TAS List Good

140-plus reviews and commentaries for recordings currently or formerly on The Absolute Sound’s Super Disc List.

The pressing we like often does not match the pressing on their list.

Henry Mancini / Hatari!

More Soundtrack Recordings of Interest

  • An original Living Stereo pressing with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them on both of these TAS-approved sides
  • This side two is wonderfully relaxed, natural, and musical, with a remarkably sweet top end, and side one is not far behind in all those areas
  • The brass is breathy with a nice bite, avoiding most of the blare-y quality we heard on so many other pressings (particularly on side two)
  • And you’re not going to believe all the ambience surrounding this room full of musicians, especially on the drums (also particularly on side two) – we love that sound

“Baby Elephant Walk” is of course the track everyone knows, and just wait until you hear how breathy the calliope is here. When the piccolos come in watch out! There is more high frequency information on this album from the woodwinds alone than from all the instruments on 99 out of 100 other records. (A tough tracking test if ever there was one!)

High Fidelity

What do we love about these Living Stereo Hot Stamper pressings? The timbre of every instrument is “Hi-Fi” in the best sense of the word. The instruments here are reproduced with remarkable fidelity. Now that’s what I call Hi-Fi, not the kind of audiophile phony BS sound that passes for Hi-Fidelity these days. There’s no boosted top, there’s no bloated bottom, there’s no sucked-out midrange. There’s no added digital reverb (Patricia Barber, Diana Krall, et al.). The microphones are not fifty feet away from the musicians (Water Lily) nor are they inches away (Three Blind Mice).

This is Hi-Fidelity for those who recognize the real thing when they hear it. I’m pretty sure our customers do, and any of you out there who pick this one up should get a real kick out of it!

Hard to Find?

Not really; they made loads of these back in the day. But so many just don’t sound good. As we so often say about famous TAS list records like this, playing the average copy would make you think that Harry must have been smoking something when he nominated Hatari to be a Super Disc.

And we have to defend him when a copy like this comes along that really is a Super Disc. (Well, sort of. It’s a great sounding record. Super Disc I’m not so sure about.)

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Rachmaninoff – Symphonic Dances / Johanos

More Hot Stamper Pressings of Rachmaninoff’s Music 

  • With incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound on both TAS-approved sides, this original Turquoise label pressing of this orchestral spectacular is practically as good a copy as we have ever heard, right up there with our Shootout Winner
  • Exceptionally (and unusually) quiet for a Vox pressing too – noisy vinyl is the rule and not the exception
  • It’s an extraordinary recording, and so wonderful on this pressing that after playing it, you may agree with us that few other classical Demo Discs are in its league
  • The bottom end of this record is powerful and solid like no other classical LP we’ve played in a very long time – this is the way to record tympani!
  • Other orchestral recordings with powerful drums can be found here
  • The sound is dynamic, lively and big – jumping out of the speakers and bringing the power and the vibrant colors of the symphony right into your listening room

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Cat Stevens – Mona Bone Jakon

More of the Music of Cat Stevens

  • Incredible sound throughout this UK Island pressing of Cat Stevens’s brilliant third album, with both sides earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them
  • So transparent, open, and spacious, nuances and subtleties that escaped you before are now front and center
  • When you play “I Wish, I Wish” and “I Think I See The Light” on this vintage pressing, we think you will agree with us that this is one of the greatest Folk Rock albums of them all
  • One of the most underrated titles on the site – you owe it to yourself to see just how good the album that came out right before Tillerman can be when it sounds this good
  • 4 stars: “A delight, and because it never achieved the Top 40 radio ubiquity of later albums, it sounds fresh and distinct.”

So many copies excel in some areas but fall flat in others. This side one has it ALL going on — all the Tubey Magic, all the energy, all the presence and so on. The sound is high-rez yet so natural, free from the phony hi-fi-ish quality that you hear on many pressings, especially the reissues on the second label.

Right off the bat, I want to say this is a work of GENIUS. Cat Stevens made three records that belong in the Pantheon of greatest popular recordings of all time. In the world of Folk Pop, Mona Bone Jakon, Teaser and the Firecat and Tea for the Tillerman have few peers. There may be other Folk Pop recordings that are as good but we know of none that are better.

Mike Bobak was the engineer for these sessions from 1970. He is the man responsible for some of the best sounding records from the early ’70s: The Faces’ Long Player, Rod Stewart’s Never a Dull Moment, The Kinks’ Lola Versus Powerman And The Moneygoround, Part One, (and lots of other Kinks albums), Carly Simon’s Anticipation and more than his share of obscure English bands (of which there seems to be a practically endless supply).

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

The Eagles / Desperado

More Eagles

  • Both TAS-approved sides of this original White Label Asylum pressing were giving us the big and bold sound we were looking for, earning INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them
  • This copy has huge amounts of Tubey Magic, a strong bass foundation, and plenty of space around the guitars and voices – man, that is our sound!
  • Unfortunately, both of the shootout winners were not without issues, as you can see below, so those of you looking for one with audiophile surfaces will have to circle back with us in a year or so
  • This is the second-best sounding Eagles record of all time, no doubt thanks to their brilliant engineer and producer, Glyn Johns
  • “A solid country-rock classic… the music stands the test of time, especially when Desperado is heard in its entirety, from start to finish.”

Acoustic guitar reproduction is key to this recording, and on the best copies the harmonic coherency, the richness, the body and simply phenomenal amounts of Tubey Magic can be heard in every strum.

What to Listen For on Desperado

Too many instruments and voices jammed into too little space in the upper midrange during the loudest passages. When the tonality is shifted-up, even slightly, or there is too much compression, there will be too many elements — voices, guitars, drums — vying for space in the upper area of the midrange, causing congestion and a loss of clarity.

With the smoother, more solid sounding copies, the lower mids are full and rich; above them, the next “level up” so to speak, there’s plenty of space in which to fit all the instruments and vocals (lead and backing) comfortably, without having to pile them up one on top of another as is so often the case with densely mixed pop recordings. On the better copies, the upper midrange does not get overwhelmed and congested with too many elements fighting for too little space.

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The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band

More of the Music of The Beatles

  • Huge, spacious and detailed, with the Tubey Magic of a fresh tape, this is the way to hear Sgt. Pepper in all its analog glory, not remixed and not remastered
  • Most pressings – especially the new ones – have nothing approaching the Tubey Magic, space and energy of this LP
  • A Better Records Top 100 title – “It’s possible to argue that there are better Beatles albums, yet no album is as historically important as this.”
  • 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, and there is a very good chance it would be perched right at the top of that list
  • Quite a few customers have written us letters telling us how much they enjoyed the Hot Stamper pressing of Sgt. Pepper we sent them

The sound here is so big and rich, so clear and transparent, that we would be very surprised, shocked even, if you’ve ever imagined that any pressing of Sgt. Pepper could sound this powerful and REAL. (more…)

Copland – Rodeo / El Salon Mexico / Danzon Cubano / Dorati

More Music Conducted by Antal Dorati

  • Dorati and the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra’s performance of these wonderful Copland works appears on the site for only the second time ever, here with solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER throughout this original Plum Label Mercury stereo pressing of SR 90172
  • It’s also remarkably quiet at the high end of Mint Minus Minus, a grade that even our most well-cared-for vintage classical titles have trouble playing at
  • This copy is everything that a good Mercury should be: dynamic, open, immediate, exciting, and of course, with Dorati and the MSO, beautifully performed
  • The “of course” should be taken with a grain of salt — plenty of Dorati Mercury records do not sound good, and if anybody should know, we should, we’ve played them by the score
  • But we love what he and the MSO have done with these Copland pieces – we tried lots of other recordings, and nothing could touch Mercury for exciting, lifelike and energetic sound
  • 1959 was a phenomenal year for audiophile quality recordings – as of 2025 we’ve auditioned hundreds and reviewed more than one hundred and seventy titles, and there are undoubtedly a great many more that we’ve yet to discover.
  • We think there are a large number that belong in any audiophile’s record collection worthy of the name.

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Miles Davis – Someday My Prince Will Come (360 Label)

More of the Music of Miles Davis

  • Seriously good sound throughout this Miles Davis classic, with both sides earning Double Plus (A++) grades – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • This early Stereo 360 LP is full-bodied, high-rez and spacious, with Miles’s horn uncannily present, a sound you just cannot find on Heavy Vinyl no matter who makes it
  • If you have the big system and dedicated room a record of this quality demands, you can put Miles right in the room with you with a Hot Stamper pressing as good as this
  • Vintage pressings that play this reasonably quiet and are free of scratches and groove damage are few and far between, but here’s one, perfect for even the most demanding audiophile
  • Another engineering triumph for Fred Plaut at Columbia’s legendary 30th Street Studios – the man is a genius
  • Musically this is one of our very favorite Miles albums, and the sound is Demo Disc quality on the better copies

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Rimsky-Korsakoff / Scheherazade – Reiner (Shaded Dog Label)

More of the music of Rimsky-Korsakov

  • Reiner and the Chicago Symphony’s performance of this dazzling symphonic suite returns to the site on this vintage White Dog pressing that boasts outstanding Double Plus (A++) Living Stereo sound or close to it from first note to last
  • We guarantee there is more richness, fullness, and performance energy on this copy than others you’ve heard, and that’s especially true if you own any of the Heavy Vinyl pressings that are currently on the market
  • Our favorite Scheherazade for about the last 15 years or so has been the one Ansermet conducted for Decca in 1961, but the roller-coaster excitement Reiner and the CSO bring to the fourth movement is something very special
  • True, the side with the fourth movement earned a minimal Hot Stamper grade of 1.5+, but we still guarantee that it will beat the pants off any Heavy Vinyl reissue, because every one of those that we’ve played was ridiculously opaque, muddy and thick enough to have us crying “uncle” after five minutes (reviews available on this blog)
  • We’ve come up with a simple listening test to help our audiophile brethren judge pressings of Scheherazade, especially those woeful iterations of the music on Heavy Vinyl. We hope you will find time to avail yourself of the lessons we’ve learned

UPDATE 2024

Now that we know which stampers have the potential to win our shootouts, it turns out that the Shaded Dog originals have been coming out on top, although the White Dog pressings can still sound quite good to us, just not as good.

And for all you Bernie Grundman fans out there, you may want to consider the implications of the fact that the Living Stereo CD of Reiner’s Scheherazade is dramatically better than the awful Classic Records pressing of it.

We did a monster shootout for this music in 2014, one we had been planning for more than two years. On hand were quite a few copies of the Reiner on RCA; the Ansermet on London (CS 6212, his second stereo recording, from 1961, not the earlier and noticeably poorer sounding recording from in 1959); the Ormandy on Columbia, and a few others we felt had potential.

The only recordings that held up all the way through — the fourth movement being the Ball Breaker of all time, for both the engineers and musicians — were those by Reiner and Ansermet. This was disappointing considering how much time and money we spent finding, cleaning and playing those ten or so other pressings, but such is the nature of our business.

TAS List

As you may know, Harry Pearson put this record on his earliest TAS list of Super Discs.

Of course, the fact that a recording is on the TAS list doesn’t guarantee that the pressing you buy will have great sound, but Better Records does precisely that. If you don’t think a record sounds as good as we’ve described it, we’ll always happily take that record back and refund your money.

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Love – Forever Changes

More Psych Rock

  • Both sides of this stereo Gold Label pressing were giving us the big and bold sound we were looking for, earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades
  • A classic from 1967, a combination of proto-punk and psychedelia that was clearly well ahead of its time
  • Engineered by none other than Bruce Botnick, here is the kind of massive bottom end weight and energy that we like to call WHOMP
  • According to AllMusic, the band embraced “a more gentle, contemplative, and organic sound on Forever Changes,” with much of the album “built around interwoven acoustic guitar textures and subtle orchestrations, with strings and horns both reinforcing and punctuating the melodies.”
  • This is a lot of money for a 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
  • 5 stars: “Love’s Forever Changes made only a minor dent on the charts when it was first released in 1967, but years later it became recognized as one of the finest and most haunting albums to come out of the Summer of Love, which doubtless has as much to do with the disc’s themes and tone as the music, beautiful as it is.”

Some of you may not know this music, but it’s a true Must Own Psychedelic Gem from the ’60s, a record no rock collection should be without, along with other groundbreaking albums from the ’60s such as Surrealistic Pillow, The Doors’ debut, the first Spirit album and too many others to list.

If you’re looking to demonstrate just how good 1967 All Tube Analog sound can be, this outstanding copy will do the trick.

This Gold Label 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.

This IS the sound of Tubey Magic. No recordings will ever be made like this again, and no CD will ever capture what is in the grooves of this record. Of course there’s a CD of this album, but those of us in possession of a working turntable and a good collection of vintage vinyl have no need of it.

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Miles Davis – Sketches of Spain on 360

More Miles Davis

  • Seriously good sound throughout this Miles Davis classic, with both sides earning Double Plus (A++) grades – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • This early Stereo 360 LP is full-bodied, high-rez and spacious, with Miles’s horn uncannily present, a sound you just cannot find on Heavy Vinyl no matter who makes it
  • If you have the big system and dedicated room a record of this quality demands, you can put Miles right in the room with you with a Hot Stamper pressing as good as this
  • Vintage pressings that play this reasonably quiet and are free of scratches and groove damage are few and far between, but here’s one, perfect for even the most demanding audiophile
  • Another engineering triumph for Fred Plaut at Columbia’s legendary 30th Street Studios – the man is a genius
  • Musically this is one of our very favorite Miles albums, and the sound is Demo Disc quality on the better copies
  • 5 stars: “Sketches of Spain is the most luxuriant and stridently romantic recording Davis ever made. To listen to it in the 21st century is still a spine-tingling experience…”
  • This pressing is clearly a Demo Disc for orchestral size and space
  • Although the right 6-Eye originals will always win our shootouts, the 360 stereo reissues still sound quite good to us, just not as good

On the better pressings of this masterpiece, the sound is truly magical. (AMG has that dead right in their review.) It is lively but never strained. Davis’s horn has breath and bite, just like the real thing. What more can you ask for?

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