CTI- Kudu – Reviews and Commentaries

Tell It Like It Is – Another A&M Half-Speed Mastered Disaster

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of George Benson Available Now

The Half-Speed is pretty — pretty lifeless if you ask me, in the way that so many Half-Speed mastered records are.

It’s cut very clean, but until you play a good A&M pressing, you don’t know how much meat has been stripped from the bones. The best A&M pressings sound like a Rudy Van Gelder recording, which, of course, they are.

These A&M Half-Speeds suffer from all the same shortcomings that other Half-Speeds suffer from: the kind of pretty but lifeless and oh-so-boring sound that we describe in listing after listing.

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What Exactly Does Van Gelder Stamped in the Deadwax Tell You?

Hot Stamper Pressings of CTI Titles Available Now

The section of the stamper sheet we wrote up after our most recent shootout belongs to George Benson’s White Rabbit album, the one released by CTI in 1972.

We think these stampers illustrate an important reality regarding the variability of record pressings, and it’s one that we run into on regularly during shootouts.

Keep in mind that the notes you see were made without the listener knowing what the stamper numbers were for the copy being evaluated. Some relevant facts:

  • Rudy Van Gelder cut all the original domestic pressings for the album that we played in our shootout since those are the only ones we know of to have the potential for Hot Stamper sound. (Hint: forget the reissues, imports, etc.)
  • The stampers for the two copies you see below were the two worst performers out of the six we had to work with. (We started out with more than six copies to audition. Unfortunately, some of the copies we clean and play get tossed out during the shootout for having noise issues — scratches that play, bad vinyl, inner groove distortion, etc. Noisy copies of  fairly common jazz records are not saleable no matter how good they sound.)
  • The top pressing shown below earned good, not great Hot Stamper grades of 1.5+ on both sides. This is the minimal rating any Hot Stamper pressing must earn to be offered to our customers. As you can see, A12/B2 are the stampers for this pressing.
  • There was another A12 side one in our shootout that did slightly better, earning a 2+ grade. The pressing you see at the bottom also had an A12 side one, but it did not make the grade. (The N/A means we didn’t play side two of that copy because the 1+ side one makes the record not worth the bother.)

We know that White Rabbit is an outstanding George Benson album, recorded by the immensely talented Rudy Van Gelder himself. All the original pressings were mastered by him as well. We’ve been doing shootouts for the album for more than a decade and in that time have heard some amazing sounding copies. I don’t recall one ever being returned, for any reason.

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This Rudy Van Gelder Cutting of Red Clay Is Good but…

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… far from the best we played, earning barely Hot Stamper grades.

And we would be remiss if we failed to point out that the proper cleaning of your records will typically improve their sound quality by at least one half plus, and more often than not one full plus.

It’s very likely that neither of the A3/B3 copies you see below would have qualified as Hot Stamper pressings without the aid of a good cleaning.

Red Clay is one of our favorite CTI albums – Red Clay (the song and the album) is Hubbard’s soul jazz Masterpiece, and it’s a record that belongs in every audiophile’s jazz collection.

Lenny White drums up a storm on this album – on this copy he is playing right in the room with you. If you’re a Hubbard fan, or perhaps a fan of early-70s soul jazz, this title from 1970 is surely a Must Own.

Although Rudy recorded and mastered the album — the only pressings that qualified for the shootout were his — it should be noted that Van Gelder in the dead wax is never a guarantee of high quality sound, on any record.

(It’s easy to criticize the bad pressings of Rudy Van Gelder’s work, but let us not lose site of the countless great ones.)

This A3/B3 pressing was not awful, or even mediocre — the reissues without VAN GELDER in the dead wax would most likely be much worse sounding — but at 1.5+ we would say it has earned good, not great Hot Stamper grades.

The only way to guarantee higher quality sound is to do a shootout with a good-sized pile of cleaned pressings and find the one with the best sound using the rigorous testing methodologies we use.

For this kind of work, top quality playback is a must.

There is of course a way to avoid doing all that work and spending all that money on piles of pressings, most of which you will eventually have no use for, and that’s to buy a Hot Stamper copy of the album from us.

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God Bless the Child Has Some of Don Sebesky’s Best Arrangements

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Kenny Burrell Available Now

This is one of our favorite orchestra-backed jazz records here at Better Records. A few others off the top of my head would be Wes Montgomery’s California Dreaming (1966, also Sebesky-arranged), Grover Washington’s All the King’s Horses (1973) and Deodato’s Prelude (also 1973, with brilliant arrangements by the man himself).

On a killer copy like this the sound is out of this world. Rich and full, open and transparent, this one defeated all comers in our shootout, taking the Top Prize for sound and earning all Three Pluses.

What’s especially notable is how well recorded the orchestra’s string sections are.

They have just the right amount of texture and immediacy without being forced or shrill. They’re also very well integrated into the mix. I wouldn’t have expected RVG to pull it off so well — I’ve heard other CTI records where the recording quality of the orchestration was abominable — but here it works as well as on any album I know.

[Or maybe I just had a bad pressing of a very good recording!]

Both sides impressed us with their deep, wide soundstaging and full extension on both the top and the bottom.

The bass is deep and defined; the tonality of the guitar and its overall harmonic richness are right on the money.

The piano has the weight and heft of the real thing.

This kind of warm, rich, Tubey Magical analog sound is gone forever. You might have to go all the way back to 1971 to find it!

Watch out for some of the later pressings, even the later ones still mastered by Rudy Van Gelder. A case in point:

VAN GELDER in the dead wax is no guarantee of high quality sound, on any record.

Side one of this original pressing with later stampers was bright and side two opaque. This pressing was not awful, or even mediocre — the reissues without VAN GELDER in the dead wax would most likely be much worse sounding, we stopped buying them years ago — but at 1.5+ we would say these grades point to the sound is good, not great.

The only way to guarantee higher quality sound is to put the album through a shootout with a good-sized pile of cleaned pressings and find the one that sounds the best using the rigorous testing methodologies we recommend. For this kind of work to be meaningful and reproducible, top quality playback is a must.

There is of course a way to avoid doing all that work and spending all the kind of money it takes to acquire piles of pressings — most of which you will eventually have no use for — and that’s to buy a Hot Stamper copy of the album from us.

The Music

The high point for side one is clearly the first track. It’s got a Midnight Blue relaxed groove going on, the kind that Kenny Burrell seems to be able to bring to any session he plays on. Or maybe it’s the rhythms Ray Barretto works out in the songs that make them so relaxed and swinging at the same time.

Side two is magical from start to finish. The two extended songs, both more than eight minutes in length, leave plenty of room for the band — and the orchestra! — to stretch out.

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Top End Extension Is Key to the Best Pressings of Fingers

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Hot Stamper Pressings of Jazz Fusion Albums Available Now

The best copies have the highs that are missing from so many of the CTI originals. When you play them against most copies, there is an extension to the top end that you won’t hear elsewhere. Since this album is heavy on percussion, that difference is critical.

The HARMONICS of the percussion are critically important to the music. When they go missing, it’s as if the music seems to slow down, a strange effect but a fairly common one with rhythmically dense arrangements such as these. Some of the energy of the music is lost. 

With an extended top end the sound is SWEET, not HARSH. Believe us when we tell you, the last thing you want is a harsh sounding pressing of a Rudy Van Gelder recording. (Not unless you have a dull, dull, deadly dull system. Those old school stereos are practically the only way one can tolerate some of his early recordings.)

With so many high frequency transients and such complex arrangements, this is a record that must be mastered (and pressed) with great skill or the result is going to be trouble. RVG, who both recorded and mastered the album, has a penchant for over-cutting records and being heavy handed when it comes to his favorite studio tricks, often to the detriment of instrumental fidelity. When his approach works, the resulting recordings are wonderful. When he gets too carried away with his “sound,” look out.

This is without a doubt the best album Airto ever made. On top of that, this copy really has the kind of sound we look for, with an open, fully extended top end that gives all the elements of this complex music room to breathe.

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Letter of the Week – “I put on the WHS and found out exactly how much better it could sound.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of Recordings by Rudy Van Gelder Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:

Hey Tom,  

Well you guys did it again. I had a good promo copy of Baddest Hubbard, lively and big soundstage. I was listening and questioning how much better can it sound.

I put on the WHS and found out exactly how much better it could sound.

More natural, more relaxed, just better any way you cut it.

I knew it in the first ten seconds of track one; that Better Records sound is unmistakable.

Mike H.

Mike,

Glad you enjoyed it!

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Gabor Szabo / Mizrab – Not Much Here for Us Audiophiles

Hot Stamper Pressings of Jazz Guitar Recordings Available Now

A weak effort from CTI in 1972.

Neither the music nor the sound, at least on the copies we played, is worth your time. 

We’ve auditioned countless pressings like this one in the 37 years we’ve been in business — buying, cleaning and playing them by the thousands. This is how we find the best sounding vinyl pressings ever made.

Not the ones that should sound the best. The ones that actually do sound the best.

If you’re an audiophile looking for top quality sound on vintage vinyl, we’d be happy to send you the Hot Stamper pressing guaranteed to beat anything and everything you’ve heard, especially if you have any pressing marketed as suitable for an audiophile. Those, with very few exceptions, are the worst.

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Another Great Conga Tester Title

Hot Stamper Pressings of Recordings by Rudy Van Gelder Available Now

The best pressings of Prelude are especially full-bodied and rich.

The congas are well up in the mix, which allows them to drive the powerful rhythmic energy of the music.

We know this because the copies with congas that were veiled or thin never seemed to have any get up go. 

There is wonderful transparency and openness to the soundstage, as well as less congestion in the loudest parts. Also Sprach (2001) is on side one of the album and it is KILLER on the best pressings.

Both sides can also be surprisingly sweet and Tubey Magical, nice qualities for a CTI record to have since so many of them are aggressive and edgy to the point of distraction.

Full, lively horns; rich, punchy, smear-free congas; fuzzy fuzzed-out guitars; as well as correct tonality and Tubey Magic in every area of the spectrum, what’s not to love?

The best pressings are so much bigger than most copies too. There is no doubt that you will hear the difference immediately. If you do a shootout with your best copy and ours plan on it being over almost before it starts.

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This Is Why We Love Rudy Van Gelder’s Recordings from the 70s

Hot Stamper Pressings of Recordings by Rudy Van Gelder Available Now

The really good RVG jazz pressings of All the Kings Horses sound shockingly close to live music — uncompressed, present, full of energy, with the instruments clearly located and surrounded by the natural space of the studio.

As our stereo has gotten better, and we’ve found better pressings and learned how to clean them better, his “you-are-there” live jazz sound has begun to impress us more and more.

Obviously the credit must go to Rudy Van Gelder for recording and mastering the album so well.

Contrary to what you may have read, the early-70s were a good time for Van Gelder.

All the King’s Horses from 1973 is an amazing Demo Disc for large group jazz.

But it only sounds good on the copies that it sounds good on, on the pressings that were mastered, pressed and cleaned right, a fact that has eluded most jazz vinyl aficionados interested in good sound since the advent of the LP.

But not us. We’ve played the very special pressings that prove the album can sound amazing.

The best pressings are spacious and full of life with virtually no distortion. Of special note, our shootout winning copy had amazingly articulate bass which brought out the undeniable funkiness of the music in a way that no other copy did.

There’s so much life in these grooves.

The sound jumps out of the speakers right into your lap.

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Listening in Depth to Fingers

Hot Stamper Pressings of Recordings by Rudy Van Gelder Available Now

At times this record really sounds like what it is: a bunch of guys in a big room beating the hell out of their drums and singing at the the top of their lungs. You gotta give RVG credit for capturing so much of that energy on tape and transferring that energy onto a slab of vinyl. 

Of course this assumes that the record in question actually does have the energy of the best copies. It’s also hard to know who or what is to blame when it doesn’t, since even the good stampers sound mediocre most of the time. Bad vinyl, worn out stampers, poor pressing cycle, it could be practically anything.

Side One

Fingers

This is the most problematical track on the entire album — please DO NOT JUDGE the album by this song! The sound is much better on the tracks that follow. This may have been an attempt to get that hot hit single sound for track one, the kind that would jump out of your radio speaker, but the effect can be a bit much, depending on how low distortion and high resolution your equipment is. The better your system, the less of a problem you will have getting this track to play well. If this track sounds decent, everything after it will really shine.

The biggest problem one typically runs into is a lack of bass and lower midrange. On the better copies the bass will be fine on the next track and those that follow.

Romance of Death

The guitar work on this track is stellar, some of the best musicianship on the album. Credit must go to Rudy Van Gelder for making the guitar jump out of the mix. One of the things he can do, practically better than anyone, is make a lead instrument sound as big and as bold as you’ve ever heard it.

Merry-Go-Round

This track has a tendency to be overly compressed. Some stampers have so much added compression that the guitar and the percussion in the middle of the soundfield turn into undifferentiated muck. Those copies are what we refer to as “Not-So-Hot Stampers.”

Wind Chant

Side Two

Note that the sound on side two tends to be more open, rich and clear as a rule.

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