Composers

Rodrigo – Skip the Later Label Pressings of this TAS List Title

More of the music of Joaquín Rodrigo (1901-1999)

More TAS Super Disc Recordings

This is a TAS list title that deserves its place on a list of Super Discs, as long as you are talking about one that sounds the way the best copies do.

The best sides are exceptionally transparent and full of energy, with the lush strings of the guitars sounding much more textured and real. The orchestra is rich and sweet, especially for a Mercury, yet the guitars are clear, present and appropriately placed relative to the surrounding ensemble.

But all the later label pressings we’ve bought over the years, mostly because we could afford to buy them, hoping for a miracle, have fallen well short of the mark. The notes below tell the story of their typical and obvious shortcomings.

Side One of the most recent late label pressing we played was crude, smeary and hot (bright).

Side Two was even worse, it was very hot (bright).

If you want to avoid records with these problems, click on any of the links below to see the titles we’ve found over the years with the same issues.

Waking Up a Dull Stereo

If your system is dull, dull, deadly dull, the way older systems tend to be, this record has the hyped-up sound to bring it to life in no time.

There are scores of commentaries on the site about the huge improvements in audio available to the discerning (and well-healed) audiophile. It’s the reason Hot Stampers can and do sound dramatically better than their Heavy Vinyl or audiophile counterparts: because your stereo is good enough to show you the difference.

With an old school system you will continue to be fooled by bad records, just as I and all my audio buds were fooled thirty and forty years ago. Audio has improved immensely in that time. If you’re still playing Heavy Vinyl and audiophile pressings, as wall as vintage Golden Age classical records that don’t sound good, there’s a world of sound you’re missing. We discussed the issue in this commentary:

(more…)

Brahms / Handel – Variations And Fugue On A Theme By Handel / Mayorga

More Direct to Disc Recordings

More Classical and Orchestral Recordings

  • Lincoln Mayorga‘s wonderful performance of these classical works for solo piano returns to the site for only the second time in years, here with STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it throughout this original Sheffield Direct to Disc import pressing
  • As we discovered many years ago, all pressings of this recording are out of polarity – you must reverse the polarity of your system to hear this record properly
  • Out of polarity, it sounds shockingly small, practically mono – with the polarity corrected, it is as big and real as if you were listening to the recital live from the front row
  • Both of these sides are amazingly rich, spacious, and transparent, with an exceptionally clear, solid and present piano and virtually no trace of smear
  • This copy fulfills the promise of the audiophile-oriented recording in a way that few – shockingly few, to be honest – pressings of its kind ever have

This Sheffield Direct-to-Disc LP is one of the best records ever put out by Sheffield.

Lincoln Mayorga is an accomplished classical pianist: this is arguably his best work. (I had a chance to see him perform at a recital of Chopin’s works early in 2010 and he played superbly — for close to two hours without the aid of sheet music I might add.)

(more…)

Rimsky-Korsakoff / Scheherazade – Reiner

More of the music of Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Rimsky-Korsakov

  • Reiner and the Chicago Symphony’s performance of this dazzling symphonic suite returns to the site on this vintage White Dog pressing that boasts outstanding Double Plus (A++) Living Stereo sound or close to it from first note to last
  • We guarantee there is more richness, fullness, and performance energy on this copy than others you’ve heard, and that’s especially true if you own any of the Heavy Vinyl pressings that are currently on the market
  • Our favorite Scheherazade for about the last 15 years or so has been the one Ansermet conducted for Decca in 1961, but the roller-coaster excitement Reiner and the CSO bring to the fourth movement is something very special
  • True, the side with the fourth movement earned a minimal Hot Stamper grade of 1.5+, but we still guarantee that it will beat the pants off any Heavy Vinyl reissue, because every one of those that we played was ridiculously opaque, muddy and thick enough to have us crying “uncle” after five minutes (reviews available on the blog)
  • Marks and problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these early pressings – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you

We did a monster shootout for this music in 2014, one we had been planning for more than two years. On hand were quite a few copies of the Reiner on RCA; the Ansermet on London (CS 6212, his second stereo recording, from 1961, not the earlier and noticeably poorer sounding recording from in 1959); the Ormandy on Columbia, and a few others we felt had potential.

The only recordings that held up all the way through — the fourth movement being the Ball Breaker of all time, for both the engineers and musicians — were those by Reiner and Ansermet. This was disappointing considering how much time and money we spent finding, cleaning and playing those ten or so other pressings, but such is the nature of our business.

TAS List

Harry Pearson put this record on his TAS list of super discs.

Of course, the fact that a recording is on the TAS list doesn’t guarantee that the pressing you buy will have great sound, but Better Records does precisely that. If you don’t think a record sounds as good as we’ve described it, we’ll always happily take that record back and refund your money.

(more…)

Rodrigo / Concierto Andaluz & Concierto de Aranjuez

More of the music of Joaquín Rodrigo (1901-1999)

More TAS Super Disc Recordings

  • An original Mercury pressing of this wonderful TAS-approved recording (the first to hit the site in years) with incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades from top to bottom – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • Our last shootout was in 2010 — we really dropped the ball on this one!
  • This is a TAS list title that deserves its place on a list of Super Discs, as long as you are talking about one that sounds the way this one does
  • The vinyl was a problem with many of our better copies — those of you who are fans of later Mercs, perhaps the Starker titles, just to take one example, know what I am talking about with the less-than-audiophile-quality surfaces so common to these pressings
  • These sides are exceptionally transparent and full of energy, with the lush strings of the guitars more textured and real than on practically all other copies we played
  • The orchestra sounds rich and sweet, yet the guitars are clear, present and appropriately placed relative to the surrounding ensemble

These Nearly White Hot Stamper pressings have top-quality sound that’s often surprisingly close to our White Hots, but they sell at substantial discounts to our Shootout Winners, making them a relative bargain in the world of Hot Stampers (“relative” meaning relative considering the prices we charge). We feel you get what you pay for here at Better Records, and if ever you don’t agree, please feel free to return the record for a full refund, no questions asked.

This is a wonderful record and fully deserving of its place on Harry’s TAS list. The performance here by the first family of guitar is legendary. More importantly, the music is delightful and belongs in any serious classical collection. (Others that belong that category can be found here.)

(more…)

You Can Do a Lot Better than this Tchaikovsky 5th

Hot Stamper Classical and Orchestral Pressings Available Now

Our Favorite Orchestral Performances with Top Quality Sound

We played a few copies of the album we had sitting in the backroom and none of them quite worked for us.  The sound was somewhat veiled and dry. (The 1s/1s pressing was the worst of the bunch, by the way.)

A decent record, not much more than that, and not really not worth putting in a shootout with the better pressings of the work we have discovered over the years.

Yes, we still have no Hot Stamper pressings of the work to offer, but we know they are coming, someday. Our current favorite is a performance by Mravinsky on DG from 1961.

It’s a “good, not great” vintage classical record, best played on an old school stereo system that can hide its shortcomings.

The much more revealing systems of today, like the one we employed to audition this very copy, simply make it too easy to spot its many faults.

Vintage Vinyl

We are not fans of vintage vinyl because we like the sound of old records. Lots of old records don’t sound good to us at all, and we review them by the score all over this blog.

We like old records because they have the potential to sound better than every other kind of record, especially the ones that have been made and marketed to audiophiles for the last thirty years.

We wrote about that subject in a commentary we called the big if. An excerpt:

The best of the best vintage recordings are truly amazing if you can play them right. That’s a big if. 

In fact, it may just be the biggest if in all of audio.

We go on to discuss the wonderfully accurate timbre of the better vintage pressings, in contrast to the consistently inaccurate tonality of the Modern Heavy Vinyl pressing. It’s a long story but we think it is well worth your time if you are an audiophile looking for better sounding vinyl.

The following four things are best kept in mind when a pressing doesn’t sound like we remember it did, or think it should:

  1. Our standards are much higher now, the result of having spent decades critically listening to vintage classical pressings by the hundreds, if not the thousands.
  2. Our stereo is dramatically more revealing and more accurate than it was in the past, before 2007 certainly.
  3. Using the Odyssey machine and the Prelude Cleaning System, we not only clean but markedly improve the sound of old records in ways we never could before.
  4. Since no two records sound the same, maybe the one we played long ago actually did sound as good as we thought back then. The odds are against it, but we can’t say it’s not possible.

With all four of the above points considered, the current consensus is that LSC 2239 is very unlikely to be as good a record as we used to think it was.

The most likely explanation is that I was simply not able to judge the record properly at the time.

  1. I needed higher quality playback.
  2. I needed better cleaning technologies.
  3. I needed to learn how to do rigorous, repeatable, controlled shootouts.

In short, I needed to follow the advice found in the commentary I wrote after finally managing to put all of those things in place:

(more…)

We Get Letters – “The first time I listened, that moment elicited an involuntary cry, ‘Wow!’”

More of the music of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

More of the Music of Stevie Ray Vaughan

Dear Tom and Fred,

I just got through listening to my latest haul of records, including a few Pink Floyd White Hot Stampers. They are just fantastic. As is the SRV The Sky is Crying, and every other record I’ve bought from you. They are transformative.

One that deserves special mention is the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto I just got. I expected the violin to sound amazing, and it does. I did not expect to be blown away when the full orchestra joins in. The first time I listened, that moment elicited an involuntary cry, ‘Wow!’

The second time I listened, it evoked the same response. It’s simply magical. Thank you.

Finally, I got a WHS of the Beatles Help! I really love the album. Nearly every song is great. One song that did not move me as I hoped was Yesterday. I read on your blog that some German pressings have amazing versions of Yesterday. Even if the rest sound like crap, I’d be very interested to buy one if you have it laying around.

Thanks again for all you do. I should mention that another of your loyal customers, ab_ba, turned me on to your work, and is largely responsible for helping me find my way.

Dear Bill,

Some thoughts:

As for the Tchaikovsky, so glad to hear you liked it so much. Finding a recording that gets the orchestra right is ten times harder than finding a record with a good sounding violin. This we have learned through experience.

I used to think these Heifetz records were a bit crude, but now I realize I just couldn’t play them right back in those days.

As for Help!, we don’t buy the German pressings anymore because it is just too hard to sell a record at the prices we charge where one song sounds great. You can find them easily enough if you want to go that route.

As for ab_ba, glad he was able to help you find a better way.

We both owe him a debt of gratitude in that respect.

(more…)

Sibelius / Finlandia – Live and Learn

More of the music of Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)

More of the music of Edvard Grieg (1843-1907)

Years ago we noted how much worse the Classic Records pressing of our then current favorite Finlandia sounded when compared head to head with our best RCA Shaded Dog pressings.

We wrote:

Classic Records ruined this album. Their version is dramatically more smeared and low-rez than our good vintage pressings, with almost none of the sweetness, richness and ambience that the best RCA pressings have in such abundance.

Woops.

Turns out the RCA pressing we used to like was not as good as we thought, something we discovered to our chagrin in 2014.

Our current favorite pressing is on a Decca reissue label. Go figure.  When you hear how good this record sounds, you may have a hard time believing that it’s a budget reissue from 1970, but that’s precisely what it is.

Even more extraordinary, the right copies are the ones that win shootouts.

Want to find your own top quality copy?

(more…)

Leonard Bernstein – West Side Story (Original Soundtrack)

More of the music of Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)

More Soundtrack Albums

  • You’ll find INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides of this original Columbia 6-Eye Stereo pressing
  • Spacious, rich and smooth – only vintage analog seems capable of reproducing all three of these qualities without sacrificing resolution, staging, imaging or presence
  • Tonality is the hardest thing to get right on this album, and here it is right on the money, because if it were not, it would not have won the shootout
  • For those of you who like to do your own shootouts, good luck, you will need a lot of originals to find one that sounds as good as this one does
  • The biggest selling album of the ’60s – 54 weeks at Number One (!)
  • Marks and problems 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
  • 5 stars: “The soundtrack of the West Side Story film is deservedly one of the most popular soundtrack recordings of all time, and one of the relatively few to have attained long-term popularity beyond a specialized soundtrack/theatrical musical audience.”

This album is at least five times more common in mono than it is in stereo, and finding enough clean early stereo pressings takes us years nowadays.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

Mozart – How Do the Early Pressings Sound?

More of the Music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Mozart

About fifteen years ago we really liked the original for this title with the rare cover you see pictured.

More recently we were able to acquire quite a variety of different pressings for an upcoming shootout and were fortunate to be able to include one of the stereo originals for the first time in many years. We started out with high hopes, but once it began playing, fairly quickly our hopes were dashed.

Our notes for the ori9inal pressing read:

  • Overly rich and weighty
  • Dynamics/life are gone.
  • Side two has one of the most boomy sounding pianos I’ve ever heard.

In other words, it just sounded like an old record, and not a very good one at that. The world is full of them.

Only an old school audio system can hide the faults of a pressing such as this one. The world is full of those too, even though they might comprise all the latest and most expensive components.

Were we wrong years ago? Hard to say. That copy from many years ago is gone.

Three things we always keep in mind when a pressing doesn’t sound the way we remember it did, or think it should:

  1. Our standards are quite a bit higher now, having spent decades critically listening to vintage classical pressings by the hundreds.
  2. Our stereo is dramatically more revealing and more accurate than it used to be.
  3. Since no two records sound the same, maybe that one from long ago actually did sound as good as we thought at the time.

There are a lot of DG recordings that have this kind of sound. We’ve played them by the score. Most went directly into the trade bin.

We simply do not sell classical records with this kind of sound regardless of how good the performances may be.

Which brings up an assumption that many audiophiles make, especially those who spend time on forums whose members dispense advice about which pressings are most likely to have the best sound. We find such advice to be so often mistaken as to be almost worthless.

We lay out our thinking on the subject in this commentary:

The link below will take you to all the records that can sound better on the right reissue pressing, not the original:

Our Job

Our job is to find you good sounding pressings.

That’s the reason we carry:

  • No Heavy Vinyl of any kind.
  • Exactly one Half-Speed mastered title (John Klemmer’s Touch).
  • Rarely any Japanese pressings, and
  • Almost nothing made in the 21st century.

If these kinds of records sounded good compared to the vintage pressings we offer — in other words, if they performed well in shootouts — we would be happy to offer them to our customers.

(more…)