Warner Brothers German Import LP. This is the only vinyl version of this album from 1991. As I recall the sound is pretty good.
This is a QUIET Reprise Tan Label LP with a good side one and a GREAT side two. It’s not the best copy we’ve ever heard but it’s a step up from most of what’s out there. Side two is very natural and incredibly clean. The presence is wonderful, the top end is sweet, and the transparency is top-notch. Side one is similar but a bit smooth for our tastes.
We’re big Ry Cooder fans here at Better Records, and this is one of our favorites. Make sure to check out the lovely reading of Dark End Of The Street that opens side two. (more…)
With the amazing I Wanna Be Loved, one of the 10 best Elvis Costello songs of all time! (more…)
This very nice looking Epic Demo LP sounds about as good as you could hope for from this famously compromised recording. Some tracks sound great and others don’t. It’s not a Demo Disc by any stretch but I can’t imagine it sounding much better than it does here; it’s tonally correct from top to bottom.
Almost any remastering engineer is going to want to brighten this up, but believe me that will ruin it and turn it into the dry, grainy, transistory crap that labels like Sundazed and Get Back like to put out.
The music is wonderful, of course, earning 5 big stars in the All Music Guide.
You just don’t see too many clean copies of this one around. DJs and the like tend to snap them up as soon as they hit the bins. What’s a good party without a little Family Affair?
This Bizarre Blue Label LP plays about as quietly as they ever do. Zappa in this period provides a musical wild ride on record like no other artist of his day. For those of you who appreciate his music this album is guaranteed to provide plenty of entertainment and will surely reward repeated plays. I listened to it hundreds of times in my high school days; to this day it holds a special place in my collection.
Like many Zappa records from the period, especially the two releases that immediately preceded this one, Weasils and Burnt Weeny, the sound is all over the place. The most you can hope for is that the best sounding tracks sound right, and here they definitely do. Play Twenty Small Cigars on side one, or The Clap on side two to hear that there is good sound on both sides. (more…)
Ramsey Lewis meets Earth Wind and Fire.
This Original CBS pressing has much better sound than the reissues I’ve heard. This is a bright recording and it’s supposed to sound that way, just like EWF’s recordings. The music is full of energy and lots of fun. This isn’t real jazz; it’s pop jazz. It’s produced by Maurice White and it even has Phillip Bailey on vocals.
You can’t get much more Earth, Wind and Firey than that! (more…)
EXCELLENT MUSIC AND SURPRISINGLY GOOD SOUND! We picked up this Epic Yellow Label Promo LP just for fun because someone here remembered liking this album back in the day. When we cleaned it up and dropped the needle on it, we couldn’t believe how CORRECT it sounded. It’s not going to ever make anyone’s SuperDisc list, but if you dig funky, energetic, soul music from the late ’60s, you can’t do much better than this record. It’s right up there with Sly’s next two albums, Stand! and There’s A Riot Goin’ On.
The sound is lively with wonderful presence. You can really hear the room around the handclaps and lots of ambience around the voices. The bottom end is tight and punchy — just what the doctor ordered for this kind of music. The electric guitars have a great, meaty texture that takes a song like Dynamite to new heights. There’s just a bit of congestion in the craziest parts of the songs, but overall there’s surprisingly low distortion here. The top end could use just a bit more extension, so add a click of treble to make the sound even better. (more…)
This RCA Living Stereo LP is as TUBEY MAGICAL as it gets. It seems as though Bill Porter just doesn’t know how to not make a Living Stereo record with shockingly good sound. Practically anything the guy touches is GOLD!
Need a refresher course in Tubey Magic after playing too many modern recordings or remasterings? These records are overflowing with it. Rich, smooth, sweet, full of ambience, dead-on correct tonality — everything that we listen for in a great record is here.
I suppose we owe a debt of gratitude to Harry Pearson for pointing out to us through his TAS Super Disc List some of the other amazing sounding Chet Atkins records, although I’m pretty sure anybody playing this album would have no trouble telling after a minute or two that this recording, especially on this copy, is very special indeed. I would rank it right at the top with the best Bill Porter / Chet Atkins records we have ever heard.
The All Music Guide gives Mister Guitar 4 1/2 Stars! They rate no Chet Atkins record higher by the way. (The User Rating is even better, Five Stars.)
What to Listen For (WTLF)
Note how the record has that Bill Porter extra dB or two of bottom end — his signature sound.
There is a misprint on the cover. The last track on side two is listed as Concerto In C Minor (Rachmaninoff) but the song on the record is actually Piano Concerto In B Flat Minor (Tchaikovsky).
This RCA Living Stereo LP has an A+ to A++ side two. The sound is three-dimensional and transparent, but could use a bit more top. This album tends to have a bit of variation from track to track, but this one gets more right than most.
Side one, unfortunately, is not quite up to Hot Stamper status. (more…)
Very nice fairly original Vanguard LP with EXCELLENT SOUND.
These early Black Label Vanguard pressings are actually better in some ways than the 180 gram reissue, as good as that one is. Of course, they all vary in their sound. But listen especially to tracks two and six on the first side to hear a more natural sounding Joan.
Side two normally lacks top end and sounds dull on most of the copies I have heard. This copy is actually quite good — not perfect but a lot closer to the mark than others. Listen to the second track to hear Joan at her best. Her voice is breathy and sweet, exactly the way it should be.
This is an Older Review.
Most of the older reviews you see are for records that did not go through the shootout process, the revolutionary approach to finding better sounding pressings we developed in the early 2000s and have since turned into a fine art.
We found the records you see in these older listings by cleaning and playing a pressing or two of the album, which we then described and priced based on how good the sound and surfaces were. (For out Hot Stamper listings, the Sonic Grades and Vinyl Playgrades are listed separately.)
We were often wrong back in those days, something we have no reason to hide. Audio equipment and record cleaning technologies have come a long way since those darker days, a subject we discuss here.
Currently, 99% (or more!) of the records we sell are cleaned, then auditioned under rigorously controlled conditions, up against a number of other pressings. We award them sonic grades, and then condition check them for surface noise.
As you may imagine, this approach requires a great deal of time, effort and skill, which is why we currently have a highly trained staff of about ten. No individual or business without the aid of such a committed group could possibly dig as deep into the sound of records as we have, and it is unlikely that anyone besides us could ever come along to do the kind of work we do.
The term “Hot Stampers” gets thrown around a lot these days, but to us it means only one thing: a record that has been through the shootout process and found to be of exceptionally high quality.
The result of our labor is the hundreds of titles seen here, every one of which is unique and guaranteed to be the best sounding copy of the album you have ever heard or you get your money back.