Good Sounding Digital Recordings on Vinyl – Really?

Stevie Wonder – Hotter Than July

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  • Boasting two superb Double Plus (A++) sides, we guarantee you’ve never heard Hotter Than July sound this good
  • Forget whatever dead-as-a-doornail Heavy Vinyl record they’re making these days – if you want to hear the Tubey Magic, size and energy of this wonderful album, a vintage pressing like this one is the way to go
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Wonder naysayed the trends and continues to do what he did best. Solid songwriting, musicianship, and production are evident in the majority of Hotter Than July… It is the portrait of an artist who still had the Midas touch…”

Most copies lack the presence, energy and bottom end weight to let these funky songs work their magic, but a copy like this will let you appreciate the music without the mediocre sonics of the average pressing getting in the way.

This album was recorded right at the beginning of the digital era (1980) and most pressings won’t let you forget that. So many copies we played were just too sterile to get into — clean and clear bit lacking richness and fullness. We’re huge Stevie Wonder fans around here and we’ve fallen in love with Innervisions and Songs In The Key Of Life over and over again because of their lush, analog sound on the best pressings. It took a ton of work (and a whole lot of copies) to find a Hotter Than July that we could get excited about. I don’t think there’s a copy out there that can compete with his earlier recordings sonically but at least the Hot Stamper pressings present the music in a way that audiophiles can enjoy.

Bottom line? Digital recordings are tough, but after playing a ton of copies of this album we’ve managed to find a few that were musical and enjoyable instead of fatiguing. If you haven’t played this album in years I can understand why — the typical pressings are just too clean and too dry to demand any time on your table. At least that was our experience until the top copies such as this one had us nodding our heads and rockin’ out with these great tunes. Check out a Hot Stamper pressing to remember just what a musical magician Stevie is — you’ll be jammin’ too!

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Paul Simon – Graceland

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Hot Stamper Pressings of Graceland Available Now


  • A vintage copy that was doing practically everything right, with both sides earning KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Richer and smoother, two important qualities all the best pressings must have, yet still clear and resolving – this is the sound you want for Graceland
  • Guaranteed to trounce the well-reviewed but nevertheless AWFUL Heavy Vinyl LP in every way, or your money back and the shipping is on us
  • There’s a delicate, extended top end on this pressing that simply does not exist on the new reissue
  • 5 stars: “An enormously successful record, Graceland became the standard against which subsequent musical experiments by major artists were measured.”

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Tears for Fears – The Hurting

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  • This early British pressing of TFF’s debut album is close to the BEST we have ever heard, with both sides earning killer Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • Classic tracks like “Mad World,” “Pale Shelter,” and “Change” have stood the test of time – they’re played in TFF’s concerts to this day (we saw them not that long ago)
  • Forget the dubby domestic pressings – with top quality Hot Stamper sound, this copy is sure to trounce anything you’ve ever heard
  • Problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • 4 1/2 stars: “…powerful pieces of music, beautifully executed in an almost minimalist style…an exquisite sonic painting sweeping the listener up in layers of pulsing synthesizers, acoustic guitar arpeggios, and sheets of electronic sound…”

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.

Folks, take it from us, it is not every pressing that can manage to get rid of the digital harshness and congestion that so many copies suffer from, and then go on to open up its soundstage to be as wide, deep and tall as the enormous soundstage that you will hear on this very copy. When you have at your disposal a pressing like this one — notably richer, smoother and sweeter than many — the minor shortcomings of the recording will no longer interfere with your enjoyment of this groundbreaking music.

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Tears For Fears – Songs From The Big Chair

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  • This UK pressing is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other Songs From The Big Chair you’ve heard, with superb Double Plus (A++) grades throughout – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Rich, spacious and lively, with an open, extended top end – this is the sound you’ve been waiting for from Tears for Fears
  • More great songs than practically any other record made in the ’80s – “Shout,” “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” and “Head Over Heels” are just a few of the better known hits from this, their breakthrough third album
  • 4 1/2 stars: “It is not only a commercial triumph, it is an artistic tour de force. And in the loping, percolating “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” Tears for Fears perfectly captured the zeitgeist of the mid-’80s while impossibly managing to also create a dreamy, timeless pop classic. Songs From the Big Chair is one of the finest statements of the decade.”

This is a classic in the Tears for Fears canon, probably the album most people regard as their best. I myself prefer Seeds of Love, which should take nothing away from Big Chair — both are exceptional productions from the ’80s no matter how you look at them.

SFTBC went to Number One on the charts for a reason. There’s really not a bad song on either side and mostly absolutely brilliant ones.

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Donald Fagen / The Nightfly

More of the Music of Steely Dan

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Steely Dan

  • With two outstanding sides, this early pressing is guaranteed to be a huge improvement over anything you’ve heard
  • Punchy and high-resolution, check out the cymbals and muted guitar on “I.G.Y.” — they sound Right On The Money here
  • The sound may be too heavily processed and glossy for some, but we find that on the best copies that sound works about as well as any for this album
  • 4 1/2 stars: “A portrait of the artist as a young man, The Nightfly is a wonderfully evocative reminiscence of Kennedy-era American life; in the liner notes, Donald Fagen describes the songs as representative of the kinds of fantasies he entertained as an adolescent during the late ’50s/early ’60s, and he conveys the tenor of the times with some of his most personal and least obtuse material to date.”

Energetic and present, this copy is on a completely different level than most pressings. We just finished a big shootout for Donald Fagen’s solo effort from 1982 (just two years after Gaucho and the end of Steely Dan) and we gotta tell you, there are a lot of weak-sounding copies out there. We should know; we played them.

We’ve been picking copies up for more than a year in the hopes that we’d have some killer Hot Stamper copies to offer, but most of them left us cold. Flat, edgy and bright, like a bad copy of Graceland, only a fraction had the kind of magic we find on the better Steely Dan albums.

Both sides here are incredibly clear and high-rez compared to most pressings, with none of the veiled, smeary quality we hear so often. The vocals are breathy, the bass is clear and the whole thing is open and spacious.

How Analog Is It?

The ones we like the best will tend to be the ones that sound the most Analog. The more they sound like the average pressing — in other words, the more CD-like they sound — the lower the sonic grade. Many will not have even one Hot Stamper side and will end up in the trade-in pile.

The best copies sound the way the best copies of most Classic Rock records sound: tonally correct, rich, clear, sweet, smooth, open, present, lively, big, spacious, Tubey Magical, with breathy vocals and little to no spit, grit, grain or grunge.

That’s the sound of analog, and the best copies of The Nightfly have that sound.

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Eric Clapton – Unplugged

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  • With two outstanding Double Plus (A++) or BETTER sides, you’ll have a hard time finding a copy that sounds remotely as good as this vintage Reprise pressing – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Both sides have close to the best condition grade we give out, Mint Minus – there may not be another record on the site with vinyl that quiet!
  • The sound of this superb import is rich, full-bodied, lively, and warm, with solid bass and breathy, clear vocals
  • There are a number of records that Eric Clapton has made over the years that are Must Own titles, and we would have no problem putting this album on that list
  • Consistency has never been the man’s strong suit, but you will simply not be able to find a bad track on this live album from 1992
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Unplugged is the concert and album that established the MTV program as a classy, tony showcase for artists eager to redefine themselves via reexamination of their catalogs, which is what Clapton cannily did here.”
  • If you’re a Clapton fan, this unplugged album from 1992 surely belongs in your collection.

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Fleetwood Mac – Tusk

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More Five Star Albums Available Now

  • An amazing copy with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on sides one, two, and four, and excellent Double Plus (A++) sound on side three
  • The best sounding tracks are killer here – clear, rich, warm, full-bodied, with all the hallmarks of high-production-value analog throughout
  • These vintage pressings have the MIDRANGE MAGIC that’s surely missing from whatever 180g reissue has been made from the 43 year old tapes (or, to be clear, a modern digital master copy of those tapes)
  • 5 stars: “McVie and Nicks don’t deviate from their established soft rock and folk-rock templates, and all their songs are first-rate… Because of its ambitions, Tusk failed to replicate the success of its two predecessors, yet it earned a dedicated cult audience of fans of twisted, melodic pop.”
  • If you’re a fan of Late-’70s pop, especially the kind with a harder edge, this is a Must Own from 1979 that belongs in your collection.
  • The complete list of titles from 1979 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

This is one of the more controversial albums in the history of pop music — some people love it, others despise it, and some still don’t know what to make of it. You may not put it up there with Rumours, but when you hear these songs on a copy this good it’s easy to see why the All Music Guide gave Tusk five big stars!

Tusk suffered from high expectations and disappointed those looking for Rumours II. There is much on this album that compares to the best of Rumours but the weak material somewhat drags the album down as a whole. About three-quarters of Tusk is excellent. I made a 60-minute tape of that material and play it with great pleasure. I could tell you about lots of wonderful qualities the best tracks on the album have, but it would take too long. Sorry!

Sonically, the best sounding material ranks right up there with anything the band ever did, but there are more experimental moments such as What Makes You Think You’re The One that are never going to be tracks you demo your system with.

One high point (musically and sonically) is “Beautiful Child,” quite possibly the best song Stevie Nicks ever wrote. If you listen carefully and give yourself over totally to the sentiment of the song, and your eyes don’t well up, try opening up a vein and letting some ice water pour out. Then try it again. Repeat if necessary. If that doesn’t work just give up and go back to the Diana Krall CD you were playing.

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Paul McCartney – Sonic Pros and Cons

More of the Music of Paul McCartney

More of the Music of The Beatles

The best pressings of this album convey the immediacy of a live show, one which just happens to be fronted by one of the greatest performers in the history of popular music, Paul McCartney.

On the best copies, the sound is warmer, richer, and sweeter, or in a word, more ANALOG sounding. You get more extension up top, more weight down low, and more transparency in the midrange.

It’s surprising just how veiled and two-dimensional so many copies sound, considering this is a live recording with not a lot of processing after the fact.

As a digital recording, some of that processing is baked into the tape. Unplugged will  never sound as good as this McCartney album, but that’s to be expected. The bulk of the recordings from 1991 are simply not competitive with those from 1970, not by a long shot. There were hundreds of great records recorded or released in 1970. There are 39 Hot Stamper pressings of them on the site as I write this. I would have a hard time finding even a dozen from 1991.

Stick with the Early Pressings

This isn’t your typical rock record that sounds like crap on eight out of ten copies. Most early pressings of Unplugged sound pretty good. The later reissues are terrible, which should come as no surprise. Rarely are late reissues of rock and pop albums any good.

We did hear quite a few copies that had a somewhat brittle quality to the top end, with no real extension to speak of. It wasn’t ever a dealbreaker, but the copies with a silky openness up there are much more enjoyable — and, unfortunately, not all that common.

There are copies that lack warmth, copies that never fully come to life, and copies that are a bit dark.

Some that we auditioned didn’t seem to get the breath in the vocals, and others lacked weight to the piano.

Again — not one of the early pressings we played sounded BAD, but many of them definitely sounded dry, boring and lifeless.

It’s nice when the copy in hand has all the transparency, space, layered depth and three-dimensionality that makes listening to records such a fundamentally different experience than listening to CD playback, but it’s not nearly as important as having a richer, more relaxed tonal balance.

A little smear and a lack of resolution are not the end of the world on this album.

Brightness, along with too much grain and grit, can be.

Further Reading

Paul McCartney – Unplugged

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  • A true Demo Disc and excellent sounding import pressing that boasts KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • A strikingly intimate document of a live show, fronted by one of the greatest performers in history, Sir Paul McCartney
  • You get more extension up top, more weight down low, and more transparency in the midrange, than on all other copies we played
  • 4 stars: “… it remains one of the most enjoyable records in McCartney’s catalog. McCartney is carefree and charming, making songs like ‘Be-Bop-a-Lula’ and ‘Blue Moon of Kentucky’ sound fresh.”

Stunning sound for this amazing recording! It’s a strikingly intimate document of a live show, one which just happens to be fronted by one of the greatest performers in the history of popular music, Sir Paul McCartney.

On the better copies, the sound is warmer, richer, and sweeter, or in a word, more ANALOG sounding. You get more extension up top, more weight down low, and more transparency in the midrange. It’s surprising how veiled and two-dimensional so many copies can be, considering that this is a live recording (by the legendary Geoff Emerick himself) with not a lot of “messing around” after the fact.

Finding The Best Sound

This isn’t your typical rock record that sounds crappy on eight out of ten copies. Most copies of Unplugged sound pretty good. We did hear quite a few that had a somewhat brittle quality to the top end, with no real extension to speak of. It wasn’t ever a dealbreaker, but the copies with a silky openness up there are much more enjoyable — and, unfortunately, fairly uncommon.

There are copies that lack warmth, copies that never fully come to life, and copies that are a bit dark. Some that we auditioned didn’t seem to get the breath in the vocals, and others lacked weight to the piano. Again — not one of the pressings we played sounded BAD, but many of them definitely sounded dry, boring and lifeless.

Just for fun, check out Linda’s percussion and tambourine work in the right channel of the first track on side one, “Be-Bop-A-Lula.” Since that’s one of our test tracks, we had the opportunity to hear her ‘contribution’ to the song about twenty times or so, and it became a source of — to be charitable — ‘entertainment’ in its own right as the shootout progressed.

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Dire Straits – The Best Pressings Have Surprisingly Natural Sound

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Reviews and Commentaries for Love Over Gold

This modern album (1982) can sound surprisingly good on the right pressing. On most copies the highs are grainy and harsh, not exactly the kind of sound that inspires you to turn your system up good and loud and get really involved in the music. I’m happy to report that both sides here have no such problem – they rock and they sound great loud.

We pick up every clean copy we see of this album, domestic or import, because we know from experience just how good the best pressings can sound.

What do the best copies have?

REAL dynamics for one.

And with those dynamics you need rock solid bass. Otherwise the loud portions simply become irritating.

A lack of grain is always nice — many of the pressings we played were gritty or grainy.

Other copies that were quite good in most ways lacked immediacy and we took serious points off for that.

The best copies of Love Over Gold are far more natural than the average pressing you might come across, and that’s a recognizable quality we can listen for and weight in our grading.

It’s essential to the sound of the better pressings, which means in our shootouts it’s worth a lot of points. Otherwise you might as well be playing the CD.

Domestics or Imports?

Both can be good. The good copies tend to be good in the same way, and the bad copies, domestic or import, are likewise bad in the same way. It just goes to show, once again, that the only way to know how a record will sound is to play it.

If I had only one or two copies to judge by, I might have preferred an import over a domestic or vice versa. In the old days (before the advent of Hot Stamper shootouts), I would probably have drawn some surely erroneous conclusion concerning the relative merits of one or the other. Small sample sizes are the primary cause of these mistaken judgments. Unless you have a big batch of copies to play, you really can’t be sure about the sound of a recording.

And If I’m not mistaken, aren’t all the original copies, imports and domestics, mastered here in the states at Masterdisk, some by RL, some by BK (Bill Kipper) and some by HW (Howie Weinberg)? I’m pretty sure I’ve seen all three sets of initials in the dead wax of the copies we played over the years.

Further Reading

If you would like to run some tests on the copy of Love Over Gold that you own, listen for the qualities we describe above.

Here are some other titles that are good for testing these same qualities, many with advice on specifically What to Listen For.

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