45 RPM Pressings

Record collecting for audiophiles – 45 RPM Pressings

Laurindo Almeida – Virtuoso Guitar

More of the Music of Laurindo Almeida

  • A killer copy of this 45 RPM direct to disc recording featuring Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on both sides – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Some of the tubiest, warmest acoustic guitar sound you could ask for from a “modern” record – this is the sound of analog done right
  • It has the kind of sound we prefer, with none of the razor sharpness that you get on some direct to disc recordings
  • One of the best Almeida albums we know of and probably the best Crystal Clear title (which we know isn’t saying much)

Volume Is Key

This recording has very little processing or EQ boost, and the studio is somewhat dead sounding (all too common in the late 70s). That combination can mean only one thing: If you don’t play this record loud enough, it will not sound right.

The famous Sheffield S9 is exactly the same way. It sounds dead and dull until you turn it up. When you do, lookout — it really comes alive.

The best pressings can sound shockingly like live music, something one just does not hear all that often, even when one plays records all day long as we do.

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The Three / Self-Titled (45 RPM)

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Piano

  • Amazing sound throughout this Japanese import pressing, with both sides earning KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them
  • The transients are uncannily lifelike – listen for the powerful kinetic energy produced when Shelly whacks the hell out of his cymbals
  • My favorite piano trio jazz album of all time — every one of the tracks is brilliantly arranged and performed
  • 4 stars: “One of Joe Sample’s finest sessions as a leader” – with Shelly Manne and Ray Brown, we would say it’s clearly his finest session, as a leader or simply as the piano player in a killer trio
  • Some of the other records we’ve discovered with top jazz piano sound can be found here
  • More amazing sounding piano recordings, of every kind of music, can be found here

If you want to hear the full six tunes recorded by The Three at that famous Hollywood session (which ran all day and long into the night, 4 AM to be exact), our 33 RPM pressings are your best bet.

If you want absolutely amazing, mind-blowing, you-are-there sound, a Hot Stamper 45 is the only way to go.

The music is so good that I personally would not want to live without the complete album. The Three is, in fact, my favorite piano trio jazz album of all time. Very one of those six tracks is brilliantly arranged and performed (if you have the right takes of course; more about that later).

This album checks off a number of important boxes for us here at Better Records:

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Ed Graham – Hot Stix (45 RPM)

More Direct to Disc Recordings

More Percussion Recordings of Interest

  • Hot Stix appears on the site for only the second time ever, here with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER throughout this original M&K RealTime direct to disc pressing
  • Side one was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be amazed at how big and rich and tubey the sound is
  • Both of these West German-pressed sides were more spacious, natural, and transparent than most of the others we played
  • This copy is full-bodied and lively, with solid weight down low, as well as excellent clarity all around – it raises the bar for this kind percussion-based, free improv jazz on vinyl

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Beethoven / ‘Appassionata’ – Kamiya

More of the music of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

More Direct-to-Disc Recordings

  • This rare and wonderful TAS-approved Japanese import LP boasts INSANELY GOOD Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) Demo Disc sound on both sides
  • You will have a hard time finding a better recording of the piano than this – it’s one of the all time great Direct-to-Discs
  • It’s simply bigger, more transparent, less distorted, more three-dimensional and more REAL than all of what we played
  • A famous resident of the TAS list, this album offers excellent music, performed with feeling, and recorded properly, the best of all possible worlds for us audiophiles
  • A friend of ours tells me that Kamiya plays this piece exactly the way Horowitz did, and that’s probably a good thing – good luck finding a Horowitz recording that sounds like this

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The L.A. 4 – Pavane Pour Une Infante Défunte (45 RPM)

More L.A. 4

More Audiophile Records

  • This 45 RPM Japanese import copy is one of the BEST we have ever heard, with both sides earning KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Lee Herschberg recorded these sessions direct to disc – he’s the guy behind the most amazing piano trio recording I have ever heard, a little album called The Three
  • Transparency; absolute freedom from smear and distortion; clarity; presence; frequency extension high and low; correct tonality – everything you want in an audiophile recording is here!
  • This 45 RPM version is shorter than the original album, with five of the original’s seven tracks
  • And it sounded better than any of the Direct to Disc pressings we had on hand, which is exactly what happened when they mastered The Three at 45 RPM from the backup tapes – pretty wild, don’t you think?

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Beethoven – Piano Sonata No. 23 (“Appassionata”) / Kamiya – (45 RPM)

More of the music of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

More TAS List Super Discs

  • This rare TAS-approved Japanese import LP boasts INSANELY GOOD Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) DEMO DISC sound on both sides
  • You will have a hard time finding a better recording of the piano than this – it’s one of the all time great Direct-to-Discs
  • It’s simply bigger, more transparent, less distorted, more three-dimensional and more REAL than all of the other copies we played
  • All of which adds up to a top quality piano recording in every way
  • A famous resident of the TAS list, this album offers excellent music, performed with feeling, and recorded properly, the best of all possible worlds for us audiophiles
  • A friend of ours tells me that Kamiya plays this piece exactly the way Horowitz did, and that’s probably a good thing – good luck finding a Horowitz recording that sounds like this!

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Prokofiev / Lt. Kije (45 RPM)

More of the music of Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)

More Orchestral Spectacular Recordings

  • With INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on both sides, this Japanese import copy is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other recording of Lt. Kije you’ve heard – and it plays as quietly as any copy ever will (and far better than most)
  • This wonderful LP boasts our favorite performance for this popular 20th century work
  • Big, clear, present and transparent, with a HUGE bottom end, you better believe that this is some Demo Disc sound
  • When the brass is the way it is here – rich and clear, not thin and shrill – you have yourself a top quality DG pressing
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you

*NOTE: There is a mark that plays 18 times (10 moderate, 8 light) at the start of side 1. There is also a mark that plays 7 times at a moderate level at the end of side 2.

This Japanese 45 RPM remastering of our favorite recording of Prokofiev’s wonderful Lt. Kije Suite has DEMONSTRATION QUALITY SOUND. For starters, there are very few records with dynamics comparable to these. Since this is my favorite performance of all time, I can’t recommend the record any more highly.

Once the needle has dropped you will quickly forget about the sound and simply find yourself in the presence of some of the greatest musicians of their generation captured on some of the greatest analog recordings of all time.

This pressing fulfills the promise of the 45 RPM cutting speed so much in vogue these days. We had a pile of these 45s to play through. When we came upon this one halfway through our shootout, it was so big, so clear, so dynamic, so energetic, so extended on the top and bottom, we almost could not believe what we were hearing, especially compared to the others copies we played. There are very few records with dynamics that can compare with these.

The bass drum (drums?) here must be heard to be believed. We know of no Golden Age recording with as believable a presentation of the instrument as this. The drum is clearly and precisely located at the back of the stage. Even better, it’s as huge and powerful and room-filling as it would have been had you attended the session yourself. That’s our idea of hi-fidelity here at Better Records! Since this is my favorite performance of all time, I can’t recommend the record any more highly.

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Jacques Loussier / Jacques Loussier Plays J.S. Bach Encore

This is a Japanese 45 RPM Audiocheck Pressing with DEMO DISC quality sound! This is absolutely one of the best sounding jazz records we have ever played here at Better Records!

For those of you who are not familiar with the Audiocheck 45 RPM series from Japan, these are albums remastered at 45 with some material left off by necessity, since the maximum for each side is closer to 12 minutes than the standard LP limit of 20 minutes.

These don’t come my way very often, so I hadn’t played one in quite awhile, but I have to tell you that this is one of the best sounding jazz records I’ve played in months. It sounds like a Direct to Disc recording! I knew the original albums that Jacques Loussier recorded for Philips had good sound but I never realized they had this kind of Demo Disc quality sound. (He also made a number of recordings for London previous to this one and most of those are mediocre in my estimation.) 

The music is lots of fun: Bach played in a jazzy style by a band that really swings. For music and sonics this record is an audiophile dream come true.

This is an Older Jazz 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.

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Stockhausen / Noda – Zyklus & Eclogue on Direct to Disc (Reviewed in 2011)

More Direct-to-Disc Recordings

Reviews and Commentaries for Direct to Disc Recordings


This RCA 45 RPM Direct-to-Disc fulfills the promise of both the direct to disc recording medium AND the 45 RPM cutting speed so much in vogue these days. As with the Virtuoso Guitar record we listed today, the sound is simply SUPERB — open, dynamic and distortion free.

This is a real DEMO DISC, no doubt about it.

I’ve known this record had top quality sound for decades; we started way back in 1987 selling these kinds of audiophile pressings and this one was clearly a Top Title even back then. I’m happy to say that, unlike most of the audiophile pressings we used to sell, this title has actually gotten BETTER with time.  (more…)