Best on Earlier Vintage Vinyl

This record will sound its best on the right early pressing.

Eric Clapton – Journeyman

More of the Music of Eric Clapton

  • A Journeyman like you’ve never heard, with INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades on both sides of this vintage import pressing – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Forget the commonly dry-sounding domestic copies – the pressings mastered in Germany and the UK are the only ones good enough for us to put in a shootout
  • Rich, lively, spacious – the right pressings are surprisingly good-sounding for a recording from 1989
  • The big hit was “Pretending,” but “Bad Love” (both went to Number One) won the Grammy for Best Male Rock Vocal
  • 4 1/2 stars: “… a laid-back and thoroughly engaging display of Clapton’s virtuosity. On the whole, it’s the best studio album he’s released since Slowhand.”

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Dvorak / Violin Concerto – A Killer Philips Recording

More of the Music of Antonin Dvorak

  • Excellent sound throughout this Philips import pressing of Dvorak’s Classical Masterpieces, with both sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • The orchestral passages are rich and sweet, the violin present, its harmonics gloriously intact
  • We audiophiles are fortunate indeed that a violinist of Accardo’s skill and taste recorded this piece for Philips at a time when their recording technology was still capable of capturing the sound of his violin in rich, warm, sweet, clear analog
  • A superb performance from Salvatore Accardo, not only competitive with the best we have heard, but superior – we know of none better
  • A superb performance from Salvatore Accardo, not only competitive with the best we have heard, but superior – we know of none better
  • These links will take you to some of the orchestral “sleeper” recordings we’ve discovered with Demo Disc sound

Yes, it was still possible to record classical music properly in 1980, though not many labels managed to pull it off. (Londons from this era are especially opaque and airless. We find them as irritating and frustrating as most of the Heavy Vinyl releases being foisted on the audiophile public today.)

This is still analog, with the better copies displaying much of the Tubey Magic of 50s and 60s vinyl without as much compressor distortion (the Achilles’ heel of so many of the great recordings from the Golden Era).

Accardo is an accomplished performer of the works of Paganini, but those recordings are on DG and we would not expect them to be of acceptable audio quality for our customers. We will investigate further of course, as Paganini’s works for violin are some of the most sublime in the repertoire.

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Dvorak – Cello Concerto / Starker

More Mercury Classical Recordings

  • Starker and the LSO’s sublime performance, here with big, lively and rich Double Plus (A++) sound throughout this pressing of SR-90303
  • It’s also fairly quiet at Mint Minus Minus, a grade that even our most well-cared-for vintage classical titles have trouble playing at
  • The cello is present and immediate, with sound that is wonderfully full and harmonically natural
  • Some old record collectors (like me) say classical recording quality ain’t what it used to be – here’s all the proof anyone with two working ears and top quality audiophile equipment needs to make the case
  • As you may well imagine, shootouts for this album are exceedingly rare. For a sought-after TAS List title such as this, we’re lucky to be able to do one every five years or so. Until the next one comes around, please consider trying some of our other classical and orchestral Hot Stamper pressings

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James Taylor – JT

More of the Music of James Taylor

  • A vintage copy of Taylor’s 1977 breakthrough album that was doing practically everything right, earning STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides
  • It’s a superb recording – a member of our Top 100, in fact – but it takes a pressing like this to show you just how big and lively it can sound
  • The big hits “Your Smiling Face” and “Handy Man” both sound great here – thanks, Val Garay!
  • Don’t waste your money on any copy that doesn’t have TML stampers on both sides – they never sound any good
  • Interestingly, this time around even the worst side of any TML pressing earned a (1.5+) Hot Stamper grade
  • If you are using the Prelude Record Cleaning system on the right machines, you can’t go wrong with the early pressings of this title (although you can go much more right if you do a shootout and find a top copy like this one)
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • 4 stars: “JT was James Taylor’s best album since Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon because it acknowledged the darkness of his earlier work while explaining the deliberate lightness of his current viewpoint, and because it was his most consistent collection in years.”
  • If I were to compile a list of my favorite rock and pop albums from 1977, this album would definitely be on it

The good copies really rock on songs like Honey Don’t Leave L.A. or I Was Only Telling A Lie, yet have lovely, delicate vocals on ballads such as Another Grey Morning or There We Are (two of our favorite songs on the album).

Just turn up the volume and play the opening to Honey Don’t Leave L.A. — this is James Taylor and his super-tight studio band at the peak of their powers. Russ Kunkel hits the drum twice, then clicks his sticks together so quickly you can hardly notice it, then goes back to the drums for the rest of the intro.

On the best copies, the subtleties of his performance are clearly on display. Until the right copies came along, we had never even noticed that stick trick. Now it’s the high point of the whole intro.

Here are more of our favorite records with exceptionally punchy bass and here are more of our favorite records with exceptionally punchy drums.

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Commodores – Natural High

More of the Music of Commodores

  • This vintage Motown pressing boasts outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Spacious, full-bodied and Tubey Magical with a solid bottom end and driving rhythmic energy, this is the right sound for this music
  • “… even if ‘Three Times a Lady’ isn’t your cup of tea, Natural High still has a lot to offer R&B fans. ‘X-Rated Movie,’ ‘Such a Woman,’ and ‘I Like What You Do’ are exhilarating examples of hardcore funk, and those who appreciate artists like Heatwave and the Brothers Johnson will find a lot to admire about ‘Fire Girl’ and ‘Flying High’ (both of which are sleek examples of the sophisticated funk style).”

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Frank Sinatra – Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back

More of the Music of Frank Sinatra

  • Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back debuts on the site with a KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side one mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side two
  • On a copy this good, Frank will appear as living, breathing (albeit disembodied) person right in your very own listening room – we call that “the breath of life,” and this record has it in spades
  • “Frank Sinatra returned from his brief retirement in 1973 with the appropriately titled Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back. Released amidst a whirlwind of publicity, the album was a commercial success, earning gold status and nearly climbing its way into the Top Ten…. ‘Send in the Clowns’ and the moving ‘There Used to Be a Ballpark,’ both featuring sublime, subtle arrangements from Gordon Jenkins and outstanding singing by Sinatra.”

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Gil Evans – Into the Hot

More Jazz Recordings of Interest

  • Into the Hot debuts on the site with INSANELY GOOD Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades on both sides of this vintage ABC Impulse pressing
  • A tough shootout, as no other copy earned a 3+ grade on either side, which simply means that when you find a top copy, it sets such a high standard that everything else ends up getting marked down
  • These sides are big and rich, with loads of Tubey Magic, wonderful transparency and lots of space around the players
  • Exceptionally spacious and three-dimensional, as well as relaxed and full-bodied – this pressing was a big step up over every other copy we played

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Beethoven & Kodaly / Serenade & Duo / Heifetz, Piatigorsky

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

  • Solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER bring these two wonderful chamber pieces to life on this early Shaded Dog pressing of LSC-2550
  • It’s also fairly quiet at Mint Minus Minus, a grade that even our most-well-cared-for vintage classical titles have trouble playing at
  • The Living Stereo sound is rich and transparent and, unlike a lot of RCA’s chamber recordings, not dry, with tonality that is right on the money
  • The performers are present and the transients of their instruments are not in the least bit smeared, vintage tubes or no vintage tubes in the recording chain

The performers on this recording are Heifetz, violin / Primrose, viola / Piatigorsky, cello.

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Grant Green – Am I Blue

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Guitar

  • Green’s 1964 release, here with very good Hot Stamper grades on both sides of this vintage Blue Note pressing
  • It’s richer, fuller and with more presence than the average copy, and that’s especially true for whatever godawful Heavy Vinyl pressing is currently being foisted on an unsuspecting record buying public
  • This is true of even our lowest-priced, lowest-graded copies – they are guaranteed to sound much better than any pressing you can find on the market today, as well as any pressing you may already own
  • Feel free to explore whatever reissues might suit your fancy, but one pressing you should probably steer clear of is anything on the Music Matters label — they really made a mess of Grant’s Green Street album, so unless you have return privileges, you are asking for trouble buying any of their records
  • Rudy Van Gelder was masterful at this kind of spacious, low-distortion, dynamic, energetic sound

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Paganini – Violin Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 / Menuhin

More of the Music of Paganini

  • This vintage EMI pressing of two of the truly great virtuoso/romantic violin concertos boasts a STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side one – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • It’s simply bigger, more transparent, less distorted, more three-dimensional and more real than practically all of what we played
  • The best balance of orchestra and soloist we know of for both works, with sound to rival the greatest works for the violin we’ve played

Another remarkable Demo Disc from the Golden Age of Vacuum Tube Recording Technology, in this case 1961, with the added benefit of mastering using the more modern cutting equipment of the ’70s. (We are of course here referring to the good modern mastering of 40 years ago, not the bad modern mastering of today.)

This combination of old and new works wonders on this title as you will surely hear for yourself on this wonderful copy.

The sound of the best copies is transparent, undistorted, three-dimensional and REAL, without any sacrifice in solidity, richness or Tubey Magic. The illusion of disappearing speakers is one of the more attractive aspects of the sound here, pulling the listener into the space of the concert hall in an especially engrossing way. (more…)