RCA Rock, Pop, etc.- Reviews and Commentaries

Pin-Ups – Forget the Original British Pressings

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of David Bowie Available Now

UPDATE 2026

This commentary was written sometime in 2019 or just before.

Since that time we have done many shootouts for Pin-Ups and all of them were won by the reissues we discovered all those years ago.

We just finished our biggest-ever shootout for this fun Bowie album and this one was DRAMATICALLY better than most other copies. We played copies from all over the world — England, Germany, France, Canada, and the good ol’ USA — and heard all kinds of bad sound.

So what were the worst copies we heard? Hands down it was the British Originals, believe it or not. They tend to be dull, thick, and lifeless — not a good match for this punky, energetic material. [We have since found some very good sounding Brit originals but, that said, to date they have never won a shootout.]

On the other side, many of the other copies we heard were bright and grainy. It’s very tough to find a copy that strikes a balance, but we finally managed to dig up a handful that did the job. (more…)

Years Ago We Foolishly Thought a Domestic LP Could Beat the Brits on Low

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of David Bowie Available Now

This shootout listing for Low was written sometime around 2008. 

In 2008 we hadn’t discovered the right imports for this album yet — that would not happen for many more years, hence the error we made in thinking that some especially good sounding domestic copies could win a shootout.

Back then they could, but with the right pressings in the mix there is not a chance in the world that would happen now.

Just another case of live and learn.

By the way, Low has much in common with another Bowie record we struggled with for years.

To be fair, some domestic pressings do end up having low-level (1.5+) Hot Stampers, but they’re rare. Our best Brits just kill ’em. We haven’t bothered with the domestic pressings in more than a decade, and why would we? The reissue imports we sell now are just too good.

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Energy Is the Key to the Best Sounding Pressings of Let’s Dance

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of David Bowie Available Now

With Let’s Dance the name of the game is energy, and boy do the best copies! Both sides of this former shootout winner have the deep, punchy bass, smooth vocals and sweet, extended highs that Bowie’s music needs to come alive.

With that big bass and natural top end, this is one record you can turn up good and loud without fear of fatigue. On a big pair of dynamic speakers, you will get more than your money’s worth from the best of our Hot Stamper pressings. 

If you’re a fan of big drums in a big room with jump out of the speakers sound, this is the album for you.

Side One

Modern Love

This track has a tendency to be a bit brighter than those that follow. To find out if your Let’s Dance is killer, see how the title track further down sounds.

China Girl
Let’s Dance

The best sounding track on the album and one of the handful of best sounding Bowie tracks ever recorded. With a truly Hot Stamper copy, try as you might you will be very hard-pressed to find better sound. Demo Disc quality doesn’t begin to do it justice.

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Son of Schmilsson at 45 RPM – How Can It Possibly Sound This Bad?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Harry Nilsson Available Now

Alternately titled: Forty Five, Schmorty Five.

Recently someone loaned us a copy of the Mobile Fidelity pressing of this album, the one they put out in 2021 on two discs cut at 45 RPM, remastered by that notorious hack, Krieg Wunderlich.

Our last shootout took place all the way back in 2021. Although I listen to this title regularly,  unfortunately it does not sell all that well, so we haven’t been making the effort we should to find copies in order to offer the best of them to our customers.

Why the album is not more popular is a question we ask about a number of titles on our site. We love the music and we love the sound, as can be seen from what we (with the help of Allmusic) had to say about a very good sounding pressing back then:

  • This is one of Nilsson’s best albums, sonically and musically. (With Ken Scott at the board at Trident Studios the sound just has to be good, doesn’t it?)
  • Son of Schmilsson has more than half a dozen of the best songs Nilsson ever wrote, and should make it a Must Own for every right thinking audiophile with sophisticated tastes in popular music (we hope this means you)
  • 4 1/2 stars: “… this is all married to a fantastic set of songs that illustrate what a skilled, versatile songsmith Nilsson was. No, it may not be the easiest album to warm to — and it’s just about the weirdest record to reach number 12 and go gold — but if you appreciate Nilsson’s musicality and weirdo humor, he never got any better.”

So true!

The MoFi, however, is a joke next to a properly-mastered and properly-pressed RCA vintage release. Our notes for it read:

  • Big but flat
  • Voice is recessed and lacks richness
  • Rock songs, track one in particular work OK but
  • Ballads lose all the magic

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Nilsson’s Aerial Pandemonium Ballet Sounds Absolutely Awful

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Harry Nilsson Available Now

Tracks from the first two Nilsson albums were turned into this monstrosity in 1971. Some were remixed, some parts rerecorded, but whatever they did, they really screwed up the sound of the finished LP.

I cannot even say that the remixing and rerecording and editing are not an improvement on the songs found on the first album — they may be, it’s not a record I know well. What I do know is that this compilation is so bad sounding it doesn’t matter what they did or how well they did it. The record is simply unplayable.

We’ve never done a shootout for the first album, but the second album we know can have wonderful sound on the right pressings. We described a recent Hot Stamper of the second album this way:

Both of these sides are big, clear and full-bodied throughout – if you are a Nilsson fan, this copy is guaranteed to beat anything you’ve heard before, and by a wide margin.

All of the elements are working here – you get silky vocals, punchy bass, breathy brass, silky highs, superb immediacy, remarkable clarity, and the list goes on.

AMG writes:

4 1/2 stars: “As ‘Good Old Desk’ opens Aerial Ballet with a cheerful saunter, it’s clear that Harry Nilsson decided to pick up where he left off with his debut, offering another round of effervescent, devilishly clever pop, equal parts lite psychedelia, pretty ballads, and music hall cabaret.”

All true! Nilsson is one of my favorite artists to this day, 56 years after I first heard the album “Harry,” which is still a personal favorite and one I listen to regularly, along with many others, including a compilation I think is excellent, Personal Best — The Harry Nilsson Anthology.

However, this compilation is shockingly bad — It’s cut loud, and it’s very hot and crude. Ouch is right.

(more…)

Letter of the Week – “It is in a whole different league to the best I have ever managed to find…”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of David Bowie Available Now

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

Hey Tom,   

I want to thank you so much for the Diamond Dogs I received from you.

It is in a whole different league to the best I have ever managed to find and it is so satisfying to hear something how I always thought it should sound and at a very reasonable price. This is my favourite Bowie album.

Interestingly I bought a Hunky Dory recently that is out of this world. I know one is not supposed to give away stamper numbers and such (blame my compulsive honesty on my Aspergers!) and you probably know this already but the pressing is German RCA International with E 0014A -2 II and E 0014 B 1 II. It is seriously one of the best records I have and by far the best Bowie.

Thanks again Tom and everyone at Better records!

Cheers, Peter

Peter, glad to hear you liked our Diamond Dogs! Those are indeed very special pressings.

Best, TP

P.S.

We happen to know the German pressing of Hunky Dory referenced above. It can be good but not great. They are not competitive with the copies we sell. We do not buy them nor do we sell them. Ours get rave reviews like this one.

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Jump Into the Fire with Harry Nilsson

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Harry Nilsson Available Now

This commentary was written more than ten years ago.

Jump Into The Fire is one of the best tests we use for side two.

Copies that are too smooth make the “just bass and drums” intro sound thick and smeared.

Too bright and the vocals will tear your head off.

The “just right” copies rock from the start and never get too far out of control, even when Harry does. The best we can hope for is that the loudest vocal parts stay tolerable. Believe me, it is not that easy to find a copy that’s listenable all the way through, not at the high volume I play the record at anyway!

Again, with Nilsson screaming at the top of his lungs, you better have a good copy to get through this track, and even then it’s a bit of a problem.

A tough test for the old stereo, that’s for sure. Make sure your equipment is tuned up and the electricity is good before you get anywhere near a pressing of this album.

Big production pop like this is hard to pull off. Harry did an amazing job, but the recording is not perfect judging by the dozen or so copies I played this week and the scores I’ve suffered through before.

Let’s face it: Jump Into The Fire will never be smooth and sweet; neither will Down on side one. But other tracks on this album have Demo Disc quality sound, and, of course, the music is to die for.

Side One

Gotta Get Up

A tough one right off the bat. If you have an aggressive sounding copy, you’ll know it pretty quick!

Driving Along (more…)

What It Took to Find Hot Stamper Pressings of Two Very Tough Titles

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Talking Heads Available Now

[Emphasis added.]

Hey Tom, 

Just got my Super Hot Stampers of Remain In Light and Station To Station. I was very much looking forward to the arrival of these LPs… I was not disappointed. Verily, I was completely floored!

First, my apologies. I have been reading your website for over two years, gleaning information to help me find Hot Stampers, or at least good sounding records. I had not made a purchase until this past week. I was starting to feel guilty; you have given me so much great direction and guidance over these years, and I had not supported you in the proper way.

So I made a modest purchase of these two records, to assuage my guilt and support your efforts. You will be getting much more business from this satisfied customer.

I have Remain In Light on LP, CD and even the FLAC file release. My new Hot Stamper truly puts these recordings to shame. No, really, TO SHAME! If this ever gets on the Better Records Testimonials: “People let me tell you…it’s sent a chill up and down my spine…”!

I really can’t believe how well balanced the sound is: great bottom end, mids are pronounced and the shrillness is GONE! No smear anymore! Breathtaking.

My copy of Station to Station is just as wonderful.

I’ve been convinced of “Hot Stamper” recording for quite some time now, thanks to Tom and the BR crew; I’ve found some great recordings after conducting my own modest shoot-outs. Found some real gems. But the best results that I have ever got, and there are only a few, have now been easily matched and outstripped by my first BR purchase!

Rob

Rob,

Thanks for your enthusiastic letter. We’re on the same page. I too get excited when I hear my favorite music sound better than I ever expected it would. (more…)

Our Previous Shootout for Hatari Was 15 (!) Years Ago

Hot Stamper Pressings of Soundtrack Recordings Available Now

It’s 2024 and we’ve just finished a big shootout for the album, our first since 2009.

Here is what the best copy sounded like, amazing in every way.

Here is our listing for a very good sounding copy.

Our Review from 2009

This Super Hot Stamper pressing is one of the BEST COPIES we’ve ever played! Both sides earned very high A Double Plus honors, beating practically all the other copies we played it against. The sound is relaxed, natural, and musical, with an incredibly sweet top end. 

The overall sound is airy, open, spacious, and SUPER transparent. The brass on this copy also sounds just right: breathy with a nice bite, avoiding most of the blarey quality we heard on so many other pressings. (There is a touch of smear on even the best copies; this one is no different.)

The sound is super 3-D. You’re not going to believe all the ambience surrounding this room full of musicians, especially on the drums! We LOVE that sound.

Baby Elephant Walk is of course the track everyone knows, and just wait until you hear how breathy the calliope is here. When the piccolos come in watch out! There is more high frequency information on this album from the woodwinds alone than from all the instruments on 99 out of 100 other records. (A tough tracking test if ever there was one!)

Find this video and play it on hi-fideity speakers if you have any hooked up to your television. The brass are especially powerful here but my computer speakers clearly cannot do them justice.

Letter of the Week – “…this copy blows the sonics of my old press away.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of David Bowie Available Now

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

Hey Tom, 

I’ve been meaning to write to thank you for the magic you and your team create. I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but it is mindblowing to hear the music that comes from even just Hot and Supers. I still haven’t crossed the Rubicon into Whites. 

I have been lucky enough to have vintage pressings passed down to me from family. And while I started hearing the difference as soon as I started cleaning those old presses vs. new “remastered” ones, this small sample from your team is incredible!

Abbey at Hot is incredible! Frankly I admired the album, now it’s one of my favorites! I’m not even a huge Beatles guy, haha (Thanks for that!)

Purple Rain at Super knocked out the vintage and remastered copies that I own.

Zep I is terrific. (Weirdly on my system, “Good Times” is the least mindblowing, but “Dazed” and all of Side 2 is crazy!)

Perhaps the best sounding so far is “Ziggy,” like you said. I own a pristine vintage press passed down and this copy I got from you blows the sonics of my old press away.

Anyway, thanks again! (more…)