Labels We Love – Columbia/Epic

Al Dimeola – Elegant Gypsy – His Masterpiece

More Al Dimeola

More Elegant Gypsy

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  • One of the best copies of this phenomenal Fusion Guitar Jazz Classic to ever hit the site, Triple Plus (A+++) throughout 
  • Both sides are incredibly lively, full-bodied, open and present – the sound is HUGE and WEIGHTY and it rocks
  • There is a mark that plays during track one on side one so we’ve discounted this one accordingly
  • 5 stars: “Generally an explosive affair, although it does have a fair amount of variety. A near classic in the fusion vein.”

SHOCKINGLY GOOD SOUND for one of the all-time great guitar albums! We were positively BLOWN AWAY by how lively, dynamic and full-bodied this copy sounds. There’s real texture to all the instruments and the bottom end is tight and punchy beyond belief. They just don’t make records with this kind of Tubey Analog Magic anymore.

If you’ve enjoyed the sonics on one of our Hot Stamper pressings of Return To Forever, Weather Report or Santana, I think you’ll find a lot to like about this record.

This album still holds up today. The All Music Guide gives it five big stars, and on a copy like this one I bet you’ll rate the music just as highly. When you have a pressing with this kind of weight, power, clarity and transparency, you can easily appreciate just how amazing the musicianship is. (more…)

British Guy, British Pressing… Right?

More Elvis Costello
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Nope. It’s just another Record Myth.

The British pressings are simply not competitive with the best domestics. No import, from any country, can touch a good Columbia pressing from the states. The most common stampers for the Columbia pressings have never sounded very good to these ears, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some killer copies with different stampers sitting in the bins wearing the generic ’70s Red Columbia label. We’ve heard them. Wish we could find more of them but they are rare and only getting rarer.
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Rockin’ the Mandolin with Loggins and Messina

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A recent White Hot Stamper pressing of L&M’s fourth release demonstrates pretty convincingly just what an amazing DEMO DISC this album can be. When Jim Messina rips into his mandolin solo half way through Be Free your jaw is likely to hit the ground. On the best copies it positively LEAPS out of the left speaker. I can’t recall another pop or rock recording that captures either the plucked energy or the harmonic nuances of the instrument better. To hear such a well-recorded mandolin on a copy of this quality is nothing less than a THRILL.
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Whomp Factor on Little Queen – Testing with Love Alive – Parts One and Two

Little Queen
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Heart’s Little Queen has long been a favorite Test Disc. It works especially well as a test for something we here at Better Records like to call Whomp — the energy found at the low end of the frequency spectrum. Some call it slam, we prefer whomp.

The commentary is here to help guide you as you make changes to your system, insuring that you end up with more whomp without sacrificing equally important qualities found in the midrange and top end of your system.
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Roger Waters – The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking – Our White Hot Shootout Winner for 2017


Our White Hot Shootout Winner for 2017

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  • An incredible Shootout Winning pressing with Triple Plus (A+++) sound on both side – this is absolutely As Good As It Gets
  • Like the recordings of Floyd, the sound is BIG, with lots of energy, excellent presence and real weight down low
  • The first copy to hit the site in years, this is a tough one to come by and few indeed sound the way this one does
  • “The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking continues to showcase Waters’ unprecedented knack of addressing his darkest thoughts and conceptions in a most extraordinary fashion. ” – Allmusic, 4 stars

See all of our Pink Floyd albums in stock

Let me tell you, it is no walk in the park to find a copy of The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking that sounds as good as this one and plays as quietly. Those of you who like Floyd’s The Final Cut will probably get a lot out of the album. (more…)

Listening in Depth to Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme

More Simon and Garfunkel

More Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme

Listening in Depth

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Another in our series of Home Audio Exercises with specific advice on What to Listen For (WTLF) as you critically evaluate your copy of Simon & Garfunkel’s groundbreaking third album (from 1966 no less!).

TRACK COMMENTARY

Side One

Scarborough Fair/Canticle

Listen carefully to the voices on this track, one of our favorites to test with. On the best copies they sound exceptionally delicate yet full-bodied. (more…)

Child Is Father to the Man – What to Listen For

Child Is Father to the Man

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At the end of a long day of listening at loud levels to multiple copies of this album you may want to run yourself a nice hot bath and light some candles. If you have an isolation tank so much the better. You could of course turn down the volume, but what fun is that? This music wasn’t meant to be heard at moderate levels. Playing it that way is an insult to the musicians who worked so hard to make it.

The Right Balance

Every once in a while you hear a pressing in which the right balance has been struck, and this one clearly belongs to that group. It’s not perfect; you have to put up with a few rough patches to get the sound that serves most of the music properly. No copy will do it all; with this album the goal is to do the best you can.
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James Taylor’s Last Good Album – Dad Loves His Work

Some sections on our site are hard to find. Here’s one with lots of cool records in it:

Forgotten Rock and Pop Classics

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James Taylor – Dad Loves His Work

This is one of our favorite James Taylor albums here at Better Records, a Forgotten Classic from 1981. It’s the last album written and performed by this hugely talented man that bears much resemblance to the quality of his early work. It’s steeply, steeply downhill after DLHW. (Case in point: His specials for PBS of the last few years are a positive cure for insomnia, with every song slowed down and all the energy drained from the material.)

But he still had fire in his belly when he made this one — one listen to Stand and Fight is all the evidence you need; the song rocks as hard as anything the guy ever did. And it’s got plenty of cowbell, always a good sign. (more…)

Bruce Springsteen – Born In The U.S.A.


Our White Hot Shootout Winner for 2017

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  • An amazing copy with Triple Plus (A+++) sound on the second side and Double Plus (A++) on the first
  • Big, present and lively, with good weight to the bottom end, this is clearly the right sound for this music
  • Take our word for it – you’ll have a devil of a time finding a copy that sounds as good as this one
  • Relatively quiet vinyl, Mint Minus to Mint Minus Minus throughout
  • 5 stars: “… where Springsteen remembered that he was a rock & roll star, which is how a vastly increased public was happy to treat him.”

See all of our Bruce Springsteen albums in stock

We would be foolish to make claims for “audiophile quality” sound on Springsteen’s albums — they are what they are. The simple claim we make for our Hot Stampers is that the best of them sound as good as the album can sound, and we back that up with a 100% Money Back guarantee. (more…)

My Aim Is True Can Really Rock – If You Have the Speaker System to Play It

My Aim Is True Can Really Rock –

If You Have the Speaker System to Play It

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Another in the long list of recordings that really comes alive when you Turn Up Your Volume.

There is a line in the Hot Stamper commentary below concerning driving punk rock bass. Man, this record lives or dies by your ability to reproduce the powerful bottom end that propels this music. Pardon me for cueing up a broken record again, and with all due respect to the things they do well — they must do something well, right? People keep buying them — small speakers and screens are not going to cut it on My Aim Is True. This is precisely the kind of album they don’t do well. (more…)