Testing High Frequency Extension

The records linked here are good for testing high frequency extension.

Our Top Copy of Iberia Lacked a Measure of Weight and Tubey Magic on Side Two

Hot Stamper Pressings of Recordings by Decca Available Now

Subtitled:

The Thrill of Hearing Massive Sound on an Orchestral Blockbuster of the First Order.

We described our most recent shootout winning pressing this way:

This superb classical release (the first copy to hit the site in close to two and a half years) boasts big, bold, dynamic Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it throughout this early London pressing.

The notes rave about this copy: “huge and spacious, strong strings and brass, very rich, well-defined low end, sweet and rich and textured strings, gets massive and extends both up high and down low.”

Here you will find the huge hall, correct string tone, spacious, open sound that are hallmarks of all the best vintage orchestral pressings.

Listen to the plucked basses – clear, not smeary, with no sacrifice in richness. Take it from us, the guys that play classical recordings by the score, this is hard for a record to do.

Below you can find our actual shootout notes for that copy.

We discovered that side two was slightly lacking in some ways. We had a side two on another copy that was better than the 2.5+ side two you see here.

When we played the two best copies back to back, side one of this copy came out on top, earning a grade of 3+, but the side two of another copy showed us there was potentially even more weight and Tubey Magic to the recording than we had expected after hearing a number of copies by that point in the shootout.

As a consequence we felt it best to drop side two’s grade a half plus to 2.5+. Initially it was graded “at least 2+”, and the grade was then raised to 2.5+ after playing it head to head in the final round against the eventual shootout winner.

We marvelled at these specific qualities in the sound of side one.

Track Three

  • Huge and spacious
  • Strong strings and brass
  • Very rich
  • Well defined lows

Track Two

  • Sweet and rich and textured strings
  • Gets massive
  • Extends at both ends of the frequency spectrum

“Gets massive” is something we don’t say about too many records, but the best Hot Stamper pressings of Orchestral Spectaculars such as this one can certainly get massive if you have the speakers, the power to drive them, and the room big enough to unleash the kind of orchestral power found on these phenomenal sounding LPs.

In our experience, if you really want to hear this kind of “massive sound,” an early pressing of a Decca recording from 1960 is a good place to go looking for it.

You are very unlikely to hear it on any record made in the last fifty years, although we can’t say it isn’t possible.

Allow us to save you some trouble looking for love in all the wrong places. Take our word and skip the more than forty remastered classical and orchestral titles we’ve played over the years that badly missed the mark. (For other kinds of music there are hundreds more.)

Side two was nearly as good:

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Listen for a Sweetly Extended Top End on Bang, Baaroom and Harp

Hot Stamper Percussion Recordings Available Now

What to listen for you ask? Top end, plain and simple.

It’s the RARE copy that has the incredible extension of the side two we played recently. The space, the clarity, the harmonic complexity — perhaps one out of ten copies will show you a side two like that.

The highs are so good on this record you can use it as a setup tool. Adjust your VTA, tracking weight and the like for the most natural and clear top end, then check for all the other qualities you want to hear. You may just find yourself operating on a higher sonic plane than you ever thought possible.

Harry Pearson put this record on his TAS List of Super Discs, and rightfully so. It certainly can be a Super Disc, but only when you have the right pressing. It’s a real treat to hear such a crazy assortment of percussion instruments with this kind of amazingly clear, high-resolution sound!

This is one of the Demo Discs on the TAS List which truly deserves its status when, and only when, you have a killer copy.

UPDATE 2025

The last three shootouts for this album were won by the same set of stampers. Here are about a hundred other albums with one set of stampers that consistently win shootouts.

There is only one other set of stampers that we buy apart from those of the shootout winners. We avoid the rest. As a rule this is not our approach, but in the case of this record, having done so many shootouts for it over the course of decades, we can’t be bothered to buy, clean and play the pressings that have little hope of earning good grades.

This album is hard enough to sell as it is, even when it sounds amazing. Like so many other records we offer, we think it should be more popular with audiophiles, especially for those more serious types who don’t mind working at improving their playback.

The best copies are amazingly spacious and three-dimensional. They would probably come in handy for setting up speakers using some of the principles outlined in this discussion of the “room coupling method.”

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The Strings on Elton John’s Second Album Are a Tough Test

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Elton John Available Now

What’s especially remarkable about this album is the quality of Paul Buckmaster‘s string arrangements. I don’t know of another pop record that uses strings better or has better string tone and texture. Strings are all over this record, not only adding uniquely interesting qualities to the backgrounds of the arrangements but actually taking the foreground on some of the songs, most notably Sixty Years On.

When the strings give in to a lovely Spanish guitar in the left channel (which sounds like a harp!) just before Elton starts singing, the effect is positively glorious. It’s the nexus where amazing Tubey Magical sound meets the best in popular music suffused with brilliant orchestral instrumentation. Who did it better than The Beatles and Elton John? They stand alone.

Correct string tone and texture are key to the best-sounding copies. The arrangements are often subtle, so only the most transparent copies can provide a window into the backgrounds of the songs that reproduce the texture of the strings.

Without extension on the top, the strings can sound shrill and hard, a common problem with many pressings.

Without a good solid bottom end, the rockers (“Take Me to the Pilot”) don’t work either of course, but you can even hear problems in the lower strings when the bass is lightweight.

String tone on a pop record is a tough nut to crack, even more so on a record like this where the strings play such a prominent role. It’s the rare copy that allows you to forget the recording and let you just enjoy the music.

For that you really need a Hot Stamper.

These Are Some of the Qualities We’re Listening For on Elton’s Albums

There are probably closer to a dozen, but some of the more important ones would be these:

Extraordinary Engineering

There are three amazing-sounding Elton John records on our Top 100 list, one of them engineered by the estimable Robin Geoffrey Cable, Trident Studios’ house engineer in 1972. His work on this album and Tumbleweed Connection marks him as one of the All-Time Greats in my book. Madman Across the Water, the album to follow, seems to be a more difficult recording to master properly. That said, the best copies — we call them White Hot Stampers – are very nearly as good sounding as the two titles mentioned above.

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Top End Extension Is Key to the Best Pressings of Fingers

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Hot Stamper Pressings of Jazz Fusion Albums Available Now

The best copies have the highs that are missing from so many of the CTI originals. When you play them against most copies, there is an extension to the top end that you won’t hear elsewhere. Since this album is heavy on percussion, that difference is critical.

The HARMONICS of the percussion are critically important to the music. When they go missing, it’s as if the music seems to slow down, a strange effect but a fairly common one with rhythmically dense arrangements such as these. Some of the energy of the music is lost. 

With an extended top end the sound is SWEET, not HARSH. Believe us when we tell you, the last thing you want is a harsh sounding pressing of a Rudy Van Gelder recording. (Not unless you have a dull, dull, deadly dull system. Those old school stereos are practically the only way one can tolerate some of his early recordings.)

With so many high frequency transients and such complex arrangements, this is a record that must be mastered (and pressed) with great skill or the result is going to be trouble. RVG, who both recorded and mastered the album, has a penchant for over-cutting records and being heavy handed when it comes to his favorite studio tricks, often to the detriment of instrumental fidelity. When his approach works, the resulting recordings are wonderful. When he gets too carried away with his “sound,” look out.

This is without a doubt the best album Airto ever made. On top of that, this copy really has the kind of sound we look for, with an open, fully extended top end that gives all the elements of this complex music room to breathe.

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Listening in Depth to Aja

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Steely Dan Available Now

Generally, what you try to get on side one is a copy with ambience, because most copies are flat, lifeless and dry as a bone.

You want a copy with good punchy bass — many are lean, and the first two tracks simply don’t work at all without good bass. And then you want a copy that has a natural top end, where the cymbals ring sweetly and Wayne Shorter’s saxophone isn’t hard or honky or dull, which it often is on the bad domestic copies.

The truly amazing side twos — and they are pretty darn rare — have an extended top end and breathy vocals on the first track, Peg, a track that is dull on nine out of ten copies. (The ridiculously bright MoFi actually kind of works on Peg because of the fact that the mix is somewhat lacking in top end. This is faint praise though: MoFi managed to fix that problem and ruin practically everything else on the album.)

If you play Peg against the tracks that follow it on side two, most of the time the highs come back. On the best of the best, the highs are there all the way through.

Side One

Black Cow

Fagen’s voice on the first line will always sound grainy – it’s that way on the CD and every LP I have ever played, which means it’s on the tape that way. It will quickly pass, and the rest of the vocals will sound amazing if you have a Hot Stamper Copy.

This song is as BIG and BOLD sounding as any pop song I know. This is Demo Disc material if you have the system to do it justice.

And don’t you just love the way it starts on the upbeat? Now that’s the way to kick off an album!

Aja

Got a big speaker? Lots of power? You will need both to play this song right. Note how the percussion comes through the dense mix, without being abrasive in any way. That’s a sure sign that you have a copy with the transparency and resolution you need to bring out the track’s best qualities. The mix needs that percussion; it’s there for a reason. You, dear audiophile, need an LP that lets that percussion be heard. Many are called; few are chosen.

Deacon Blues

It’s the rare copy that gets the top end for the first two tracks right and still has enough presence and top end for this song, which will tend to sound dull even if the first two tracks don’t. The truly killer pressings get all three tracks to sound amazing, no mean feat.

Side Two

For some reason, side two is almost always cut at a lower level than side one. Pump up the volume a db or two in order to get the full Aja effect for the songs on this side.

UPDATE 2022

The commentary about Peg you see below was written many years ago, and I would no longer agree with the claim it makes.

The MoFi is so bad in so many ways that whatever it fixes on the top end, it destroys everywhere else.

It’s one of the greatest audio disasters of the 80s, along with the equally awful Cisco pressing, which qualifies as one of the great audio disasters of the modern Heavy Vinyl era.

UPDATE 2024

There is a newly remastered pressing of Aja, released in 2024 and aimed squarely at the mid-fi collector market, and it appears that the purveyors of these pseudo-audiophile LPs have once again hit their mark — it’s awful.

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An Open Soundstage Is Key on Get Close

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Pretenders Available Now

Take it from us, it is the rare pressing that manages to get rid of the harshness and congestion that plague so many copies.

Look for a copy that opens up the soundstage — the wider, deeper and taller the presentation, the better the sound, as long as the tonal balance stays right.

When you hear a copy sound relatively rich and sweet, the minor shortcomings of the recording no longer seem to interfere with your enjoyment of the music. Like a properly-tweaked stereo, a good record lets you forget all that audio stuff and just listen to the music as music. Here at Better Records, we — like our customers — think that’s what it’s all about.

And we know that only the top copies will let you do that, something that not everyone in the audiophile community fully appreciates these days, what with one Heavy Vinyl record sounding worse than the next.

We’re doing what we can to change that way of approaching the pursuit of high quality audio playback in the home, but progress has always been, as you can imagine, slow.

This is no Demo Disc by any means — we grade on a curve, and considering the limitations of a heavily-processed pop record designed to be heard over the radio, the best copies are very good sounding for what they are.

What To Listen For

The best copies have superb extension up top, which allows the grit and edge on the vocals to almost entirely disappear.

Some of it is there on the tape for a reason. That’s partly the sound they were going for. This is, after all, a Bob Clearmountain mix and a Jimmy Iovine production.

Heavy handed processing is what you hire them to do. You want a hit album, don’t you?

But bad mastering and pressing add plenty of extra grit to the average copy, enough to ruin it in fact.

You can test for that edgy quality on side one very easily using the jangly guitar harmonics and breathy vocals of “My Baby.”

If the harmonic information is clear and extending naturally, in a big space, you are very likely hearing a high quality copy.

Testing Help

  • More records that are good for testing midrange congestion here.
  • More records that are good for testing harshness and shrillness here.
  • More records that are good for testing ambience, size and space here.
  • More records that are good for testing for extended high frequencies here.

Want to find your own top quality copy?

Consider taking our moderately helpful advice concerning the pressings that consistently win our Hot Stamper shootouts.

This record has been sounding its best for many years, in shootout after shootout, this way:

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On Discovered Again, Does It Sound Like the Snare Is Wrapped in a Towel on Your Copy?

Hot Stamper Pressings of Direct-to-Disc Recordings Available Now

The bulk of this commentary was written in 2008 and is based on the shootout we had just done, our first for the album. It has been amended a number of times since.

I bought my first copy of Discovered Again in 1976 upon its release. I was a big fan of the label at the time. The Missing Linc had been a revelation to me years before in terms of how good music could sound in the home (or apartment as the case may be). I wrote a bit about it here.

I credit that amazing record as well as Discovered Again as fundamentally important in helping me advance in this devilishly difficult hobby of ours. Back in those dark days of the 70s, although I was completely clueless at the time about pretty much everything having to do with vinyl and equipment, I can take some solace in the fact that everybody else was every bit as clueless as I was too.

This blog is dedicated to sharing some of what I’ve learned — with the unflagging help of my staff of course — about records and audio over the last fifty years.

The sound quality of the typical pressing of Discovered Again leaves much to be desired.

Two areas are especially lacking as a rule: the top end tends to be rolled off, and there is a noticeable lack of presence, which can easily be heard in the drum sound.

The snare sounds like it’s covered with a towel on most copies of this album.

How does that even happen?

Who knows? Even though the mastering is fixed at the live event, there are many other variables which no doubt affect the sound. The album is cut on two different lathes — M (Master) and S (Slave), and pressed in two different countries: Japan and Germany. Many mothers were pulled from the acetates and many, many stampers made from those mothers. (I saw one stamper marked number 15!)

Bottom line? You got to play ’em to know how they sound, just like any other pressing. If no two records sound the same, it follows that no two audiophile records sound the same, a fact that became clear early on in the listening.

Of course not many audiophiles are in a position to shootout six copies of Discovered Again, and I’m not sure most people would have the patience to do it. Here at Better Records we have a whole system set up to do that, so we waited until we had a pile of them, got them all cleaned up, and off to the races we went.

What Else to Listen For

Listen to the harmonics around the cymbals and bells on Git Along Little Dogies — on the best copies you can really hear the transients of the cymbals and percussion, so important to the actual sound of those instruments. (More records that are good for testing percussion can be found here.)

The stand-up acoustic bass is amazingly well recorded on this album; it’s so rich and full-bodied. You will have a hard time finding a string bass that sounds better.

Track after track, the sound is surprisingly open and airy. Dave’s keyboards throughout have wonderful presence; on the best copies they really jump out of the speakers. (A good test for midrange presence.)

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This Carmen Ballet Is a Great Test Disc for Shrill, Gritty Strings

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Georges Bizet Available Now

UPDATE 2025:

I’ve added some tubes-versus-transistors commentary at the bottom of this posting.

This Angel Melodiya pressing of Bizet’s Carmen, rearranged by Soviet composer Rodion Shchedrin for strings and 47 percussion instruments, has two incredible sides. Demo Quality Sound barely begins to do it justice. If you have the system to play it, this copy is a KNOCKOUT.

But boy is it a difficult record to reproduce. You better have everything working right when you play this one — it’s guaranteed to bring practically any audiophile system to its knees.

Speed, resolving power and freedom from distortion are what this record needs to sound its best.

Is your system up to it? There’s only one way to find out.

And if you have any peaky audiophile wire in your system, the kind that is full of detail but calls attention to itself, you are in big trouble with a record like this.

More than anything, this is a record that rewards your system’s neutrality.

Testing

This is a superb Demonstration Disc, but it is also an excellent Test Disc. The sound of the best copies is rich, full-bodied, incredibly spacious, and exceptionally extended up top. There is a prodigious amount of musical information spread across the soundstage, much of it difficult to reproduce.

Musicians are banging on so many different percussion instruments (often at the far back of the stage, or, even better, far back and left or right) that getting each one’s sonic character to clearly come through is a challenge — and when you’ve met it, a thrill. If you’ve done your homework, this is the kind of record that can show you what you’ve accomplished.

On the best copies the strings have wonderful texture and sheen. If your system isn’t up to it (or you have a copy with a problem in this area), the strings might sound a little shrill and possibly gritty as well, but I’m here to tell you that the sound on the best copies is just fine with respect to string tone and timbre. You will need to look elsewhere for the problem.

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Why Do So Few Living Stereo Pressings Sound as Good as This One?

Hot Stamper Pressings of Orchestral Spectaculars Available Now

We introduced our most recent shootout winning copy of The Reiner Sound from 1958 this way:

The Reiner Sound returns to the site for the first time in years, here with big, bold, dynamic Triple Plus (A+++) Living Stereo sound throughout this original Shaded Dog pressing.

These are just a few of the things we had to say about this amazing copy in our notes: “fully extended up top”…”sweet and rich”…”supremely dynamic and spacious!!!” (side one)…”massive and tubey and 3D”…”like no other” (side two)…”explosive finish.”

These sides are doing everything right – they’re rich, clear, undistorted, open, spacious, and have depth and transparency to rival the best recordings you may have heard.

This record 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.

And here are the notes to prove it!

Side one was at least 3+.

  • Lots of tape hiss
  • The top end really extends
  • Sweet and spacious dynamic peaks, and rich
  • Supremely dynamic and spacious

Side two was right up there with it:

  • Massive and tubey and three-dimensional
  • Very full and dynamic
  • The explosive finish is like no other

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Oscar Peterson’s Best Recording? Sure Sounds Like It to Us

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Oscar Peterson Available Now

I’ve known this was a well recorded album since I first heard the DCC Gold CD back in the 90s.

It sounded great to me at the time, although I had nothing to compare it to. I was not an Oscar Peterson fan in those days. The CD may be very good, but it is unlikely to hold a candle to any of our Hot Stamper vinyl pressings.

I now realize that this album is clearly one of the best jazz piano recordings ever made. In its own way it’s every bit as good as  another landmark recording we talk about, The Three, recorded in 1975.

This album checks off a number of important boxes for us here at Better Records:

The description for the amazing copy we found in our shootout more than a decade ago has been reproduced below.

The Right Sound from the Get Go

Side one starts out with a solid, full-bodied piano and snare drum, a sure sign of great sound to come. This side was richer and fuller than all the other copies we played. That rich tonality is key to getting the music to work. It keeps all the instrumental elements in balance. The natural top on this side is just more evidence that the mastering and pressing are top drawer. Great space and immediacy, powerful driving energy — this side could not be beat.

And side two was every bit as good! The sound was jumpin’ out of the speakers. There was not a trace of smear on the piano, which is unusual in our experience, although no one ever seems to talk about smeary pianos in the audiophile world (except for us of course).

Ray Brown’s bass is huge, probably bigger than it would be in real life, but I can live with that. Once again, with this kind of extended top end, the space of the studio and harmonics of the instruments are reproduced brilliantly.

Testing with Oscar

Lately we have been writing quite a bit about how good pianos are for testing your system, room, tweaks, electricity and all the rest, not to mention turntable setup and adjustment.

  • We like our pianos to sound natural (however one chooses to define the term)
  • We like them to be solidly weighted
  • We like them to be free of smear, a quality that for some reason is rarely mentioned in the audiophile reviews we read [more on smear at the end of this commentary]

Here are some of our favorite jazz records with top quality piano sound

Other records that we have found to be good for testing and improving your playback can be found here.

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