Demo Discs for Energy

Caldera – Carnavalito! Louder Is Better

Records You Can Buy that Sound Best on Big Speakers at Loud Levels

Carnavalito is a track that really comes ALIVE when you Crank Up the Volume. I played it FULL BLAST on two different occasions for audiophile friends of mine just to show them what happens when a Big Speaker Stereo meets a Large Scale Recording with absolutely AMAZING audiophile quality sound — BIG and BOLD, wall to wall and then some!

It’s my favorite track not only for the album as a whole but for the band’s entire recorded output. It just doesn’t get any better than this if you have the system for it.

Hearing the megawatt energy in the section when the soprano saxophonist jumps in, right into an ongoing orgy of wild percussion, who then proceeds to blow his brains out — now that is a thrill beyond belief. Played REALLY LOUD it’s about the closest to The Real Thing, the Live Event, that you will ever hear in your living room. (Unless you have a very large living room and lots of latin jazz musician friends.)

Even a year ago there was no way I could get that music to play that LOUD, that CLEANLY, and that tonally CORRECT, from the deepest bass to the highest highs, with the wild swings in dynamics that the recording captures so well. The Audio Revolution Is Alive and Well and making progress all the time. It’s never too late to join in the fun.

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Whomp Factor on Little Queen – Testing with Love Alive – Parts One and Two

More Heart

More Women Who Rock

Heart’s Little Queen has long been a favorite Test Disc. It works especially well as a test for something we here at Better Records like to call Whomp — the energy found at the low end of the frequency spectrum. Some call it slam, we prefer whomp.

The commentary is here to help guide you as you make changes to your system, insuring that you end up with more whomp without sacrificing equally important qualities found in the midrange and top end of your system.

Reality Check Parts One and Two

Take the song Love Alive.

The beginning section is chock full of lovely and quite subtle details (such as the autoharp and tabla) that seem to lose their magic on most systems. The autoharp is rich and chimey, and the tabla has some real low end extension. The recorders and flutes that join them are breathy and sweet, while the acoustic guitars heard throughout display all the tubey-magical harmonic richness found on our favorite Hot Stamper recordings, from the Eagles first album to Teaser and the Firecat. These qualities easily get lost in the sauce if you’re listening to the average copy, or the typical audiophile stereo. That’s Part One of the test — the opening. (more…)

10cc – Deceptive Bends

More 10cc

A Demo Disc for Bass

A Demo Discs for Dynamics

A Demo Discs for Energy

With outstanding Double Plus (A++) sonic grades on both sides, this huge, lively copy of Deceptive Bends will be very hard to beat – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
A longstanding member of our Top 100 – it’s one of the most DYNAMIC, ENERGETIC, well recorded pop albums we know of
“Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman kept the group alive and turned in a surprisingly solid album with 1977’s Deceptive Bends. It may lack the devil-may-care wackiness that popped up on previous 10cc albums, but it makes up for it by crafting a series of lush, catchy pop songs that are witty in their own right. All in all, Deceptive Bends is the finest achievement of 10cc’s post-Godley and Creme lineup and well worth a spin for anyone who enjoyed Sheet Music or The Original Soundtrack.”

This is an AMAZINGLY WELL RECORDED album, a record I would have no problem ranking in the Top Rock Recordings of All Time! We’re tough graders on this album because we know how good it can sound, which is SHOCKINGLY GOOD. (more…)

David Bowie / Let’s Dance – Energy Is Key

Presenting another entry in our extensive Listening in Depth series with advice on

what to listen for as you critically evaluate your copy of Let’s Dance.

Here are some albums on our site you can buy

with similar Track by Track breakdowns.

Side One

Modern Love

This track has a tendency to be a bit brighter than those that follow. To find out if your Let’s Dance is killer, see how the title track sounds.

China Girl
Let’s Dance

The best sounding track on the album and one of the handful of best sounding Bowie tracks ever recorded. With a truly Hot Stamper copy, try as you might you will be very hard pressed to find better sound. Demo Disc Quality doesn’t begin to do it justice.

Without You

Side Two

Ricochet
Criminal World
Cat People (Putting Out Fire)

The best sound and music on side two. A top Bowie track.

Shake It (more…)

The Dynamic Energy of Neil Young and His Crazy Pals – They’re LIVE in the Studio

More Neil Young

More on Zuma

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Hot Stampers are all about finding those rare and very special pressings that manage to represent the master tape at its best.

Notice I did not say ACCURATELY represent the master tape, because the master tape may have faults that need to be corrected, and the only way to do that is in the mastering phase.

I can tell you without fear of contradiction that fidelity to the master tape should never be, and rarely is, the goal of the mastering engineer.

Which, as a practical matter, means that flat transfers are usually a mistake.

Chesky is famous for boasting that their early remasterings of the Living Stereo catalog were flat transfers. They sure sound flat all right. If there is a more clueless bunch of audiophiles on the planet than the people running Chesky you would have a hard time proving it to me.

But I digress.

Whether we like or dislike the presentation of any given recording is of course a matter of taste. When listening we constantly make judgments about the way we think the recording at any moment ought to sound, based on what we like or don’t like about the sound of recordings in general and how our stereos deal with them. (more…)

Supertramp – Breakfast In America

Hot Stampers of Breakfast in America

More on Breakfast in America

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With outstanding Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER on both sides, this copy is guaranteed to have the best sound you have ever heard for Breakfast in America
A truly superb recording with huge, spacious, dynamic, lively sound – Tubey Magical richness is a big plus too
A Top 100 title and True Demo Disc – turn it up and this recording gets LOUD like nothing you have ever experienced
4 1/2 stars: “The majority of the album consisted of tightly written, catchy, well-constructed pop songs, like the hits ‘The Logical Song,’ ‘Take the Long Way Home,’ and ‘Goodbye Stranger.'”

We just conducted another shootout for Breakfast, the band’s biggest charting success, and once again we were blown away by just how good the best copies can sound – huge, spacious, punchy sound we can never get enough of around here. If you have big speakers a great copy will blow your mind, and it will probably blow your mind even if you don’t.

We are not the least bit ashamed to say that we LOVE this album here at Better Records, and a copy like this will certainly help to show you why. Drop the needle on Gone Hollywood, The Logical Song or Take The Long Way Home to hear how powerful this music can sound when you have a great pressing.

Most copies of this record are grainy, thin, shrill and aggressive. When you get a Hot Stamper like this one the highs are sweet and silky. This recording has plenty of top end, so if the highs aren’t correct it pretty much ruins the sound of the record. (more…)

Queen – A Night at the Opera

This stunning copy of Queen’s Masterpiece boasts Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from start to finish
Both sides are exceptionally quiet – this is some of the best sound and quietest vinyl we have ever heard for the album
HUGE with WHOMP like nothing you have ever heard – finally, the code has been cracked (but the right British pressings are sure hard to find)
5 stars: “But the appeal of A Night at the Opera is in its detailed, meticulous productions. It’s prog rock with a sense of humor as well as dynamics, and Queen never bettered their approach anywhere else.”

Although we wish it were not the case, for some reason it’s unusually difficult to find good-sounding Queen albums, which is why you rarely see most of their better titles on the site. (News of the World and The Game are exceptions to that rule; they’re much easier to find with good sound, especially The Game.)

Not to worry. We’ve done our homework (which simply involves finding, cleaning and playing a big stack of British pressings from different eras) and found you the copy that has all of the Queen Magic you heard in your head (and only in your head) while Bohemian Rhapsody was playing on the radio.

Here’s the pressing that finally can let you hear that BIG, BOLD sound in your very own listening room. You can even play it for your audiophile friends now. (more…)

The Turn Up Your Volume Test – Blood Sweat and Tears

Dear Reader,

We have just recently moved our record business to our new Shopify store. None of the links to the old site will work anymore. We apologize for the inconvenience and hope to be able to rectify the situation soon. For now please check out Better Records, Mach II, home of the ultimate vinyl pressing, the White Hot Stamper.

Tom Port – Better Records

In my opinion this is the BEST SOUNDING rock record ever made. I may be biased because I like the music so much, but played on a Big Speaker System a Hot Stamper pressing is nothing less than ASTOUNDING, the ultimate Demo Disc. It has the power of LIVE MUSIC.

You don’t find that on a record too often, practically never in fact. I put this record at the top of The Best Sounding Rock Records of All Time link (seen on the left) and said it was in a class of its own for good reason — IT IS IN A CLASS OF ITS OWN.

As I’ve noted before, this record is a milestone in the history of popular music. Not only is it The Most Successful Fusion of Rock and Jazz Ever. It’s also One of the Finest Recordings of Popular Music Ever.

The sound is nothing short of amazing. Just the drums alone are enough to win awards: the kick drum has real kick, the snare may actually be the best rock snare ever recorded, the cymbals shimmer like real cymbals; almost everything is right with this record. Especially the music.

Good Demo Disc, Good Test Disc Too

This is the kind of record that doesn’t fall into the “Good Demo Disc, Bad Test Disc” trap. It’s both a good Demo Disc and a good Test Disc; not too many records can make that claim. (Especially the kinds of records audiophiles tend to like.) The good copies of this album sound good on almost any system. But the better systems reveal qualities to this recording that you are very unlikely to have ever heard on another record. That’s the Demo side.

On the Test side, no matter what level your system is at, any change you make will be instantly obvious on this recording, for good or bad. Nothing can fool it. It’s too tough a test, the toughest I know of bar none. For this record to sound right, truly right, every aspect of its reproduction has to be at the highest level. Any shortcoming will be glaringly obvious. The record may still sound good, but it won’t really sound right. (Knowing what “right” means in this context makes all the difference in the world of course.)

If you want to improve your stereo, this is the record that will show you whether or not you’re making progress. (more…)

The Who – Live At Leeds

A hard-rockin’ copy – this British Track pressing boasts powerful Double Plus (A++) DEMO DISC sound on both sides
The recording is huge and lively with startling dynamics and in-the-room-presence like nothing you’ve heard
Drums so solid, punchy and present they put to shame 99% of the rock records on the planet
Cited as the best live rock recording of all time by The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, the BBC Q magazine, and Rolling Stone. In 2003, it was ranked number 170 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Vintage covers for this album are hard to find in clean shape. Most of them will have at least some amount of seam wear, edge wear or crushed corners. We guarantee that the cover we supply with this Hot Stamper is at least VG, and it will probably be VG+. If you are picky about your covers please let us know in advance so that we can be sure we have a nice cover for you.

Get ready to rock out, as this is one of the BEST SOUNDING live albums ever recorded. Young Man Blues on a copy such as this has drums that are so solid, punchy and present they positively put to shame the drum sound on 99 out of 100 rock records! Keith Moon lives on!

The bass is AMAZING on this record. Present vocals and clear guitars in both channels are key to the best copies such as this one. Most pressings do not get the guitars to jump out of the speakers the way the best can. Few copies get the highest highs and the lowest lows but this one had it going on from top to bottom.

The seven minute long Magic Bus that finishes out the side is The Who at their best. Rock fans will have a hard time finding a better sounding Who pressing than this one, on either side. (more…)

Emerson, Lake & Palmer – Emerson, Lake & Palmer

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This vintage Island Pink Rim import pressing boasts outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish – exceptionally QUIET vinyl too
Spacious, rich and dynamic, with especially smooth, present vocals – this is what we love about Eddie Offord’s work here
ANALOG at its Tubey Magical finest – you’ll never play a CD that sounds this good as long as you live
Lucky Man and Take A Pebble on this copy have Demo Disc Quality Sound like you won’t believe
4 1/2 stars: “Lively, ambitious, almost entirely successful debut album… [which] showcased the group at its least pretentious and most musicianly …there isn’t much excess, and there is a lot of impressive musicianship here.”

If you’ve got the system to play this one loud enough, with the low end weight and energy it requires, you are in for a treat. The organ that opens side two will rattle the foundation of your house if you’re not careful. This music really needs that kind of megawatt reproduction to make sense. This is bombastic prog that wants desperately to rock your world. At moderate levels it just sounds overblown and silly. At loud levels, it actually will rock your world.

This UK Island pink rim import pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records rarely even 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. (more…)