Live Albums

Talking Heads – The Name of this Band is Talking Heads

More of the Music of The Talking Heads

  • The band’s 1982 double LP live album is back on the site for the first time in years, here with INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on all FOUR sides
  • These are just a few of the things we had to say about this killer copy in our notes: “vox jumping out of the speakers”…”big and rich and punchy”…”fully extended from top to bottom”…”good space and depth”
  • Stunning sound for one of the best live bands of the era – the sonics are lively, incredibly present, rich and full
  • Byrne’s vocals sound just right and the clarity is excellent – when the music is this immediate and three-dimensional, it takes the enjoyment to a whole new level
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The excitement of this material is palpable, and the muscular band rips into these tunes with more power than the originals in most cases… arguably one of their finest releases.”

We recently had a big shootout for this live double album and were very impressed with how good some of this material can sound, particularly on the first side which was recorded before the band got huge and started playing bigger venues. A lot of copies we played were too thick and compressed to break through the challenges that live recordings face, but this one really nailed it. (more…)

Sarah Vaughan – After Hours on Roulette

More Sarah Vaughan

More Pop and Jazz Vocal Recordings

  • Excellent Double Plus (A++) sound on both sides of this vintage Stereo Roulette pressing puts the living, breathing Divine One right in front of you
  • With simple arrangements, featuring Mundell Lowe’s guitar and George Duvivier’s double bass, Vaughan’s soulful voice can take center stage
  • Problems 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
  • “…a quiet and intimate affair, with Vaughan more subtle than she sometimes was… some fine jazz singing.”
  • If you’re a fan of Sarah’s, or live jazz club recordings in general, this Top Title from 1961 belongs in your collection.

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The Who – Live At Leeds

More of The Who

Records We Only Sell on Import Vinyl

  • A hard-rockin’ copy – this British Track pressing boasts INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) DEMO DISC sound or close to it on both sides
  • The recording is huge and lively with startling dynamics and in-the-room-presence like nothing you’ve heard
  • This is demo disc quality sound by any measure, especially on big speakers at loud levels
  • The vinyl is fairly quiet, but that is rarely a concern when an album has music this loud and powerful
  • Drums so solid, punchy and present they put to shame 99% of the rock records on the planet
  • The sound of the best pressings is raw, real and exceptionally unprocessed
  • Cited as the best live rock recording of all time by The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, the BBC Q magazine, and Rolling Stone. In 2003, it was ranked number 170 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
  • We should have all the papers that come with the album, but please be sure to double check with us, if having all the papers is important to you

Get ready to rock out, as this is one of the BEST SOUNDING live albums ever recorded. “Young Man Blues” on a copy such as this has drums that are so solid, punchy and present they positively put to shame the drum sound on 99 out of 100 rock records! Keith Moon lives on!

The bass is AMAZING on this record. Present vocals and clear guitars in both channels are also key to the best copies.

Most pressings do not get the guitars to jump out of the speakers the way the best can.

Few copies get the highest highs and the lowest lows but this one had it going on from top to bottom.

The seven minute long “Magic Bus” that finishes out the side is The Who at their best.

Rock fans will have a hard time finding a better sounding Who pressing than this one, on either side.

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Donny Hathaway – Donny Hathaway Live

More Donny Hathaway

More Soul, Blues, and R&B

  • Amazing sound for this classic live album, with both sides earning KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Hathaway and his band are on fire here playing for an enthusiastic small club audience – this is the best album the man ever made and a true Must Own
  • It takes us years to run across enough clean copies of this album to do a shootout, so don’t expect to see another one in audiophile playing condition on the site for a while
  • The relatively high price reflects the amount of work it takes us to find clean copies with the right stampers, as well as the frustration we feel when the records that come our way are just too noisy and groove damaged to be enjoyable
  • For those on a budget, buy the plain old Atlantic CD – it’s excellent
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Donny Hathaway’s 1972 Live album is one of the most glorious of his career… Live solidified Hathaway’s importance at the forefront of soul music.”
  • If you’re a Donny Hathaway fan, this is a Must Own Classic from 1972 that belongs in your collection.

This is an absolutely outstanding recording. The better copies capture the feeling of a live club like few recordings you’ve ever heard. The enthusiasm of the crowd, the honest, emotive performances, the superb musicianship — it’s all there on a Shootout Winning Hot Stamper copy like this.

I’ve been playing this record regularly since I first heard it back in the mid-90s. It never gets old. If I could take only one soul album to my desert island, it would be this one, no doubt about it.

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Neil Young – Unplugged

More Neil Young

More Live Recordings of Interest

  • With INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides, this original Reprise import pressing is one of the BEST we have ever heard – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Richer, warmer, more natural, and more relaxed than all others we played – this is what vintage analog is all about, that smooth sound that never calls attention to itself and just lets the music flow
  • Of course the main attributes that set the better copies apart from the also-rans are size, energy, weight, vocal presence and an overall freedom from grit and grain, and we guarantee that this copy will do better in all of these areas than any you have ever heard
  • “The songs [are] wistful, midtempo reflections on stardom, love, and the passage of time. Some were familiar, including ‘Mr. Soul’ and ‘Like a Hurricane,’ and were given new treatments; others were obscure or even previously unrecorded (“Stringman”). But all [are] melodic and inviting, especially the selections from Harvest Moon…”

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Earth, Wind and Fire – Gratitude

More of the Music of Earth, Wind and Fire

More Recordings by George Massenburg

  • Outstanding sound throughout this vintage 2-LP set, with all FOUR sides earning Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER – remarkably quiet vinyl too
  • My personal favorite EWF song of all time is here on side four, “Can’t Hide Love,” and on that same side you can find “Sing a Song,” “Gratitude” and “Celebrate”
  • We guarantee there is dramatically more richness, fullness, vocal presence, and performance energy on this copy than others you’ve heard, and that’s especially true if you made the mistake of buying whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing is currently on the market
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Gratitude brilliantly captures the excitement EWF generated on-stage at its creative peak… Neither hardcore EWF devotees nor more casual listeners should deprive themselves of the joys of the live versions of “Shining Star” and “Yearnin’ Learnin’.”

We Love This Record!

These live tracks are very well recorded. The sound is rich, smooth, sweet, and tonally correct. The soundstage is big, wall to wall as we like to say, and on the best copies the presence of the vocalists puts them right in front of you. You can clearly make out each of the voices in the choruses. What a sound! Nobody does harmonies better than these guys. For audiophiles who like to play their music loud, it’s GLORIOUS!

The great thing about this album is that it allows Earth, Wind & Fire to stretch out and incorporate some funky jazz into their music, like on “Sun Goddess”, a song that they recorded with Ramsey Lewis and which doesn’t appear on any other EW&F album. They do a couple of extended saxophone solos on the live stuff that really take the songs to another level. The band is on fire for practically every track here.

This and The Greatest Hits Volume One get you most of what’s great about the band. Both are Must Owns for anyone who likes Big Production Pop, soulful and otherwise.

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Thelonious Monk – In Person

More of the Music of Thelonious Monk

Hot Stamper Pressings of Jazz Albums Available Now


  • In Person returns to the site with solid Double Plus (A++) sound on all FOUR sides of these vintage Milestone pressings – remarkably quiet vinyl too
  • Unusually rich, full-bodied, lively and present sound which brings out the best in this music
  • Features incomparable jazz greats Donald Byrd and Joe Gordon
  • The 1976 transfers of tape to disc by David Turner are superb in all respects – remastering is not a dirty word when it sounds like this
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The first half of In Person contains the pianist/composer’s famous Town Hall concert of 1959… The second half of this two-fer finds Monk leading a strong sextet with trumpeter Joe Gordon and tenors Rouse and Harold Land live…”

The Riverside pressings we’ve auditioned of both The Thelonious Monk Orchestra – At Town Hall and Thelonious Monk Quartet Plus Two – At The Blackhawk were just awful sounding. The OJC reissues from the ’80s, although better, were not overflowing with the rich, natural, relaxed sound we were looking for either.

Ah, but a few years back we happened to drop the needle on one of these good Milestone Two-Fers. Here was the sound we were looking for and had had so little luck in finding.

Which prompts the question that should be on the mind of every audiophile:

What are the rules for collecting records with the best sound quality?

The answer, of course, is that there are no such rules and never will be.

There is only trial and error. Our full-time staff has been running trials — we call them shootouts and needle drops — for decades, with far more errors than successes. Such is the nature of records. It may be a tautology to note that the average record has mediocre sound, but it nevertheless pays to keep this inconvenient fact in mind.

Even worse, if you make the mistake of pinning your audiophile hopes on a current reissue — and you have reasonably high standards and two working ears — your disappointment is almost guaranteed.

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David Bowie – David Live

More David Bowie

  • A David Live like you’ve never heard, with STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on sides one and four, and excellent Double Plus (A++) sound on sides two and three
  • One of our favorite live recordings – a great overview of Bowie’s career through 1974
  • “1984,” “Rebel Rebel,” “Sweet Thing” and “Rock and Roll With Me” come ALIVE in performance like you have never heard before
  • A-List players of the day deliver sonic treats, including multiple horn players, multiple percussionists, all-male chorus background vocals, the searing fuzzed-out guitar leads of Earl Slick, piano and Mellotron by Mike Garson, and the amazing Herbie Flowers on bass
  • We’ve recently compiled a list of records we think every audiophile should get to know better, along the lines of “the 1001 records you need to hear before you die,” with an accent on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. David Live is a good example of a record audiophiles may not know well but we think might benefit from getting to know better
  • If I were to compile a list of Must Own rock and pop albums from 1974, this album would definitely be on it

When you listen to an outstanding copy of this Bowie classic, you will have no trouble picturing yourself in the audience with a front row center seat. And the great thing about a record like this is that you can be in the front row of this very concert whenever you want!

The other top live album is, of course, Waiting For Columbus, and the two have much in common. Most importantly, the songs played live on both albums are consistently better than their studio versions. (This is especially true on the Little Feat album. Little Feat was not a studio band and their live arrangements — with the Tower of Power horns — just murder the studio ones.)

For us audiophiles, the other reason to own a Hot Copy of David Live or Waiting For Columbus is that the sound is much improved over most of the studio albums in which the material was originally found. Have you ever heard a good sounding “Diamond Dogs”?

But David Live is full of great sounding material from the album. “1984” is much better here than on the original album. “Rebel Rebel,” “Sweet Thing” and “Rock & Roll With Me” also come alive in performance. They rock!

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Gabor Szabo / More Sorcery

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Guitar

Reviews and Commentaries for Gabor Szabo

  • With two incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sides, this original Impulse pressing is close to the BEST we have ever heard, right up there with our Shootout Winner – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • This copy was bigger, richer and clearer, with less smear and distortion, and more Tubey Magic, than practically all others we played
  • Recorded in 1967, this vintage stereo pressing boasts exceptionally natural guitar sound, as well as note-like bass and the kind of energy you rarely get outside of a live performance
  • 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
  • 4 1/2 stars: “In 1967, guitarist Gabor Szabo had his finest working group, a quintet with the very complementary fellow guitarist Jimmy Stewart, bassist Louis Kabok, either Marty Morrell or Bill Goodwin on drums and percussionist Hal Gordon.”

This is a live recording that’s got that small jazz club feel. “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” runs almost ten minutes and gives everybody involved a chance to stretch out. “People” is also exceptionally good here.

It’s hard to find a recording Szabo did that isn’t full of Tubey Magic, huge studio space and right-on-the-money instrumental timbres. This album is right up there with the best of his recordings, courtesy of the two top engineers noted below.

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Tom Waits – Nighthawks At The Diner

More Tom Waits

  • Excellent sound for this Tom Waits classic, with Double Plus (A++) grades on all FOUR sides of these vintage Asylum pressings – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • A superb recording, with much credit due to Waits’ constant collaborator Bones Howe, who produced and engineered
  • It’s a live-in-the-studio romp through Los Angeles with Waits playing the role of tour guide, and the results are wonderful
  • “As entertainment, Nighthawks at the Diner is one of Waits’ most thoroughly enjoyable albums … it’s hard to imagine anyone not being charmed by it.”

At its best, this album has the immediacy and energy of a real live performance, but the typical copy just doesn’t bring it to life. This one is a big step up on all four sides, with the kind of life and clarity we just don’t hear often enough.

This album was recorded live at The Record Plant back in 1975, and while I can’t be certain, it sure seems there are no overdubs or post-performance additions. There’s a touch of hardness to the vocals at times, but it was on every copy we played and it’s obviously on the tape. It’s the kind of sound we hear on Johnny Cash records and it just seems like a by-product of the microphones these guys used. It doesn’t seem to far a reach to imagine that an iconoclast like Waits might prefer an old-timey microphone sound that doesn’t soften or smooth his vocal style. (For those in search of buttery vocals, there’s usually an Al Stewart record or two on the site. This ain’t the one for you.)

We played quite a few copies and while we were absolutely blown away by the better pressings; the typical copies left us cold. When you have a copy that’s veiled and lacks presence, the magic is gone.

I’m not very familiar with the musicians that make up the backing band here, but they are a top-notch crew. The way they interact with Waits as he spins stories, songs, and even a few jokes is in the very best jazz tradition. Waits actually hooked up with the great drummer Shelley Manne to record his next album (the classic Small Change) so this is a man who clearly knows how to pick a band.

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