Noisy – often

Here are the roughly two hundred titles that have turned out to be the most difficult to find with top quality sound and acceptable surfaces.

They are most likely to sound their best on a properly set up, very high quality front end sporting an exceptionally quiet cartridge which has been dialed in to a “T.”

George Harrison – All Things Must Pass

More of the Music of The Beatles

  • This early British box set of All Things Must Pass with the reissued (but still original looking) box boasts stunning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades or close to them on all SIX sides – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • If you’ve struggled with domestic pressings and later imports or Heavy Vinyl reissues, your troubles are over – here is the sound you were looking for
  • This is a tough record to play, but if you devoted plenty of time and money into your system, and you have big dynamic speakers and the power to drive them to fairly loud levels, you are really in for a treat with this set
  • 5 stars: “Without a doubt, Harrison’s first solo recording is his best. Drawing on his backlog of unused compositions from the late Beatles era, Harrison crafted material that managed the rare feat of conveying spiritual mysticism without sacrificing his gifts for melody and grand, sweeping arrangements.”
  • This is clearly George Harrison’s best sounding album. Roughly 150 other listings for the best sounding album by an artist can be found here.
  • This is a Must Own title from 1970, an exceptionally good year for rock and pop music
  • Ken Scott used a great deal of tube compression in the mixing and mastering of the album, which of course makes the sound exceptionally Tubey Magical. No modern reissue we’ve ever played has been able to capture that sound
  • The flip side is that it is also one of the most difficult to reproduce, requiring the highest quality, most transparent, least distorted, most highly-tweaked equipment in order to cut through the layers and layers of sound

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The Kinks – Something Else

More of the Music of The Kinks

  • Boasting very good Hot Stamper grades from top to bottom, this original Tri-Color Steamboat label copy will be hard to beat
  • We guarantee there is more space, richness, presence, and performance energy on this copy than others you’ve heard or you get your money back – it’s as simple as that
  • Drop the needle on “No Return” for wonderful sound and music – it’s got a bit of a Jobim vibe
  • 5 stars: “Part of the album’s power lies in its calm music, since it provides an elegant support for [Ray] Davies’s character portraits and vignettes. From the martial stomp of ‘David Watts’ to the lovely, shimmering ‘Waterloo Sunset,’ there’s not a weak song on the record, and several — such as the allegorical ‘Two Sisters,’ the Noël Coward-esque ‘End of the Season,’ the rolling ‘Lazy Old Sun,’ and the wry ‘Situation Vacant’ — are stunners.”
  • It’s hard to conceive of any list of the best rock and pop albums of 1967 that would not have this record on it

I don’t think you’ll be able to find a better sounding Kinks record without going through a bunch of different copies — and they don’t come cheap, no matter where you shop.

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Joni Mitchell – Blue

More of the Music of Joni Mitchell

  • Boasting two solid Double Plus (A++) sides, this copy of Joni’s 1971 masterpiece is doing just about everything right – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Full-bodied and balanced with the kind of smooth musicality that’s not always easy to find for Blue
  • We lucked into this quiet copy during our most recent shootout, but in our experience that is something we would not expect to happen very often, but we’re glad it did in the case of this wonderful pressing
  • A Better Records Top 100 title that belongs in any audiophile music collection worthy of the name
  • 5 stars: “Sad, spare, and beautiful, Blue is the quintessential confessional singer/songwriter album. Forthright and poetic, Joni Mitchell’s songs are raw nerves, tales of love and loss (two words with relative meaning here) etched with stunning complexity…”
  • Everything changed for us in 2007 with the release of the Hoffman/Gray-mastered Rhino pressing of Blue, a record that made us ask ourselves, “Why are we selling records that we would not want to own or listen to ourselves?”
  • It was truly a kicked-by-a-mule moment for all of us here at Better Records, and I am glad to say one kick was all it took to get the rocks out of my head

The best copies bring out the breathy quality to Joni’s voice, and she never sounds strained. They are sweet and open, with good bass foundation and transparency throughout the frequency range.

The best pressings (and our better playback equipment) have revealed nuances to this recording — and of course the performances of all the players along with it — that made us fall in love with the music all over again. Of all the tough nuts to crack, this was the toughest, yet somehow copies emerged from our shootouts that made it easy to appreciate the sonic merits of Blue and ignore its shortcomings.

Hot Stampers have a way of doing that. You forget it’s a record; it’s now just Music. The right record and the right playback will bring this music to life in a way that you cannot imagine until you hear it. That is our guarantee on Blue — better than you ever thought possible or your money back.

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Neil Young – Harvest

More of the Music of Neil Young

  • This vintage Reprise pressing was giving us the sound we were looking for on Neil’s undeniable classic, with both sides earning stunning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • It’s practically impossible to find an early pressing with sound this good and vinyl that plays as quietly as this
  • Marks in the vinyl are another matter, though – those on “Out on the Weekend” are especially bad but if you can tough those out, this copy is going to blow your mind
  • A Top 100 album and a sublime recording no audiophile should be without
  • 4 1/2 stars: “…the love songs and the harrowing portrait of a friend’s descent into heroin addiction, ‘The Needle and the Damage Done,’ remain among Young’s most affecting and memorable songs.”
  • If you’re a Neil Young fan, and what audiophile wouldn’t be?, this title from 1972 is clearly a Must Own

When you have this kind of open, extended top end, the grit, grain and edge just disappear, leaving you with a clear, Tubey Magical sound that’s way beyond anything you have ever heard for Harvest (or we will happily give you your money back).

Tubey Magical acoustic guitar reproduction is superb on the better copies of this recording. Simply phenomenal amounts of Tubey Magic can be heard on every strum, along with richness, body and harmonic coherency that have all but disappeared from modern recordings (and especially from modern remasterings).

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Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin IV

More of the Music of Led Zeppelin

  • A Zep IV that was doing just about everything right, earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides
  • Insane rock and roll energy like nothing you have ever heard – the sound is full-bodied and reasonably smooth, making it possible to get the volume up good and high where it belongs
  • Here are the rock and roll classics that reign supreme to this very day – “Black Dog,” “Rock & Roll,” “Stairway to Heaven,” “When the Levee Breaks,” every one sounding better than you’ve ever heard them or your money back
  • There are some bad marks (as is sometimes the nature of the beast with these Classic Rock records) on “Rock and Roll,” but once you hear just how excellent sounding this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting ticks and just be swept away by the music
  • 5 stars: “Encompassing heavy metal, folk, pure rock & roll, and blues, Led Zeppelin’s untitled fourth album is a monolithic record, defining not only Led Zeppelin but the sound and style of 70s hard rock.”
  • If you’re a fan of the band, this title from 1971 is clearly one of their best, and one of their best sounding
  • The complete list of titles from 1971 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

It is a positive THRILL to hear this record rock the way it was meant to. If you have big speakers and the power to drive them, your neighbors are going to be very upset with you when you play this copy at the listening levels it was meant to be heard at.

You’d better be ready to rock, because this copy has the ENERGY and WHOMP that will make you want to. Zep IV demands loud levels, but practically any copy will punish you mercilessly if you try to play it at anything even approaching live levels.

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Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto – Getz-Gilberto #2

More Bossa Nova

  • With solid Double Plus (A++) live jazz sound throughout, this copy is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other Getz – Gilberto #2 you’ve heard
  • This vintage stereo pressing is one of only a handful to make it to the site in over three years – boy, are these hard to find in this kind of clean condition with good quality sonics
  • The music is so good that most of the early Van Gelder-mastered pressings were played to death
  • Fortunately a few survived the record players of their day – here is one of that will put any other pressing of the album you’ve heard to shame
  • Rich, tubey and musical, the sound is wonderful for these live performances of the two very different groups – one side features Getz, the other side Gilberto
  • 4 stars: “Getz/Gilberto #2 holds its own with an appealing selection of fine jazz and Bossa Nova cuts.”

The Odds Are Stacked

This is an All-Time Jazz Classic and it’s a cryin’ shame that we can’t find more copies. Most are in mono, upwards of 80% of them, and we simply do not care for the sound of this music in mono. If you want to experience a live recording properly, you need space, ambiance, and imaging, three things mono does not do well.

And nine out of ten copies we see are simply not in the condition most audiophiles would find acceptable. Multiply 20% (the stereo copies) by 10% (the decent copies) and you’re left with a pool of 2% — one out of fifty — to pick from in order to acquire enough copies with which to do a shootout. Ouch.

Those are so pretty long odds, and they go a long way toward explaining why this is the first Hot Stamper pressing of this title to hit the site in years.

If you love this Brazilian-flavored cool jazz as much as we do, you might want to snap this one up. Who knows when we’ll find another one?

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Neil Young – Live Rust

More of the Music of Neil Young

  • You’ll find roughly Shootout Winning Triple (A+++) sound or close to it on all FOUR sides of these vintage Reprise pressings
  • Not many recordings, live or otherwise, give you this kind of unvarnished, front-row experience
  • This killer live set, the ultimate Neil Young acoustic and electric concert collection, combines brilliant early material like “After the Gold Rush” with wonderful later songs such as the amazing “My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)” and “Tonight’s the Night”
  • 4 1/2 stars on AllMusic, just check the tracklisting and get ready to hear these NY classics come to life

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Chet Atkins – Chet Atkins in Hollywood (1961)

More of the Music of Chet Atkins

  • Both sides of this vintage RCA pressing were giving us the big and bold Living Stereo sound we were looking for, earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades
  • What we are offering here is the superior sounding re-recording from 1961, produced by Dick Peirce
  • Chet took the orchestra tapes back to his home studio in 1961 and re-recorded his parts over them, and we think he managed to do a much better job the second time around
  • This TAS list recording will have you asking why so few Living Stereo pressings actually do what this one does. The more critical listeners among you will recognize that this is a very special copy indeed. Everyone else will just enjoy the hell out of it.
  • Problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these early pressings, but once you hear just how superb sounding this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting ticks and pops and just be swept away by the music
  • 4 1/2 stars: “If the cover of At Home evokes the 1950s, the music on In Hollywood IS the 1950s: a warm, cozy, sophisticated album of mood music in the best sense.”

You can feel the cool air of the studio the minute the needle hits the groove on this one!

I suppose we owe a debt of gratitude to Harry Pearson for pointing out to us with his TAS List what a great record this is, although I’m pretty sure anybody playing this album would have no trouble telling after a minute or two that this copy is very special indeed.

Sorry, Harry

The pressing that Harry seems to have preferred — it’s the one recommended on his list, along with the Classic Records repress — is the inferior-sounding original recording, the one with the cover showing a guitar superimposed over the cityscape.

Leave it to us, the guys who actually play lots of records and listen to them critically, to recognize how much better the 1961 version is compared to the original from 1959. (For those of you who prefer the arrangements on the original, we offer those from time to time as well.)

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Paul Desmond / Take Ten – Living Stereo Tubey Magical Sound from 1963

More Living Stereo Titles

  • Paul Desmond’s 1963 Cool Jazz Classic returns to the site for the first time in years, here with INSANELY GOOD Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from start to finish
  • These are just a few of the things we had to say about this amazing copy in our notes: “fully extended from top to bottom”…”big and rich and 3D”…”very full and rich sax”…”jumping out of the speakers”…”3D and lively guitar and snare”…”texture and space all there!” (side two)
  • The brilliant Ray Hall engineered – anyone hearing this copy will understand exactly why we love to find his fabulous 60s recordings here at Better Records
  • Desmond joins forces here with Jim Hall, whose guitar stylings perfectly complement Paul’s velvety sax tone
  • This is a lot of money for a somewhat noisy copy, but the sound is so awesome and quiet pressings of the album so hard to come by that we hope someone will take a chance on it and get the thrill we did from hearing it sound right for once
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Everyone wanted Desmond to come up with a sequel to the monster hit Take Five; and so he did, reworking the tune and playfully designating the meter as 10/8. Hence Take Ten, a worthy sequel… There is not a single track here that isn’t loaded with ingeniously worked out, always melodic ideas.”

For us audiophiles both the sound and the music here are enchanting. If you’re looking to demonstrate just how good 1963 All Tube Analog sound can be, this killer copy will do the trick.

This vintage pressing is spacious, sweet and positively dripping with ambience. Talk about Tubey Magic, the liquidity of the sound here is positively uncanny. This is vintage analog at its best, so full-bodied and relaxed you’ll wonder how it ever came to be that anyone seriously contemplated trying to improve it. (more…)

The Kinks – Kinda Kinks in Mono

More of the Music of The Kinks

  • With KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides, this copy of The Kinks’ sophomore release is doing practically everything right
  • This Pink and Green Reprise original MONO pressing is lively, balanced and vibrant, with a healthy dose of the Tubey Magical Richness the Kinks’ recordings need in order to sound the way they should
  • “Tired of Waiting For You” is the big hit here, and like most Kinks records from back in the day, they put it at the end of the side, so you had better make sure whatever copy you find has not been played much or it will be full of Inner Groove Distortion
  • 4 1/2 stars: “…this album showcased a much more sophisticated sound… it also put them right in the front of the British Invasion pack for seriousness and complexity, out in front of where the Beatles or almost any of the competition were in early 1965…”

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