Folk Rock, American – Reviews and Commentaries

This Joan Baez Album Is Bad News in Mono

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Joan Baez Available Now

Here is how we described the sound of one of the better stereo pressings we played recently:

Both sides of this early Stereo Vanguard pressing (one of only a handful of copies to hit the site in years) were doing just about everything right, earning superb grades on both sides.

You get pure, rich, sweet, Tubey Magical analog sound from first note to last, with Baez’s remarkably present and breathy vocals front and center where they should be.

The monos we played, however, just sounded like old records, and not very good ones at that.

Thin and edgy vocals? On a Joan Baez record? What could be worse?

When the voice is wrong on a Joan Baez record, you have yourself a completely worthless piece of vinyl.  (Other titles that get the voice wrong and therefore should be avoided by audiophiles of all stripes can be found here.)

We also noted that the sound may be weighty, but it’s not rich. That lack of richness is what is causing Joan’s voice to sound thin and edgy.

Full of Them

Most record collections are full of these kinds of records. They just sit on shelves, never getting played because the sound is not good enough to make the music interesting.

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.

The mono pressings of this title are hopeless. For other albums that don’t sound good in mono, click here.

If you see this album in mono at a garage sale, don’t even waste a buck on it. Not even a quarter. It’s just not worth the vinyl it’s pressed on.

More on the subject of mono versus stereo.

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Bones Howe Knocked Windy Right Out of the Park

More Hot Stamper Pressings of Tubey Magical Rock Recordings Available Now

We describe the 2-pack currently on the site (as of 4/2025) this way:

The Tubey Magical sound, the lively, tight playing by The Wrecking Crew, not to mention some killer chart-topping 60s pop, make this THE Association album to own.

With these copies the Sound of the Sixties will fill your room like never before – wall to wall, floor to ceiling, with layers upon layers of analog depth.

These original Gold Label stereo pressings are have the potential to be the best sounding, with the ideal balance of richness and clarity.

Potentially is the key concept when it comes to understanding this and every other record. Again, the label is no guarantee of top quality sound. Only proper cleaning, revealing stereos and careful shootouts make it possible to recognize the best sounding pressings.

As you can see by the notes for a different, but equally good copy below, many aspects of the sound caught our attention on side one of this particular copy. (It turned out to have unacceptable amounts of noise on one of its side, hence the 2-pack.)

I have boldened three that I think did the most heavy lifting to put it over the top:

  • Breathy
  • Spacious and tubey
  • Best bass yet
  • Huge and weighty and tubey
  • No smear or veil
  • Great energy

Side two was every bit as good:

  • Tubey and weighty
  • Vocals up front and sweet and rich
  • Tubey (I tell you!)

The master of Tubey Magical pop recording is, of course, a Mr. BONES HOWE.

 You would be very hard pressed to find a pop or rock recording from 1967 that sounds as good as a Hot Stamper Insight Out. (Sgt. Pepper comes to mind, as well as some of these other Must Own titles, but Insight Out sets a fairly high bar most of them will have trouble getting over.)

Can you imagine the Mamas and the Papas or The Jefferson Airplane with this kind of rich, sweet, open, textured, natural, tonally correct sound quality?

The midrange is pure Tubey Magic. If you have the kind of system that brings out that quality in a recording, you will go wild over this one. In fact, it’s so good it made me appreciate some of the other songs on the album which I had previously dismissed as filler. When you hear them sound this good, you may change your mind about them too.

Hal, Joe and Bones

The real stars of Windy (and the album itself) are Hal Blaine and Joe Osborne, the famous session drummer/ bass player team. It is they who create the driving force behind these songs. Osborne’s website puts Windy front and center as the first track demonstrating what a top rhythm section can do for a pop song. This whole album can be enjoyed simply for the great drum and bass work, not to mention the sound that both of those instruments are given by the pop recording master Bones Howe.

He produced and engineered the show here; Bones is a man who knew his way around a studio as well as practically anybody in the 60s. He’s the one responsible for all the Tubey Magic of the recording. That’s his sound. If you are a fan of that sound, will find much to like here.

Bouncing Tracks

Never My Love is clearly the best sounding track on the album. Those of you with better front ends will be astonished at the quality of the sound. Windy also sounds excellent, but I hear some sub-generation harmonic distortion, probably caused by bouncing down some of the tracks to make room for others.

This is the era of the four track machine, and when four of the tracks are used up they are bounced down to one track, making available three new tracks. Some of the albums from this era — the Mamas and the Papas come to mind — have multiple bounces, three and four deep, which accounts for the distortion that you hear all through their recordings. The two-track finished master might have upwards of five tape generations or more on some instruments or vocal parts.

UPDATE 2025:

In our shootout notes, no mention was made of any problems with the sound of the song Windy.  The harmonic distortion we mentioned above may be an artifact of some of our previous limitations in cleaning and playback. Those of you with a top quality copy may want to listen for yourself and see if you hear the harmonic distortion we describe.

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Half-Speed Masters – Stopgaps and Benchmarks

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Joan Baez Available Now

Mobile Fidelity released a version of Diamonds and Rust on Anadisq in 1995, and if you want to hear a pressing that’s not murky, compressed and opaque, you would be wise to avoid their remastered pressing.

To be fair, MoFi has made some reasonably good sounding records too. For those of you whose budget is on the limited side, if you find an affordable copy of any of these MoFis, you are probably not completely wasting your money.

Stopgaps and Benchmarks

Our advice for the longest time has been that, while you are actively improving your stereo, room and setup, the best way to use your remastered audiophile pressings is as stopgaps and benchmarks.

As you make more and more progress, eventually you will find the vintage pressings that can show you what your audiophile pressings don’t do well, or at the very least, not as well as they should.

The unfortunate reality — considering how much money you had invested in them — is that they were falling short in many ways for all the years you had been playing them, but until you improved your playback, those problems were hidden from you.

Charting Your Success

As your stereo improves, you can actually chart your success by how many of these kinds of records you are able to eliminate from your collection. Once you can count the number of modern reissues you still own on one or two hands, there is a good chance you have reached a much higher level of playback.

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Old Ways – After The Gold Rush This Ain’t

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Neil Young Available Now

Notes from an early shootout.

I may be stating the obvious here, but After The Gold Rush this ain’t.

If you’re looking for a big and bold Neil Young rock record, this is not the one for you. This is Neil heading out to the sticks with friends including Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and other authentic country music figures, doing what Neil loves to do — making the music that HE wants to make, not the music that anyone else wants him to. Old friend Ben Keith (a huge part behind the sound of Harvest) shows up with his pedal steel guitar on a couple tracks.

Side one has big, open sound with exceptional presence, something we didn’t hear on too many copies. The overall sound is warm, smooth and sweet.

Side two is even better, with all of those same qualities and more. There’s an extra degree of energy here and the clarity is off the charts.

This probably wasn’t anyone’s favorite Neil Young album, but when it sounds like this it sure makes a lot more sense than it did when we heard it on the average pressing.

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If Only I Could Remember My Name – Hand Claps Are Key

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of David Crosby Available Now

Note how Crosby’s voice is “chesty” on the better sounding copies. Some make him sound like he’s all mouth and no diaphragm. When his voice is full-bodied and solid, that’s when he sounds more like a real person and less like a pop recording of a person.

All credit must go to Stephen Barncard.

Harry Pearson put this record on his TAS List of Super Discs, not exactly a tough call if you ask us. Who can’t hear that this is an amazing sounding recording? 

Listening Test

One of our key test tracks for side one is Cowboy Movie, and one thing that separated the best pressings from the lesser ones was the sound of the hand claps. It’s a dense mix and they are not easy to hear, but on the best copies there is audible echo and ambience around them, with a richer “flesh on flesh” quality to their sound.

Not many pressings had it, and the ones that did tended to do most other things well also.

Which is what makes it a good test! (more…)

It Took Us More than Twenty Years to Figure Out What Was the Problem

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Neil Young Available Now

Years ago — precisely how many we can’t really say, the old listings for those records have been deleted — we thought the original pressings in the nameless cover you see pictured had the best sound.

We thought the pressings that came in this early cover were the ones that were made from the original mix, the mix that Neil later disowned. (More on that below.)

We had played a number of copies that came in the original cover, and they sounded better to us than the others we had auditioned.

Our mistake was not understanding that pressings made with the first mix and pressings made with the second mix both came in the early cover, and both were pressed on the Reprise Two Tone label.

Here is what we wrote some years ago:

It turns out the remixed pressings we’d been selling for years were not the way to hear this album at its best. Neil wanted his voice to sound clearer and more present than the first mix, but the approach the engineers took to increase the clarity and presence was simply to boost the middle and upper midrange, a boost that seriously compromises the wonderful Tubey Magic found in the rich lower midrange of the original mix.

Neil may have liked the sound of his voice better on the new mix, played back on whatever mediocre-at-best stereo he was using at the time, but we here at Better Records are of a decidedly different opinion. On a modern, highly-resolving system Neil’s voice will not sound the least bit “buried” on the original mix, not on the better pressings anyway. Of course, the better ones are the only ones we sell.

If you want to hear this album sound right, we strongly believe that the original mix is the only way to go. And if you want to hear this album sound really right, better-than-you-ever-thought-possible right, you need a copy that was mastered, pressed and cleaned properly, and that means a Hot Stamper from Better Records.

It turns out the stampers for the pressings we like are the ones made from the remixed tapes.

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Can Chris Bellman Cut Records As Well As Artisan Used to?

Robert Brook has a blog which he calls

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

Robert’s story begins:

Recently a friend and a frequent reader of my website suggested I review the 50th Anniversary Edition of David Crosby’s debut. He’d read my article from a while back in which I made comparisons between two different Hot Stamper copies of the record, and he knew I was a fan the album.

I’m sure he also knew, as any of my regular readers would, that I’m extremely skeptical of modern reissues. You can find many examples on this site of reissues I’ve written about that have failed miserably to impress me. But this friend was pretty insistent that this one, remastered by long time engineer Chris Bellman, was different. He also told me it was on par with original Monarch pressing of If Only I Could Remember My Name he also owned.

Bellman was responsible for cutting one of the few heavy vinyl reissues that my friend Tom Port has liked and recommended – a European pressing from 2020 of the Dire Straits record Brothers In Arms. Tom likes precious few “audiophile” reissues. He’s mentioned maybe 4 or 5 over the years as being worthy of any consideration. Given that, and the fact that my friend was so insistent, I figured why not give Bellman’s recut of If Only I Could Remember My Name a shot?

Click on the link below to read the whole thing. I left some comments at the end you may enjoy reading.

IF ONLY I COULD REMEMBER MY NAME: 50th Anniversary Edition

If you are interested in picking up an amazing Hot Stamper pressing of the album, we currently (as of 2/24) have some in stock. Click on this link to see what is available.

On the website, we talk about just how much we love this album:

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What, You’re Selling Your TAS Super Disc List LPs? Say It Isn’t So!

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of David Crosby Available Now

UPDATE 2025

The bulk of this listing was written more than ten years ago and updated last year. Please to enjoy!

Also, whatever you do, don’t buy the Super Saver pressing of David Crosby’s debut like the one you see pictured, assuming you want to hear the album sound the way it should. Original only, and the right one of course.

We ran across a website years ago that confirmed our worst prejudices regarding audiophiles and their apparent desire to rely on gurus such as Harry Pearson to tell them which recordings sound good and which don’t.

This flies in the face of everything we stand for here at Better Records.

Since no two records sound the same, a list of so-called Super Discs is practically meaningless.

“Practically meaningless” hits the nail right on the head as far as we are concerned.

Picture yourself standing in your local record store with a record in your hands, one you happen to know is on the TAS List. This knowledge makes the record slightly more likely to sound better than any other record you might have randomly picked up in the store. Insignificantly, trivially more likely. In other words, as a practical matter, not all that much more likely.

Why is this? Three reasons:

  1. Many Super Discs are not on the TAS List;
  2. Some of the records on the TAS List are not deserving of Super Disc status; and most importantly,
  3. Most pressings of titles on the TAS List don’t sound especially good — only the right ones do. (I pictured the David Crosby album you see above with the cover you definitely don’t want in order to hammer home that point.)

But that’s not even the point. Ask yourself this:

Why on earth would anyone want to collect the records on The TAS List, when most of those records contain music that appeals to a very small group of people not named Harry Pearson?

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Watch Out for that First Track on If Only I Could Remember My Name

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of David Crosby Available Now

If your copy sounds recessed and lacks extension up top, don’t feel bad. Most of them do.

By the way, the first track has that “home recording” sound. It usually sounds weak compared to the rest of this album. Don’t expect any wonders.

As a wannabe hit single, peaking at #95 on the charts, it may even be sourced here from a dub of the real master tape. That shit happens.

Your Reward Awaits You

As you may have read elsewhere on the site, records like this are the reward for owning the right stereo equipment and having it properly tweaked. There is no way in the world I could have played this album 20 years ago remotely as well as I can now. It only makes me appreciate the music even more.

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If I Could Only Remember My Name – What? No Classic Records Pressing on the TAS Super Disc List?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of David Crosby Available Now

We applaud TAS’s decision not to add the Classic pressing of this title to the list, the way they foolishly have with so many other Classic pressings that have no business being on anything called a Super Disc list.

As you may have read elsewhere on the site, records like this are the reward for owning the right stereo equipment and having it properly tweaked. There is no way in the world I could have played this album 20 years ago remotely as well as I can now. It only makes me appreciate the music even more.

You Don’t Have to Be High to Hear It

When you drop the needle on this record, all barriers between you and the musicians are removed. You’ll feel as though you’re sitting at the studio console while Crosby and his no-doubt-stoned-out-of-their-minds Bay Area pals (mostly Jefferson Airplaners and Grateful Deads, see list below) are laying down this emotionally powerful, heartfelt music.

The overall sound is warm, sweet, rich, and full-bodied… that’s some real ANALOG Tubey Magic, baby! And the best part is, you don’t have to be high to hear it. You just need a good stereo and the right pressing.

Barncard’s Masterpiece

We all owe a debt of gratitude to the superbly talented recording engineer on this project, Stephen Barncard (American Beauty, Deja Vu, Tarkio, etc.). This album is without a doubt his masterpiece. It fully deserves its standing as one of the Ten or Twenty Best Sounding Rock Recordings of All Time.

Here are some Hot Stamper pressings of TAS list titles that actually have audiophile sound quality, guaranteed. And if for some reason you disagree with us about how good they sound, we will be happy to give you your money back.

Here are some others that we do not think qualify as Super Discs.

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