Columbia – 360 Winners

Miles Davis – Miles In The Sky

More of the Music of Miles Davis

  • Boasting two solid Double Plus (A++) sides, this original Stereo 360 pressing is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other Miles In The Sky you’ve heard
  • Superb sound courtesy of Arthur Kendy’s and Frank Laico’s engineering at the famed Columbia Studio B in NYC
  • Miles here is backed by his classic 60s All Star crew – Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter & Tony Williams
  • “…Miles Davis explicitly pushed his second great quintet away from conventional jazz, pushing them toward the jazz-rock hybrid that would later become known as fusion… intriguing music…”

We just finished a big shootout for this superb Miles Davis album and this copy was dramatically better sounding than most others we played. Both sides have excellent bass, correct sounding brass, wonderful transparency and loads of Tubey Magic.

Many copies didn’t have the kind of transparency or openness that we heard here, which made it harder to appreciate the contributions of the different players. This one puts plenty of separation between the various instruments, so you can make sense of what each of these heavy-hitters adds to the mix. You will have a very hard time finding a copy out in the bins that sounds as good as this one!

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Johnny Cash – At San Quentin

More of the Music of Johnny Cash

  • Here is an original Columbia 360 pressing of Cash’s legendary live album with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER from top to bottom
  • What made these sides really stand out from the pack was their combination of richness and clarity – take it from us, it’s not easy to find a pressing that gives you both the way this one does
  • Forget the 70s reissues and whatever dead-on-arrival Heavy Vinyl record they’re making these days – if you want to hear the Tubey Magical you-are-there immediacy of Johnny Cash live in concert, this is the only way to do it
  • So many great songs: “Wanted Man,” “I Walk the Line,” “San Quentin,” “A Boy Named Sue,” “Folsom Prison Blues” and more
  • If you only have one Johnny Cash album, wouldn’t it have to be this one?
  • 5 stars: “…listen to ‘A Boy Named Sue,’ … rescued by the wild-eyed, committed performance by Cash, where it sounds like he really was set on murdering that son of a bitch who named him Sue. He sounds that way throughout the record…”

We had a blast listening to this album. Cash’s banter between the songs is practically as good as the music itself!

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Miles Davis – Quiet Nights

More of the Music of Miles Davis

  • This oh-so-spacious Miles Davis / Gil Evans classic boasts STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it throughout this original black print Stereo 360 pressing
  • Rich, warm, smooth and clear throughout, this 30th Street Studios recording is another engineering triumph from the legendary Fred Plaut
  • Produced by Teo Macero, the album is the fourth and final collaboration between Davis and Evans
  • This is a lot of money for a somewhat noisy copy with some audible marks, but the sound is so awesome and quiet pressings of the album so hard to come by that we hope someone will take a chance on it and get the thrill we did from hearing it sound right for once
  • In the Saturday Review, Quiet Nights received praise for Davis’s “wonderful

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Leonard Cohen – Songs Of Leonard Cohen

More of the Music of Leonard Cohen

  • With incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades on both sides, this Stereo 360 copy of Cohen’s debut LP is practically as good as we have ever heard, right up there with our Shootout Winner
  • Intimate, breathy vocals are key to the better copies such as this one, and that of course goes for practically every singer-songwriter album we offer
  • Some of the man’s most memorable songs, including “Suzanne,” “Sisters of Mercy,” “So Long, Marianne” and “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye”
  • Problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs, but once you hear just how superb 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
  • 5 stars: “The ten songs on Songs of Leonard Cohen were certainly beautifully constructed, artful in a way few (if any) other lyricists would approach for some time, but what’s most striking about these songs isn’t Cohen’s technique, superb as it is, so much as his portraits of a world dominated by love and lust, rage and need, compassion and betrayal…few musicians have ever created a more remarkable or enduring debut.”

Get ready for some serious goosebumps! If this copy of Songs Of Leonard Cohen doesn’t give you chills, I don’t know what will.

We’ve played a ton of 360s and Red Labels, and copies that sound as good as this one are clearly the exception and not the rule.

The Red Label pressings from the 70s can be quite good if you know which are the good stampers and which to avoid, information that the average audiophile record lover would have a hard time coming by on his own.

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Bob Dylan / The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan

More of the Music of Bob Dylan

  • Dylan’s sophomore release is back on the site for only the second time in eighteen months, here with solid Double Plus (A++) sound throughout this vintage Stereo 360 pressing
  • Both of these sides are wonderfully full-bodied, natural and clear, with Dylan’s remarkably present voice front and center, exactly where it should be
  • It’s clear these classic songs have stood the test of time: “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Girl from the North Country,” “Masters of War,” “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” “Don’t Think Twice,” “It’s All Right,” and many more
  • Finding early stereo LPs with audiophile sound and surfaces, and without marks that play, is getting awfully tough nowadays – this one has the sound, and the vinyl is about as quiet as we can find it, but marks are sometimes the nature of these beast with these vintage pressings
  • 5 stars: “This is rich, imaginative music, capturing the sound and spirit of America… Dylan, in many ways, recorded music that equaled this, but he never topped it.”
  • A Folk Classic from 1963 that should appeal to any fan of early Dylan
  • The complete list of titles from 1963 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.
  • We’ve recently compiled a list of records we think every audiophile should get to know better, along the lines of “the 1001 records you need to hear before you die,” but with less accent on morbidity and more on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. On the Border is a good example of a record most audiophiles don’t know well but should.

The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan is clearly our favorite of the early Dylan albums for both music and sound. We’re picking up both mono and stereo copies when we see them clean (which is rare) and both the mono mix and the stereo mix can sound out of this world.

Hearing these great songs sound so intimate and lifelike on a top-quality pressing can be a sublime experience. We should know; we enjoyed the hell out of this very copy.

Having done this for so long, we understand and appreciate that rich, full, solid, Tubey Magical sound is key to the presentation of this primarily vocal music. We rate these qualities higher than others we might be listening for (e.g., bass definition, soundstage, depth, etc.). The music is not so much about the details in the recording, but rather in trying to recreate a solid, palpable, real Bob Dylan singing live in your listening room. The best copies have an uncanny way of doing just that.

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Bob Dylan – Blonde On Blonde

More of the Music of Bob Dylan

  • These early Stereo 360 pressings were doing just about everything right, with all FOUR sides earning roughly Double Plus (A++) grades
  • You won’t believe how rich, full and lively this album can sound on a copy this good (particularly on sides one, two and three)
  • Includes tons of quintessential Dylan classics: “Rainy Day Women,” “I Want You,” “Just Like A Woman,” and more – they all sound phenomenal
  • Marks and problems 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
  • 5 stars: “Blonde on Blonde is an album of enormous depth, providing endless lyrical and musical revelations on each play… It’s the culmination of Dylan’s electric rock & roll period — he would never release a studio record that rocked this hard, or had such bizarre imagery, ever again.”

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Simon and Garfunkel – Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme

More of the Music of Simon and Garfunkel

  • A Parsley, Sage… like you’ve never heard, with excellent Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it on both sides of this vintage Stereo 360 pressing – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Their best recording, a Top 100 album and a Demo Disc for Tubey Magical voices and guitars (particularly on side one)
  • Especially smooth, present, breathy vocals (also particularly on side one) – this is the sound we love here at Better Records
  • Having played them by the hundreds, we’ve found that midrange presence and resolution are precisely what go missing on the modern Heavy Vinyl reissue, and that if those qualities are important to you, vintage vinyl is the only solution to your problem
  • 4 1/2 stars: “…an achievement akin to the Beatles’ Revolver or the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds album, and just as personal and pointed as either of those records at their respective bests.”
  • Fans of this folky duo should definitely find a place for this 1966 release, which is also their best sounding album
  • One specific set of stampers always win our shootouts, and when you hear them you will know why – the sound is big, rich and clear like no other
  • We’ve discovered a number of titles in which one stamper always wins, and here are some others

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Thelonious Monk / Monk’s Blues

More Thelonious Monk

  • Seriously good Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER brings Monk’s 1969 release to life on this vintage Stereo 360 pressing – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Both of these sides are rich, full and open throughout, with excellent transparency and real weight to the piano
  • This is not your typical Monk album – here he joins a big band, conducted by the great Oliver Nelson
  • It’s an interesting collaboration that may not succeed in every way, but it’s certainly a fun listen and even more so when you have an outstanding copy like this one
  • 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

I wish more Blue Note records had this kind of sound — natural, full-bodied, and sweet up top. The bass here is well-defined with real weight and lots of punch. Monk’s piano sounds correct from the highest notes all the way down to the lower register, and Charlie Rouse‘s sax sounds just right — totally free of the “RVG squawk” we often hear on some Blue Notes. The clarity and transparency are superb throughout.

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Big Brother & The Holding Company – Cheap Thrills

More Five Star Albums Available Now

  • Cheap Thrills returns to the site for only the second time since2019, here with solid Double Plus (A++) sound on both sides of this original Stereo 360 pressing
  • We would love to offer this classic to more of our customers at a better price, but we simply don’t have the staff it takes to return nine out of ten copies to their sellers for noise and scratches, which forces us to make do with the few copies that show up in stores, and that means a wait of more than five years between listings, sorry!
  • Most copies we played were too compressed or veiled to involve you in the music, but this one has the kind of rich, big, clear sound this Bay Area band needs to work its bluesy magic
  • Turn this one up good and loud (which you can do when the sound is right) and you’ll have a living, breathing Janis Joplin performing right in front of you
  • Problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs, but once you hear how excellent sounding this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting stitches and just be swept away by the music
  • 5 stars: “Nobody had ever heard singing as emotional, as desperate, as determined, or as loud as Joplin’s, and Cheap Thrills was her greatest moment… Heard today, Cheap Thrills is a musical time capsule and remains a showcase for one of rock’s most distinctive singers.”

We’ve rarely been able to get this shootout off the ground, but we finally managed to stumble upon enough clean copies to get this round going. It’s been years since we last had a copy of this album on the site.

This album has got that trippy 60s San Francisco sound, no doubt about it. Those of you who are familiar with Jefferson Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow or the early Grateful Dead albums know what I’m talking about. The Tubey Magic of the guitars is worth the price of admission alone; you just don’t hear this kind of sound on modern records.

Like you might expect from this mixture of blues and psychedelic rock, the sound can be a bit raw. Of course, that’s probably the way the band wanted it to be — I don’t see what more a mastering engineer could have done to make this music work any better.

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Thelonious Monk – Monk’s Dream

More of the Music of Thelonious Monk

  • Monk’s Dream returns to the site for only the second time in over two years, here with INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them throughout this black print Stereo 360 pressing
  • These are just a few of the things we had to say about this killer copy in our notes: “big and weighty”…”great size and detail and very full”…”breathy sax jumping out of the speakers”…”very big and full piano”
  • Both of these sides are rich, spacious, big and Tubey Magical, with less smear on the piano, a problem that holds many copies back
  • The sound found on these early Columbia 360 Label Stereo pressings is absolutely the right one for Monk’s music
  • This is a lot of money for a somewhat noisy copy – “Body and Soul” is pretty much ruined here, alas – but the sound is so awesome and quiet pressings of the album so hard to come by that we hope someone will take a chance on it and get the thrill we did from hearing it sound so good
  • 5 stars: “Although he would perform and record supported by various other musicians, the tight – almost telepathic – dimensions that these four shared has rarely been equalled in any genre… Monk’s Dream is recommended, with something for every degree of Monk enthusiast.”

A truly outstanding Monk album from 1963. Thanks to Columbia’s state of the art engineering, the recording really comes to life, or at least it does on a copy that sounds as good as this one does!

Charlie Rouse is particularly wonderful on sax on this album, and this copy features him on many of its tracks. The sax sound is full-bodied and natural with lots of breath and just the right amount of bite. Monk’s piano comes through with powerful dynamics and real weight to the keys.

So many copies just sound like an old jazz record, but this one lets you feel like you are right there in the studio, watching as the music is spontaneously created. What more could you ask for?

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