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.

Liberty Made This Awful Record with Julie London and Bud Shank in 1965

More of the Music of Julie London

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Julie London

Way too bright. Best to give this one a pass if you are looking for audiophile sound.

Some of Julie London‘s records are phenomenally well recorded, and the best pressings of those superb recordings are the ones we offer to our customers.

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.

For vintage pressings with the ultimate in audiophile sound, check out our website, Better Records.

Further Reading

Audiophiles Might Want to Give This Sarah Vaughan Album a Miss

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Sarah Vaughan

Hot Stamper Pressings of Outstanding Pop and Jazz Vocal Albums

This is just one of the recordings by Sarah Vaughan that we’ve auditioned and found wanting. Without going into specifics, we’ll just say this album suffers from a poor performance, poor sound, or both, and therefore is unlikely to  deserve a place in an audiophile record collection.

For more than 35 years we’ve been helping music loving audiophiles the world over avoid bad sounding records.

To see the records with bad sound or bad music we’ve reviewed, click here.

Mostly we write about good sounding records, and there are thousands that can be found here.

It’s yet another public service from Better Records, the home of the best sounding records ever pressed. Our records sound better than any others you’ve ever heard or you get your money back.

Further Reading

The Recordings of Nina Simone – These Two Didn’t Make the Grade

These are just some of the Nina Simone recordings that we’ve auditioned recently and found wanting.

Without going into specifics we’ll just say these albums suffer from poor performances, poor sound, or both, and therefore do not deserve a place in your collection, and may even belong in our Hall of Shame.  

A Free Service provided to the Audiophile Public, courtesy of Better Records.

Wind Sky and Diamonds – A Weak Effort

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Guitar

Reviews and Commentaries for Gabor Szabo

Music Grade: F

Not recommended, a weak effort by Impulse in 1967, with silly background vocals no less. Neither the music nor the sound, at least on the copies we played, will likely be worth your time.

This has been a public service review from the record loving audiophiles here at Better Records.

Nat King Cole Sings / George Shearing Plays – Mono Vs. Stereo

More of the Music of Nat “King” Cole

The reissue pressings rarely sounded right to us.

In addition, the mono copies were uniformly awful — small, congested and gritty.

Our Hot Stamper pressings — even the lowest-graded copies we offer –are sure to give you fuller vocals, more transparency, more weight to the piano and, of course, the tubey warmth of vintage analog.

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Sonny’s Story – Skip the OBC

More Classic Blues Albums

Some OJC (or OBC) Pressings Sound Good, Some Don’t – This One Doesn’t

The copy we auditioned did not impress us sonically, so don’t expect to see Hot Stampers of this title on OJC coming to the Better Records website any time soon.

The music might be wonderful — we unreservedly follow the maxim de gustibus non est disputandum — but the sound of this pressing is unlikely to be of audiophile quality.

There may be great sounding pressings of the album – how could we possibly know there aren’t without playing every version ever pressed? — but we’re pretty sure the OJC will always fall short of the mark.

We created two sections for the OJC label: one for the (potentially, it’s what Hot Stampers are all about) good sounding OJC pressings and one for the (probably, see the paragraph above) bad sounding ones.

If you know of a great sounding pressing of the album, feel free to let us in on what pressing you have and we might just pick one up and give it a listen.

We’ve auditioned countless pressings like this one in the 33 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.

Tom Port

Better Records (more…)

Every Label Made Mediocre Records – London Released This One in 1963

More of the music of Franz Schubert

More of the music of Antonin Dvorak

The copy we auditioned was opaque and veiled, much like the Heavy Vinyl reissues that are flooding the market these days.

Looking for pressings with audiophile quality sound and mostly quiet surfaces? This link will take you to the Decca/London records that are currently available on our site. They’re guaranteed to have good sound. Quiet surfaces are harder to come by but we’re doing the best we can.

As far as we can tell, based on this single copy, CS 6357 is not an album worthy of a Hot Stamper shootout.

We can’t say that there aren’t good sounding pressings of the album though. If we hear a better one down the road, we would certainly be open to the possibility of doing a shootout and making the best copies available to our customers.

Perhaps you have one you like. If so, please let us know. You can email me at tom@better-records.com

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