Difficult to Reproduce

Here are close to 100 recordings which we’ve found to be difficult to reproduce.

“The greater the difficulty the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.” – Epictetus

The Rolling Stones – Their Satanic Majesties Request

More of the Music of The Rolling Stones

  • Their Satanic Majesties Request is back on the site after a twelve month hiatus, here with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on this vintage British Decca pressing
  • The band’s one and only psychedelic album, one that came out right before the raging bluesy rock of Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers
  • This is some crazy Stones music, with loads of psychedelic madness, balanced by a good number of catchy tunes
  • It’s a lot of fun on a pressing that sounds as good as this one, with the space, clarity and richness that vintage vinyl offers in such abundance
  • Every one of the original Decca stereo pressings we’ve played has come up short against these recuts from the Seventies – if you want an original on this album, the one with the cool lenticular 3-D cover, just know that you’re choosing second-rate sound (which, of course, is your choice)
  • 4 stars: “Never before or since did the Stones take so many chances in the studio… a fascinating anomaly in the group’s discography”.

This is the Stones at their most experimental, so there are plenty of strange effects and trippy arrangements. Only the best copies manage to make sense of it, but when you find one this music is a lot of fun.

If you’re looking for the raging bluesy rock of Sticky Fingers and Let It Bleed, you’ll find some of that here but also a lot of psychedelia too. You do get some great rockers though — “Citadel,” “2000 Man,” and “2000 Light Years From Home” to name a few. “She’s A Rainbow” is the poppiest song here, and on this copy it sounds WONDERFUL.

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Creedence Clearwater Revival – Bayou Country

More of the Music of Creedence Clearwater Revival

  • A Bayou Country like you’ve never heard, with INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on both sides
  • “Proud Mary” and “Good Golly Miss Molly” are two of the better sounding tracks found on the album, and you can be sure this amazing side two has them swamp rockin’ like crazy
  • Our pick for the best sounding CCR record – but only if you have a copy with sonics like these
  • 4 1/2 stars: “All the songs add up to a superb statement of purpose, a record that captures Creedence Clearwater Revival’s muscular, spare, deceptively simple sound as an evocative portrait of America.”
  • This is arguably CCR’s best sounding album. Roughly 150 other listings for the best sounding album by an artist or group can be found here.
  • 4 1/2 stars: “All the songs add up to a superb statement of purpose, a record that captures Creedence Clearwater Revival’s muscular, spare, deceptively simple sound as an evocative portrait of America.”

The sound is big and open with real weight to the bottom. The top end has a much more natural extension than most, and much less of the harshly brightened-up upper midrange you might be familiar with. On side two you can even pick out the piano in “Good Golly Miss Molly,” which is barely audible on most pressings.

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Mussorgsky / Danse Infernale – Our Favorite Night On Bald Mountain

More of the Music of Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881)

  • The best pressings of this 70s DG are some of the best sounding orchestral showpieces we know of
  • After a three year hiatus, our favorite performance of Night on Bald Mountain is back, and it’s guaranteed to blow your mind (and maybe a woofer or two), thanks at least in part to the conducting skills of Arthur Fiedler
  • Side one also boasts an excellent Danse Macabre, with a powerful finish that may remind you of the thrill of live orchestral music
  • Clear and transparent, with huge hall space extending wall to wall and floor to ceiling, this is a sound that the modern Heavy Vinyl reissue fails to reproduce utterly
  • There are about 150 orchestral recordings we think offer the best performances with the highest quality sound. This record is certainly deserving of a place on that list.
  • Watch your levels – this pressing is dramatically more dynamic than most Golden Age recordings
  • Click on the link to see more classical “sleeper” recordings we’ve discovered with demo disc sound

This pressing clearly has Demo Disc quality sound — not in every way, but in some important ways. The energy of both the sound and the performances of these barnburning showpieces is truly awesome. Fiedler brings this music to life like no other conductor we have heard.

This pressing boasts relatively rich, sweet strings, especially for a Deutsche Grammophon LP. Both sides really get quiet in places, a sure sign that all the dynamics of the master tape were protected in the mastering of this copy (and the reason it is so hard to find a copy that plays better than Mint Minus Minus.)

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Herrmann – Citizen Kane (The Classic Film Scores of Bernard Herrmann)

More of the Music of Bernard Herrman 

  • An original RCA Red Seal pressing with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER on both of these TAS-approved sides
  • On this outstanding copy you will hear deep bass notes; incredible dynamics from every area of the stage; masses of strings playing at the top of their registers with abandon; huge drums; powerful brass effects, and more
  • Every sound an orchestra can produce is found on this record, and then some – it’s the very definition of Demo Disc sound
  • These wonderful works, undoubtedly some of the greatest Bernard Herrmann composed, should be part of any serious orchestral collection
  • 5 stars: “… the best of the entire series by conductor Charles Gerhardt and the National Philharmonic Orchestra… every track is worthwhile and memorably played.”
  • If you’re a Bernard Herrmann fan, and what audiophile wouldn’t be?, this title from 1974 is clearly one of his best

The ‘Citizen Kane’ Suite on this album is to die for — big, bold, dynamic sound like few records you own. It’s a real Desert Island Disc for me. (The CD, by the way, is actually quite good. I have it in the car and play it often.)

The Concerto Macabre for Piano and Orchestra (from “Hangover Square”) is superbly well-recorded and a brilliant piece of music as well.

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Prokofiev / Love for Three Oranges Suite & Scythian Suite – Dorati

More of the Music of Sergei Prokofiev

  • You’ll find INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it throughout this original Maroon Label Mercury LP
  • We have a preference for Dorati’s work with the London Symphony Orchestra, and a record like this will show you exactly why we do
  • If you’re a fan of 20th century orchestral showpieces such as these, Robert Fine and Wilma Cozart have here produced a very special record of two of the best
  • We hope you like your sound big and bold, because that is the sound they were obviously going for
  • I have to admit I was never a fan of this album until only a few years ago, when I finally got my hands on a clean copy and heard the powerful sound of the London Symphony come blasting out of my speakers – what a thrill!
  • This record seems to have been dropped from the TAS Super Disc list, which is only fitting since the current crop of nitwits has been watering it down with one crappy title after another since HP passed in 2014
  • If you’re a fan of Prokofiev’s music, this superb All Tube Recording from 1957 belongs in your collection.
  • The complete list of titles from 1957 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

In the heyday of the 90s, when these records were all the rage, this copy would have sold for as much as $1000 and maybe even more. And the copy that sold for that would have been very unlikely to sound as good as this one, if only for the fact that cleaning technologies have advanced so much over the last twenty years or so (and no, I do not mean ultrasonic cleaning. I mean scrubbing with the right fluids and using the right machines to vacuum them off).

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Stevie Ray Vaughan – Soul To Soul

More of the Music of Stevie Ray Vaughan

  • This copy was giving us the sound we were looking for on this classic of Electric Blues guitar, with both sides earning KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them
  • Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this incredible copy in our notes: “relaxed and open”…”rich bass and vox”…”so full and tubey and 3D”…”rich and weighty”…”silky vox”…”jumping out [of the speakers]”
  • A superb pressing with hard-rockin’ energy, rich, solid bass, open top end, and freedom from congestion
  • This is one of the best copies to hit the site – good SRV albums are getting tough to find nowadays
  • “[SRV] wanted to add soul and R&B inflections to his basic blues sound, and Soul to Soul does exactly that. [T]he Curtis Mayfield-inspired closer, ‘Life Without You,’ captures Vaughan at his best as a composer and performer. It’s such a seductive number – such a full realization of his soul-blues ambitions…”

Vaughan’s guitar playing is as fiery as ever, and the addition of keyboards and saxophone here gives the music broader scope and range than was possible on his previous albums.

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Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited

More of the Music of Bob Dylan

  • Dylan’s 1965 release, here solid Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it on both sides of this vintage Stereo 360 pressing
  • In the same way Sgt. Pepper changed music a mere two years later, Highway 61 Revisited left all of Dylan’s contemporaries behind, scrambling to keep up with the standard he set
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these early pressings – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • 5 stars: “Dylan had not only changed his sound, but his persona, trading the folk troubadour for a streetwise, cynical hipster … it proved that rock and roll needn’t be collegiate and tame in order to be literate, poetic, and complex.”

We had a big stack of 360s and Red Labels with good stampers to compare for this shootout. On the better copies, the bottom end was punchy with real weight and the soundfield was open, spacious and so transparent.

Of course, the music is GENIUS. What separates the best copies from the also-rans is more than just rich, sweet, full-bodied sound. The better copies make Dylan’s voice more palpable — he’s simply more of a solid, three dimensional, real presence between the speakers. You can hear the nuances of his delivery more clearly on a copy like this.

What separates the best copies from the also-rans is more than just rich, sweet, full-bodied sound. The better copies make Dylan’s voice more palpable — he’s simply more of a solid, three dimensional, real presence between the speakers. You can hear the nuances of his delivery more clearly on a copy like this.

Now it should be noted that some songs here definitely sound better than others. Do not expect “Tombstone Blues” to become a favorite demo track. It’s upper midrangey here because that’s the way they wanted it. One must assume that the songs sound the way Dylan wanted them too, because every other track has a slightly different tonal balance, and that change in tonality seems to be a conscious choice designed to bring out the best in each song.

Or not. Who’s to say?

The 360 label pressings are a mixed bag, running from mediocre to mindblowing. Most of the time they are too trashed to even consider playing on an audiophile turntable. Many of the later pressings are sterile, congested, and lean.

On a typical pressing of this record, the harmonica can be shrill and aggressive, but on the best copies, it will sound airy and full-bodied (for the most part). There are times on every copy we’ve ever played where the harmonica solos get to be just a bit much.

The best tracks have fat, meaty, oh-so-analog drums and bass. There’s a certain amount of opacity that modern mastering engineers would be tempted to fix by boosting the highs. This is a very bad idea. Brighter, in this case, is going to destroy what’s good about the sound of the album.

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Herrmann – The Mysterious Film World of Bernard Herrmann

More of the Music of Bernard Herrmann

  • This vintage pressing of the National Phil’s performance of selections from three of Herrmann’s classic “phantasmagorical” film scores boasts solid Double Plus (A++) grades from first note to last
  • A superb recording with a huge three-dimensional stage, open, clear, extended up top and down low — the sound on this pressing is nothing short of amazing
  • 4 stars: “The sound glitters, some of the brightest and richest audio of its period (attested to by the album’s being part of Decca/London Phase 4 Stereo), and the performances have a dignity and intensity that makes the music — drawn from the key parts of Herrmann’s scores for the Ray Harryhausen-created fantasy films The Three Worlds of Gulliver, Mysterious Island, and Jason and the Argonauts — seem even more serious and profound than it originally did.”
  • If like us you’re a fan of blockbuster orchestral recordings, this is a killer album from 1975 that belongs in your collection.

Side one boasts some wonderful material from Mysterious Island and Jason and the Argonauts. Who else but Herrmann could have orchestrated such phantasmagorical goings on?

The Three Worlds Of Gulliver Suite takes up all of side two. The complete score from which the suite is taken can be found on the original Herrmann album The Three Worlds of Gulliver, a long-time and extremely rare member of the TAS Super Disc List.

This vintage London Phase 4 Stereo pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for —this sound.

If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds. (more…)

Bruce Springsteen – Born In The U.S.A.

More of the Music of Bruce Springsteen

  • You’ll find solid Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it on both sides of this gazillion-selling 80s classic – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • We would be foolish to make claims for “audiophile” sound on Springsteen’s albums – they are what they are, but the better copies are head and shoulders above anything else you’ve heard
  • Some of The Boss’s biggest hits are here, including “Glory Days” and “Dancin’ in the Dark.”
  • 5 stars: “… where Springsteen remembered that he was a rock & roll star, which is how a vastly increased public was happy to treat him.”

It’s tough to find great sounding copies of this album — or any Springsteen album for that matter — but this one is a step up from most of the copies we played, with less distortion and more energy, two qualities that are not easy to come by on Born In The U.S.A.

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The Beatles – Magical Mystery Tour

More of the Music of The Beatles

  • This vintage import copy was doing practically everything right, earning killer Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades from top to bottom, just shy of our Shootout Winner – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • A stunning True Stereo pressing with some of the best Beatles sound money can buy – superb work from Ken Scott here
  • Demo Disc quality sound for “I Am The Walrus,” “Strawberry Fields Forever,” “Baby You’re A Rich Man” and more
  • You won’t believe how powerful the sound is – it’s big, rich, open and lively beyond all expectation
  • A longtime Top 100 album and psych rock masterpiece that knocks us out every time we do the shootout
  • Any list of the best rock and pop albums of 1967 would have to have this record on it, along with its predecessor, Sgt. Pepper, released in May of the same year if you can believe it

The soft cardboard covers for these German pressings almost always show some seam wear. We will include the best cover we have at the time of your order. Of course, your satisfaction is always guaranteed.

Drop the needle on “Fool On The Hill” and you’ll see why we get so worked up over top copies that sound as good as this one does. This is a STUNNING recording, but you need a killer Hot Stamper pressing to appreciate just how well recorded the album is.

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