Folk Rock, American

Shawn Colvin – Steady On

More Women Who Rock

  • Colvin’s debut release returns to the site after a thirteen month hiatus, here with INSANELY GOOD Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound throughout this original Columbia pressing
  • These are just a few of the things we had to say about this amazing copy in our notes: “huge and weighty and full”…”jumping out of the speakers”…”very full and lovely vox, breathy”…”fully extended from top to bottom”
  • We guarantee there is dramatically more space, richness, vocal presence, and performance energy on this copy than others you’ve heard, and that’s especially true if you made the mistake of buying whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing is currently on the market
  • 4 stars: “Steady On is a triumph … there are the songs that flow so effortlessly into one another that to remove even one would seemingly upset the entire balance of the cosmos as we know it.”

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Gordon Lightfoot – If You Could Read My Mind (aka Sit Down Stranger)

More Gordon Lightfoot

More Folk Rock

  • With INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from start to finish, this original pressing of Sit Down Young Stranger could not be beat
  • Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this amazing copy in our notes: “tubey and spacious and 3D”…”huge bass”…”very big and rich and open”…”present and spacious”…”tons of space and detail”…”so wide and roomy”
  • Forget whatever dead-as-a-doornail Heavy Vinyl record they’re making these days – if you want to hear the Tubey Magic, intimacy, and freedom from audio coloration of this wonderful album from 1970, these early pressings are the only way to do it
  • An outstanding recording – Lightfoot’s best in our experience – with “Me and Bobby McGee” sounding as good as we have ever heard it on this superb pressing
  • Originally released in the summer of 1970 as Sit Down Young Stranger, it was reissued under its new title to capitalize on the success of the hit single “If You Could Read My Mind”
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The entire album is rich in the simple beauty of its folky melodies and personal lyrics… the music here is timeless, still feeling and sounding great many years after its release.”
  • This is an excellent title from 1970, which also happens to be a great year for rock and pop music, maybe the greatest of them all

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Simon & Garfunkel / Bookends

More Simon and Garfunkel

  • With two solid Double Plus (A++) or BETTER sides, this early Stereo 360 pressing will be very hard to beat
  • Side one was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be amazed at how big and rich the sound is
  • This copy has lovely Midrange Magic on the guitars and voices, as well as plenty of studio ambience on most tracks, especially the simpler, more folky ones
  • An album that has become much tougher to come by, especially copies with sides that play as well as these do, although marks 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
  • A high percentage of pressings had condition problems this time around, including our Shootout Winner, so those of you looking for the best sound might have to wait until late-2025 or even 2026 it seems
  • Top 100, Five Stars – side two alone has four classics: “Fakin’ It,” “Mrs. Robinson,” “A Hazy Shade of Winter” and “At the Zoo”
  • If you’re a fan of this phenomenal folk duo, this early domestic pressing of their 1968 classic belongs in your collection.

The better copies of Bookends and Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme are a sonic step up in class from anything else these two guys ever released. If you’re looking for the Ultimate Audiophile Simon & Garfunkel record, you just can’t do better than a killer Hot Stamper pressing of either title.

Do you know how hard it is to find a clean copy of this record? I’ll bet we look at 50 every year and probably buy no more than a few, which, after cleaning and going into a shootout may or may not sound good or have audiophile quality surfaces.

What We’re Listening For On Bookends

The bigger production songs on this album have a tendency to get congested on even the best pressings, which is not uncommon for Four Track recordings from the 60s. Those of you with properly set up high-dollar front ends should have less of a problem than some. $3000 cartridges can usually deal with this kind of complex information better than $300 ones.

But not always. Expensive does not always mean better since painstaking and exacting set up is so essential to proper playback.

The supremely talented Roy Halee handled the engineering duties. Not the most “natural” sounding record he ever made, but that’s clearly not what he or the duo were going for. The three of them would obviously take their sound much farther in that direction with the Grammy-winning Bridge Over Troubled Water from 1970.

The Wrecking Crew provided top quality backup, with Hal Blaine on drums and percussion, Joe Osborn on bass and Larry Knechtel on piano and keyboards.

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The Band – The Last Waltz

More of The Band

More Roots Rock LPs

  • The Last Waltz is back on the site for only the second time in about a year, here with roughly Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound on all SIX sides of these vintage Palm Tree pressings – just shy of our Shootout Winner (sides two and three actually won the shootout)
  • These sides are rich, dynamic and natural sounding, with low end weight, midrange smoothness and powerful, punchy bass
  • Features an A-list of brilliant artists, including Van Morrison, Ringo Star, Joni Mitchell, and Muddy Waters, just to name a few, and it’s surely the reason that this record is so hard to find and so expensive when you do find it
  • 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
  • 4 stars: “It’s the Band’s ‘special guests’ who really make this set stand out — Muddy Waters’ ferocious version of ‘Mannish Boy’ would have been a wonder from a man half his age, Van Morrison sounds positively joyous on ‘Caravan,’ Neil Young and Joni Mitchell do well for their Canadian brethren, and Bob Dylan’s closing set finds him in admirably loose and rollicking form.”
  • If you’re a fan of The Band, and what audiophile wouldn’t be?, this triple album from 1978 belongs in your collection

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Joan Baez – Joan

More Folky Rock

  • Both sides of this vintage Stereo Vanguard pressing boast very good Hot Stamper grades
  • We guarantee there is more space, richness, vocal presence, and performance energy on this copy than others you’ve heard, and that’s especially true if you made the mistake of buying whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing is currently on the market
  • We run across a clean stereo copy of this album (the only ones that do justice to these complex arrangements as far as we’re concerned) maybe once a year, which why you rarely see it on the site
  • “In 1967, rock, folk, folk-rock, and pop all seemed to be headed in new and ever-more-ornate directions, and Joan was a response to that change and, not coincidentally, is also the most self-consciously beautiful record that Baez ever cut.”

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Graham Nash / Wild Tales – A Forgotten Folk Rock Classic

More Graham Nash

  • Boasting two superb Double Plus (A++) sides, this copy of Nash’s underrated sophomore solo album is doing just about everything right
  • The sound is Classic 1973 Analog – smooth, rich, warm and tonally correct, with real energy and the kind of natural sound that’s a hallmark of the better Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young recordings
  • Filling out the band: Joni Mitchell, David Crosby, Dave Mason, Neil Young, David Lindley and too many others to list
  • “Nash speaks from his heart on Wild Tales and those that are willing to get past its sparse arrangements will be able to accept it for the masterpiece of folk-rock that it is.”

This is a criminally underappreciated album, and perhaps that has to do with just how poor the average copy sounds. When you get a copy like this one you cannot fail to appreciate how powerful and deeply emotional these songs are. Drop the needle on the title track or “Grave Concern” to see what we mean.

The sound has the life and energy of rock and roll. This is Graham fronting a band, and on the better copies the recording and the music both work together to make them sound like these guys have been playing together forever. This is not the Big Production that Nash’s first album was. Been there done that; who needs the headache?

A Forgotten Classic

Like Nash’s first album, no one pays much attention to this music nowadays, but Better Records is going to try to remedy that situation by making available to the audiophile public numerous copies of this album, every one of which is guaranteed to turn you into a fan. This is not new music, but it may be new music to you, so “discovering” it will be every bit as much fun for you in 2023 as it was for me in 1973.

This is not an audiophile record. It ain’t never going to make the TAS List or get a mention by anyone in the Audiophile Press. This is a record for music lovers who care about good sound. If you’re reading this, that’s you. Us too, and proud of it.

From one audiophile to another, this is a great record that belongs in your collection.

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Neil Young – Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

More Neil Young

One of Our Favorite Titles from 1969


  • Stunning sound throughout this vintage pressing of Neil’s second studio album, with both sides earning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • When we say “just shy of our Shootout Winner,” we want to make clear than practically no one playing this Hot Stamper pressing would ever think it could possibly get any better than this very record — it’s simply a phenomenally well-recorded album
  • The best tracks have that live-in-the-studio quality Neil is famous for (of which Zuma is the best example), with minimal processing and maximum energy
  • Includes some of Neil Young’s most beloved classics: “Cinnamon Girl,” “Cowgirl in the Sand,” and “Down by the River” just to name three
  • 5 stars: “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere was breathtakingly different when it appeared in May 1969, both for Young and for rock in general, and it reversed his commercial fortunes….”

Although not quite in the league with the best of the best — the likes of Gold Rush, Harvest, or Zuma, all titles we have a devil of a time keeping in stock — the best sounding tracks here are a rough guide for to what was to come as Neil and his producer, David Briggs, got better and better until they were As Good As It Gets by the time they got around to After the Gold Rush in 1970 (for which they seem to get no credit, outside of Better Records’ raves for the album of course).

We absolutely love the Live-in-the-Studio quality that only the best pressings of this album can give, with minimal processing and maximum energy. Man, with a good copy played back on a big pair of speakers this album can ROCK like nobody’s business. Nine minutes of “Down by the River”? A ten minute long version of “Cowgirl in the Sand”? “Cinnamon Girl”? We are so there!

This kind of musical, natural sound is not easy to come by. If you own any copy of the album you know what we mean. (more…)

The Byrds / Younger Than Yesterday Sure Sounds Better than It Used To

More Sixties Pop Recordings

  • An original Stereo 360 pressing (the first copy to hit the site in years) with an INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side one mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side two
  • Here are just a few of of the things we had to say about this amazing Triple Plus side one in our notes: “big and tubey vox & bass”…”great size and energy”…”jumping out [of the speakers]”…”crazy good”
  • The sound is Tubey Magical, lively and dynamic, with exceptional transparency and immediacy
  • We’re always blown away at just how much further the better copies are able to take the music – what a difference the right pressing makes
  • Until we hear something better — a possibility we would never rule out — this is The Byrds’ best sounding album
  • In our experience, no red label reissue is even worth the trouble of cleaning and playing it. Some Byrds records have the potential to sound good on the red label, but this is not one of them
  • 5 stars: “Younger Than Yesterday was somewhat overlooked at the time of its release during an intensely competitive era that found the Byrds on a commercial downslide. However, time has shown it to be the most durable of the Byrds’ albums… David Crosby, Roger McGuinn, and especially Chris Hillman come into their own as songwriters on an eclectic but focused set blending folk-rock, psychedelia, and early country-rock.”

Back in 2019 we had this to say about the best sounding copy from the shootout we had just done:

Most Byrds’ records are far from audiophile demo discs. However, what the best originals give you is relatively good sound.

This album will never sound as good as Abbey Road. Keeping that rather obvious point in mind, as I listened to this copy the thought that went through my mind is that this tape had been mastered about as well as it could be.

It’s tonally correct from top to bottom; the frequency extremes are there; and the vocals have a silky, sweet quality to them (when they haven’t been bounced down too many times of course).

Do you know how you can tell when you’re listening to a properly mastered record? It’s very simple. You find yourself getting into the music. Liking songs you never used to like. When music sounds right, it bypasses the intellect and goes straight to the emotional center.

You can analyze these recordings until you’re blue in the face but ultimately it all comes down to this: Do you want to hear the whole album? Do you want to turn it up? If the answer to those two questions is yes, you have a great record. This pressing gets two yeses.

As you can see from the rave at the top of this listing, now the best copy from the shootout we just did in 2024 sounds great! (Yes, it only took us five years to find enough clean 360 label pressings to get another shootout going.)

How did that happen?

Who knows. We just keep working on improving the system using blind faith as our guide.

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Emmylou Harris – Luxury Liner

More Emmylou Harris

More Country Rock

  • Here is a seriously good copy of Luxury Liner (one of only a handful to hit the site in two and a half years) with Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER from start to finish
  • Side two was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be amazed at how big and rich the sound is
  • Here is the full-bodied and natural sound we look for, with a nicely extended top end, plenty of space around the instruments and vocals, and far fewer of the problems that plague so many of the pressings we play
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Luxury Liner ranks as Emmylou Harris’ best-selling solo record to date, and it’s one of her most engaging efforts as well; her Hot Band is in peak form, and the songs are even more far afield than usual, including Chuck Berry’s “(You Never Can Tell) C’est la Vie” and Townes Van Zandt’s painterly tale of aging outlaws, “Pancho & Lefty.” – All Music

The sound that Emmylou and her producers were going for here is clean, detailed and low distortion, which is exactly what the best pressings like this one deliver. What really sets the good copies apart, though, is a natural, relaxed quality in the midrange. Emmylou sounds like a real person, with none of the too-clean, too-modern, tube-free sound that ruins many of the pressings of her records.  (more…)

America – Homecoming

More America

More Hippie Folk Rock

  • America’s sophomore album is back on the site for only the second time in seventeen months, here with STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it throughout this vintage Green Label pressing
  • Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this killer copy in our notes: “rich and breathy”…”jumping out [of the speakers]”…”deepest bass yet” (side two)…”so sweet and breathy and present”…”top detail and tubey” (side two)
  • Some of the most Tubey, warm acoustic guitar reproduction you could ever ask for – this is the sound of real analog!
  • There are some bad marks (as is sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs) on “Moon Song,” but once you hear just how incredible sounding this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting ticks and pops and just be swept away by the music
  • 4 stars: “The songs here are tighter and more forthright… The sound quality is clear and bright; the colorful arrangements, while still acoustic guitar-based, feature more electric guitar and keyboards. The performance quality is more assured, among the most urgently committed the group would ever put on vinyl. This top-flight album is a very rewarding listen.”

Tubey Magical Acoustic Guitar reproduction is superb on the better copies of this recording. Simply phenomenal amounts of Tubey Magic can be heard on every strum, along with richness, body and harmonic coherency that have all but disappeared from modern recordings (and especially from modern remasterings).

The guitars on this record are a true test of stereo reproduction quality. Most of the pressings of this record do not get the guitars to sound right. And when the guitars are perfection, the voices and all the other instruments tend to be right as well.

Let’s face it: they just don’t know how to make acoustic guitars sound like this anymore. You have to go back to 49 year old records like this one to find that sound. (more…)