*Key Tracks to Play

We took the time to write out what we were listening for on key tracks of these rock and jazz albums. Feel free to use them to guide you in your own critical evaluations.

Listening in Depth to Crosby Stills & Nash

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Crosby, Stills and Nash Available Now

Now with bonus CD Advice.

Although millions of copies of CSN’s first album were sold, so few were mastered and pressed well, and so many mastered and pressed poorly, that only a ridiculously small number of Hot Stamper copies have ever actually made it to the site. A couple dozen would be my guess, compared to, for example, the Beatles albums, many of which have sold by the hundreds. To this day they are difficult to keep in stock, I assume because our customers seem to really like them.)

We wish that were not the case — we love the album — but the copies we know to have the potential for Hot Stamper sound are just not sitting around in the record bins waiting for us to scoop them up.

But of course that was never the really the case even back in the good old days, as the reissue we like was simply not produced in significantly large numbers the way the originals were. Finding the right reissues was always a matter of luck, with the odds stacked very much against us. I don’t remember ever finding more than one copy with the killer stampers in a single year.

Warning

Whatever you do, don’t waste your money on the Joe Gastwirt-mastered CD.

It couldn’t be any more awful. (His Deja Vu is just as bad.)

In-Depth Track Commentary

Side One

Suite: Judy Blue Eyes

What’s magical about Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young?

Their voices of course. It’s not a trick question. They revolutionized rock music with their genius for harmony. Any good pressing must sound correct on their voices or it has no value whatsoever. A CSN record with substandard midrange reproduction — like most of them — is a worthless record.

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Listening in Depth to Abbey Road

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now

Presenting another entry in our extensive listening in depth series with advice on what to listen for as you critically evaluate your copy of Abbey Road.

Here are some albums currently on our site with similar track by track breakdowns.

For all you record collectors out there, please note that no pressing from 1969 (and even for a number of years after) has ever won a shootout.

If you have an Apple UK first pressing and you think it would be hard to beat, we would love to send you one that sounds better than yours, if you can justify the kind of bread we charge for the privilege of owning a musical Masterpiece such as this.

This is the final statement from The Beatles. To take away the power of their magnum opus by playing it through inadequate equipment makes a mockery of the monumental effort that went into it. As you may recall, the original title for the album was Everest. That should tell you something about the size and scope of the music and sound that the Beatles had in mind. A dozen more letters, reviews and commentaries for the album can be found here.

Side One

Come Together

This track and I Want You are both good tests for side one. They tend to be smooth, but what separates the best copies is deep, punchy bass. Without a good solid bottom end, these songs simply don’t work.

Something

When the choruses get loud on this song, most copies will be aggressive. You’ll want to turn down the volume. With Hot Stampers, the louder the better. The sound stays smooth and sweet.

Maxwell’s Silver Hammer

Probably the toughest test on side one. The loud banging on the anvil can be pretty unpleasant if you don’t have a well-mastered pressing.

Also, this track has a tendency to be a bit lean and upper midrangey on even the best copies.

Oh! Darling
Octopus’s Garden
I Want You (She’s So Heavy)

Listen to Paul’s bass on this track. When you have a good copy and the bass notes are clearly defined, you can hear him doing all kinds of interesting things throughout the song. I remember playing the MoFi not long ago and noticing how that pressing’s lack of bass definition robbed Paul of his contribution to so many of these songs. When the bass is blubbery, it’s difficult to follow his parts.

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Listening in Depth to JT

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of James Taylor Available Now

There are at least five or six James Taylor records that I would happily nominate as Desert Island Discs.

His albums set a standard that few other singer/songwriters’ albums can meet. Joni Mitchell comes to mind, and, like our friend James here, she explored many different styles of music throughout her career, the mark of a true artist.

After her, though, I would be hard pressed to name anyone with a body of work as extensive as Mr. Taylor’s.

And just to be clear, this would include all pop and rock artists from the 60s right through to the present. He is one of the greats in my book, and many of his albums are Must Owns.

And this is especially true for us audiophiles. The sound quality of the better pressings of most of his albums is consistently superior to the work of others from that time. Peter Asher deserves most of the credit for that.

Don’t try to start with the first album, which we can’t find for you because only the British pressings sound good and they are just too hard to find in clean condition [even though we did manage to do the shootout in 2022].

Instead go right to Sweet Baby James and JT.

The next group to pursue would contain Mud Slide Slim, Gorilla and In the Pocket.

Follow that up with One Man Dog and Dad Loves His Work (so underrated!).

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Listening in Depth to Let It Bleed

Hot Stamper Pressing of the Music of The Rolling Stones Available Now

Glyn Johns is without a doubt one of the Best Rock Engineers who ever lived. Let It Bleed is one of the many classic albums he engineered in the 60s and 70s that have stood the test of time musically and would be hard to beat by any album recorded after that era.

Ken Scott, Stephen Barncard, Alan Parsons, Geoff Emerick and others are right up there with him of course. We audiophiles are very lucky to have had guys like these around when the Stones (and The Who and The Eagles) were at their creative peak. 

What follows is some advice on what to listen for, provided by your friends at Better Records to help you separate the best pressings from those that may be merely good. (The awful ones we expect you can recognize easily enough without any help.)

Side One

Gimme Shelter
Love in Vain

One of the best sounding Rolling Stones songs of all time. In previous listings I’ve mentioned how good this song sounds — thanks to Glyn Johns, of course — but on the best Hot Stamper copies it is OUT OF THIS WORLD.

This is our favorite test track for side one. The first minute or so clues you into to everything that’s happening in the sound.

Listen for the amazing immediacy, transparency and sweetly extended harmonics of the guitar in the left channel.

Next, when Watts starts slapping that big fat snare in the right channel, it should sound so real you could reach out and touch it.

If you’re like me, that tubey magical acoustic guitar sound and the rich whomp of the snare should be all the evidence you need that Glyn Johns is one of the all time greats.

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Listening in Depth to Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Brian Eno Available Now

Presenting another entry in our extensive listening in depth series with advice on what to listen for as you critically evaluate your copy of Taking Tiger Mountain.

Taking Tiger Mountain is all about sound, pure sound itself if you will: the sound of the instruments, their textures, and the textures of the soundscapes Eno has created for them.

With the subtle harmonics of Eno’s treated sounds captured on to vinyl intact, the magic of the experience far exceeds just another batch of catchy songs with clever arrangements. It truly becomes an immersive experience; sounds you’ve never heard in quite that way draw you into their world, each sound more interesting than the next.

Only these British originals sound like they are made from fresh master tapes on rich, sweet Tubey Magical, super-high-resolution cutting equipment.

Side One

(Which, by the way, is BRILLIANT from the opening guitars of Burning Airlines to the never-ending chirping crickets of The Great Pretender. I mean that literally: on these early British pressings the run-out groove has the sound of the crickets embedded in it so that the crickets chirp until you pick up the arm, much in the same way that Sgt. Pepper has sound in the run-out groove at the end of A Day In The Life.)

Burning Airlines Give You So Much More

Pure Pop for Now People. Listen to all those multi-layered harmonies! They’re sweet as honey, and only the best British copies get them to sound that way. You can make out practically every voice. This is what we mean by Midrange Magic.

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Listening in Depth to Sweet Baby James

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of James Taylor Available Now

Before you play one of our Hot Stamper pressings, be sure to have your system fully warmed up and tweaked to perfection. Then turn up the volume good and loud. You’re about to hear some amazing music with superb sound. For me, and I hope you, when it comes to music this good, nothing less will do.

Side One

Sweet Baby James
Lo and Behold
Sunny Skies

James’ voice and the acoustic guitars should be warm, sweet, and surrounded by ambience. On a good copy, one that gets this song right, it’s pure milk and honey.

Steamroller

A big production number with rockin’ guitars and big brass. Some copies will be too bright and aggressive when the horns come in, and the majority of those that aren’t will be too dull on the other tracks. Only a copy with superb tonal balance will sound correct for both the rockers and the ballads.

Country Road
Oh Susanna

For some reason this song is too loud relative to the others on side one, so if you want it to sound right we recommend you bring the volume down a notch or two. (Those of you with a remote on your preamp finally have a good use for it.)

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Listening in Depth to Songs for Beginners

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Graham Nash Available Now

Presenting another entry in our extensive listening in depth series with advice on what to listen for as you critically evaluate your copy of Song for Beginners.

(Here are some other albums currently on our site with similar track by track breakdowns.)

This is one helluva well recorded album. Most of the credit must go to the team of recording engineers, led here by the esteemed Bill Halverson, the man behind all of the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young albums. Nash was clearly influenced by his work with his gifted bandmates, proving with this album that he can hold his own with the best of the best.

Some songs (We Can Change The World, Be Yourself) are grandly scaled productions with the kind of studio polish that would make Supertramp envious. For me, a big speaker guy with a penchant for giving the old volume knob an extra click or two, it just doesn’t get any better.

Others (Sleep Song, Wounded Bird) are quiet and intimate. Their subtlely is highlighted by the big productions surrounding them. This is that rare album in which every aspect of the production, from the arrangements to the final mix, serves to bring out the best qualities in the songs, regardless of scale.

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Listening in Depth to McCartney

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Paul McCartney Available Now

The best tracks here have the quality of LIVE MUSIC in a way that not one out of a hundred rock records do. The music jumps right out of the speakers and fills up the room.

The album sounds like it’s recorded live in the studio, but of course that’s impossible, because Paul plays practically all the instruments himself! It just goes to show how good a multi-track studio recording can sound when done well. (More rock and pop recordings with live in the studio sound can be found here.)

Side Two

Oo You

The distorted guitar in a huge and reverberant room that leads off this side is one of my favorite “sounds” on any McCartney album. The bigger, richer and grungier the guitar sounds, the better.

Momma Miss America
Teddy Boy

This is a very tough track to get right. There is processing on Paul’s voice that some copies make a mess of, adding a kind of unpleasant resonance, which of course the better copies do not.

It’s a fairly simple arrangement: acoustic guitar, bass, voice and Linda’s backing vocals. When all of these things are in balance, the sound will be lovely. Paul’s voice, because of the processing I mentioned, doesn’t sound as natural as it does on other tracks, but it shouldn’t be irritating or disagreeable.

Singalong Junk
Maybe I’m Amazed

Another exceptionally hard track to get right. On a top copy the guitar solo will JUMP right out of your speakers. It should have the energy of LIVE MUSIC

Kreen-Akrore

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Listening in Depth to Romantic Warrior

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Return to Forever Available Now

Romantic Warrior is my favorite Jazz/Rock Fusion album of all time. As good as the music is, the sound is even better.

This is the Jazz/Rock Demo Disc that stands head and shoulders above the rest. In my experience, no record of this kind is more dynamic or has better bass. Not one.

Demo Disc doesn’t begin to do this kind of sound justice.

Simply put, not only is this one of the greatest musical statements of all time, it’s one of the great recording achievements. Few albums in the history of the world can lay claim to this kind of sonic power and energy.

But the Super Sound has a purpose, a raison d’etre. This is the kind of music that requires it; better yet, demands it. In truth, the sound is not only up to the challenge of expressing the life of the music on this album, it positively enhances it.

Just to take one example: Those monster Lenny White drum rolls that run across the soundstage from wall to wall may be a recording studio trick, but they’re there to draw your attention to his amazing powers, and it works! The drums are everywhere on this album, constantly jumping out of the soundfield and taking the music into the stratosphere where it belongs.

Side One

Medieval Overture

The grandiose opening of this record serves as an important sonic checkpoint, as well as a tipoff for the pyrotechnics to come. On the better copies Corea’s multi-layered, swirling synths occupy their own space, clearly separated from each other, not blurred and inarticulate as they are on the poorer pressings.

Also notice how much attack Lenny White’s drums have, especially in the more exposed sections. The transients are breathtakingly immediate. Run-of-the-mill copies tend to flatten Mr White, making his acrobatic playing seem two-dimensional and less-than-inspired. The best copies prove that nothing could be further from the truth.

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Listening in Depth to Houses of the Holy

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

You really get an understanding of just how much of a production genius Jimmy Page was when you listen to a copy of Houses on high quality modern equipment, the kind that simply did not exist when the record came out in 1973.

To take just one example, listen to how clearly the multi-tracked guitars can be heard in the different layers and areas of the soundstage. On some songs you will have no trouble picking out three, four and even more guitars playing, each with its own unique character. The clarity of the better copies allows you to recognize — perhaps for the first time — the special contribution each is making to the finished song.

Side One

The Song Remains the Same
The Rain Song

Check out the guitars — the sound should be warm, sweet and delicate. There are some dead quiet passages in this song that are almost always going to have some surface noise. Most copies start out a bit noisy but almost always get quieter as the music goes along.

Over the Hills and Far Away

This is a great test track for side one. It starts with lovely acoustic guitars before the Monster Zep Rock Chords come crashing in. If both parts of the song sound correct and balanced, you more than likely have a winner. And the bigger the dynamic contrast between the parts the better.

Turn your volume up good and high in order to get the full effect, then stand back and let the boys have at it.

The Crunge (more…)