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.

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

Hot Stamper Pressings of Contemporary Jazz Recordings 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.

(more…)

Stick with Porky on East Side Story

More Hot Stamper Pressings We Only Offer on Import Vinyl Available Now

Porky cut the original British pressings of this Squeeze album, one of countless personal favorites of yours truly. They are records (and cassettes and CDs) I have played hundreds of times and still listen to regularly to this very day, in this case more than forty years after I purchased my first copy. (Good albums age well.)

I would have picked the record out of the bin at my local Tower Records, probably based on the radio play Tempted was getting.

That copy undoubtedly would have been domestic and made from a sub-generation tape, although I’m quite sure I could not have recognized what constituted dubby sound back then. In 1981, what I understood about the importance of different record pressings would have fit comfortably in a thimble.

I had my MoFi’s, and although I hate to admit it, that’s about as far as I had gotten in my quest for superior sounding pressings. You could add Nautilus and a few other Half-Speeds to the list of what pressing I thought were impressive, leaving plenty of room in that thimble unfilled.

Thankfully those bad old days are gone, and the music can now, finally, live and breath on the best of these imports from the UK. Of course they are the only ones we buy these days for our shootouts. The others are what are known around these parts as “mistakes.”

Sometimes the imported pressings are mastered by Porky and sometimes they are not. The ones that are not tend to have a lot of problems, as you can see from our stamper sheet below.

When Porky is not on side one, that side will tend to be hard, lean and bright. Side two of that copy had decent sound, earning a minimal Hot Stamper grade of 1.5+.

(more…)

Great in Stereo, Bad in Mono. What Else Is New?

Hot Stamper Pressings of Jazz Piano Recordings Available Now

On this record, we say stick with stereo.

This album is much more common in mono than stereo, but we found the sound of the mono pressing we played deeply unsatisfying.

Where is the wall to wall space of the live club?

It has been shrunken down into the area between the speakers.

Much of the ambience disappeared with it, destroying the illusion the album was trying to create, that you are actually there with Ramsey and his rhythm section.

In mono, you really aren’t.

For albums that actually can sound sound good in mono, so good they can win shootouts, click here.

(more…)

Every Last One of These Bartok Records with Ansermet Was No Good

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Bela Bartok Available Now

Every last one of our London pressings of Concerto for Orchestra was a disaster: smeary strings, blary brass and painfully shrill throughout, with no top or bottom to speak of, the very definition of boxy sound.

The entire group of CS 6086 we had on hand — whether on Blueback or Whiteback, we had a good selection of both — were much too unpleasant to be played on high quality modern equipment.

Why had I been buying them for years?

I made the mistake of assuming that the phenomenally talented Decca engineering and producing team who worked on this project could be relied upon to produce a top quality recording of the Concerto for Orchestra.

As it turns out, my guess turned out to be wrong.

I had made the mistake of believing in the infallability of experts.

I talk about the team of producers and engineers seen below in listing after listing, raving about the amazing sound of the recordings produced by them in the 50s and 60s, many of which are right at the top of the best sounding recordings I have ever had the privilege to play.

(more…)

These Two Oscar Peterson Records Didn’t Make the Grade

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Oscar Peterson Available Now

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.

According to the standards we’ve set for audiophile quality sound and music, they just 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 see the point in auditioning 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 and their reviews can be found on this blog.

For those who are looking for the best of the best, some of the records we’ve discovered with top jazz piano sound can be found here.

(more…)

Getz Au Go Go on Polygram – Isn’t This Record Supposed to Be Stereo?

Hot Stamper Pressings of Bossa Nova Albums Available Now

As part of our recent [probably from 2011] shootout for the album, one of the pressings we played was a later reissue, most likely from the late 70s or early 80s.   

As a general rule we make a point to go out of our way to play practically any copy we can get our hands on, in the off chance that a reissue will beat the original. It’s happened plenty of times. Those of you with White Hot Stamper shootout winning copies of some of our favorite titles know what I’m talkin’ about.

Imagine our surprise when this pressing — in a stereo jacket, with a label with the word “stereo” printed right on it — turned out to be dead MONO.

The sound was godawful — small, flat, and bereft of the ambience that makes this recording so enjoyable. The same would probably be true for the mono originals, but since I haven’t played one of those in decades I will just say that that would be no more than a guess, albeit an educated one.

Yet another reason not to believe a word you read on an album jacket or label.

A public service from your record loving audiophile friends here at Better Records. (more…)

Hey, Maybe Rudy Van Gelder IS as Bad a Mastering Engineer as They Say

Hot Stamper Pressings of Recordings by Rudy Van Gelder Available Now

It’s certainly a proposition worth considering, mostly because so many audiophiles seem to believe it. Or maybe in spite of their believing it, skeptics such as myself being the troublemakers they always are.

So let’s dig down into the dirt of a record that Rudy both recorded and mastered.

None of the Rudy Van Gelder cuttings we played of Eric Dolphy’s 1961 release of Out There were better than passable, and some had sides that were downright awful sounding, as you can plainly see from our notes.

The copies that won our most recent shootout were mastered by George Horn, and the best of them sound amazing. Here are some comments we made for the album years back as well as the Allmusic review:

Insanely good sound throughout with both sides earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades. This copy was doing it all right: rich, full-bodied and Tubey Magical yet still super open and spacious.

“A somber and unusual album by the standards of any style of music, Out There explores Dolphy’s vision in approaching the concept of tonality in a way few others — before, concurrent, or after — have ever envisioned.” – 5 stars

As you will see from our notes, we played some very disappointing early pressings. All the early pressings we had on hand were expensive to acquire, the vintage jazz pressing market being what it is: expensive and full of optimistic record graders of questionable skill. (For these kinds of vintage pressings we probably return 70-80% of what comes our way.)

We have to pay top dollar to get copies that are clean, even on the 60s and 70s reissue labels. Noisy old jazz records are simply not saleable to audiophiles no matter how good they sound.

None of the early copies we played earned grades good enough to bother pursuing, not when there are wonderful sounding vintage reissues from the 80s available. On a more positive note, this being our first shootout for the album in many years, we certainly learned a lot, so let’s just chalk up the losses to the cost of doing business. Our newfound knowledge of the best pressings will continue to pay dividends for years to come now that we know what the right stampers tend to be.

The original recording of Out There was released in 1961 and was not available in stereo until 1969. (Prestige was famous for being an anti-stereo holdout long after everyone else in the jazz world had come to terms with the superiority of two channels over one. Apparently the age-old controversy over mono versus stereo is ongoing, which is why we write about it so often.)

The first record you see pictured below is the mono reissue from 1965, released with a different cover and pressed on the lovely dark blue Prestige label. It, like the stereo reissue below it, was mastered by RVG.

A word to the audiophile types who like to do their own hunting: we rarely buy vintage jazz reissue records from the 60s and 70s that were not mastered by RVG. Their track record is poor, with maybe one winner out of ten, if that.

Back to this mono reissue from 1965. It’s a mess on side one, NFG, with side two being passable at best, earning one plus.

The second record you see, the one with a different cover, is the stereo reissue from 1969, also on the dark blue label and mastered by RVG.

It too is a mess, with side one being good, not great, but side two earning a less-than-Hot Stamper grade of 1+.

Side One

  • Loud and opaque and crude
  • NFG

Side Two

  • A bit too opaque and dull
  • Not doing much
  • Cello (played by Ron Carter no less!) has some qualities
  • Nice lower mids and texture
  • Otherwise not great
  • Crude
  • 1+

(more…)

Nilsson’s Aerial Pandemonium Ballet Sounds Absolutely Awful

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Harry Nilsson Available Now

Tracks from the first two Nilsson albums were turned into this monstrosity in 1971. Some were remixed, some parts rerecorded, but whatever they did, they really screwed up the sound of the finished LP.

I cannot even say that the remixing and rerecording and editing are not an improvement on the songs found on the first album — they may be, it’s not a record I know well. What I do know is that this compilation is so bad sounding it doesn’t matter what they did or how well they did it. The record is simply unplayable.

We’ve never done a shootout for the first album, but the second album we know can have wonderful sound on the right pressings. We described a recent Hot Stamper of the second album this way:

Both of these sides are big, clear and full-bodied throughout – if you are a Nilsson fan, this copy is guaranteed to beat anything you’ve heard before, and by a wide margin.

All of the elements are working here – you get silky vocals, punchy bass, breathy brass, silky highs, superb immediacy, remarkable clarity, and the list goes on.

AMG writes:

4 1/2 stars: “As ‘Good Old Desk’ opens Aerial Ballet with a cheerful saunter, it’s clear that Harry Nilsson decided to pick up where he left off with his debut, offering another round of effervescent, devilishly clever pop, equal parts lite psychedelia, pretty ballads, and music hall cabaret.”

All true! Nilsson is one of my favorite artists to this day, 56 years after I first heard the album “Harry,” which is still a personal favorite and one I listen to regularly, along with many others, including a compilation I think is excellent, Personal Best — The Harry Nilsson Anthology.

However, this compilation is shockingly bad — It’s cut loud, and it’s very hot and crude. Ouch is right.

(more…)

For Audiophile Quality Sound on “Jaws,” You Might Want to Look Elsewhere

Hot Stamper Pressings of Top Quality Jazz Albums Available Now

For good music? We will leave that judgment to you. Music is personal. What moves me in music and what moves you in music may be related but they are surely not identical.

In 1959 Eddie Lockjaw Davis & Shirley Scott recorded an album for Prestige and they called it “Jaws.”

The sound of the vintage pressing we played was not very good, with hard panning to the left and right. It was also dry and had too much reverb.

We were playing an early stereo copy, mastered by Van Gelder, but I honestly cannot remember the label.

Maybe the mono is better? It would not surprise me. If we see a mono pressing for cheap we will probably pick it up and give it a spin.

If you’re a fan of either of these two fine players, you might want to do the same. I believe we played the OJC pressing years ago and were not impressed, so best to skip that one too.

What we can say is that any album with sound as weak as the pressing we played leads us to believe that finding top quality sound is too unlikely for us to pursue the album further. Maybe at a bargain price, but vintage jazz records are rarely found for cheap these days. Best to move on.

(more…)

The “Not-So-Golden-Age” of RCA, Mercury, London and Others

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Titles Available Now

We ran into a number of copies of this title that had what we like to call “old record sound,” which is surprisingly common on even the most revered Golden Age labels, RCA included.

No top, no real bottom, congested climaxes and a general shrillness to the sound — we’ve played Living Stereos by the dozens that have these shortcomings and many more.

Some audiophiles may be impressed by the average Shaded Dog pressing, but I can assure you that we here at Better Records are decidedly not of that persuasion.

Something in the range of five to ten per cent of the major label Golden Age recordings we play will eventually make it to the site. The vast majority just don’t sound all that good to us. (Many have second- and third-rate performances and those get tossed without ever making it to a shootout.)

The One Out of Ten Rule

If you have too many classical records taking up too much space and need to winnow them down to a more manageable size, pick a composer and play half a dozen of his works.

Most classical records display an irredeemable mediocrity right from the start. It does not take a pair of golden ears to hear it.

If you’re after the best sound, it’s the rare record that will have it, which makes clearing shelf space a lot easier than you might imagine. If you keep more than one out of ten, you’re probably setting the bar too low, if our experience is any guide.

(more…)