Commentaries on Reviewing

A Kinder, Gentler Approach to Record Reviewing

Record Collecting for Audiophiles from A to Z

Allow me to respond to a comment left by a fellow named Ian Malone.

It was left in the comments section for the interview Steve Westman did with me.

He wrote:

Quite happy for you to promote your business Tom, but surely you are a better person than doing it in this way. I know that other people in the industry have said unkind things about you but you can rise above these insults.

My response:

I never say that the people making these modern records, as well as those reviewing them, are malicious or evil. I say they make or review bad sounding records and are simply misguided and, more than anything else, incompetent.

Am I being unkind? If Michael Bay makes one bad movie after another, are we unkind to point that out? I don’t know whether or not he is a bad person, but I do know that he is a bad filmmaker, and gets called out regularly for putting out a bad product.

Everyone understands that this is a matter of taste. If you always wished The Beatles albums had more bass, more compression and a smoother tonal balance overall, you can buy the new Heavy Vinyl pressings and get the sound you prefer on every title The Beatles ever released.

However, I hope you know that the sound I have just described does not exist on the master tapes.

UPDATE 2026

I would amend the above statement to say “that the sound I have just described is very unlikely to exist on the master tapes,” since all of the pressings of The Beatles’ music that we think sound more correct do not have that sound. Where that “more correct” sound came from is a matter of speculation, but we sure know it when we hear it, as do our customers. More on that subject here.

I have no way of actually knowing that for a fact, but since no mastering engineer before 2014 had ever put that sound on an actual record, I think we can safely say that the evidence supports the idea that a completely “new sound” was specifically created for The Beatles when their catalog was remastered early in this century. [1]

(more…)

How Is this Title Not on the TAS List?

Hot Stamper Pressings of Orchestral Spectaculars Available Now

UPDATE 2026

I wrote this commentary about ten years ago if memory serves. Since then we have done a number of shootouts for Slaughter on Tenth Avenue and have never failed to be impressed with the sound and the music.

Many of Arthur Fiedler‘s recordings are favorites of ours. We may even have a few on the site at the moment. All of them are guaranteed to satisfy.

This copy of  from many years ago was so good on side two it practically left me speechless.

I wondered: How is this title not on the TAS List?

Why is it not one of the most sought-after recordings in the RCA canon?

Beats the hell out of me.

But wait just one minute. Until a month ago I surely had no idea how good this record could sound, so how can I criticize others for not appreciating a record I had never taken the time to evaluate myself?

Which more than anything else prompts the question — why is no one exploring, discovering and then bringing to light the exceptional qualities of these wonderful vintage recordings (besides your humble writer and his staff, of course)?

HP has passed on. Who today is fit to carry his mantle into the coming world of audio?

Looking around I find very few prospects. None in fact.

But then again, I’m not looking very hard. I could care less what any of these people have to say about the sound quality of the records they play.

They all seem to like records that don’t sound very good to us, so why put any faith in their reviews for other records?

Reviewer malpractice? We’ve been writing about it since 1994..

(more…)

When you read a review of a record that was obviously reproduced with inferior equipment, what’s your first reaction?

When You’re Just Getting Started in Audio…

Mine is typically “what an idiot!“

But then I might step back and, taking a moment to reflect, recognize that I myself have written seriously mistaken reviews back in the days when my equipment was inferior. I have to recognize that could have been me, and maybe not all that long ago.

Here’s one from the mid-90s, about twenty years after I had purchased a pair of rather large floor standing speakers and a number of highly-rated, very expensive hi-fidelity components to drive them.

But all that hardware and all that money could not tell me how awful sounding some records were, and there are plenty more from my past.

In fact, there are so many that we thought they deserved their own special category here on the blog, under the heading dubious sounding records I once liked.

The explanation for all the nonsense one reads on the web could not be simpler or more obvious.

The lo-fi to mid-fi crowd doesn’t know what it’s missing and telling them doesn’t do them (or you) any good because they are not where they need to be yet. They are not where you are — they are where they are. And that just happens to be the same place you were at some point in your journey.

They are in the hole you used to be in. The difference is you managed to climb out of that hole. They’re still in it.

Keep in Mind

(more…)

Getting Fooled, or Fooling Yourself?

Basic Concepts Every Audiophile Should Understand

This excerpt is from a longer commentary we wrote in 2022 about the digital step (the horror!) Mobile Fidelity was secretly using to make their so-called One Step pressings.

What follows is one way to look at what happened and who it happened to.

This gentleman you see pictured, a certain Mike Esposito, made a foolish mistake.

He bought into the hype of the Modern Audiophile Remastered Record hook, line and sinker.

Rather than being skeptical, he wanted to believe what they told him.

He did not use his own ears to make judgments, he let others — reviewers, fellow audiophiles, the label itself — tell him what was pure and good.

Now he has learned that he was misinformed by those in whom he placed his trust. Even worse, he was lied to by the label he… is worshipped to strong a word?

He was also misinformed by the audiophile reviewers who should have known something was wrong. Not being able to recognize the shortcomings in the sound of these pressings was entirely predictable, since these reviewers never developed listening skills much better than those of Mr Esposito. (For more on just how out of his depth the man was, click here.)

His world has been turned upside down. But that’s not technically true — it was always upside down.

We know of practically no evidence to support the proposition that this label knows how to make good sounding records.  We wondered how they were still in business and have no expectation of ever getting any answer more helpful than “shut up.” (If you actually have evidence to support any claim you wish to make, we can help you do that.)

Finding good records and being able to reproduce them properly is hard. Perhaps now Mr Esposito is coming to appreciate just how little he knew about either.

UPDATE 2025

Based on the fact that he charges $1.99 per month — I kid you not — to advise his clients which are the best sounding pressings of the albums he auditions, it’s doubtful that he has learned anything from his experience of being fooled by Mobile Fidelity, along with all the other audiophile reviewers who apparently are as easily duped as he is. (Is there any job in the world requiring less in the way of qualifications than “audiophile record reviewer”?)

(more…)

Some Questions Just Don’t Have Good Answers

Yes, that is indeed a real puzzler all right!

I do not remember what audiophile forum I was on when I found this post. It could have been any of them.

Further Reading

To learn more about records that sound dramatically better than any Half-Speed mastered title ever made (with one exception, John Klemmer’s Touch), please go here.

People sometimes ask us how come we don’t like Half-Speed mastered records?

Below you will find our breakdown of the best and worst Half-Speed mastered records we have auditioned over the years.

(more…)