Direct-to-Disc Recordings – Reviews and Commentaries

Further discussion of various direct-to-disc recordings we’ve played.

Who in His Right Mind Thinks The Sheffield Track Record Is a Super Disc?

Hot Stamper Pressings of Direct-to-Disc Recordings Available Now

Subtitled: Rock Instrumental Tracks For Audio Component Testing and Evaluation.

Harry Pearson calls this absolutely the best sounding rock record ever made.

If you don’t know anything about rock music, this is the kind of rock music you like.

Harry seems to have known very little about rock. Just check out the TAS List while he was still in charge and see how many real rock albums could be found there back in the day. He mistook these lame instrumentals for actual music with good sound, yet they have neither good sound, nor are they good music.

We cannot agree with HP as to the recording quality of the album either. The sound is surprisingly compressed, and the music is every bit as lifeless as the sound.

Some of the audiophile records I’ve played since I started Better Records in 1987 pissed me off so badly, what with their crappy sound and sometimes even crappier music, as is the case here, I felt they deserved to have their very own special audiophile sh*t list.

Now that I have a blog with unlimited amounts of space to review and categorize the awful records some audiophiles like, that is exactly where this hopeless release can be found.

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Lincoln Mayorga Volume 1 and Obvious Pressing Variations

Hot Stamper Pressings of Direct-to-Disc Recordings Available Now

After doing our first shootout many years ago for the record that single-handedly introduced the audiophile community to Direct to Disc recording, Lincoln Mayorga and Distinguished Colleagues, Volume One, I have to confess I was taken aback by the significant pressing variations we heard among the copies we played, 

These LPs are all over the map sonically.

Some Sheffield pressings are aggressive, many of them are dull and lack the spark of live music, some of them have wonky bass or are lacking in the lowest octave — they are prey to every fault that befalls other pressings, direct to disc and otherwise.

Which should not be too surprising. Records are records. Pressing variations exist for every album ever made. If you haven’t noticed that yet, start playing multiple copies of the same album while listening carefully and critically. If your stereo is any good at all, it should not take you long to notice how different one record sounds from another in practically every case.

Biggest problems on S9?

I would have to say smear is Number One.

When the brass loses its bite and the bells don’t have the percussive quality of metal being struck, this is not a good thing. The band also seems to lose energy when the pressing suffers from smear.

Number Two would be a lack of top end extension.

The harmonics of the sax and trumpet are muted on some copies, and the harpsichord really suffers when the top end isn’t all there. This lack of extension is most noticeable on all the lovely bells and percussion instruments that pepper the soundstage, but you can actually hear it on practically every instrument once you recognize the problem. It’s there on guitar harmonics, cymbals and snares, and on down the list.

Linked here are other records that are good for testing these same shortcomings:

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Side One Is Actually In Phase (Usually) and You Read It Here First (Probably)

Hot Stamper Pressings of Direct-to-Disc Recordings Available Now

This is a well recorded jazz album that should be able to find a home in any audiophile’s jazz collection.

It is also one of the pressings we’ve discovered with reversed polarity

According to the liner notes, this Dave Grusin album has reversed absolute phase. They tell you to switch the positive and negative at the speaker for the best transient response and spatial clarity. But get this: most side ones are NOT in reversed phase.

That out of phase quality is as plain as the nose on your face when you know what to listen for.

There’s an unpleasant hardness and hollowness to the midrange, a lack of depth, and an off-putting opaque quality to the overall sound.

With our EAR 324p phono stage, the click of a button reverses phase, also known as polarity. I can’t tell you how handy it is to have such a tool at your disposal. Checking the phase for Discovered Again couldn’t have been easier.

An Amazing Discovery

But get this: most side ones are NOT reversed phase. (All the side twos we played were however.) How about them apples! We could not have been more shocked. Here is the most famous out of phase audiophile recording in the history of the world, and it turns out most copies are not out of phase at all!

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Letter of the Week – “I have many killer jazz records but this might be the best recorded of all of them.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of Jazz Piano Recordings Available Now

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

Hey Tom, 

Just received the White Hot Stamper copy of “The Three” 45 rpm with Joe Sample, Ray Brown and Shelly Manne.

I have many killer jazz records but this might be the best recorded of all of them.

This is not a record for anyone who doesn’t have world class equipment because the dynamics and transients on the record will be too much for anything less than a very top tier system!

Amazing sound!!!

Brad

Agreed! It’s so good it’s my favorite jazz piano trio recording of all time!

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Swing Sessions – Recorded in a Real Concert Hall (Thank Goodness)

More Direct-to-Disc Recordings

Reviews and Commentaries for Direct to Disc Recordings

If you’re a fan of clarinet-led swing jazz, you’ll have a hard time finding a better record than this. The music is absolutely wonderful. Not only that, but it has DEMO DISC sound as well.

The Liner Notes

Direct-to-Disc Recording recorded live at Iruma City Auditorium, Saitama, Japan on April 21, 1978. Eiji Kitamura and His Allstars include Eiji on clarinet, Ichiro Masuda on vibraphone, Yoshitaka Akimitsu on piano, Yukio Ikezawa on bass, Hiroshi Sunaga on drums and Judy Anton provides vocals on “What a Little Moonlight Can Do.”

This album was recorded by the Direct-to-Disc recording method, to capture the natural reverberation of the 1,200 seat concert hall. Various kinds of recording equipment were brought in parts to the backstage of the hall for the recording then reassembled and adjusted. Two whole days were spent adjusting all the equipment. (more…)

Thoughts on a Direct to Disc Recording, Its Strengths and Weaknesses

Hot Stamper Pressings of Direct-to-Disc Recordings Available Now

Reviews and Commentaries for Direct to Disc Recordings

In a shootout we conducted more than ten years ago, two White Hot Stamper pressings tied for the best side two we had ever heard.

In the final round it simply came down to the fact that the other copy was a little more clear, this one is a little richer.

They were both so amazing we couldn’t decide which we preferred so we gave them both White Hot Stamper grades.

In our experience this rarely happens.

Most of the time one side of one of the records in the shootout will show itself to be the clear winner, doing everything — or almost everything; there is no such thing as a perfect record — right.

When you play enough copies, eventually you run into the one that shows you how the music wants to be heard, what kind of sound seems to work for it the best. The two side twos we liked were variations, and fairly subtle ones at that, on a theme — a little richer here, a little clearer there, but both so good.

To be honest, most copies of this title were quite good. Few didn’t do most things at least well enough to earn a Hot Stamper grade. This has not been the case with many of the Sheffield pressings we’ve done shootouts for in the past. Often the weaker copies have little going for them. They don’t even sound like Direct Discs.

Some copies lack energy, some lack presence, most suffer from some amount of smear on the transients.

But wait a minute. This is a direct disc. How can it be compressed, or lack transients? Aren’t those tape recorder problems that are supposed to be eliminated by the direct to disc process?

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The King James Version – What to Listen For

Hot Stamper Pressings of Large Group Jazz Recordings Available Now

More of Our Favorite Jazz Test Discs

Unlike most Direct to Disc recordings, this album actually contains real music worth listening to — but only when the pressing lets the energy of the musicians through, with actual fidelity to the sounds of the real instruments. Brass without bite is boring. Drummers who are too delicate in their drumming will put you to sleep.

Many copies of this album will do exactly that, which is a real shame. During our shootout, the more we played the good copies, the more we appreciated the music these guys were making. They were swinging, a big group of top quality players totally in the groove. When it’s played well, and the sound is as good as it is here, there’s nothing boring about these Big Band Jazz Classics. The music works. It swings. If you like the kind of big band recordings Basie made — and who doesn’t — you will find much to like here.

What to Listen For

No matter what copy you have, when you play it notice how the brass in the center of the soundfiield sounds so different from the brass on either side, where, obviously, closer mics allow their solos to be picked up and mixed more easily. There are lovely trumpet solos in the left channel and a baritone sax solo in the right that have amazingly realistic fidelity. Close your eyes and those instruments are RIGHT THERE.

One thing Sheffield got right is tonally-correct, hi-fidelity brass in a real acoustic space. (The latter is where For Duke fails so miserably, although no one ever seems to notice or bother to write about it. To me that dead acoustic is like fingernails on a blackboard, completely inappropriate to the sound.)

What to Watch Out For

As a rule two areas are especially lacking: there is a noticeable lack of presence on most copies, causing the brass to get stuck in the speakers and lose its bite; and, every bit as bad, the sound is often just plain compressed, lacking energy and life.

The musicians on most copies are just not giving it their all.

But wait a minute. This is a direct disc. How can it be compressed, or lack transients? Aren’t those tape recorder problems that are supposed to be eliminated by the direct to disc process? Maybe so, but there is some very strong evidence to the contrary, and this record is that evidence.

Even though the mastering is fixed at the live event, there are many other variables which no doubt affect the sound. The album is pressed in three different countries: the United States, Japan and Germany. Many mothers were pulled from the acetates and many, many stampers made from those mothers.

Bottom line? You got to play ’em, just like any other pressing. If no two records sound the same, it follows that no two audiophile records sound the same, a fact that became abundantly clear very early on in the listening.

Of course, not many audiophiles are in a position to shootout multiple copies of The King James Version, and I’m not sure most would even want to.

Here at Better Records we have a whole system set up to do exactly that, so we waited until we had a pile of them, got them all cleaned up, and off to the races we went.

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Bad Direct to Disc Music and Sound from 1979

Hot Stamper Pressings of Direct-to-Disc Recordings Available Now

Sonic Grade: F

An awful Direct to Disc recording. This is the kind of crap we audiophiles used to put up with back in the ’70s before we had much of a clue. Clearly, a record like this belongs on our very long list — 279 as of 2023 and getting longer all the time — of Bad Audiophile Records.

The Big Picture from a Lifelong Audiophile

You may have seen this text in another listing, but it bears repeating.

There is nothing new under the sun, and that is especially true when it comes to bad sounding audiophile records. The world is full of them.

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Fatha – Now That’s a Dynamic Piano

More Direct to Disc Recordings

Reviews and Commentaries for Direct to Disc Recordings

This review is from 2012, the first time we did a shootout (two copies!) for the album.

Of course, no shootout we would do these days would involve only two copies of an album. If we were to scold ourselves today for this silly exercise from back in 2012, it would look something like this: 

We encourage any audiophile who wants to improve the quality of his record collection to do some shootouts for himself. Freeing up an afternoon to sit down with a pile of cleaned copies of a favorite LP (you won’t make it through any other kind) and play them one after another is by far the best way to learn about records and pressing variations. Doing your own shootout will also help you see just how much work it is.

They are a great deal of work if you do them right. If you have just a few pressings on hand and don’t bother to clean them rigorously, that kind of shootout anyone can do. We would not consider that a real shootout. (Art Dudley illustrates this approach, but you could pick any reviewer you like — none of them have ever undertaken a shootout worthy of the name to our knowledge.)

With only a few records to play you probably won’t learn much of value and, worse, you are unlikely to find a top copy, although you may be tempted to convince yourself that you have. As Richard Feynman so famously remarked, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool.”

Our 2012 Review for the Winner

This M&K Direct to Disc SMOKED the copy we played it against — the difference was NIGHT and DAY! The sound is smoother, sweeter, and richer than we are used to hearing for this album. There’s lots of space around the drums, and the tuba sounds awesome.

You aren’t going to believe how DYNAMIC this copy is — when Fatha’s really pounding on the keys, you’re gonna jump out of your chair. The overall sound is clean, clear, lively, and super transparent.

The edgy, hard piano sound that plagued our lesser copy is nowhere to be found.

This is especially good jazz piano music; Earl Hines plays up a storm on this album. The opening track, Birdland, with just a high hat, a tuba and Fatha on piano is worth the price of the disc alone.

Piano Testing

Lately we have been writing quite a bit about how pianos are good for testing your system, room, tweaks, electricity and all the rest, not to mention turntable setup and adjustment.

  • We like our pianos to sound natural (however one chooses to define the term).
  • We like them to be solidly weighted.
  • We like them to be free of smear, a quality that is rarely mentioned in the audiophile record reviews we read.

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Lincoln Mayorga Volume 3 – Listen for Strained and Blary Brass

Hot Stamper Pressings of Direct-to-Disc Recordings Available Now

Most copies of this album are slightly thin and slightly bright.

They give the impression of being clear and clean, but some of the louder brass passages start to get strained and blary, or glary if you like.

The good copies are rich and full.  The sound is balanced from top to bottom.

The sound is smooth, which allows you to play the album all the way through at good loud levels without fatigue.

On the best pressings, the trumpets, trombones, tubas, tambourines, and drums all have the true tonality and the vibrancy of the real thing. The reason this record was such a big hit in its day is because the recording engineers were able to capture that sound better than anybody else around [not really, but that’s what it seemed like at the time].

That’s also the reason this is a Must Own record today — the sound and the music hold up.

Just listen to that amazing brass choir on Oh Lord, I’m On My Way. It just doesn’t get any better than that. If ever there was a Demo Disc for Brass, this is one!

I used to think the Tower label copies were not as good — that the later pressings were pressed better. Now I know that it doesn’t matter what era the pressing is from: the tonal balance is the key to the best sound.

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