Album Favorites

If I still had a record collection — all of my records have long since gone to good homes — these titles would be in it.

The Pretenders – Learning To Crawl

More of the Music of The Pretenders

  • An excellent pressing of the band’s third studio album with solid Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it from start to finish – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • It takes years to get a shootout for this album going – three to five is my best guess, so get while the gettin’s good if you’re a fan of the most muscular rock album this band ever recorded
  • Side one of this (very specific) German pressing was richer, clearer and more energetic than most others we played, and side two was not far behind in all those areas
  • 5 stars: “Three albums into her recording career, Chrissie Hynde found herself having to put the past to bed and carve out a new beginning for herself with Learning to Crawl, but she pulled it off with a striking mixture of courage, strength, and great rock & roll; with the exception of the instant-classic debut album, it’s the Pretenders’ finest work.”

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Miles Davis / Basic Miles – Here Is the Hot Stamper Sound of Kind of Blue

More of the Music of Miles Davis

  • Demo Disc Jazz sound for this wonderful collection, with both sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Opening side two, the 9+ minutes of “On Green Dolphin Street” has some of the coolest jazz you will ever hear, on any record, at any price
  • If you want to know what the better copies of Kind of Blue sound like, this pressing will tell you, because it has that sound
  • And that means it is absolutely nothing like the MoFi 45 RPM 2 LP pressing that some audiophiles (and the reviewers who cater to them) seem to like so much
  • We’re talking Bill Evans, John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley in their prime, 1958, with top 1958 sound to match
  • And that means it is absolutely NOTHING like the MoFi 45 RPM 2 LP set that some audiophiles (and the reviewers who cater to them) seem to like so much, why, we cannot begin to fathom

Want to know how good our Hot Stamper Kind of Blue pressings sound?

Listen to this very record.

If you play the tracks that were recorded in 1958, the year before Kind of Blue, you will hear practically the same lineup of musicians.

That means Stella By Starlight and Little Melonae on side one, and Green Dolphin Street and Fran-Dance (Put Your Little Foot Right Out) on side two. 

The nine-minute plus Green Dolphin Street that opens side two is nothing short of amazing, some of the coolest jazz you will ever hear. With Fran Dance on the same side, that gives you about 17 minutes of great-sounding jazz by Miles’ classic Kind of Blue lineup.

Side one has the same cats playing for more than 12 minutes. By my calculation, that’s close to another album’s worth of material from the group. The rest of the material on this compilation is best seen as gravy; maybe not essential, but never less than interesting. (more…)

Julie London – Julie Is Her Name

More Pop and Jazz Vocal Albums

  • This killer MONO pressing of Julie London’s debut LP boasts Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it from first note to last
  • The midrange immediacy of this early Liberty pressing will put Julie in the room with you – more than anything else, it lets her performance come to life
  • The naturalness of the presentation puts this album right at the top of best-sounding female vocal albums of all time
  • This is a lot of money for a somewhat noisy copy, but the sound is so awesome and quiet pressings of the album so hard to come by that we hope someone will take a chance on it and get the thrill we did from hearing it sound right for once
  • 4 stars: “Her debut is her best, a set of fairly basic interpretations of standards in which she is accompanied tastefully by guitarist Barney Kessel and bassist Ray Leatherwood.”

Listen to how rich the bottom end is on Barney Kessel’s guitar. The Tubey Magic here is off the charts. Some copies can be dry, but that is clearly not a problem on this one.

To take nothing away from her performance, which got better with every copy we played. Julie’s rendition of Cry Me a River may be definitive.

If only Ella Fitzgerald on Clap Hands got this kind of sound! As good as the best copies of that album are, this record takes the concept of intimate female vocals to an entirely new level.

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David Bowie – David Live

More of the Music of David Bowie

  • A David Live like you’ve never heard, with INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on all FOUR sides
  • One of our favorite live recordings – a great overview of Bowie’s career through 1974
  • “1984,” “Rebel Rebel,” “Sweet Thing” and “Rock and Roll With Me” come alive in performance like you have never heard before
  • A-List players of the day deliver sonic treats, including multiple horn players, multiple percussionists, all-male chorus background vocals, the searing fuzzed-out guitar leads of Earl Slick, piano and Mellotron by Mike Garson, and the amazing Herbie Flowers on bass
  • We’ve recently compiled a list of records we think every audiophile should get to know better, along the lines of “the 1001 records you need to hear before you die,” with an accent on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. David Live is a good example of a record audiophiles may not know well but we think might benefit from getting to know better
  • If I were to compile a list of Must Own rock and pop albums from 1974, this album would definitely be on it

When you listen to an outstanding copy of this Bowie classic, you will have no trouble picturing yourself in the audience with a front row center seat. And the great thing about a record like this is that you can be in the front row of this very concert whenever you want!

The other top live album is, of course, Waiting For Columbus, and the two have much in common. Most importantly, the songs played live on both albums are consistently better than their studio versions. (This is especially true on the Little Feat album. Little Feat was not a studio band and their live arrangements — with the Tower of Power horns — just murder the studio ones.)

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Bonnie Raitt / Sweet Forgiveness

More of the Music of Bonnie Raitt

  • Sweet Forgiveness returns to the site for the first time in over two years, here with INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades from top to bottom
  • These are just a few of the things we had to say about this amazing copy in our notes: “rich and weighty vox”…”jumping out of the speakers”…”tubey drums and bass”…”big and rich and 3D”…”dynamic and relaxed”
  • Full-bodied and warm, with harmonically rich guitars as well as real immediacy to Bonnie’s heartfelt vocals, this is the classic sound of the Seventies
  • The sound is big, bold, clear, rich and dynamic, which wouldn’t mean anything if the music weren’t good, but this actually happens to be Bonnie’s best album in our opinion, with Home Plate a close runner-up

I learned recently that John Haeny is one of the two engineers on this album, which goes a long way toward explaining the excellent 70s analog sound. He worked on The Pretender, Don’t Cry Now, and many of the early and quite wonderful sounding albums Judy Collins did for Elektra in the earlier part of the decade. This guy knows sound. (more…)

Donald Byrd – A New Perspective

More of the Music of Donald Byrd

  • A wonderful stereo pressing of one of our All Time Favorite Blue Note albums, here with solid Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides
  • “Cristo Redentor,” one of the most amazing pieces of music ever recorded, sounds outstanding on this side two
  • The gospel vocals are exceptionally well recorded (thanks, RVG!) – with the transparency of this copy, you can easily pick out and follow each singer
  • To hear the real RVG magic, play “Beast of Burden” on side one – that’s some real audiophile Demo Disc sound
  • 5 stars: “One of the most successful uses of a gospel choir in a jazz context. This is a memorable effort that is innovative in its own way, a milestone in Donald Byrd’s career.”

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Black Sabbath / Self-Titled

More of the Music of Black Sabbath

  • Boasting two STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides or close to them, this copy of Sabbath’s debut LP rocks like nothing you’ve heard – remarkably quiet vinyl too for any record pressed in this era
  • Massive, powerful and spacious throughout – this original Green Label pressing is big, rich and solid like you won’t believe
  • The better copies are stunning Demo Discs – crank it up good and loud and if you have the right system for it you can be sure your audiophile friends will never forget it
  • 4 1/2 stars on AllMusic and one of the best sounding hard rock recordings from the era, or, to be honest, from any era
  • We’ve recently compiled a list of records we think every audiophile should get to know better, along the lines of “the 1001 records you need to hear before you die,” but with less of an accent on morbidity and more on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life.
  • We think this is the band’s best sounding album. Roughly 150 other listings for the Best Sounding Album by an Artist or Group can be found here.

Top 100

Back in 2018 we wrote:

This title will surely make the cut next time we update our Top 100 Rock and Pop List. I would go so far as to say that the best copies of this album have sound as good or better than anything I’ve heard all year, and that’s an awful lot of great sounding records, hundreds and hundreds of them.

It did in fact make the Top 100 a while back. The album is hard to find in audiophile playing condition, but we make the effort and this killer Hot Stamper is the result.

Sabbath recorded their set list more or less live in the studio. This give the recording an unprocessed quality that really stands out on the best copies. The best Green Label pressings sound raw and real, with sound that is a perfect match for the band’s powerfully dark music.

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Tony Bennett and Count Basie – Strike Up The Band on Roulette

More of the Music of Count Basie

  • With seriously good Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it from start to finish, this vintage Roulette stereo pressing will be very hard to beat
  • So spacious and three-dimensional, yet Tony sounds real, a part of the ensemble (particularly on side one)
  • The Roulette pressings tend to be gritty, edgy and bright, but we found a good one here, and it won the shootout
  • Although the Roulette originals, now that we know which stampers are good, will always win our shootouts, the Emus reissues still sound quite good to us, just not as good
  • A classic case of compared to what? – we had no idea the recording could sound any better than the Emus pressings that would win our shootouts in years past
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The band raves through tunes like ‘With Plenty Of Money And You,’ and Bennett matches them, drawing strength from the bravura arrangements, while band and singer achieve a knowing tenderness on ‘Growing Pains’…This is an album well worth owning.”

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Jethro Tull – Aqualung

More of the Music of Jethro Tull

  • Incredible sound for Jethro Tull’s fourth studio album, with a Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side one mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side two
  • The sonics are outstanding from start to finish – big, punchy, present, tubey and bursting with rock and roll energy
  • A Better Records Top 100 title that still floors us on the best copies, with sound that will jump right out of your speakers
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs – those on “My God” are especially bad – but if you can tough those out, this copy is going to blow your mind
  • 4 1/2 stars: “… one of the most astonishing progressions in rock history… the degree to which Tull upped the ante here is remarkable… Varied but cohesive, Aqualung is widely regarded as Tull’s finest hour.”
  • We think Stand Up is musically an even better album, but it’s hard to argue with the big, bold sound of Aqualung

Folks, for hard-rockin’, Tubey Magical, 70s Arty Proggy Rock in ANALOG, it just does not get much better than Aqualung. You need the right pressing to bring it to life though, and this one is certainly up to the task.

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The Beatles – The White Album

More of the Music of The Beatles

  • You’ll find solid Double Plus (A+++) sound or BETTER on all FOUR sides of these vintage British reissue pressings
  • This copy of the Beatles’ Masterpiece (my personal favorite of all their albums) is going to thrill and delight the lucky person who snags it
  • If you’ve heard the Half-Speed and Heavy Vinyl versions of The White Album, then you know how riddled they are with unacceptable flaws
  • They are simply not enjoyable on high-quality equipment, unlike this copy, which is guaranteed to be an unalloyed joy to play
  • Problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these Classic Rock records, but once you hear how superb sounding this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting stitches and just be swept away by the music
  • “If there is still any doubt that Lennon and McCartney are the greatest song writers since Schubert, then next Friday – with the publication of the new Beatles double LP – should surely see the last vestiges of cultural snobbery and bourgeois prejudice swept away in a deluge of joyful music making…” Right On!
  • Our customers often write us to tell us how much they like their Hot Stamper pressings of The Beatles, and they have been especially enthusiastic when it comes to The White Album

Our White Album Hot Stampers have always been a big hit with the folks who’ve been lucky enough to snare them. If you’re ready for a high-quality copy of The White Album that’s sure to massacre all the pressings you’ve heard up until now, you should jump right on this bad boy.

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