Difficult to Reproduce

Here are close to 100 recordings which we’ve found to be difficult to reproduce.

“The greater the difficulty the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.” – Epictetus

The Pretenders – Get Close

More of the Music of The Pretenders

  • With two INSANELY GOOD Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides, you’ll have a hard time finding a copy that sounds remotely as good as this vintage import pressing – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • These sides are energetic, clear and full-bodied, with Chrissie Hynde’s vocals front and center where they belong
  • If all you know are audiophile or domestic pressings, you should be prepared for a mind-blowing experience with this copy
  • However, the sound of the album is more aggressive than some audiophiles might like, so fair warning: you will not be demonstrating your stereo with this one, no matter how much better sounding than other copies it may be
  • “Hynde’s voice is in great form throughout, and when she gets her dander up, she still has plenty to say and good ways to say it; ‘How Much Did You Get for Your Soul?’ is a gleefully venomous attack on the musically unscrupulous; ‘Don’t Get Me Wrong’ is a superb pop tune and a deserved hit single; and the Motown-flavored ‘I Remember You’ and the moody ‘Chill Factor’ suggest she’d been learning a lot from her old soul singles.”

Get Close has long been a personal favorite of mine. Side one starts off with a bang with “My Baby,” one of the best tracks this band ever recorded. Of course at this point it’s hard to call The Pretenders a band as it is pretty much Chrissie Hynde’s show. She continues to mature as a songwriter, and the arrangements and production value are excellent as well, with heavy hitters such as Steve Lillywhite, Bob Clearmountain and Jimmy Iovine involved.

We have a category on the site entitled women who rock. No other woman on earth can rock the way Chrissie Hynde can, and this album, along with Learning to Crawl, is all the proof anyone needs.

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Dick Schory – Music for Bang, Baaroom and Harp

Living Stereo Titles Available Now

  • Stunning Living Stereo sound through this original pressing, with both sides earning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades, just shy of our Shootout Winner – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • It’s a real treat to hear such a crazy assortment of percussion instruments with this kind of amazingly clear, high-resolution sound!
  • This copy was just plain bigger, richer and clearer than practically all others in our recent shootout
  • It also helps that both of these sides are in correct polarity, a subject you can read about on the blog if you would like to know more
  • If you’re a fan of percussion extravaganzas, this Living Stereo from 1958 is about as good as it gets

The hottest stamper pressings of this album are Demo Discs for three important qualities we listen for in our record auditions. Each of the links below will take you to other recordings we have found to be potentially superior in these areas of reproduction.

  1. Size and space,
  2. Correct timbre and
  3. Tubey Magic.

Harry Pearson put this record on his TAS List of Super Discs, and rightfully so. It certainly can be a Super Disc, but only when you have the right pressing. This is one of the Demo Discs on the TAS List which truly deserves its status when, and only when, you have the right copy. (The typical copy is quite good, but it sure doesn’t sound like this.) Nothing else in our shootout could touch it. And it’s IN PHASE. Many copies are not.

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The Rolling Stones – Black and Blue

More of the Music of The Rolling Stones

  • With two STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides or close to them, this copy is guaranteed to blow to the doors off any other Black and Blue you’ve heard
  • Glyn Johns engineered, and the better pressings are full-bodied and lively, with solid and present vocals, as well as excellent clarity all around
  • A copy this good lets you appreciate Billy Preston’s contributions on the keys – he’s all over the album, a very good thing indeed
  • “‘Melody’ ought to be a tentative experiment with Billy Preston’s jazzy keyboard sound. Instead, it’s a triumph, Jagger’s voice swooping and snaking around Preston’s piano and harmonies.” – Rolling Stone

This is in fact one of the better sounding “later period” (1976) Stones records we’ve played, that’s if we’re talking about the better copies of course, like this one. The best pressings are big, open, dynamic and full-bodied, with exceptionally lively percussion. As always, credit goes to the recording engineers, Glyn Johns et al., as well as Lee Hulko at Sterling, the original mastering engineer (who’s cut about as many good sounding records as anyone we can think of).

“Hand of Fate” is our favorite on side one, sounding like an unreleased track from Exile on Main Street. I’m guessing Glyn Johns had a lot to do with that one sounding as meaty and raw as it does on the better copies. Following “Hot Stuff,” it balances that one’s bright, clear sound nicely, making it easy to separate the real winners from the also-rans.

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Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66 – Fool on the Hill

More of the Music of Sergio Mendes

  • Boasting two excellent Double Plus (A++) sides, this vintage copy is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other Fool on the Hill you’ve heard – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Side one of this copy is in reverse polarity – for those of you who cannot switch your polarity, not much can be done since all the best side ones, even the supers, were reversed
  • The polarity problems are easily recognized when playing the first two tracks – unless you reverse your polarity, the sound is hard and smeary and much of the bass goes missing
  • Sergio’s unique rearrangement of two songs in particular here make this a Must Own album: “Scarborough Fair” and the title track
  • Top engineers for A&M, Henry Lewy and Larry Levine, capture the natural, breathy intimacy in the voices of the wonderful female leads, Lani Hall, Karen Philipp and Gracinha Leporace
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Even though he had become thoroughly embedded in the consciousness of mainstream America, Mendes still managed to have it three ways, exposing first-class tunes from little-known Brazilian talent, garnering commercial hits, and also making some fine records.”
  • If you’re a fan of Sergio and the band, this early pressing from 1968 belongs in your collection.

Two songs in particular make this a Must Own album: Scarborough Fair and The Fool On The Hill. Both of them are given wonderfully original treatments. These songs hold their own against the originals, and that’s saying something.

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Alice Cooper – School’s Out

More of the Music of Alice Cooper

  • This early Green Label pressing boasts solid Double Plus (A++) grades from top to bottom
  • Surprisingly rich and full-bodied, the better copies really rock with big bass and punchy drums – just the right sound for Alice Cooper’s brand of hard-rockin’ chaos
  • The beloved title track remains the most-performed song in his concert history, and the presence on this copy will put the band right there in your listening room
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these Classic Rock records – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • 4 1/2 stars: “School’s Out catapulted Alice Cooper into the hard rock stratosphere, largely due to its timeless, all-time classic title track.”
  • If you’re a fan of the band, this title from 1972 is clearly one of their best

Yet another impossible-to-find record in clean condition with good sound has made it to the site, and those of you who are fans should scoop it up because it takes us about four years to find enough copies to do this shootout. Check back with us in 2024 if this one is sold by the time you get to the end of this sentence!

We had poor luck with the second and third label copies on this AC title. It seems that, unlike so many records we play, the originals are the only way to go on School’s Out. (more…)

Talking Heads / Remain In Light

More of the Music of Talking Heads

  • Here is a vintage Sire pressing with solid Double Plus (A++) grades from start to finish – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Everything we were hoping for from this music is here and more — richness, sweetness, great energy, big time presence, weight down low, punchy drum sound and so on
  • Both of these sides are also open and transparent with lots of space around the different parts
  • The sonics have extraordinarily high-resolution, which lets you hear all the detail and texture of the crazy synths
  • 5 stars: “Even without a single, Remain in Light was a hit, indicating that Talking Heads were connecting with an audience ready to follow their musical evolution, and the album was so inventive and influential, it was no wonder.”

It takes an exceptional pressing to get all the elements correct — the funky bottom end; the processed, multi-tracked vocals; the Brian Eno production weirdness and so on.

This is a brilliant album but a typically problematic record. Most copies get some things right but fail in other areas. There are smeary copies that can’t deliver the punchy bottom you need, grainy copies that make the vocals painful to listen to, and plenty of copies that are just too dark or flat sounding for anyone to enjoy. Note that the first track on both sides will sound the worst. The sound gets better, though, as you get further into the album.

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George Harrison – All Things Must Pass

More of the Music of The Beatles

  • This early British box set of All Things Must Pass with the reissued (but still original looking) box boasts stunning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades or close to them on all SIX sides – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • If you’ve struggled with domestic pressings and later imports or Heavy Vinyl reissues, your troubles are over – here is the sound you were looking for
  • This is a tough record to play, but if you devoted plenty of time and money into your system, and you have big dynamic speakers and the power to drive them to fairly loud levels, you are really in for a treat with this set
  • 5 stars: “Without a doubt, Harrison’s first solo recording is his best. Drawing on his backlog of unused compositions from the late Beatles era, Harrison crafted material that managed the rare feat of conveying spiritual mysticism without sacrificing his gifts for melody and grand, sweeping arrangements.”
  • This is clearly George Harrison’s best sounding album. Roughly 150 other listings for the best sounding album by an artist can be found here.
  • This is a Must Own title from 1970, an exceptionally good year for rock and pop music
  • Ken Scott used a great deal of tube compression in the mixing and mastering of the album, which of course makes the sound exceptionally Tubey Magical. No modern reissue we’ve ever played has been able to capture that sound
  • The flip side is that it is also one of the most difficult to reproduce, requiring the highest quality, most transparent, least distorted, most highly-tweaked equipment in order to cut through the layers and layers of sound

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Tom Petty – Hard Promises

More of the Music of Tom Petty

  • A Hard Promises like you’ve never heard, with solid Double Plus (A++) grades from top to bottom – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Recorded at Sound City, home to some of the greatest analog sound ever recorded, this 1981 Backstreet pressing still has plenty of analog magic in its grooves
  • 4 1/2 stars: “…filled with great songwriting, something that’s as difficult to achieve as a distinctive sound… ‘The Waiting’ became the best-known song on the record, but there’s no discounting ‘A Woman in Love,’ ‘Nightwatchman,’ ‘Kings Road,’ and ‘The Criminal Kind,’ album tracks that would become fan favorites… it has a tremendous set of songs and a unified sound that makes it one of Petty’s finest records.”
  • If you’re a fan of Tom Petty and his hard-rockin’ bandmates, this is a classic from 1981 that belongs in your collection

The album tends to be bright, thin, edgy, pinched and gritty — radio friendly, maybe, but not especially audiophile friendly.

We hate that sound but we are happy to report that some copies manage to avoid it, and this is one of them.

Is that richer, fuller sound the sound of what’s on the master tape or did the mastering engineer “fix” it?

We’ll never know, obviously. How could we?

What we do know is the sound of the pressings we actually have to play, and this one is killer.

Recorded by Shelly Yakus at Sound City, Van Nuys and at Cherokee Studios, Hollywood, CA, this vintage Backstreet pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound.

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Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin IV

More of the Music of Led Zeppelin

  • A Zep IV that was doing just about everything right, earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides
  • Insane rock and roll energy like nothing you have ever heard – the sound is full-bodied and reasonably smooth, making it possible to get the volume up good and high where it belongs
  • Here are the rock and roll classics that reign supreme to this very day – “Black Dog,” “Rock & Roll,” “Stairway to Heaven,” “When the Levee Breaks,” every one sounding better than you’ve ever heard them or your money back
  • There are some bad marks (as is sometimes the nature of the beast with these Classic Rock records) on “Rock and Roll,” but once you hear just how excellent sounding this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting ticks and just be swept away by the music
  • 5 stars: “Encompassing heavy metal, folk, pure rock & roll, and blues, Led Zeppelin’s untitled fourth album is a monolithic record, defining not only Led Zeppelin but the sound and style of 70s hard rock.”
  • If you’re a fan of the band, this title from 1971 is clearly one of their best, and one of their best sounding
  • The complete list of titles from 1971 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

It is a positive THRILL to hear this record rock the way it was meant to. If you have big speakers and the power to drive them, your neighbors are going to be very upset with you when you play this copy at the listening levels it was meant to be heard at.

You’d better be ready to rock, because this copy has the ENERGY and WHOMP that will make you want to. Zep IV demands loud levels, but practically any copy will punish you mercilessly if you try to play it at anything even approaching live levels.

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Jimmy Smith / Bashin’ – The Unpredictable Jimmy Smith

More of the Music of Jimmy Smith

  • This Big Band Jazz classic led by Jimmy Smith returns to the site for only the second time in four years, here with solid Double Plus (A++) grades from start to finish
  • If you own only one Jimmy Smith album, make it this one – with Oliver Nelson‘s arrangements ferociously blasting away, at good loud levels the first side here has the power to swing like you will not believe
  • 5 stars: “On the first half of the program, Smith was for the first time joined by a big band. Oliver Nelson provided the arrangements, trumpeter Joe Newman and altoist Phil Woods have a solo apiece, and “Walk on the Wild Side” became Smith’s biggest hit up to that point.”
  • It’s hard to imagine that any list of the Best Jazz Albums of 1962 would not have this record on it

This is tube mastering at its finest. Not many vintage tube-mastered records manage to balance all the sonic elements as correctly as this copy does.

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