Dubious Sound I Used to Like

Here is a sampling of the questionable records and/or pressings I used to like a whole lot more than I do now.

Through trial and error I learned that they were clearly inferior to other pressings, although at the time I couldn’t have known they were inferior because I hadn’t yet heard anything better.

Looking back, it’s often embarrassing that I used to think highly of these records, but it would be foolish to deny it.

Making mistakes and learning from them is an important aspect of this hobby. Every audiophile on the journey to better sound should have a sizable group of records they left behind.

As our stereos and critical listening skills improve, it becomes clear that plenty of records just aren’t as good as we thought. These are some of mine.

Dreamboat Annie – A Nautilus Hot Stamper (from Long, Long Ago)

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Heart Available Now

This review is probably from the mid-2000s. By 2007, only a couple of years later, a lot had changed, enough so that this Nautilus title, as good as it is, would likely not be worth shooting out.

This is a Nautilus Half-Speed Mastered LP with SURPRISINGLY GOOD SOUND on side two.

I think I finally figured out why people like these half-speed mastered records so much. If you get one like this, it’s great!

The mids and highs are transparent, sweet, open, and tonally correct. There’s none of that MOFI 10k top end boost here! Listen critically to the vocals — there’s almost no phony hi-fi-ish quality to the midrange, the kind you hear on so many half-speed mastered records.  

Flip the record over to side one and there they are, plain as day: audiophile BS vocals. That makes this a Hot Stamper on side two and a pretty much run-of-the-mill stamper for side one.

Both sides actually have pretty good bass (for a half-speed), so maybe that’s being a bit too harsh. More accurately one could say both sides are better than average, with side two actually being pretty much right on the money. (more…)

Elgar/ Pomp & Circumstance / Solti

Hot Stamper Pressings on Decca and London Available Now

CS-7072. Near Demo Quality. Solti is magnificent here. This record has even better sound than the famous Barbarolli. Another Wilkinson/ Kingsway winner.

It would be demo quality if it were recorded in ’67 instead of ’77; it doesn’t quite hang together in the climaxes the way an earlier recording would.

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Tchaikovsky / Symphonies 4-5-6 – The Sound of Dubbed Tapes

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Tchaikovsky Available Now

Sonic Grade: C  

This is a Deutsche Grammophon 4 LP Box Set. I used to really like the sound of this set back in the day, as you will see from the rave review that I wrote in 2009.

It’s been a while since I found the sound to be worthy of a Hot Stamper shootout, and now, in 2017, having just played some of the discs against some very good German and British reissues, I now realize the records in the set are clearly made from dub tapes.

They badly lack presence, space, transparency and clarity, all hallmarks of sub-generation master tapes.  (more…)

Stand Up – Notes from 2009

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Jethro Available Now

Our last shootout for Stand Up was over a year ago, early in 2008. By some good fortune we have been able to find a number of fairly clean early British pressings, with both Pink and Sunray labels, as well as some very good sounding domestics. (Yes, they are out there. Few and far between and probably not the ones you would think to buy but out there nonetheless. Buy enough of them and clean them right and you will find some too.)

UPDATE 2025:

We no longer buy domestic pressings of Stand Up. They sound like they are made from second-generation tapes, with the smear and the lack of transparency that are the hallmarks of records mastered from copy tapes.

We did make one very important discovery this time around.

We found a Pink Label copy with a side two that beat all three of the Sunray pressings we had on hand, a copy that made us lower the grade of this very record to Two and a Half Pluses after playing it. Here is our now somewhat mistaken commentary from the last listing we did for a $750 Hot Stamper: 

The Sunray copies CAN and DO beat the best British originals when you get a good one, and this is a very good one. In our many (25+) years of experience with Stand Up vinyl we can tell you categorically that there is no earlier import pressing, no later import pressing, and no domestic pressing of any era that can compete with the sound of this LP. It was well over a year ago that we found the last one that sounded like this, and we don’t expect to find another one anytime soon. They’re a fluke. There are many sonic problems with this recording, but most of them disappear when you get a truly Hot Stamper copy like this one.

Perhaps categorically was poorly chosen. One should rarely be categorical about record pressings, since one is in no position to play them all or to have perfect equipment with which to play them.

Let’s not worry about that now. Let’s talk about this copy. The sound is amazingly dynamic and powerful, yet overflowing with tubey magic. We played almost ten different copies of this record this week (February 2009), every domestic Reprise label variation and close to a half dozen Pink and Sunray label British imports. (No more German pressings for us; they never seem to cut it so we are giving up on that country for Jethro Tull. Pink Floyd and The Beatles, yes, German pressings can be amazing. But for Island label records, Gemany was just not getting good tapes, if our experience is any guide.)

This copy was CLEARLY the best of the batch. Side one just JUMPS TO LIFE right out of the gate. Master Tape Sound is the only way to describe it. You will simply be amazed at how good this record can sound. It belongs in our Top 100 with sound like this.

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If That’s What It Takes – Another MoFi Disaster

More of the Music of Michael McDonald

The MoFi pressing of this album is a complete disaster — it’s even fatter, muddier and more compressed than the standard domestic copy, as improbable as that may seem.

It was mastered by Jack Hunt, a man we know to be responsible for some of the thickest, dullest, deadest MoFi recuts throughout their shameful catalog.

With mastering credits on this Michael McDonald album, Gerry Rafferty (058) and Blondie (050), you have to wonder how this guy kept getting work.  

The Gene Ammons Story: Gentle Jug

Hot Stamper Pressings of Recordings by Rudy Van Gelder

UPDATE 2024

Recently, in preparation for a new shootout, we played a few copies of this album that were laying around.

We were much less impressed with the sound than we were ten years ago when we last played it.

Live and learn or did we just not have the right pressings this time around?

Nobody knows. For now our Gentle Jug project is on hold indefinitely. If you see one for cheap, pick it up and see if it does anything for you.

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Silk Degrees – CBS Half-Speed Reviewed

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Boz Scaggs

Sonic Grade: D

Ran across this listing from all the way back in 2005. It takes shots at Badly Half-Speed Mastered records like this awful CBS audiophile pressing of Silk Degrees, as well as the audiophiles who complained about plain old domestic pressings at the time. I should know; I was one of them. Ouch. 

Old customers know that we have been relentlessly anti-audiophile-LP for years, since the early ’90s in fact, when those awful Acoustic Sounds jazz records first started coming out.

Hey, here’s a question for you. When was the last time that anybody mentioned a word about those Heavy Vinyl Disasters, badly mastered by Doug Sax with no presence and bloated bass? They’ve rather fallen from favor, have they not? I wonder why. Could it be because they were as ridiculously bad as I said they were, and it just took the rest of the world a little longer to recognize that fact? Perhaps most audiophiles are making progress. It’s just taking them a long long time. 

Hot Stamper Commentary from 2005!

Hot Stampers finally discovered! This is the SWEEETEST, RICHEST, MOST TONALLY CORRECT COPY I have ever heard.

This album has a long history here at Better Records. I used to complain about the CBS Half-Speeds being too bright.

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