspect of your system), but don’t make the mistake I made for the first thirty years I spent in audio.
The mistake I made, over and over again, throughout my formative years, was to blame the bad sound of whatever pressing of an album I happened to own on the actual recording from which it was made.
Robert and I talk about that mental error and lots more in today’s video.
In this discussion, Robert mentions how bad the Beethoven “Kreutzer” Sonata (LSC 2577) can sound on some systems when they are not set up right.
We’ve long promoted the idea that violin recordings are great for tweaking and tuning your front end, something that Robert is well aware of too.
I mention that there are two recordings of the work on Living Stereo and get my facts wrong. LSC 2377 is the earlier recording, LSC 2577 the later (and better sounding).
Then the discussion turns to Frampton Comes Alive, a record that we spent many decades in search of the right pressings. We noted in our listing:
It’s ridiculously hard to find good sound for this record. Most copies are thin, dry and transistory. And it’s time-consuming to clean and play as many copies of this double album as it takes to find enough Hot Stampers to make the endeavor worthwhile. When this album doesn’t have the sonic goods, it’s nobody’s idea of a good time.
A great copy like this one will remind you — we hope — what made everybody so crazy for this music back in the 70s.
And like every audiophile ever born, I blamed the recording for the bad sound of not only this title but all the other records I owned, completely oblivious to the fact that there were well-mastered pressings sitting in the record bins — they just weren’t the ones that were sitting on my record shelves.
I think we did our first shootout for the album in 2016, a mere 40 years after it first came out. I wrote more about the subject of commitment issues we face when trying to track down better sounding pressings of the album we love. You can read about it here.
The Audiophile Skeptics – Co-Hosted by Robert Brook
If you’re looking for a different take on audio and records, we happily offer them for your viewing edification and pleasure. Click here to be taken to our channel.
If you would like to know more about audio or records, please feel free to ask any questions you have in the comments section, or send them directly to me at tom@better-records.com. And whatever you do, stay skeptical.
