Pressings with Weak Sound or Music

These vintage records didn’t sound very good to us. Additionally, some made the list because the music or performances were not to our liking.

As to their sound quality, some of them are bad recordings, but some are no doubt just bad pressings of good recordings. Either way, audiophiles should avoid them.

Bad sounding Heavy Vinyl and Half-Speed mastered pressings can be found in their own sections.

The Recordings of Duke Ellington – Two More that Didn’t Make the Grade

More of the Music of Duke Ellington

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Duke Ellington

Pictured to the left are a couple of the Ellington albums we’ve auditioned over the years.

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 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.”

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These Two Lena Horne Living Stereo Releases Didn’t Make the Grade

Hot Stamper Pressings of Vocal Albums Available Now

The words “Living Stereo” on the cover are apparently no guarantee of good sound.

We have never played a copy of either of these two albums that was especially good sounding, certainly not good enough to charge the kind of money we charge.

We love female vocal recordings, but these two just did not make the grade.

There are a great many male and female vocal albums that actually did make the grade, most often by going through a shootout, and here are some of the categories we use to separate them:

We’ve Played ‘Em

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.

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The Recordings of Milt Jackson – These Are Some that 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 Pablo, 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 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.

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The UK Imports of On the Third Day Are Made from Dubs

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Electric Light Orchestra Available Now

It’s obvious, or should be, that the British vinyl pressings are made from sub-generation copy tapes.

The imports make it sound as if someone threw a blanket over your speakers.

We know this because we had a bunch of them cleaned up for our shootout many years ago and they all sucked.

We tend to buy Electric Light Orchestra records on import vinyl; those are the ones that have proven themselves to have the best sound.

Most of the domestic pressings of their albums sound as though they were mastered from dub tapes.

But On The Third Day is proof that this is not always the case, just as Siren proves that the best Roxy Music albums are not always British.

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Peggy Lee – Dream Street

More of the Music of Miss Peggy Lee

Over the years we’ve had the pleasure of playing some copies of her mono album from 1957, but it has never sounded very good to us and we stopped buying them years ago.

If you see one for cheap, pick it up. The music is wonderful. Many of Peggy Lee’s performances are superb, if not definitive.

To make our case, check out Miss Lee’s wonderfully delicate rendering of  “It Never Entered My Mind.” I know of none better.

This guy is pretty good too. We sell Hot Stamper pressings of this 1964 release, or at least we used to. Can’t find them anymore. The one album of his that belongs in every collection is this one, a collaboration of the ages.

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.”

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Julie London – These Early 60s Releases Didn’t Make the Grade

More of the Music of Julie London

Hot Stamper Pressings of Vocal Albums Available Now

The early sixties were not good for the sound of Julie London’s albums. As far as we can tell, her last good sounding album came out in 1961.

The album at the top is from 1963 and the one below it it is from 1964.

We have never played a copy of either album that was especially good sounding, certainly not good enough to charge the kind of money we charge.

We love Female Vocal recordings, but these two are just not good enough to make the grade.

There are many male and female vocal albums that actually did make the grade, most often by going through a shootout, and here are some of the categories we have separated them into:

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.

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This Linda Ronstadt Album from 1969 Did Not Make the Grade

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Linda Ronstadt Available Now

Transistory and veiled. Not worth the Capitol vinyl it was pressed on. Not the least bit enjoyable on today’s much more revealing high quality equipment.

The only stereo that can play a record that sounds the way this album does is a stereo that is powered by a pair of vintage tube amps like the Macs seen below, or something like them. (Some modern amps try to recreate that sound, and if you want to hear what is on your records, you had best avoid them.)

The above approach to record playback is also very good at hiding the faults of the modern Heavy Vinyl record.

Remastering Out The Good Stuff

What is lost in the newly remastered recordings so popular with the record buying public these days?

Lots of things, but the most obvious and irritating is the loss of transparency.

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A Very Bad Porky/Pecko Cutting of My Aim Is True

Hot Stamper Pressings of Elvis’s Albums Available Now

My notes for the one and only UK pressing I’ve played in many years, the one with Porky is the dead wax, note its many weaknesses:

Really loud and full.

Too loud and hot vocal.

Strains a lot.

You know what the sound of this record reminds me of?

An old 45 RPM 7″ single. Remember those?

It’s not unusual for 45 RPM singles from back in the day to be very loud, very compressed, and they often have much-too-hot vocals designed to jump right into your lap.

Mono mixes sometimes have some of that same lowest-common-denominator sound.

This mix is stereo but it sounds like it’s coming right out of a jukebox.

No doubt Mr. Peckham was told to make the record sound that way, and he did his job very well.

But audiophiles looking for good sound should heed this warning and avoid the UK LPs of the album. It’s a joke next to the domestic pressings with the right stampers. (The right stampers are hard to find but you will never hear a good sounding early pressing unless you have a copy with the stampers that sound right, a tautology to be sure but one worth noting.)

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Skip this Ridiculously Compressed London Pines of Rome

Hot Stamper Pressings of The Pines of Rome

The Prevatelli on London you see pictured was way too compressed to be taken seriously by us.

When the music is supposed to get loud at the end of the Pines, it never does!

The Stereo Treasury you see below was equally bad sounding. It did not last more than a few minutes on our turntable.

If more vintage Londons had sound as bad as the three or four copies we had on hand (it’s a fairly common used record, now I know why), we would happily admit that going the Heavy Vinyl route is a good idea.

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For the Mendelssohn and Prokofiev Violin Concertos‎, These Are the Stampers to Avoid

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

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.

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