*Be More Skeptical!

We encourage audiophiles to be skeptical of the claims made for pressings with supposedly superior sound, regardless of their age.

In our experience, any records that are not backed by a 100% money back guarantee are unlikely to be very good, certainly not as good as they purport to be.

I Knew This Guy Was Full of Sh*t, But I Had to Be Sure

Skeptical Thinking Is Critical to Achieving Better Sound

Recently a fellow named Jared tried to correct our assertion that Rod Stewart’s early albums from the US are made from dubbed tapes, as is our contention.

Here is his letter:

Hey there. Just wanted to point out some errors on your listing for Rod Stewart’s “An Old Raincoat…” LP. The UK pressings are the ones made from dupes.

The first generation masters for all of Rod’s Mercury albums are in the US. All vinyl vintage pressings, UK or US, are made from EQ dupes.

The original US Polygram CDs mastered by Dennis Drake are straight off the original masters.
Thanks!

Naturally this information took us by surprise. We replied:

Jared,

Can you refer me to the source of your information?

Thanks,

TP

There was no answer to my query. Nor was I able to find any source for this information.

I hadn’t played a domestic copy of The Rod Stewart album, the title Old Raincoat was released under in the states, in at least twenty years, probably more like thirty. It had sure sounded dubby to me back then. I stopped buying them a long time ago.

Was I remembering the sound right? The odds were very high that I was, but I had to know for sure, even though I had no idea who Jared was or where his information came from.

I asked my main man Fred to get one in and give it a listen. Here is his report:

We played The Rod Stewart Album (domestic Old Raincoat) we got in and it sounds absolutely terrible. Super spitty and bright.

Are they all this bad? Who can say?

Could my UK pressing be made from copy tapes?

I suppose it’s possible. It doesn’t sound dubby to me, but it is not an especially good sounding record, unlike Rod’s third album, which is about as good sounding a rock record as is possible to make. (In the case of Every Picture, it’s the imports that are made from dubs. Go figure.)

Maybe Dennis Drake actually did get hold of the real master tapes when making his CD. He is a very talented engineer; I have many compact discs mastered by him and I don’t know of any that aren’t at least good sounding. For those of you who play CDs, you are free to give his version of An Old Raincost a try. Please let me know what you hear.

What’s that Smell?

But the reason Jared letter is being published is that it reeks of information that has not been verified by anyone’s ears. Certainly not Jared’s.

If, like Jared, you read something that sounds plausible, that you think might be true, why would you be so willing to believe it without any real evidence to back it up?

Even worse, the comments Jared makes weren’t even prefaced with “I’ve read that…” or “People seem to agree that…” No, Jared leaves no room for doubt. The information is presented as true.

Can anyone who has played both versions of Old Raincoat not hear how much better the UK pressing is?

We couldn’t. Nothing could have been more obvious to us than that one version is made from good tapes and one version is made from bad tapes.

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Arrogant and Elitist Skeptics – They’re the Worst!

Our Thoughts on Tubes in Audio

Below you will find a link to a reasonably fair and balanced look at the battle between transistors and tubes from Brian Dunning’s skeptoid website, worthwhile reading for those of us who favor a skeptical approach to life (and especially this hobby).

Thirty plus years ago, when I started my little record business, I knew that most records marketed to audiophiles offered junk sound (half-speed masters, Japanese pressings) or junk music (direct to discs by artists nobody ever heard of).

As our playback has improved, fewer and fewer of these “specialty” pressings have survived the test of time, a subject we write about endlessly on our site and here on this blog.

For the longest time our motto has been “Records for Audiophiles, Not Audiophile Records,” and we see no reason to change it.  If anything, the modern manufacturers of Heavy Vinyl pressings are making records that get worse sounding by the day. Many of the most egregious offenders can be found here.

More commentaries about Heavy Vinyl can be found here. We are not fans of the stuff, not because it’s our competition, but because it just doesn’t sound very good.

Here is the article.

I confess I sped through it quickly, barely skimming it, because I have heard plenty on the subject of  tubes versus transistors, most of it, in my opinion, misguided if I’m being honest.

This is my fifth decade in audio and I know where I stand on the subject. I offer it to those who might be interested in a less conventional view.

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Good Audio Advice and Critical Listening Skills

More on the Subject of How to Go About Developing Your Critical Listening Skills

UPDATE 2024

This is an updated version of a commentary written many years ago.

The latest Mapleshade catalog (Spring 09) has, along with hundreds of recommendations, this little piece of audio advice that caught my eye:

For much improved bass and huge soundstage, put your listening chair or sofa right against the wall behind you. Move your speakers in to 5’ in front of you and 7’ or more apart. No room treatments will yield this much bass improvement.

I literally had to read through it a couple of times to be sure I wasn’t hallucinating. But every time I read it, it still said the same thing, so I know I can’t have been dreaming. This is crazy talk. What the hell is wrong with these people?

Well, it’s not all crazy. There is actually a factually true statement at the end of that paragraph. Yes, it is true that no room treatments will yield as much bass as sitting up against a wall. But why stop there? Bass, regardless of its source, immediately seeks out the corners of the room. That’s where the most bass will always be: where the room boundaries are. If you want to hear the maximum amount of bass your speakers are producing, put your head in the corner of the room down at the floor, where three boundaries intersect. Like the sound now? Getting enough bass are ya?

Along the same lines, for a “huge soundstage” try putting one speaker at one end of the room and the other speaker at the opposite end. Why stop at seven feet? My listening room is twenty feet deep; I can get a soundstage that’s twenty feet across without any problem at all.

I would just have to be dumb enough to think that doing such a thing would be a good idea.

Fellow audiophiles and music lovers, it is not. Let’s talk about why.

Room Reflections

The closer you are to anything that the sound coming from your speakers can bounce off of, right before or right after it reaches your ears, the worse the sound. You want to be as far away from everything as you can be, and this includes not only the back wall of your listening room, but the heads of other persons who may be listening with you. This is easily demonstrated. Have a friend or loved one sit next to you and listen critically to some music you know well. Now have that person leave the room. The sound will always get better (unless something else is very wrong). I have done this experiment many, many times and it only comes out one way: fewer near reflections, better sound.

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The Science of Hot Stampers – Incomplete, Imperfect, and (Gulp!) Provisional

Important Lessons We Learned from Record Experiments 

We have a section on the blog you may have seen called live and learn.

It’s devoted to discussing the records we think we we were wrong about.

Oh yes, it’s true. But it’s not really a problem for us here at Better Records. We see no need to cover up our mistakes. The process of learning involves recognizing and correcting previous errors.

Approached scientifically, all knowledge — in any field, not just record collecting or music reproduction — is incomplete, imperfect, and must be considered provisional.

What seems true today might easily be proven false tomorrow. If you haven’t discovered that for yourself yet, one thing’s for certain, you haven’t been in this hobby for very long.

We’re so used to the conventional wisdom being wrong, and having our own previous findings overturned by new ones, that we gladly go out of our way in listing after listing to point out just how wrong we were. (And of course why we think we are correct now.)

A common misperception among those visiting the site is that we think we know it all. Nothing could be further from the truth.

We learn something new about records with practically every shootout.

Each time we go back and play a 180 gram or Half-Speed mastered LP we used to like (or dislike), we gain a better understanding of its true nature. (The bulk of those “audiophile” pressings seem to get worse and worse over time, a subject that has been thoroughly discussed on the blog.)

Record cleaning gets better, front ends get better, electronics get better, tweaks get better, rooms get better — every aspect of your playback system should be improving on a regular basis, allowing you to more correctly identify the strengths and weaknesses of every record you play.

I almost forgot: your ears get better too, whether you like it or not. If that’s not happening, you’re probably not doing some very important things right. (Maybe some of your records are holding you back.)

What follows is a typical excerpt from a recent listing.

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Is The Pink Label The Hot Ticket for Jethro Tull’s Brilliant Stand Up Album?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Jethro Tull Available Now

Well, it certainly can be, but sometimes it isn’t, and failing to appreciate that possibility is a classic case of misunderstanding a crucially important fact or two about records. Audiophile analog devotees would do well to keep these facts in mind, especially considering the prices original British pressings are fetching these days.

Simply put: Since no two records sound alike, it follow that the right label doesn’t guarantee the right sound.

A shootout years ago illustrated both of these truths.

We had a number of Pink Island British pressings to play — if you hit enough record stores often enough, in this town anyway, even the rarest pressings are bound to show up in clean condition from time to time — along with Sunrays (aka Pink Rims), later Brits, early Two Tone domestics and plain Brown Label Reprise reissues. All of them can sound good. (We do not waste time with German and Japanese pressings, or any of the later Chrysalis label LPs. Never heard an especially good one.)

What surprised the hell out of us was how bad one of the Pink Label sides sounded. It was shockingly thin and hard, practically unlistenable.

Keep in mind that during our shootouts the listener has no idea which pressing is being played, so imagine hearing such poor reproduction on vinyl and then finding out that such bad sound was coming from a copy that should have been competitive with the best, on the legendary Pink Island label no less. (Of course the other Pinks were all over the map, their sides ranging from good to great.)

Hearing one sound this bad was completely unexpected, but hearing the unexpected is what we do for a living, so I suppose it shouldn’t have been. Having dubious looking reissues and the “wrong” pressings beat the originals and the so-called “right” pressings from the “right” countries is all in a day’s work here at Better Records.

The audiophiles who collect records by label are asking for trouble with Stand Up.

Assuming they want the best sound, that is.

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John writes: “The only problem I have with my evaluations is that I never heard his records.”

More Commentaries Prompted by Forums, Videos and Comments Sections

Please check out the interview Wired conducted with me a few years back.

If you have some time on your hands, maybe too much time on your hands, go to the comments section and read the 300 plus postings that can be found there, the writers of which seem to be offended by the very idea of Hot Stampers.

They also decry the obvious shortcomings of analog vinyl itself, as well as the ridiculously expensive equipment some “credulous, misguided audiophiles,” their terms, use to play vinyl records, as if you didn’t know already!

Here is one that I found to be especially interesting, from a psychological perspective if not from an audio one. (Emphases added.)

Bad, mismatched system setup. Customer base probably has the same. Also evaluation process is questionable. Uses a mediocre solid state amp and looks for “tubey magic” because of some misplaced concept of “accuracy” as I discussed before. [Man, this guy has got our number all right, ouch!]

Yes, there is a lot of bad stuff out there, and it does give the stereo industry as a whole a bad name. I have heard some pretty crappy, expensive setups in my day.

I was listening to Phoebe Snow’s “Second Childhood” on my best system last night. Boy, I love my new turntable!

The only problem I have with my evaluations is that I never heard his records. My comments are probably correct, but it would be interesting to audition a few of his “golden” albums just to confirm he hasn’t really found anything. The reason I am confident that he probably does not have anything is because virtually every repressing I’ve heard is better than the original. Claiming otherwise hurts his credibility.

John

There is one sentence in the paragraphs above that should raise a giant red flag and help you to appreciate how reliable John’s analysis of our stereo and methods might turn out to be. If you didn’t catch it the first time through, give it another shot. Okay, here goes:

The reason I am confident that he probably does not have anything is because virtually every repressing I’ve heard is better than the original.

That’s so strange! Virtually every repressing I’ve heard is worse than the original.

What gives?

If I may paraphrase our writer: the reason I am confident that he probably does not know anything about records or audio is that he thinks repressings are always better than vintage pressings.

We’ve critically auditioned tens of thousands of records, including many hundreds of repressings, admittedly on our “bad, mismatched system setup,” and I guess we must have gotten it all wrong over the 38 39 years we’ve been in the audiophile record business. The shame of it all!

Obviously, John knows he does not need to try one of our Hot Stampers. You can see him talking himself into the wisdom of doing nothing with every paragraph he writes.

It’s easy for him to be right by simply pretending to know something he cannot possibly know.

(Knowledge that is not backed up by empirical findings [1] comes in for a lot of criticism here at Better Records, and for good reason. Guessing, speculating and assuming are poor approaches to separating good pressings from bad ones.)

And if he did ever order one, and had at least a halfway decent stereo to play it on, it would turn his world upside down so fast it would make his head spin, and the possibility of that happening would be very, very upsetting. It makes no sense for John to risk such an outcome.

Even if our records were as cheap as the ones he is buying, even the superior sound would not justify the psychological damage that would result. He would basically have to start his collection over again, as this customer did.  A few hundred others just like him have done the same, and they’re the ones that will be keeping us in business for years to come. To paraphrase another famous saying, “They’ve heard the future, and it works!”

Better for John to follow the path he is on. It’s working for him. Why would he want to rock his own boat?

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Lee Hulko Cut All the Best Sounding Cat Stevens Albums, Regardless of Label

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Cat Stevens Available Now

UPDATE 2020

This commentary was written many years ago, circa 2005 I would guess.

Way back then, doing Hot Stamper shootouts was much more difficult than it is now. We didn’t have the right cleaning machine, and we hadn’t discovered the Prelude Record Cleaning System.

Is the Pink Label Island original pressing THE way to go? That’s what Harry Pearson — not to mention most audiophile record dealers — would have you believe.

But it’s just not true. And that’s good news for you, Dear (Record Loving Audiophile) Reader.

Hot Stamper Commentary for John Barleycorn

Since Barleycorn is a Lee Hulko cutting just like Tea here, the same insights, if you can call them that, apply.

Here’s what we wrote:

Lee Hulko, who cut all the Sterling originals, of which this is one, cut this record many times and most of them are wrong in some way. A very similar situation occurred with the early Cat Stevens stuff that he cut, like Tea & Teaser, where most copies don’t sound right but every once in a while you get a magical one.

Lee Hulko cut all the original versions of this album, on the same cutter, from the same tape, at the same time.

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Beware of Fooling Yourself with Pseudo Shootouts

Record Shootouts Are Tricky – Here Are Some of the Lessons We’ve Learned

We encourage any audiophile who wants to improve the quality of his record collection to start doing his own shootouts.

Freeing up an afternoon to sit down with a pile of cleaned copies of a favorite LP (you won’t make it through any other kind) and playing them one after another is by far the best way to learn about records and their mysterious pressing variations.

Be sure to take extensive notes.

Shootouts are a great deal of work if you do them right.

If you have just a few pressings on hand and don’t bother to clean them carefully, or follow rigorous testing protocols, that kind of shootout anyone can do. We would not consider that a real shootout.

Art Dudley illustrates this approach, but you could pick any reviewer you like — none of them have ever undertaken a shootout worthy of the name to our knowledge.

With only a few records to play – a woefully inadequate sample size — you probably won’t learn much of value and, worse, you are unlikely to find a top copy, although you may be tempted to convince yourself that you have.

Further Reading

Hot Stampers and Occam’s Razor

Skeptical Thinking Is Critical to Achieving Better Sound

This is an excerpt from a commentary I wrote many years ago in reply to a letter writer who thought our records were ridiculously overpriced. (The original letter is here.)

When people ask us how our records can possibly be worth the prices we charge, this is our answer.

As a skeptic, I require evidence to support what I believe in order to believe it. Although it’s certainly possible that our customers are willing to pay our admittedly high prices on nothing more than our say so, I see no evidence that this is the case.

Absent evidence to the contrary, I think they must really like our records.

They tell us so all the time, and they keep buying them week after week, so if they really are just fooling themselves, they apparently can’t stop doing it.

Occam’s Razor

The scientist’s and skeptic’s best friend, Occam’s razor, comes into play here. It holds that “the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible.” It’s often paraphrased as “All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best.” In other words, when multiple competing theories are equal in other respects, the principle recommends selecting the theory that introduces the fewest assumptions…”

Why assume people who buy expensive records are crazy? Why assume that the records they buy aren’t every bit as good as advertised, if not better? Why assume that the “other resources available for buying music” are even remotely as good, absent any evidence?

People assumed that the CD was going to be a cheap and easy source for their music, and look where that got them.

Assumptions? Us?

I could go on for days about assumptions. We try very hard to make as few as we have to around here. We bend over backwards to let the pressings speak for themselves. Most of the time when we’re doing our shootouts we have no idea what pressing is on the table. All we have to go on is the sound.

It may be relative — everything is — but people seem to be able to replicate our findings in their own homes pretty well. Well enough anyway. When they write to us, they really don’t sound all that crazy. In fact they seem fairly rational to us.

More than anything they seem to be enthusiastic about the great sound they’re finally hearing on a favorite album of theirs, courtesy of Better Records. After having played the records ourselves, we don’t think it’s the least bit crazy to believe them.

Some of the assumptions we really do take issue with are these:

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Letter of the Week “I have often found myself listening to things on your albums that I never imagined would be captured on vinyl!”

More of the Music of Sly & The Family Stone

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Ry Cooder

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:

Hey Tom, 

Please accept my apology. This email has been written in my head many times before now. However, life, and its many responsibilities have forced their own priority and delayed the composition of this message.

I have long been a skeptical person. My personality, and profession encourage skepticism. That skepticism was high when I first purchased a Ry Cooder album from you in 2014. Prior to that first purchase, I had been conducting research to discover what album pressings were likely to contain the best sound. I do not recall where I initially viewed your banner advertisement (possibly stevehoffman.tv, [not a chance!] or audiokarma.org? [maybe]).

Either way, I clicked on the ad for your site and noticed a Ry Cooder album that I have always loved, and I took a chance. Boy was I surprised!

Since then I have purchased many albums from you, and I have been extremely happy with nearly all of them (even 95% accuracy is rare in the physical word, and you have easily achieved accuracy beyond that point). I have often found myself listening to things on your albums that I never imagined would be captured on vinyl!

Just as a side note, I want to thank you for including Sly Stone (a personal favorite), and War in your catalog of albums. Most audiophiles are not focused on those genres, but they are missing some interesting music. Thank you for your excellence!

Justin

Justin,

No apology needed, thanks for joining in the Hot Stamper fun.

Ry Cooder is popular with many audiophiles, but Sly and the Family Stone and War? Not so much.

And both artists are personal favorites of mine.

We created a special section for artists who don’t get the respect from audiophiles that we think they deserve, and we named it Well Recorded Albums that Should Be More Popular with Audiophiles so that there can be no confusion as to what kinds of records are compiled within it: great sounding ones with excellent music.