Classic Records – Rock, Pop, Vocals, etc.

Labels With Shortcomings – Classic Records – Rock, Pop, Vocals, etc.

Song for Beginners Was Remixed and Ruined on Classic Records

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Graham Nash Available Now

I’ve listened to Nash’s first solo outing countless times over the last thirty years, even more than Crosby, Stills and Nash’s first album. As I was listening to the Classic pressing, I recall thinking “Wow, I don’t remember that sound being there; this version is so much better I can hear things I never heard before!”

Well, owners of this album (all five of you) will certainly hear things you never heard before, because some of the tracks on this album have been remixed and some of the instruments re-recorded. How about them apples.

Both the snare and the kick drum on some songs are clearly too “modern” sounding for anything recorded in 1971. For Pete’s sake, they’d be right at home on Nevermind.

Sometimes the vocal tracks are different—probably alternate takes I would think, as Graham obviously can’t sing like he did thirty years ago to even attempt a re-recording.

As you can imagine, remastering a well-known title and creating a new sound for it is a huge bête noire for us here at Better Records. This Classic Records release is like nails on a blackboard to me now.

No doubt the idea was Graham’s but it was a very bad one indeed. (If you can get hold of the original unadulterated CD, I highly recommend it. The sound is excellent.)

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Clap Hands Here Comes Charlie – Classic Records Reviewed

Hot Stamper Pressings of Ella Fitzgerald’s Albums Available Now

There is no reissue, and there will never be a reissue, that will sound as good as a good vintage pressing of Clap Hands.

The Classic Heavy Vinyl Reissue is a disgrace. 

I would rather play the CD.

(20 years ago, when I still had a CD player in my system, the CD was one of my favorites for testing, along with Blue and dozens of other well-recorded vocal albums.) 

Long time customers know that I have been raving about this album from way back in 1990 or so – ever since I first heard it in fact. I consider it the finest female vocal album in the history of the world. I could go on for pages about this music. Suffice to say this is a record that belongs in every human being’s record collection.

Just not the Classic Records pressing of it.

Is it the worst version of the album ever made?

That’s hard to say. But it is the worst sounding version of the album we’ve ever played, and that should be good enough for any audiophile contemplating spending money on this kind of trash. Our advice: don’t do it.

Accurate VTA Using Helplessly Hoping on the Classic LP

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Crosby, Stills and Nash Available Now

This commentary from way back when (2005!) describes how to go about adjusting your VTA for 180 or 200 gram vinyl, using the track Helplessly Hoping from the first album.

Helplessly Hoping is a wonderful song with plenty of energy in the midrange and upper midrange which is difficult to get reproduce. Just today (4/25/05) I was playing around with VTA, having recently installed a new Dynavector DV-20x [a cartridge replaced by the 17d3 soon afterwards and again by the 17dx] on my table, and this song showed me EXACTLY how to get the VTA right.

VTA is all about balance. The reason this song is so good for adjusting VTA is that the guitar at the opening is a little smooth and the harmony vocals that come in after the intro can be a little bright.

Finding the balance between these two elements is key to getting the VTA adjusted properly.

When the arm is too far down in the back, the guitar at the opening will lose its transparency and become dull and thick. Too high in the back and the vocals sound thin and shrill, especially when the boys all really push their harmony. The slightest change in VTA will noticeably affect that balance and allow you to tune it in just right.

To be successful, however, there are also other conditions that need to be met. The system has to be sounding right, which in my world means good electricity, so make sure you do this in the evening or on a weekend when the electricity is better.

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100% No Fun – A Classic Records Disaster

More Bad Sounding Records Audiophiles Should Avoid

UPDATE 2025

I can find no record of the existence of any regular Zoo label pressing. The only ones on Discogs are mastered by Bernie Grundman, on 150 or 180 gram vinyl.

My advice now would be to buy the CD. I own one and it’s great.

Our Zoo label original LP MURDERED the Classic heavy vinyl reissue. It’s not even close.

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Led Zeppelin – A Classic Records LP that Will Beat Most Pressings (!)

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

Considering how bad (or at best mediocre) the average copy of the first Zep album sounds, let’s give credit where credit is due and say that Bernie’s remastered version on Heavy Vinyl is darn good (assuming you get a good one, something of course that neither I nor you should assume).

It’s without a doubt the best of all the Classic Zeppelin titles, most of which we found hurt our delicate ears.

Our Thinking Circa 2010 

[The last time we played a copy.)

We like the Classic, albeit with reservations. It’s without a doubt the best of all the Classic Heavy Vinyl reissues of the Zeppelin catalog, most of which are not very good and some of which are just awful.

Why is this one good? It’s tonally correct for one thing, and the importance of that cannot be stressed too strongly.

Two, it actually ROCKS, something a majority of pressings we’ve played over the years don’t.

Three, it’s shockingly dynamic. It may actually be more dynamic than any other pressing we have ever played.

UPDATE 2023

It might have been back in the day, but it’s highly unlikely we would agree with that assessment in 2023. Much like this record, we had a lot of R&D ahead of us before we could know just how dynamic this recording could be.

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Casino Royale Is Really a Mess on Classic Records Vinyl

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Burt Bacharach Available Now

Casino Royale under the sway of Bernie’s penchant for bright, gritty, sour, ambience-challenged sound? Not a good match. There is no reissue, and there will never be a reissue, that will sound as good as a properly-mastered, properly-pressed, properly-cleaned original.

And I hope it would go without saying that most copies cannot begin to do what a real Hot Stamper original can.

As is often the case, the Classic Heavy Vinyl Reissue is simply a disgrace.

Is it the worst version of the album ever made?

That’s hard to say. But it is the worst sounding version of the album we’ve ever played, and that should be good enough for any audiophile contemplating spending money on this Heavy Vinyl trash. Our advice: don’t do it.

Our Take on Classic Records in 2005

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Who Available Now

Back when we were carrying a select group of Heavy Vinyl pressings in 2005, Who’s Next on Classic Records was one of the ones we recommended.

We felt the Classic Records pressings of this album and the others mentioned below were a good value for those who had thirty bucks to spend on a record.

By 2007 we had already changed our minds about Who’s Next on Classic — and a whole lot more.

The Voice (Isn’t What It Should Be) on Heavy Vinyl

More of the Music of Frank Sinatra

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Frank Sinatra

Sonic Grade: D

An audiophile hall of shame pressing and another Classic Records popular music LP badly remastered for the benefit of audiophiles looking for easy answers and quick fixes.

There is a boatload of TUBEY MAGIC to be heard on the early pressings, no doubt due to the fact that they are mastered with tube equipment, but you would never know it by playing this barely passable Classic repressing.

The difference is night and day.

It’s been quite a while since I played the Classic pressing, but I remember it as nothing special. Like a lot of the records put out by this label, it’s tonally fine but low-rez and lacking space, warmth and above all, Tubey Magic.

I don’t think I’ve ever played an original that didn’t sound better, and that means that the best grade to give Classic’s pressing is probably a D, for below average. It sounds far too much like a CD.

Who can be bothered to play a record that has so few of the qualities we audiophiles are looking for on vinyl?

Back in 2007 we put the question this way: Why own a turntable if you’re going to play mediocrities like these?

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Today’s Heavy Vinyl Disaster from Classic Records… Zep IV

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

A classic case of live and learn

Back in the day I thought the Classic 180 and then 200 gram pressing was the king on this title. In late 2006 I wrote:

“You can hear how much cleaner and more correct the mastering is right away…”

Folks, I must have been out of my mind.

No, that’s not quite fair. I wasn’t out of my mind. I just hadn’t gotten my system to the place where it needed to be to allow the right original pressings to show me how much better they can sound.

Our EAR 324 phono stage and constantly evolving tweaks to both the system and room are entirely responsible for our ability to reproduce this album correctly. If your equipment, cleaning regimen, room treatments and the like are mostly “old school” in any way, getting the album to sound right will be all but impossible. Without the myriad audio advances of the last decade or so you are just plain out of luck with a Nearly Impossible to Reproduce album such as this.

All of the above are courtesy of the phenomenal revolutions in audio that have come about over the last twenty years or so. It’s what progress in audio in all about.

The exact same 200 gram review copy now [this was written about ten years ago] sounds every bit as tonally correct as it used to, and fairly clean too, as described above, but where is the magic?

You can adjust your VTA until you’re blue in the face, nothing will bring this dead-as-a-doornail Classic LP to life.

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Presence – Classic Records Reviewed

More of the Music of Led Zeppelin

More Led Zeppelin on Classic Records Reviewed

Sonic Grade: D

This was one of only three Classic Records 180 gram (later 200 gram) titles that I used to recommend back in the day.

Now when I play the heavy vinyl pressing, I find the subtleties of both the music and the sound that I expect to hear have simply gone missing.

It may be tonally correct, which for a Led Zeppelin pressing on the Classic Records label is unusual in our experience (II and Houses being ridiculously bright), but it, like Physical Graffiti and some others, badly lacks resolution compared to the real thing, the real thing being a run-of-the-mill early pressing.

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