Columbia/Epic

Columbia and Epic are labels we love.

Ten Years After – A Space in Time

More British Blues Rock

  • Here is a vintage UK Chrysalis pressing (the first copy to hit the site in over three years) with solid Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it throughout
  • This side two is tonally correct, big and bold, with the kind of rich, full-bodied sound that is the hallmark of rock recordings in the early to mid-70s, and side one is not far behind in all those areas
  • One of the most important records in my growth as an audiophile from 1971 to the present – my stereo was forced to evolve in order to play this kind of big production rock at the loud levels that the album needs to work its Psychedelic Blues Rock magic
  • No matter how many times you play it, you will hear — or at least gain more of an appreciation for — something new in the exceptionally dense, deep, sophisticated soundfield the engineers no doubt sweated to create for the album
  • And each time you make an improvement to the quality of your playback, this is the album that will show you just exactly what you have accomplished
  • 4 stars: “The leadoff track, ‘One of These Days,’ is a particularly scorching workout, featuring extended harmonica and guitar solos. The production on A Space in Time is crisp and clean, a sound quite different from the denseness of its predecessors [that] has its share of sparkling moments.”
  • This is clearly the band’s best sounding album. Roughly 150 other listings for the best sounding album by an artist or group can be found here.

We always knew this great album could sound good, but it’s not often we heard it sound like this!

A Space in Time is just one of the recordings that made me pursue big stereo systems driving big speakers, right from my earliest days in audio. You need large dynamic drivers with plenty of piston area — the kind that can move a lot of air — in order to bring the power of the music to life.

If you have big speakers and a penchant for giving the old volume knob an extra click or two, it just doesn’t get any better than A Space In Time.

I’ve been playing ASIT for decades and I heard lots of things this time around I never knew were there. This is why we keep improving our systems, right? There is never going to be a time when these 50+ year old recordings have nothing new to offer.

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Weather Report – Sweetnighter

More Jazz Fusion

  • A Sweetnighter like you’ve never heard, with an INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side one
  • Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this killer copy in our notes: “rich and 3D”…”tubey and whomping”…”big bass and energy”…”jumping out of the speakers”…”great space and detail”
  • The sound is huge, spacious, lively, transparent and punchy – this is jazz fusion that really rocks
  • “Boogie Woogie Waltz” was one of the most mindblowing tracks found on any album from 1973
  • 4 stars: ” It is the groove that rules this mesmerizing album, leading off with the irresistible 3/4 marathon deceptively tagged as the ‘Boogie Woogie Waltz’ and proceeding through a variety of Latin-grounded hip-shakers.”
  • If you’re a fan of the adventurous funky Jazz Fusion, this is a Must Own Title from 1973.
  • This is a well recorded jazz album that should be part of any audiophile’s jazz collection

This is our favorite Weather Report album here at Better Records.

Heavy Weather is arguably a more ambitious and more accomplished piece of work, but Sweetnighter is so original and rhythmically compelling that we find ourselves enjoying it more. I don’t know of any other album on the planet like it. We only know of two Must Own Weather Report albums, this one and Heavy Weather. They both belong in your collection if you’re a fan of jazz fusion.

The top end is fully extended here in a way that most copies barely hint at, and the overall sound is amazingly transparent and three-dimensional. The brass is full and rich, the percussion lively and present, and the bass is weighty and defined. All the stuff we look for on a Classic Weather Report album is here.

Note especially that the energy is excellent, and both sides are also very high-rez; the echo trails from all the studio reverb go on for days. (more…)

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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The Gerry Mulligan Quartet – What Is There To Say?

More of the Music of Gerry Mulligan

  • With STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides, this early 6-Eye Stereo LP is doing practically everything right
  • The sound here is tubier, more transparent, more dynamic, with more of that “jumpin’ out of the speakers” quality that only The Real Thing ever has
  • With explosive dynamics and rich, full-bodied, Tubey Magical sax sound, it’s hard to imagine any reissue, vintage or otherwise, can hold a candle to the sound of this amazing record
  • Recorded at Columbia’s famous 30th Street studios, here is a record that sounds like Kind of Blue, Ah Um and Time Out, for the simple reason that all were recorded in the same studio using the same equipment (and perhaps even the same engineers)
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these early pressings – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • 5 stars: “The last of the pianoless quartet albums that Gerry Mulligan recorded in the 1950s is one of the best … every selection is memorable…”

Clean and Clear Yet Rich and Sweet

This copy managed to find the perfect balance of these attributes; you want to find that rare copy that keeps what is good about a Tubey Magical analog recording from The Golden Age of ’50s Jazz but manages to avoid the pitfalls so common to them: compression, opacity and blubber. To be sure, the fault is not with the recording (I guess; again, not having heard the master tape) but with the typical pressing. Bad vinyl, bad mastering, who knows why so many copies sound so thick, dead and dull?

The Big Room

Huge amounts of ambience fill out the space the extends from wall to wall (and all the way to the back wall of the studio), leaving plenty of room around each of the players.

Full-bodied sound, open and spacious, bursting with life and energy — these are the hallmarks of our Truly Hot Stampers.

If your stereo is cookin’ these days, this record will surely be an unqualified Sonic Treat. We guarantee that no heavy vinyl pressing, of this or any other album, has the kind of analog magic found here. Or your money back.

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Thelonious Monk – Underground

More of the Music of Thelonious Monk

  • Boasting two KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides or close to them, this vintage reissue pressing could not be beat
  • Charlie Rouse – featured on many of the tracks here – is particularly wonderful on sax. His saxophone is full-bodied and natural with breathy texture and just the right amount of honk
  • So many copies just sound like an old jazz record, but this one lets you feel like you are right there as the music happens
  • As is sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs, there are marks that play – those on “Easy Street” are especially bad – but if you can tough those out, this copy is going to blow your mind
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The instantly recognizable stride piano lines are delivered with the same urgency and precision that they possessed over two decades earlier…”

This is an outstanding Monk album from 1968. Thanks to Columbia’s state of the art engineering — still using tubes I’d wager, based on the sound — the recording really comes to life, or at least it does on a copy that sounds as good as this one does.

Monk’s piano has powerful dynamics and real weight, just like a real piano.

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

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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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It’s A Beautiful Day – Self-Titled

More Psych Rock

  • This Columbia Stereo 360 pressing (only the second copy to hit the site in over four years) boasts solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER from top to bottom – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • If this price seems high, keep in mind that the top copy from our most recent shootout went for $1200
  • Add to that the fact that in our previous shootout from 2021 there were few records that did not have scratches that played or noisy vinyl
  • One of our favorite 60s Psych Rock albums, a true Demo Disc for three-dimensional space, and a Desert Island Disc for musical originality
  • Full and rich, detailed and transparent, this copy is doing just about everything we could ask it to do
  • We’ve been working on this title for more than ten years, during which time we must have returned nine out of ten copies that came our way
  • 4 stars: “It’s a Beautiful Day remains as a timepiece and evidence of how sophisticated rock & roll had become in the fertile environs of the San Francisco music scene.”

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Journey – Infinity

More of the Music of Journey

  • Both sides of this vintage Columbia pressing have excellent sound for the band’s 1978 release, earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • This copy was bigger and bolder than most others we played, with huge choruses that really come alive – just the way we like our Journey albums to sound
  • Spaciousness, richness and freedom from grit and grain are key to the better pressings, and here you will find all three
  • 4 stars: “Released in January of 1978, Infinity easily proved to be the band’s most cohesive work to date. Dead and buried were the jazz fusion overtones of previous offerings, and with the new songwriting combo of Perry/Neal Schon leading the march, the band set out to completely redefine their sound. Traditional pop arrangements were now adopted, cutting out the unnecessary musical fat, and allowing each bandmember to play to his strength: Perry’s soaring, whale of a voice, Schon’s scorching fret work, and Gregg Rolie’s subtle keyboard arrangements.”

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Willie Nelson – Without A Song

More of the Music of Willie Nelson

  • A Without A Song like you’ve never heard, with incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound throughout this vintage Columbia pressing – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • As he did so brilliantly on Stardust, here Willie brings his inimitable singing style to classics of love and loss taken from The Great American Songbook
  • Top quality arrangements – drop the needle on “Autumn Leaves” or “A Dreamer’s Holiday” to hear Booker T and his bandmates at their best
  • Top tracks include “Autumn Leaves,” “As Time Goes By,” “Harbor Lights” and, of course, “Without a Song”
  • The critics may not have been impressed, but music lovers sure were – Amazon buyers award the album more than 4 1/2 stars
  • Without a Song is a well recorded album of excellent music, one that we feel should be more popular with audiophiles

Once again Willie is backed by a top-notch backing band fronted by the one and only Booker T. Jones. Drop the needle on “Once In A While” and dig the uncanny presence of the vocal and astonishing clarity of the ensemble.

Much like Stardust, a Hot Stamper pressing of this record is a real treat for we audiophiles. This is some amazingly soulful music with midrange magic to spare.

There’s lots of air up top, giving the instruments plenty of room to breathe. The vocals are breathy and full-bodied; if Willie’s voice doesn’t sound a bit gravelly, you’re probably playing an overly smooth or lo-rez copy, and we take away a lot of points for both.

This copy gives you everything you could ask for from this music — tight bass, clearly audible guitar transients, generous amounts of warmth and sweetness, vocal immediacy and studio ambience like no other.

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