Pressings with Weak Sound Quality or Music

These are records we’ve auditioned that didn’t sound very good to us, or the music was not to our liking, or both.

Andre Previn – These Two OJC Pressings Didn’t Make the Grade

Hot Stamper Pressings of Piano Jazz Albums Available Now

Hot Stamper Pressings on Contemporary Available Now

The mastering choices of the cutting engineers for these two recordings did them no favors.

Like so many of the early OJC pressings we’ve played over the years, we found that both of these reissues tended to be somewhat thin tonally, with a brittle top end, which can clearly be heard in the tizzy quality of the cymbals.

This is not remotely the right sound for a vintage Contemporary recording.

When doing the shootouts for these albums, warmth turned out to be key to the sound of the best copies.

When the piano sounds warm and smooth, everything else in the recording seems to fall into place.

We play mediocre-to-bad sounding pressings so that you don’t have to, a public service from your record-loving friends at Better Records.

You can find this one in our Hall of Shame, along with others that — in our opinion — are best avoided by audiophiles looking for hi-fidelity sound. Some of these records may have passable sonics, but we found the music less than compelling.  These are also records you can safely avoid.

We also have an Audiophile Record Hall of Shame for records that were marketed to audiophiles for their putatively superior sound. If you’ve spent any time on this blog at all, you know that these records are some of the worst sounding pressings we have ever had the displeasure to play.

We routinely play them in our Hot Stamper Shootouts against the vintage records that we offer, and are often surprised at just how bad an “audiophile record” can sound and still be considered an “audiophile record.”

Further Reading

The Recordings of Oscar Peterson – These Two Didn’t Make the Grade

More of the Music of Oscar Peterson

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Oscar Peterson

Pictured to the left are a couple of the Oscar Peterson albums we’ve auditioned over the years and found to be less than impressive. As far as we were concerned, they didn’t make the grade.

Without going into specifics, we’ll just say these albums suffer from weak music, weak sound, or both. They may hold some appeal for fans, but audiophiles looking for top quality sound and music — our stock in trade — should take our free advice and look elsewhere.

General Notes

We are not aware of any record Peterson recorded for Limelight that’s worthy of a Hot Stamper shootout.

He made six in the mid-sixties. We’ve played two or three and did not feel the need to audition any others.

As for Pablo Records, Peterson recorded himself, his various groups, and played on the sessions for a great many other artists. At most a dozen or two would be of enough interest for us to pursue.

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Mendelssohn and Prokofiev Violin Concertos‎ – These Are the Stampers to Avoid

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

More Stamper and Pressing Information (You’re Welcome!)

None of the White Dog pressings we played in our most recent shootout were better than mediocre, and the ’70s Red Seal pressings were uniformly awful as well.

We had two different side ones with 8s stampers, and two different sides twos with 5s and 7s, respectively. (One of our Shaded Dogs had a 5s side two but it sounded quite a bit better than the White Dog side two with 5s.)

There are quite a number of other records that we’ve run into over the years with obvious shortcomings.

Here are some of them, a very small fraction of what we’ve played, broken down by label.

London/Decca records with weak sound or performances

Mercury records with weak sound or performances

RCA records with weak sound or performances

We’ve auditioned countless pressings in the 36 years we’ve been in business — buying, cleaning and playing them by the thousands.

This is how we find the best sounding vinyl pressings ever made.

Not the ones that should sound the best. The ones that actually do sound the best.

If you’re an audiophile looking for top quality sound on vintage vinyl, we’d be happy to send you the Hot Stamper pressing guaranteed to beat anything and everything you’ve heard, especially if you have any pressing marketed as suitable for an audiophile. Those, with very few exceptions, are the worst.

And if we can’t beat whatever LP you own or have heard, you get your money back.  It’s as simple as that.

Further Reading

Mozart – Don’t Waste Your Money on this Living Stereo from 1960

More of the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Mozart

Neither the sound nor the performance of this 1960 Living Stereo are impressive.

This Mercury might be passable on an Old School System, but it was too unpleasant to be played on the high quality modern equipment we use.

There are quite a number of other records that we’ve run into over the years with similar shortcomings. Here are some of them, a very small fraction of what we’ve played, broken down by label.

  • London/Decca records with weak sound or performances
  • Mercury records with weak sound or performances
  • RCA records with weak sound or performances

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Hey Bud, This Girl Looks Awfully Familiar

More of the Music of Bud Shank

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Bud Shank

More Albums that Didn’t Make the Grade

Neither of these records is worth owning. The sound is at best mediocre, as is the music.

Bud Shank recorded a large number of “white bread” jazz albums as a leader. The music on these albums is worthless.

He of course played on many of our favorite albums as a sideman.

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The Beatles / Revolver – The Mono Recut from 1981 Is a Ripoff

Hot Stamper Pressings of Revolver Available Now

Reviews and Commentaries for Revolver

A great sounding record in stereo, potentially anyway, but this later reissue in mono is so awful it deserves a special place in our Hall of Shame.

My notes for side one: hard, sour, no bass.

Side two: dumbass small mono, so unclear.

Is it the worst version of the album ever made? That’s hard to say. There is no shortage of competition, that’s for sure.

But it may be the worst sounding version of the album we’ve ever played, and that should be good enough for any audiophile contemplating spending money on this kind of rubbish.

We love the mono mix of For No One, but not when it sounds like this.

The only Beatles vinyl we offer on our site are stereo pressings. Our reasons for doing this are straightforward enough.

The Beatles records in mono, contrary to the opinion of audiophiles and music lovers alike, virtually never have the presence, energy and resolution found on the best stereo copies. If your stereo cannot resolve all the information on the tape, sure, Twin Track Stereo (used on the first two albums, hard-panned multi-track afterwards) ends up sounding like some of the instruments are stuck in the speakers, hard left and hard right, with nothing but a hole in the middle.

But there is a great deal of information spreading into the middle when we play those records here, and nothing feels stuck in the speakers that doesn’t sound like it was supposed to be heard coming directly from one of the speakers.

It is our contention that the best audio equipment, properly tweaked, can show you a world of musical information that exists only on the stereo pressings, information that the mono mixes mostly obscure.

Original Vs. Reissue

We can tell you this potentially helpful piece of information about Revolver pressings: no original Yellow and Black British pressing has ever fared well in any shootout we’ve conducted.

The better your stereo gets, the more bandwidth-limited, distorted, compressed and congested the originals will reveal themselves to be.

That’s why we think The Beatles Music on Vinyl Is an Audiophile Wake Up Call.

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The Recordings of Tony Bennett – Two More that Didn’t Make the Grade

More of the Music of Tony Bennett

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Tony Bennett

We play mediocre-to-bad sounding pressings so that you don’t have to, a public service from your record-loving friends at Better Records.

You can find these two in our Hall of Shame, along with others that — in our opinion — are best avoided by audiophiles looking for hi-fidelity sound. Some of these records may have passable sonics, but we found the music less than compelling.  These are also records you can safely avoid.

We also have an Audiophile Record Hall of Shame for records that were marketed to audiophiles for their putatively superior sound. If you’ve spent any time on this blog at all, you know that these records are some of the worst sounding pressings we have ever had the displeasure to play.

We routinely play them in our Hot Stamper Shootouts against the vintage records that we offer, and are often surprised at just how bad an “audiophile record” can sound and still be considered an “audiophile record.”

(more…)

Offenbach – Strings and Brass Are Tough to Get Right

More of the Music of Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880)

More Reviews and Commentaries for Gaite Parisienne

Our favorite recording of the work is this one on Readers Digest with Fistoulari conducting.

It’s also an excellent record to test with. As you no doubt know, there is a lot of “action” in this piece of music.

To get the strings and the brass to sound lively yet natural is a bit of a trick. (It doesn’t help that the polarity is reversed.)

When I first played this record many years ago, I was none too happy about the string tone. After making a few tweaky adjustments, the strings became much clearer and more textured. The overall presentation still sounded rich, but was now dramatically more natural and relaxed.

It was this record that made me realize some of the changes I had made to my stereo back then had caused it to have a certain hi-fi-ish quality, which seemed to work fine on the popular and jazz recordings I was using as test discs at the time.

But the reproduction of classical music is the ultimate challenge for any stereo.

And this record was telling me I wasn’t getting it right. I’m happy to report that things are sounding wonderful now, on every kind of record: jazz, rock and especially on excellent classical recordings such as this one, on Readers Digest no less (!)

A famous jazz album by Michel LeGrand was also helpful in getting my playback to be more correct.

We are in the process of making some lists (more lists!) for records we’ve found to be good for testing, tweaking and tuning your system, your room and your front end setup, among other things. So far, we have compiled these groups:

These are the records that challenged me and helped me to achieve more progress in audio. If you want to improve your stereo, these are some of the best records we know of to help you get to the next level.

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Mozart – Don’t Waste Your Money on this Mercury

More of the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Mozart

Neither the sound nor the performance of this 1958 Mercury are impressive here.

1958 just happens to be one of the All Time Great Years for Analog Recording, as can be seen from this amazing group of albums, all recorded or released that year.

This Mercury might be passable on an Old School System, but it was too unpleasant to be played on the high quality modern equipment we use.

There are quite a number of others that we’ve run into over the years with similar shortcomings. Here they are, broken down by label.

  • London/Decca records with weak sound or performances
  • Mercury records with weak sound or performances
  • RCA records with weak sound or performances

Our Pledge of Service to You, the Discriminating Audiophile 

We play mediocre-to-bad sounding pressings so that you don’t have to, a free service from your record-loving friends at Better Records.

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The Recordings of Milt Jackson – These Two Didn’t Make the Grade

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Mile Jackson

Hot Stamper Pressings of Jazz Recordings Available Now

Pictured to the left are a couple of the Milt Jackson albums we’ve auditioned over the years, both on CTI, a label we like very much.

Without going into specifics, we’ll just say these albums suffer from weak music, weak sound, or both. They may have some appeal to fans of the man, but audiophiles looking for top quality sound and music — our stock in trade — are best advised to look elsewhere.

We play mediocre-to-bad sounding pressings so that you don’t have to, a public service from your record-loving friends at Better Records.

You can find these two in our Hall of Shame, along with others that — in our opinion — are best avoided by audiophiles looking for hi-fidelity sound. Some of these records may have passable sonics, but we found the music less than compelling.  These are also records you can safely avoid.

We also have an Audiophile Record Hall of Shame for records that were marketed to audiophiles for their putatively superior sound. If you’ve spent any time on this blog at all, you know that these records are some of the worst sounding pressings we have ever had the misfortune to play.

We routinely put them in our Hot Stamper Shootouts against the vintage records that we offer, and are often surprised at just how bad an “audiophile record” can sound and still be considered an “audiophile record.”

Does the term still have any meaning?

(more…)