Records by Label 2

Tony Bennett and Count Basie – Strike Up The Band on Roulette

More of the Music of Count Basie

  • With seriously good Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it from start to finish, this vintage Roulette stereo pressing will be very hard to beat
  • So spacious and three-dimensional, yet Tony sounds real, a part of the ensemble (particularly on side one)
  • The Roulette pressings tend to be gritty, edgy and bright, but we found a good one here, and it won the shootout
  • Although the Roulette originals, now that we know which stampers are good, will always win our shootouts, the Emus reissues still sound quite good to us, just not as good
  • A classic case of compared to what? – we had no idea the recording could sound any better than the Emus pressings that would win our shootouts in years past
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The band raves through tunes like ‘With Plenty Of Money And You,’ and Bennett matches them, drawing strength from the bravura arrangements, while band and singer achieve a knowing tenderness on ‘Growing Pains’…This is an album well worth owning.”

(more…)

Jimmy Smith / Any Number Can Win

More of the Music of Jimmy Smith

  • Any Number Can Win is back on the site for the first time in years, here with solid Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides of this early Verve pressing
  • With richness, clarity, space and timbral accuracy, this is guaranteed to be one of the best sounding big band jazz records you’ve heard in a while
  • Another top jazz recording from Rudy Van Gelder (among others) – big, bold and lively, just the right sound for this music

This is one of Rudy Van Gelder’s triumphs and one of the best Jimmy Smith albums we’ve ever heard. All of side one and the last cut of side two sound stunning! This is dynamic, big speaker sound.

Lots of old Verves weren’t mastered right, but this one was. It’s as good as it gets — it’s right up there with Bashin’.

RVG did not record this entire album. Some songs are recorded by other engineers and don’t have the dynamic slam that his do but the best tracks are amazing.

(more…)

Jethro Tull – Aqualung

More of the Music of Jethro Tull

  • Incredible sound for Jethro Tull’s fourth studio album, with a Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side one mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side two
  • The sonics are outstanding from start to finish – big, punchy, present, tubey and bursting with rock and roll energy
  • A Better Records Top 100 title that still floors us on the best copies, with sound that will jump right out of your speakers
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs – those on “My God” are especially bad – but if you can tough those out, this copy is going to blow your mind
  • 4 1/2 stars: “… one of the most astonishing progressions in rock history… the degree to which Tull upped the ante here is remarkable… Varied but cohesive, Aqualung is widely regarded as Tull’s finest hour.”
  • We think Stand Up is musically an even better album, but it’s hard to argue with the big, bold sound of Aqualung

Folks, for hard-rockin’, Tubey Magical, 70s Arty Proggy Rock in ANALOG, it just does not get much better than Aqualung. You need the right pressing to bring it to life though, and this one is certainly up to the task.

(more…)

Bill Evans with Jeremy Steig – What’s New

More of the Music of Bill Evans

  • The Hot Stamper debut of What’s New, here with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound throughout this early Stereo Verve pressing
  • A tough shootout, as no other copy earned a 3+ grade on either side, which simply means that when you find a top copy, it sets such a high standard that everything else ends up getting marked down
  • Exceptionally spacious and three-dimensional, as well as relaxed and full-bodied – this pressing was a big step up over all other copies we played
  • The brilliant Ray Hall engineered – anyone hearing this copy will understand exactly why we love to find his fabulous 60s recordings here at Better Records
  • 4 stars: “With the exception of Evans’ ‘Time Out for Chris’ and the ‘Spartacus Love Theme,’ the songs performed on this date would fit securely in the Miles Davis repertoire of the late 50s. Steig is in particularly fine form on the program which includes tunes such as ‘Straight No Chaser,’ ‘Autumn Leaves,’ and ‘So What.'”

(more…)

The Beatles – The White Album

More of the Music of The Beatles

  • You’ll find solid Double Plus (A+++) sound or BETTER on all FOUR sides of these vintage British reissue pressings
  • This copy of the Beatles’ Masterpiece (my personal favorite of all their albums) is going to thrill and delight the lucky person who snags it
  • If you’ve heard the Half-Speed and Heavy Vinyl versions of The White Album, then you know how riddled they are with unacceptable flaws
  • They are simply not enjoyable on high-quality equipment, unlike this copy, which is guaranteed to be an unalloyed joy to play
  • Problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these Classic Rock records, but once you hear how superb sounding this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting stitches and just be swept away by the music
  • “If there is still any doubt that Lennon and McCartney are the greatest song writers since Schubert, then next Friday – with the publication of the new Beatles double LP – should surely see the last vestiges of cultural snobbery and bourgeois prejudice swept away in a deluge of joyful music making…” Right On!
  • Our customers often write us to tell us how much they like their Hot Stamper pressings of The Beatles, and they have been especially enthusiastic when it comes to The White Album

Our White Album Hot Stampers have always been a big hit with the folks who’ve been lucky enough to snare them. If you’re ready for a high-quality copy of The White Album that’s sure to massacre all the pressings you’ve heard up until now, you should jump right on this bad boy.

(more…)

Side One Had Tubey Colorations Missing from Side Two

Hot Stamper Pressings of Vintage Columbia Albums Available Now

An undiscovered gem from 1967 on the 360 Columbia label.

Side two of this record blew our minds with its White Hot Stamper sound.

Musically and sonically this record is nothing short of wonderful.

Who knew? You could play fifty vintage piano recordings and not find one as good as this.

Tchaikovsky, Liszt, Beethoven, Debussy, Mozart — these shorter pieces and excerpts were composed by those with the greatest gift for melody, men who’ve produced works that have stood the test of time, enchanting audiences over the centuries with works of such beauty and charm.

Here at Better Records we have never been fans of Columbia classical LPs. To be clear, the fault more often than not has to be in the mastering, not the recording. We’ve raved about so many great copies of titles in the past, only to find that the next three or four LPs we pick up of the very same titles sound godawful.

There are some amazing Bernstein recordings out there, but the amount of work it takes to find the one that sounds good is overwhelming — how can such great recordings be mastered so poorly so often?

Side One

A++, with a huge, rich, sweet, natural sounding piano. The more you listen, the more apparent it becomes that, as natural as it may seem at first blush, there are still some old school tubey colorations that make the sound not quite as lifelike as one might wish.

And the confirmation of that finding comes as soon as you flip the record over.

(more…)

Stevie Wonder – Hotter Than July

More of the Music of Stevie Wonder

  • With INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close them on both sides, this copy is practically as good as we have ever heard
  • Forget whatever dead-as-a-doornail Heavy Vinyl record they’re making these days – if you want to hear the Tubey Magic, size and energy of this wonderful album, a vintage pressing like this one is the way to go
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Wonder naysayed the trends and continues to do what he did best. Solid songwriting, musicianship, and production are evident in the majority of Hotter Than July… It is the portrait of an artist who still had the Midas touch…”

Most copies lack the presence, energy and bottom end weight to let these funky songs work their magic, but a copy like this will let you appreciate the music without the mediocre sonics of the average pressing getting in the way.

This album was recorded right at the beginning of the digital era (1980) and most pressings won’t let you forget that. So many copies we played were just too sterile to get into — clean and clear bit lacking richness and fullness. We’re huge Stevie Wonder fans around here and we’ve fallen in love with Innervisions and Songs In The Key Of Life over and over again because of their lush, analog sound on the best pressings. It took a ton of work (and a whole lot of copies) to find a Hotter Than July that we could get excited about. I don’t think there’s a copy out there that can compete with his earlier recordings sonically but at least the Hot Stamper pressings present the music in a way that audiophiles can enjoy.

Bottom line? Digital recordings are tough, but after playing a ton of copies of this album we’ve managed to find a few that were musical and enjoyable instead of fatiguing. If you haven’t played this album in years I can understand why — the typical pressings are just too clean and too dry to demand any time on your table. At least that was our experience until the top copies such as this one had us nodding our heads and rockin’ out with these great tunes. Check out a Hot Stamper pressing to remember just what a musical magician Stevie is — you’ll be jammin’ too!

(more…)

Charlie Byrd – Bossa Nova Pelos Passaros

More Jazz Guitar

  • Bossa Nova Pelos Passaros, here with solid Double Plus (A++) sonics throughout this early Riverside on the early Black Label pressing – amazingly quiet vinyl too considering this record came out early in the 60s
  • Big, balanced, lively and musical, these two sides had some of the best sound we heard in our most recent shootout
  • Here is the Tubey Magical richness, size and space that only the better vintage pressings are capable of conveying to the critical listener with the highest quality equipment

(more…)

Beethoven – Symphony No. 7 / Solti

More of the Music of Beethoven

  • Solti and the Vienna Phil’s commanding performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 (CS-6777) debuts on the site with big, spacious, and lively Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it throughout this vintage London pressing
  • It’s also fairly quiet at Mint Minus Minus, a grade that even our most well-cared-for vintage classical titles have trouble playing at
  • These sides are doing practically everything right – they’re rich, clear, undistorted, open, and has depth and transparency to rival the best recordings you may have heard
  • The texture on the strings is captured perfectly – this is an area in which modern pressings fail utterly, and without good string reproduction, especially in the lower registers, a Beethoven symphony is simply not a pleasurable experience on highly resolving equipment

(more…)

Bill Evans – We Will Meet Again

More of the Music of Bill Evans

  • With STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades from top to bottom, this copy of Evans’s final studio session is certainly as good as we have ever heard
  • A tough shootout, as no other copy earned a 3+ grade on either side, which simply means that when you find a top copy, it sets such a high standard that everything else ends up getting marked down
  • Both of these sides are lively, dynamic and full-bodied, and there’s real weight to the piano, a key quality we look for on all the piano recordings we play
  • 4 stars: “The thoughtful session is full of lyrical melodies and strong solos; even Evans’ electric keyboard work on a few tunes is distinctive.”

(more…)