Genre – Exotica & Easy Listening

Edmundo Ros – Rhythms of the South

More Exotica Recordings of Interest 

Hot Stamper Imports on Decca & London

  • Rhythms of the South makes its Hot Stamper debut on this original London Stereo pressing with solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER from first start to finish – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Side one was very close in sound to our Shootout Winner – you will be amazed at how big and lively and tubey the sound is
  • This copy is super spacious, sweet and positively dripping with ambience — talk about Tubey Magic, the liquidity of the sound here is positively uncanny
  • These sides are simply bigger, clearer, richer, more dynamic, transparent and energetic than most of what we played

It’s unfortunate that Edmundo Ros and his orchestra command so little respect these days from the record buying public. As for audiophiles, it’s doubtful that many even know who he or they is/are. We at Better Records are doing our best to change all that.

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Esquivel – Strings Aflame

More Recordings in Living Stereo

More Exotica Recordings

  • Boasting KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) Living Stereo sound or close to it on both sides, this original copy could not be beat
  • Exceptionally big, rich and Tubey Magical, on this pressing you will find the kind of sound that is at the heart of the best Living Stereo LPs
  • It’s simply bigger, more transparent, less distorted, more three-dimensional and more REAL than all of what we played

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Chet Atkins – Chet Atkins in Hollywood (1961)

More Chet Atkins

More Recordings in Living Stereo

  • Both sides of this vintage RCA pressing were giving us the big and bold Living Stereo sound we were looking for, earning seriously good Double Plus (A++) grades
  • What we are offering here is the superior sounding re-recording from 1961, produced by Dick Peirce
  • Chet took the master tapes back to his home studio in 1961 and re-recorded his parts over the orchestra, and we think he managed to do a much better job the second time around
  • This superb recording will have you asking why so few Living Stereo pressings actually do what this one does. The more critical listeners among you will recognize that this is a very special copy indeed. Everyone else will just enjoy the hell out of it.
  • 4 1/2 stars: “If the cover of At Home evokes the 1950s, the music on In Hollywood IS the 1950s: a warm, cozy, sophisticated album of mood music in the best sense.”

You can feel the cool air of the studio the minute the needle hits the groove!

I suppose we owe a debt of gratitude to Harry Pearson for pointing out to us with his TAS List what a great album this is, although I’m pretty sure anybody playing it would have no trouble recognizing that the sound is very special indeed.

Sorry, Harry

The pressing that Harry seems to have preferred — it’s the one recommended on his list, along with the Classic Records repress — is the inferior-sounding original recording, the one with the cover showing a guitar superimposed over the cityscape.

Leave it to us, the guys who actually play tons of records and listen to them critically, to recognize how much better sounding the 1961 version is when compared to the original from 1959. (For those of you who prefer the arrangements on the original, we offer those from time to time as well.)

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Shelly Manne & Jack Marshall – Sounds!

More Shelly Manne

 More Exotica and Easy Listening Recordings

  • Sounds! makes its Hot Stamper debut on this original Capitol Stereo pressing with stunning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound from start to finish – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • Spacious, rich and smooth – only vintage analog seems capable of reproducing all three of these qualities without sacrificing resolution, staging, imaging or presence
  • The follow up to Sounds Unheard Of!, the duo’s 1962 stereo test and demo record released on the Contemporary label

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Sons of the Pioneers – Cool Water

More of The Sons of the Pioneers

More Country

  • A Cool Water like you’ve never heard, with seriously good Double Plus (A++) Living Stereo sound throughout this vintage pressing
  • These sides have a richness and sweetness that’s disappeared entirely from modern recordings yet they’re still incredibly clean, clear and spacious
  • If you want to know why people love Living Stereo records, playing either side of this record should be all the convincing anyone would ever need
  • Marks 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
  • “The original release, issued at the height of the stereophile boom of the late 1950s, was a vivid display of close, intimate presence and discreet channel separation.”

This vintage RCA Black Label Living Stereo LP has two excellent sides, making this without a doubt one of the better sounding pressing we have ever had the distinct pleasure to play! We were as shocked to hear this copy as you will no doubt be (if you end up with it of course).

And the music — sophisticated arrangements of western classics featuring the group’s trademark harmonies — has maintained its charm remarkably well since 1959, more than sixty years after this All Tube recording was made. The orchestra and the male singers sound so natural you’ll wonder what the hell modern recording engineers think they’re up to. Engineers apparently knew how to make good recordings in 1959 — this record is all the proof you need — so what excuse can they possibly have for the dismal dreck they’ve been turning out for the last 30+ years?

The woodwinds here have that lovely airy, breathy quality that they do in real life. The singer’s voices are rich and full. The presentation is relaxed and involving. When’s the last time you heard a modern record with any of those qualities? Do you think the people recording Patricia Barber appreciate qualities such as these in a vocal recording? My ears tells me they don’t.

But there’s no point complaining about the modern world and its manifest shortcomings. Let’s be thankful that these wonderful records, recorded with such skill and care, still exist.

And that Better Records can offer you superb sounding pressings of them like this one.

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Perez Prado – Big Hits By Prado

More Living Stereo Recordings

More Easy Listening Recordings

  • This original RCA stereo pressing boasts KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) Living Stereo sound or close to it from first note to last – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Spacious and transparent, this copy has the three-dimensional soundstaging and layered depth that makes these kinds of records such a joy to play
  • There is plenty on offer for the discriminating audiophile, with the spaciousness, clarity, tonality and freedom from artificiality that are hallmarks of the better Living Stereo recordings
  • “Big Hits actually is a powerhouse anthology: the first definitive, stereo collection of mambo hits. All were re-recorded for stereo in ‘new arrangements’ as the jacket advertises… easy to find [but not in audiophile playing condition with sound this good] and very worthwhile.”

*NOTE: On side 1, there is a mark that plays 5 times lightly near the start of track 4 on side 1, “Guaglione.” On side 2, there is a mark that plays 8 times at a light to moderate level at the end of track 3, “Ruletero.”

This copy of Big Hits By Prado has a lot in common with the other Decca and Living Stereo titles we’ve listed over the years, albums by the likes of Henry Mancini, Esquivel, Dick Schory, Edmundo Ros, Arthur Lyman and a handful of others. Talk about making your speakers disappear, these records will do it!

An album like this is all about Tubey Magical Stereoscopic presentation. For us audiophiles, both the sound and the music here are enchanting. If you’re looking to demonstrate just how good 1960 All Tube Analog sound can be, this killer copy may be just the record for you.

This pressing is super spacious, sweet and positively dripping with ambience. Talk about Tubey Magic, the liquidity of the sound here is positively uncanny. This is vintage analog at its best, so full-bodied and relaxed you’ll wonder how it ever came to be that anyone seriously contemplated trying to improve it.

This IS the sound of Tubey Magic. No recordings will ever be made like this again, and no CD will ever capture what is in the grooves of this record. There may well be a CD of this album, but those of us in possession of a working turntable and a good collection of vintage vinyl could care less.

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Esquivel – Infinity In Sound, Vol. 2

More Esquivel

More Recordings in Living Stereo

  • With excellent Double Plus (A++) Living Stereo sound or close to it throughout, you’ll have a hard time finding a copy that sounds remotely as good as this early RCA pressing – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • This side two is spacious, lively and positively dripping with ambience, and side one is not far behind in all those areas – here is the Tubey Magical Stereoscopic presentation these kinds of recordings are known for
  • 4 stars: “This may be the Esquivel album that has it all: his signature style and sound, some experimentation (whistling), and an even mix of Latin and non-Latin standards.”
  • If you’re a fan of Juan Garcia Esquivel, and what audiophile wouldn’t be?, this Top Exotica/Easy Listening Title from 1961 belongs in your collection.
  • The complete list of titles from 1961 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

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Dick Schory – Listen for a Sweetly Extended Top End

Percussion Recordings with Hot Stampers Available Now

Living Stereo Titles Available Now

What to listen for you ask? Top end, plain and simple. It’s the RARE copy that really has the incredible extension of the side two we heard recently. The space, the clarity, the harmonic complexity — perhaps one out of ten copies will show you a side two like that.

The highs are so good on this record you can use it as a setup tool. Adjust your VTA, tracking weight and the like for the most natural and clear top end, then check for all the other qualities you want to hear. You may just find yourself operating on a higher sonic plane than you ever thought possible.

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. It’s a real treat to hear such a crazy assortment of percussion instruments with this kind of amazingly clear, high-resolution sound!

This is one of the Demo Discs on the TAS List which truly deserves its status when, and only when, you have a killer copy.

Polarity

Music for Bang, Baa-room and Harp is yet another one of the many pressings we’ve discovered with reversed polarity on some copies.

Are audiophile reviewers or audiophiles in general listening critically to records like this? I wonder; I could not find word one about any polarity issues with this title, and yet we’ve played four or five copies with reversed polarity on side two. How come nobody is hearing it, apart from us?

We leave you, dear reader, to answer that question for yourself.


This record, along with the others linked below, is good for testing the following qualities.

Bob and Ray Produced Our Favorite Record for Cartridge Setup

Hot Stamper Pressings of Bob and Ray Available Now

More of Our Favorite Difficult-to-Reproduce Test Discs

Bob and Ray Throw a Stereo Spectacular just happens to be our favorite Test Disc, eclipsing all others in the areas of naturalness and difficulty of reproduction. Any tweak or new room treatment — we seem to do them almost weekly these days — has to pass one test and one test only — the Bob and Ray Test. 

This record has the power to help you get to the next level in audio like no other. Six words hold the key to better sound: The Song of the Volga Boatman.

For the purpose of mounting new carts, our favorite track is The Song of the Volga Boatman on Bob and Ray Throw a Stereo Spectacular (LSP 1773). It’s by far the most difficult track we know of to get to sound right.

There are about twenty places in the music that we use as tests, and the right setting is the one that gets the most of them to sound their best. With every change some of the twenty will sound better and some will sound worse. Recognizing when the sound is the biggest, clearest, and most balanced from top to bottom is a skill that has taken me twenty years to acquire.

It’s a lot harder than it looks. The longer you have been in audio the more complicated it seems, which may be counterintuitive but comports well with our day-to-day experience very well.

All our room treatments and tweaks must pass The Bob and Ray Test as well. It’s the one record we have relied on more than any other over the course of the last year or two.

Presenting as it does a huge studio full of brass players, no record we know of is more dynamic or more natural sounding — when the system is working right. When it’s not working right the first thirty seconds is all it takes to show you the trouble you are in.

If you don’t have a record like that in your collection, you need to find one.

It will be invaluable in the long run. The copy we have is so good (White Hot, the best we have ever played), and so important to our operation here, that it would not be for sale at any (well, almost any) price.

The Bob and Ray Trombone / Trumpet Test

One of the key tests on Bob and Ray that keeps us on the straight and narrow is the duet between the trombone and the trumpet about half way through The Song of the Volga Boatman. I have never heard a small speaker reproduce a trombone properly, and when tweaking the system, when the trombone has more of the heft and solidity of the real instrument, that is a tweak we want to pursue. The trumpet interweaving with it in the right rear corner of the studio tests the transients and high frequency harmonics in the same section. With any change to the stereo, both of those instruments are going to sound better. For a change to be positive they must both sound better.

What to Listen For (Side One)

That first crack of thunder on side one is an obvious test for bottom end size and weight. On the better copies it really rattles the room.

But the real test for side one is Buck Dance. For the Hall of Fame copy we wrote:

Without a doubt this is the best sound I have ever heard for side one of this album. The sound here is so amazing I’m willing to go out on a limb and make the following recklessly bold statement. Buck Dance on this pressing has the most extended, natural and harmonically correct high frequencies I have ever heard from my speakers (or anyone else’s for that matter).

And the crazy thing about it is, when played against an actual original pressing of Music for Bang, Baa-room and Harp, this copy, which one would assume is made from a dub, SOUNDS FAR BETTER. Now of course we don’t have ten copies of LSP 1866 which would allow us to find one with an even better Buck Dance than the one heard here on Bob and Ray, which means we cannot be definitive in any way about the disparity in sound between the two albums.

We can only judge the records we have in hand, not the ones we might have heard years ago or — even worse — speculate about the sound of records we have not actually played, recently or otherwise. So we will stick to the facts, and the facts of this side one are that it is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING sounding.

Bob and Ray and the TAS List

The album comprises a group of selections taken from the best of the early Living Stereo releases, some of which obviously sound better than others, all interspersed with dry dialogue and sound effects by Bob and Ray. From start to finish this record is a blast. The entertainment value is off the scale.

Harry Pearson put this record on his TAS List of Super Discs. When you hear a copy sound as good as this one does you will have no doubt that it belongs there. (Other records on the list, not so much. Played Summer Side of Life or Warm Shade of Ivory lately? These aren’t exactly Super Discs.)

We all owe HP a huge debt of gratitude for turning us on to this wonderful record, which also happens to be my favorite LSP of all time. I might not have ever played it were it not for the TAS List. (That’s actually a bit misleading; any classic Living Stereo gets played around here because the potential for good sound — and therefore a sizable return on investment — is fairly high.)

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The Command All-Stars – Reeds and Percussion

More Jazz Recordings of Interest

More Records That Sound Better Loud

  • This original Stereo Command pressing was doing pretty much everything right, with both sides earning excellent Double Plus (A++) grades
  • Take the best sound you ever heard from the best authentic Mercury classical record and translate it into pop arrangements for clarinets, flutes, saxes, oboes, bassoons, and what do you have? Sound that leaps out of the speakers with absolutely dead on tonality
  • But what is most shocking of all is how vivid and accurate the timbre of every instrument is
  • Kudos to the exceptional skills of both Robert Fine (recording engineer) and George Piros (mastering engineer), two of the All Time Greats
  • If you appreciate exceptionally well recorded reed and percussion instruments, and what audiophile doesn’t?, this title from 1961 clearly belongs in your collection

This is one of the most phenomenal sounding records I have ever heard in my life. 

Yes, it’s multi-miked, and sometimes the engineers play with the channels a bit much (especially at the start of the first track).

That said, if you have the system for it, it’s very possible you have never heard most of these instruments sound this real, as if you were standing right in the studio with them. It’s that crazy good.

Which brings up a question: Who but Better Records is finding incredible Demonstration Quality recordings like these nowadays?

Harry Pearson used to. Jim Mitchell did back in the ’80s.

Are the Audiophile Reviewers of today picking up the baton that the giants of the past have dropped at their feet? I see little evidence of it. They seem more interested in discussing the newest Heavy Vinyl mediocrity to be released.

Is it really that much of a bother to look back to the Golden Age of analog recording and actually find a good sounding record to recommend? Apparently.

Not to worry. We are happy to fill the shoes of the greats who have passed, and here is a record that proves we have the chops to succeed in our endeavor, chops that no one else alive today seems to have.

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