Playing / Setup

Record playing and setup advice.

Jethro Tull – A Top Test for System Accuracy

More of the Music of Jethro Tull

Reviews and Commentaries for Thick as a Brick

From 2009 to 2010 this was our single go-to record for testing and tweaking our system.

Although we now use an amazing copy of Bob and Ray (the big band version of The Song of the Volga Boatmen located therein has to be one of the toughest tests we know of), we could easily go back to using TAAB.

Artificiality is the single greatest problem that every serious audiophile must guard against with every change and tweak to his stereo. cleaning system, room, electricity and everything else.

Since TAAB is absolutely ruthless at exposing the slightest hint of artificiality in the sound of the system, it is clearly one of the best recordings one can use to test and tune with. Here are just some of the reasons this was one of our favorite test records back in the day:

Dynamics

The better copies are shockingly dynamic. At about the three minute mark the band joins in the fun and really starts rocking. Set your volume for as loud as your system can play that section. The rest of the music, including the very quietest parts, will then play correctly for all of side one. For side two the same volume setting should be fine.

Bass

The recording can have exceptionally solid, deep punchy bass (just check out Barrie “Barriemore” Barlow’s drumming, especially his kick and floor toms. The guy is on fire).

Midrange

The midrange is usually transparent and the top end sweet and extended on the better pressings.

Tubey Magic

The recording was made in 1972, so there’s still plenty of Tubey Magic to be heard on the acoustic guitars and flutes.

Size and Space

The best copies can be as huge, wide and tall as any rock record you’ve ever heard, with sound that comes jumping out of your speakers right into your listening room.

Tonality

Unlike practically any album recorded during the 80s or later, the overall tonal balance, as well as the timbre of virtually every instrument in the soundfield, is correct on the best copies.

Gone, Gone, Gone

That kind of accuracy practically disappeared from records about thirty years ago, which explains why so many of the LPs we offer as Hot Stampers were produced in the 70s. That’s when many of the highest fidelity recordings were made. In truth this very record is a superlative example of the sound the best producers, engineers, and studios were able to capture on analog tape during that time.

Which is a long way of saying that the better copies of Thick As A Brick have pretty much everything that we love about vinyl here at Better Records.

Furthermore, I can guarantee you there is no CD on the planet that will ever be able to do this recording justice. Our Hot Stamper pressings – even the lowest-graded ones – have a kind of analog magic that just can’t be captured on one of them there silvery discs.

Want to find your own top quality copy of this Jethro Tull classic?

Consider taking our moderately helpful advice concerning the pressings that tend to win our shootouts.

In our experience, this record sounds best this way:

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Holst – Testing with Mars and Saturn

More of the music of Gustav Holst (1874-1934)

Reviews and Commentaries for The Planets

Mars on the first side and Saturn on the second present serious challenges to any recordings of the work you may own, especially if you own the overrated Mehta recording on the TAS List.

Generally speaking, the White Hot copies stand apart from the pack with more top end extension, and/or more lower end weight. Our notes will typically say “extended highs and lows,” and those are hard to come by, on any record.

Let’s get to the specifics of the two movements we feel are the best test for The Planets as a whole.

The War Test — Side One

War, the first movement, has the string players “bouncing” their bows upside down to create the effect you hear. It’s not fingers plucking the strings; it’s the wood of the bows bouncing on the strings. The quality of that technique is so obvious and correct sounding on the good copies and so blurry and indistinct on the bad ones that you could almost judge the whole first side by that sound alone. When it’s right it’s really right. 

And of course the players are spread out wider and the soundfield is so much more transparent when these types of sonic qualities are brought out. This bouncing bow test makes it easy to separate the better copies from the also-rans when it comes to smear, resolution, transparency and the like.

The Saturn Test — Side Two

This was the real revelation in our recent shootout (2013). We had on hand performances by Steinberg on DG, Previn and Boult on EMI, as well as Mehta and Karajan on London — well known and highly regarded Golden Age recordings one and all. (I gave up on the Solti with the London Phil years ago; that opaque later London sound just won’t cut it on the more resolving stereo we have now.) None of the above could match either the performance or the sound of Saturn on the EMI by Previn and the LSO.

The brass is so BIG and POWERFUL on EMI’s recording that other orchestras and recordings frankly pale in comparison. Until I heard one of our top EMI pressings show me brass with this kind of weight and energy, I simply had no idea it was even possible to play the work this powerfully. The lower brass comes in, builds, gaining volume and weight, then calms down, but soon returns and builds relentlessly, ever and ever louder. Eventually the trumpets break out, blasting their way forward and above the melee the heavier brass has created below.

Quite honestly I have never heard anything like it, and I heard this work performed live in late 2012! In live performance the members of the brass section, being at the back of the stage, were at least 100 feet away from me, perhaps more. When playing the best EMI pressings, the brass were right there in front of me, eight to ten feet away. This is of course unnatural and unrealistic, but that should take nothing away from the subjective power of the experience.

Only the conductor can stand at the podium, but the EMI producers and engineers (the Two Christophers in this case, Bishop and Parker) have managed to put the listener, at least in this movement, right there with him.

The EMI Sound

EMI’s are usually recorded with the aim of of producing more of a mid-hall perspective, which is somewhat distant for our taste. That’s just not our sound. We prefer the Front Row Center seats (especially at the prices we charge).

That said, when an EMI from the 70s is recorded, mastered and pressed properly, it actually sounds more like the real thing actually does, more like a live performance of orchestral music in a concert hall.

It’s uncanny how real the best copies of this record sound. For a recording of The Planets it has no equal in our experience.

The Performances

For audiophiles who love the work but are disappointed by most performances (a group that includes us to be sure), the good sound found on this copy is coupled with a superb performance. The best pressings of this record truly deserve their place on the TAS List. This 1974 release is widely considered one of the great recordings of The Planets. Previn is simply outstanding throughout. He’s not going after effects, he’s making all the pieces fit.

Of course it trounces the Mehta recording that many audiophiles, HP included, are seemingly enamored with. We certainly never have been. EMI knows how to make an orchestra sound like a seamless whole, unlike the Decca recording engineers who appear to take perverse pride in awkwardly spotlighting every section. (Was it a Phase 4 experiment gone wrong? That’s my guess.)

And the average London or Decca pressing of The Planets is lackluster, so opaque and smeary it’s barely second-rate, a fact that most audiophile record collectors have failed to appreciate since it first appeared on Harry’s Super Disc list.

VTA

Accurate VTA adjustment for classical records is critical to their proper reproduction. If you do not have an arm that allows you to easily adjust its VTA, then you will just have to do it the hard way (which normally means loosening a set screw and moving the arm up and down until you get lucky with the right height).

Yes, it may be time consuming, it may even be a major pain in the ass, but there is no question in my mind that you will hear a dramatic improvement in the sound of your classical records once you have learned to precisely adjust the VTA for each and every one of them. We heard the improvement on this record, and do pretty much on all the classical LPs we play. (All records really.) VTA is not a corner you should be cutting. Its careful adjustment is critical. Of course, so are anti-skate, azimuth and tracking weight. Our making audio progress section has a fair amount on turntable setup which might be worth checking out.

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Cat Stevens – Can the Brightness Problem on the UHQR Be Fixed?

More of the Music of Cat Stevens

More Reviews and Commentaries for Tea for the Tillerman

Can adjusting the VTA for the heavier weight vinyl of the UHQR fix its tonality problems?

(This subject also came up in a discussion of the remastered pressings of Scheherzade.)

Probably not. VTA is all about balance.

Adjusting for all the elements in a recording involve tradeoffs. When all the elements sound close to their best, and none of them are “wrong,” the VTA is mostly right.

Try as you might, you cannot fix bad mastering by changing your VTA.

Tea for the Tillerman on UHQR

When I first got into the audiophile record business back in the 80s, I had a customer tell me how much he liked the UHQR of Tea for the Tillerman.

This was a record I was selling sealed for $25. And you could buy as many as you liked at that price!

I was paying $9 for them and could order them by the hundreds if I’d wanted to. Yes, I admit I had no shame.

I replied to this fellow that “the MoFi is awfully bright, don’t you think?” (My old Fulton system may have been darker than ideal, but no serious audio system can play a UHQR as bright as this one without peeling the paint.)

His reply: “Oh no, you just adjust your VTA until the sound is tonally correct.”

At the time I could not adjust my VTA, so I filed that bit of information away for a later time.

When I finally did get a tonearm with adjustable VTA, I quickly learned that trying to correct the tonality of a poorly-mastered or poorly-pressed record with VTA adjustments was a fool’s game.

The tonality might be better, but the bass would get wonky and weird, the deepest notes would disappear or become boosted, the highs would sound artificial, various elements of the recording would randomly become louder and softer, wreaking havoc with the balance of the mix, and on and on.

In other words, fixing one thing would cause lots of others to go wrong.

This fellow couldn’t hear it, and like a lot of audiophiles writing about records these days, he simply did not have the critical listening skills, or a sufficiently revealing system, to notice all the problems he was creating with his “fix.”

My skills were pretty poor back then too. I have worked very hard for the last 30 years or so to improve them. I did it by experimenting with records.

Experimenting with VTA adjustments has also taught me a lot. It showed me that I could get dramatically better sound by playing with the VTA for ten or twenty minutes until I found the ideal setting.

It also taught me that trying to fix a mastering problem by adjusting the VTA never works.

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We Love Our Triplanar Arm Just as Much as Robert Brook Loves His

One of our good customers has a blog which he calls

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

In the listing below, Robert Brook recommends you buy a Triplanar tonearm. So do we. If you would like one, as dealers for this wonderful arm we may be able to help, although the wait is typically about a year. Worth the wait I say!

I hope to write a bit about getting my first Triplanar back in the late-90s, a life-changing event in my evolution as an audiophile.

Once I had learned how to dial in the VTA adjustment for every record I played, I quickly discovered that I was able to operate at a completly different level.

This is a sophisticated piece of equipment with very fine adjustments for every aspect of playback. I confess it actually took me about five years to be in full control of all the ins and outs of the Triplanar. The more I experimented with the settings, the more I learned and the better I could play records.

In 2005 I made a breakthrough while working with a favorite Borodin record I had been trying and failing to get to sound right. I wrote about the hours I spent adjusting the azimuth, VTA, anti-skate and tracking weight for that record, and what dramatic improvements resulted from my efforts all those years ago.

If you don’t have an arm of this quality, or don’t know how to adjust it for every record you play, it is our belief that you have not begun to hear how good your records can sound.

The TRIPLANAR MK VII is at the PINNACLE OF PERFORMANCE

More on Robert’s system here. You may notice that it has a lot in common with the one we use.

Robert has approached the various problems he’s encountered scientifically, methodically and carefully, along these three fronts:

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The Prelude Cleaning System Is in Stock Now

Prelude Record Cleaning System Available Now

Record Cleaning – An Overview

Better Records is now the exclusive distributor for the The Prelude Record Cleaning System (formerly produced by Walker Audio).

Prelude is the only fluid we recommend for serious sound enhancement and cleaning of your LPs. It is our strongly held belief that you have never really heard what’s in the grooves of your records until you’ve cleaned them using Walker’s enzyme-based system. There is nothing in our experience that works as well.

The Prelude Record Cleaning System can be used with any vacuum record cleaning machine.

With Prelude, you will experience a cleaner, more transparent soundstage, with better harmonics and improved dynamics from top to bottom. You will hear things you’ve never heard, even on LPs you’ve listened to countless times before.

There are more nuances, more life, and more music in the recording than you know, and Prelude will reveal them to you while establishing a more natural space for the performers to exist within.

Cleaning records is a vital step in getting the best sound reproduction quality possible from a vinyl LP.

That is why we are pleased to offer Prelude to audiophiles who know and appreciate that analog is still the pinnacle of recorded playback and who want to maximize their listening experience.

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Letter of the Week – How Good Are Record Cleaning Services?

Record Cleaning – An Overview

New to the Blog? Start Here

One of our customers thought he would try a record cleaning service to get some of his records cleaned. Here is what he found.

Hi Tom,

I got my first set of records back from the cleaning service. Very disappointing.

I’m being totally straight when I say you have set a new standard for what I expect a clean record to sound like. As soon as I heard the pressing of Sticky Fingers, and all subsequent records I bought from you, I realized it was possible to get old records really clean. Almost flawlessly clean like a CD I want to say. The sounds on the record are clearer but so are the littlest tiny pops in the groove. I don’t know what you call them to distinguish them from bigger pops, [we call them ticks] but you can hear them so clearly on quiet passages and between songs and really through the song except the loudest parts.

I know not all vinyl is dead quiet but there are few records from the 1980s I took very good care of and hadn’t played very much that they should have been able to get much much cleaner in my opinion. And the record’s surface is perfect to the eye, so I’m guessing it’s their cleaning methods. All the records have the same defect cleaning wise, except the brand new record I sent. That sounds better than it did and is crystal clear. Overall, no bueno.

Your records were way way better. I guess I’m going to have to get that particular solution system you recommended. Do I need that $4000 German machine to do it right after that? Or are there other ultrasonic cleaners worth investigating? I know some people make their own. Whatever you care to share as I don’t have $4000 dollars.

Andrew

Andrew,

Sorry to hear of this company’s failings. As you know, I am not the least bit surprised.

I don’t think anyone that offers such a service would know how to clean records properly. Real cleaning is much more difficult than any of these folks think it is. If they knew how hard it is, they would know how expensive the service would have to be and how unlikely it would be that anyone would want to pay such a price to have a record cleaned and its sound improved.

We don’t offer such a service partly because we know exactly how much work is involved.

The Next Best Thing

On a limited budget, the approach we recommend would be a VPI 16.5 machine (buy one used, they last forever) using the Walker Enzyme System in a three step process. This will get you about halfway to where we are and you would like to be: quieter discs with much improved sound.

If you don’t want to scrub your own records, then an ultrasonic machine is probably your next best bet, but in order for it to do a good job, you must use Walker Step 2 and the proper rinse water afterwards.

Some of these machines are not that expensive, under $1k perhaps, and this should be affordable for the average audiophile. The $8,000 German machine we use makes all our records sound better, but admittedly that is a chunk of change to spend on cleaning. And the time it takes to clean more than a handful of records is considerable. (And we actually own two, one is for parts.)

We have the Walker Enzyme Cleaning System in stock and almost ready to sell. It is the only fluid we recommend. The reasons for that are simple enough — many fluids on the market either don’t do much to quiet records down or make them sound better.

Some fluids we’ve tried will make your records sound worse, which is pretty shocking when you think about it.

Hope this helps give you the guidance you were looking for.

Best, TP

P.S.

We had awful luck with the one cleaning service we tried, a different one from the one you used. Our records came back sounding terrible and we had to reclean them all in order to restore the sound quality they had apparently removed with their “process.”

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Sergio Mendes + Psych + Your Mind Will Be Blown

mendestill_depth_1102533608More of the Music of Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66

More Albums with Key Tracks for Critical Listening

This commentary was written sometime around 2010.

If you are looking for DEMO DISC QUALITY SOUND with music every bit as wonderful, look no further — this is the record for you.

If I had one song to play to show what my stereo can really do, For What It’s Worth on a Hot Stamper copy would probably be my choice. I can’t think of any material that sounds better. It’s amazingly spacious and open, yet punchy and full-bodied the way only vintage analog recordings ever are.

This one being from 1970 fits the bill nicely.

Side two of this album can be one of THE MOST MAGICAL sides of ANY record — when you’ve got a killer copy. I don’t know of any other record like it. It seems to be in a class of its own. It’s an excellent test disc as well. All tweaks and equipment changes and room treatments must pass the Stillness test.

To fail to make this record sound better is to fail completely. The production is so dense, and so difficult to reproduce properly, that only recently have I begun to hear just how good this record can sound. There is still plenty to discover locked in these grooves, and I enthusiastically accept the challenge to find all the sounds that Sergio created in the studio, locked away in the 40 year old vinyl.

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Turntable Set Up Guide Part 1: Why You Need to Do It Yourself

More from Robert Brook

One of our good customers has a blog which he calls

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

Below you will find a link to an article about turntable setup in which I am quoted on the subject. I would have loved to write something along these lines myself, but just never found the time to do so.

Robert Brook took the job upon himself and has explained it well, so if you would like to learn more about turntable setup, I encourage you to visit his blog and read more about it.

Turntable Set Up Guide Part 1: Why You Need to Do It Yourself

Further Reading

Robert Brook Can Help You Set Your Anti-Skate

More of the music of Bela Bartok (1881-1945)

Robert Brook writes a blog which he calls

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

Robert recently recounted a story that aligned very much with my own experience.

Way back in the dark ages of the 90s, I was afraid to mess with my turntable, arm and cartridge for fear of getting them “out of alignment.”

Of course, I had simply assumed at the time that they were in alignment. I had followed all the instructions to the best of my ability, but it wouldn’t be until years later that I learned just how crude an approximation that way of doing it turned out to be.

Robert writes:

For years, even decades, I was afraid to touch any of the settings on my turntable, only to discover that when I finally did, I wished I’d done it a lot sooner. Turntable setup has taught me a lot, and as I’ve gotten better at it and better informed about it, I now need to go back and revise the turntable setup guides I posted a few years ago, which are in need of revision and updating.

Here is the complete story. I hope to write more about anti-skate in depth down the road, but for now, check out Robert’s story and then return to this listing and scroll down to read what we’ve written about the subject to date.

System Sounding BRIGHT? 🕶 Might Be Time to ADJUST YOUR ANTI-SKATE

Dialing in the Anti-Skate with Massed Strings

Here we discuss one of our favorite test records. Strings are one of the hardest elements in any recording — including pop and jazz records — to get right. They also make it very easy to spot when something, somewhere, is off.

Listening in Depth to So Far

Advice for using vocals on pop albums to tweak and tune your setup.

Azimuth, VTA, Anti-Skate and Tracking Weight

Way back in 2005 we discussed the four major imputs that go into setting up tonearms and cartridges.

Cartridge Tweaking and Turntable Setup Advice

Wherein we discuss the use of our three favorite test discs, while also providing links to hundreds of other records that are good for testing various aspects of reproduction.

These are the records that challenged me to make more progress in audio. If you want to improve your stereo, these are some of the records that can help get you to the next level.

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Give Your Cleaned Records 1 to 3 Plays Before Listening

Record Cleaning – An Overview

We have a series of turntables set up in the cleaning room that play through every record we’ve cleaned before it goes into the Hot Stamper shootout rotation.

We recommend that you play your records at least once and as many as three times through completely before listening to them, whether you are listening for pleasure or testing for sound quality.

Playing previously cleaned records plows loosened grunge out of the grooves and helps the cartridge “seat” itself in the dead center of the groove at the same time.

Two or three plays usually gets the job done, resulting in a clearly audible improvement of surfaces and sonics.

If you care to, you can clean them the way we do at 45 RPM in order to speed up the process.

For more record cleaning tips and tricks, click here.

To order the Walker Prelude Record Cleaning System, exclusively available from Better Records and 100% guaranteed to be the best record cleaning fluid you have ever used or your money back, please click here. You will be glad you did.

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