Import=Best

The right import pressings of these albums have the potential to sound better than even the best domestic pressings.

The Moody Blues – In Search Of The Lost Chord

More of The Moody Blues

Reviews and Commentaries for The Moody Blues

  • Incredible sound throughout this early UK pressing, with both sides earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this killer copy in our notes: “jumping out of the speakers”…”big and tubey”…”sweet and breathy vox”…”weighty and rich”…”much more transparent and detailed” (side two)
  • Chock full of Moodies Magic: warm, full-bodied, rich and smooth, with tremendous space and plenty of rock energy
  • The first Moody Blues album to feature their trademark mellotron arrangements, and what a glorious sound that is when it sounds like this
  • “…the album on which the Moody Blues discovered drugs and mysticism as a basis for songwriting and came up with a compelling psychedelic creation, filled with songs about Timothy Leary and the astral plane and other psychedelic-era concerns.”

This early Deram British import LP has outstanding sound and reasonably quiet vinyl. It has higher resolution, is more dynamic, sweeter and clearer than practically all other copies, without sacrificing the richness, warmth and lushness for which the Moody Blues recordings are justifiably famous. I’ll put it this way — this pressing is correct from top to bottom, so present and alive, while still retaining all the richness and sweetness we expect from British Moody Blues records.

This copy has all the elusive elements that we search for: vocal clarity, real weight down low, great energy, tight punchy bass, and lots of texture to the keyboards and synths. This copy is full of Tubey Magic and, importantly, it doesn’t sound too murky or muddy. That’s a neat trick for any copy of this album, as those of you who’ve been playing it for years certainly know by now.

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Offenbach et al. / French Overtures / Ansermet

More Music Conducted by Ernest Ansermet

  • This original London pressing (CS 6205) of these wonderful Romantic works boasts KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them from first note to last
  • You’d be hard-pressed to find a copy that’s this well balanced, yet big and lively, with such wonderful clarity in the mids and highs
  • The sound of the orchestra is dramatically richer and sweeter than you will hear on practically all other pressings – what else would you expect from Decca‘s engineers and the Suisse Romande?
  • This shootout has been many years in the making – we’ve been trying to do these wonderful French overtures for about five years, which just goes to show how hard it is to find these kinds of records in audiophile playing condition nowadays
  • We also have a recording with Fremaux at the helm for EMI coming soon to the site that’s every bit as good
  • Which one is better is probably a matter of taste as they are both head and shoulders better than any other recordings we have come across in the last five or more years
  • If you’re a fan of delightful orchestral showpieces such as these, Decca’s wonderful recording from 1961 belongs in your collection

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Jethro Tull – Stand Up

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More British Blues Rock

  • A Stand Up like you’ve never heard, with solid Double Plus (A++) grades throughout this vintage UK import – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • This is a true Tull Classic – my favorite by the band – and a very tough record to come by with this kind of sound and surfaces that play this well
  • Both of these sides give you richness, Tubey Magic, clarity and resolution few copies can touch, including most Pink Label Island pressings, especially the early ones
  • “Stand Up! has great textural interest, due, in part, to a more sophisticated recording technique, in part to the organ, mandolin, balalaika, etc., which Anderson plays to enrich each song. The band is able to work with different musical styles, but without a trace of the facile, glib manipulation which strains for attention.”

Need a refresher course in Tubey Magic after playing too many modern recordings or remasterings? These UK pressings are overflowing with it. Rich, smooth, sweet, full of ambience, dead-on correct tonality — everything that we listen for in a great record is here. We must give thanks to the brilliant engineer Andy Johns.

This record is the very definition of Tubey Magic. No recordings will ever be made that sound like this again, and no CD will ever capture what is in the grooves of this record. There is of course a CD of this album, quite a few of them I would guess, but those of us with a good turntable could care less.

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).

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.

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Al Stewart – Past, Present & Future

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More British Folk Rock

  • With INSANELY GOOD Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades from top to bottom, we guarantee you’ve never heard Past, Present & Future sound this good – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Both sides of this original UK pressing are rich and Tubey Magical, with powerful, note-like bass, incredible transparency and plenty of energy
  • We shot out a number of other imports and the midrange presence, bass, and dynamics on this outstanding copy placed it head and shoulders above the competition
  • Don’t waste your money on the sub-generation domestic pressings, they are clearly made from dubbed tapes
  • “…the record where Al Stewart truly begins to discover his voice [and] finally found his muse, focusing his songwriting and intent to a greater extent than ever before.”

It took us ages to track down copies of this album that didn’t sound flat, boring, and stuck in the speakers. We played a large number of Brit and domestic copies, and while both versions can sound lovely on the best pressings, there are certainly plenty of bad sounding versions out there from both countries.

This is the album that comes before Modern Times, Year Of The Cat and Time Passages in the Al Stewart discography, so if you’re a fan of any of those albums we imagine you’ll find a lot to like here.

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The Moody Blues – A Question of Balance

More of The Moody Blues

Reviews and Commentaries for The Moody Blues

  • With outstanding Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides, this vintage UK pressing (one of only a handful of copies to hit the site in about a year) will be very hard to beat
  • Huge and spacious, as well as wonderfully Tubey Magical – to our way of thinking, if this isn’t exactly the way the band wanted to sound in 1970, we can’t imagine what would be
  • This pressing has some of the best Moody Blues sound we’ve ever heard – it’s a truly exceptional recording in their canon
  • Includes the big hit “Question,” one of the all time greats by the band, which sounds fantastic here of course

Achieving just the right balance of “Moody Blues Sound” and transparency is no mean feat. You have to be using the real master tape for starters. Then you need top end extension, a very rare quality on these imports, and finally, good bass definition to keep the bottom end from blurring and bleeding into the midrange. No domestic copy in our experience has ever had these three qualities, and only the best of the British imports (no Dutch, German or Japanese need apply) manages to get all three on the same LP.

Allow me to steal some commentary from a Moody Blues Hot Stamper shootout we did years ago, for the wonderful In Search of the Lost Chord, in which we say that, on the best Hot Stamper pressings, the clarity and resolution come without sacrificing the Tubey Magical richness, warmth and lushness for which the Moody Blues recordings are justifiably famous.

We guarantee this copy will take the Moodies’ wonderful music to a level you have never experienced in all your music-loving days.

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Elvis Costello – Imperial Bedroom

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More 5 Star Albums

  • Imperial Bedroom is back on the site for only the second time in nearly two years, here with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on both sides of this UK pressing
  • These are just a few of the things we had to say about this incredible copy in our notes: “spacious and detailed piano and vox”…”up front and breathy”…”huge, rich bass”…”fully extended from to to bottom”…”can’t complain!” (side two)
  • Geoff Emerick engineered, creating a unique sound – forget the painfully bad domestic pressings, these imports are the only way to go
  • This dense, darkly serious album contains some of the best songs EC ever wrote – the last of his True Classics
  • 5 stars: “Costello’s music is complex and intricate, yet it flows so smoothly, it’s easy to miss the bitter, brutal lyrics…the detail and the ornate arrangements immediately peg Imperial Bedroom as Costello’s most ambitious album.”
  • If you’re an Elvis Costello fan, and what audiophile wouldn’t be?, this title from 1982 is surely a Must Own
  • The complete list of titles from 1982 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

Six of Elvis’s first seven albums received a Five Star rating from Allmusic, the exception being Almost Blue, and we generally would agree with that assessment (although Get Happy should probably also get Four Stars, not Five).

Which is to say that Elvis Costello is a brilliant artist whose albums work as albums, a fact that is in danger of being lost in a world of single-song downloads and greatest hits packages. We record-playing audiophiles are inclined to start at the beginning of a side and let it flow through to the end, and that is clearly the best way to appreciate and enjoy the work of this very gifted man.

Check out the Tracklist below to see a sample of some of the lyrics to a few of the songs on the album.

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Roger Waters – The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking

  • Boasting solid Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides, this original UK pressing is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other The Pros and Cons… you’ve heard
  • Like the recordings of Floyd, the sound is big, with lots of energy, excellent midrange presence and real weight down low
  • A tough album to find with this kind of sound, which is why so few copies have ever hit the site (this is the first in four years)
  • 4 stars: “The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking continues to showcase Waters’ unprecedented knack of addressing his darkest thoughts and conceptions in a most extraordinary fashion.”

Let me tell you, it is no walk in the park to find a copy of The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking that sounds as good as this one and plays as quietly. Those of you who like Floyd’s The Final Cut will probably get a lot out of the album. (more…)

Spandau Ballet – True

More Spandau Ballet

More Pure Pop Recordings

  • Boasting two surprisingly rich and natural – dare we say Analog? – sides, this early UK Chrysalis pressing had the sound we were looking for on the band’s third studio album
  • Forget the dubby domestic pressings and whatever dead-as-a-doornail Heavy Vinyl record they’re making these days – if you want to hear the Tubey Magic, size and energy of this wonderful Brit Pop album, an import pressing like this one is the only way to go
  • “… a set of tunes aimed squarely at the charts. The one that succeeded most spectacularly, of course, was the title cut, a glossily-updated Motown-style ballad that became one of the decade’s biggest hits – aided by a video that cast singer Tony Hadley as a young Frank Sinatra, crooning about the sound of his soul.”
  • This is clearly the band’s best sounding album. Roughly 150 other listings for the best sounding album by an artist or group can be found here on the blog
  • In our opinion, True is the only Spandau Ballet record you’ll ever need. Click on this link to see more titles we like to call one and done

Forget the dubby domestic pressings. Like so many British bands on the Chrysalis label, when it came time to master the album for our domestic market, not theirs, the people in charge (whoever they may have been) took the easy way out and simply ordered up a dub of the tape to send across the pond.

Too many wonderful albums by highly accomplished bands had their records ruined by sub-generation masters. (Ruined for audiophiles. The general public couldn’t care less.)

But this is the real British-pressed vinyl from the real master tape, and that makes all the difference in the world. It 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.

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Cat Stevens – Tea For The Tillerman on the Island Pink Rim Label

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More Reviews and Commentaries for Tea for the Tillerman

 

  • This early Pink Rim Island UK pressing of TFTT, an album we consider the Pinnacle of British Folk Rock, boasts two excellent Double Plus (A++) sides
  • The emotional power of the songs is communicated completely on a pressing that sounds like this one – the experience will be like hearing the album for the first time, and how can you put a price on that?
  • Here’s your chance to relive the experience of hearing this groundbreaking album for the first time, but with much better sound than you ever thought possible
  • 5 stars on Allmusic, a stunning Demo Disc, and a permanent member of the Better Records Top 100

Hearing this Hot Stamper is a privilege that affords the listener insight into Cat Stevens’ music that is simply not possible any other way.

This album, I hope it goes without saying, is one of the greatest Folk Rock recordings of all time, the kind of music that belongs in any collection. I’ve been playing this album for 40+ years and I can honestly say I’ve never once tired of hearing it. I do get tired of hearing bad copies.

Cat’s mixes are full of subtle elements that may require many listening sessions over the course of years, even decades, to recognize and appreciate. Consider them an extra reward for having played the record so many times. I’ve played hundreds of copies over the last thirty-plus years and never tired of it once. As every music lover knows, the best albums only get better with time.

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Deep Purple – Machine Head

More of the Music of Deep Purple

  • This UK import pressing was doing just about everything right, with both sides earning seriously good grades
  • Amazingly spacious and three-dimensional, no doubt the result of the album being recorded practically live in the studio – the sound is HUGE, with real energy, presence and whomp
  • Their superbly talented engineer, Martin Birch, recorded the big, bold, rich, smooth sound of British Rock about as well as anyone ever did
  • 5 stars: “Machine Head was anything but a one-trick pony, introducing the bona fide classic opener “Highway Star,” which epitomized all of Deep Purple’s intensity and versatility while featuring perhaps the greatest soloing duel ever between guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and organist Jon Lord.”
  • It’s our pick for the band’s best sounding studio album. Roughly 150 other listings for the best recording by an artist or rroup can be found here.

When you get a Hot Stamper pressing like this one, Machine Head is a True Rock and Roll Demo Disc. Since our stereo is all about playing these kinds of records, and playing them at good loud levels as nature — and the artists — intended, we had a helluva time with Machine Head.

It had the kind of presence and energy that puts most copies of this album to shame. It’s also amazingly spacious, the result no doubt of it being recorded practically live in the studio. On the best copies, you can really hear the sound bouncing off the studio walls, just as you can on the best Zep, AC/DC and Bad Co. albums. You can just tell they are all playing this one live: it’s so relaxed and natural and REAL sounding.

The vocalist is surely in a booth, but everyone else seems to be in a lively studio. With lovely extension up top, this was a very sweet copy that cried out to be turned up good and loud. The louder we played it the better it sounded.

The best pressings give you exactly what you want from this brand of straight-ahead rock and roll: presence in the vocals; solid, note-like bass; big punchy drums, and the kind of live-in-the-studio energetic, clean and clear sound. (AC/DC is another band with that kind of live studio sound. With big speakers and the power to drive them YOU ARE THERE.)

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