TAS List Good

140-plus reviews and commentaries for recordings currently or formerly on The Absolute Sound’s Super Disc List.

The pressing we like often does not match the pressing on their list.

Dave Brubeck – Time Out

More of the Music of Dave Brubeck

  • This Six-Eye Stereo pressing boasts out of this world Demo Disc sound
  • Time Out captures the ambience and huge space of Columbia’s studio like practically no other record has (with a little reverb thrown in for good measure)
  • A knockout pressing of Brubeck’s astonishingly well recorded Jazz Classic, this is a record that belongs in every audiophile’s collection
  • Early stereo LPs in clean condition like this one are getting awfully tough to find nowadays…
  • “Buoyed by a hit single in Desmond’s ubiquitous Take Five, Time Out became an unexpectedly huge success, and still ranks as one of the most popular jazz albums ever. That’s a testament to Brubeck and Desmond’s abilities as composers, because Time Out is full of challenges both subtle and overt — it’s just that they’re not jarring.”
  • If you’re a fan of Brubeck and company, this 1959 album belongs in your collection, along with quite a few others from the classic jazz era

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Rimsky-Korsakoff / Scheherazade – Reiner (White Dog)

More of the Music of Rimsky-Korsakov

  • Reiner and the Chicago Symphony’s performance of this dazzling symphonic suite returns to the site on this vintage White Dog pressing that boasts outstanding Double Plus (A++) Living Stereo sound or close to it from first note to last
  • We guarantee there is more richness, fullness, and performance energy on this copy than others you’ve heard, and that’s especially true if you own any of the Heavy Vinyl pressings that are currently on the market
  • Our favorite Scheherazade for about the last 15 years or so has been the one Ansermet conducted for Decca in 1961, but the roller-coaster excitement Reiner and the CSO bring to the fourth movement is something very special
  • True, the side with the fourth movement earned a minimal Hot Stamper grade of 1.5+, but we still guarantee that it will beat the pants off any Heavy Vinyl reissue, because every one of those that we’ve played was ridiculously opaque, muddy and thick enough to have us crying “uncle” after five minutes (reviews available on the blog)

UPDATE 2024

Now that we know which stampers have the potential to win our shootouts, the Shaded Dog originals have lately been coming out on top, although the White Dog pressings can still sound quite good, just not as good

We did a monster shootout for this music in 2014, one we had been planning for more than two years. On hand were quite a few copies of the Reiner on RCA; the Ansermet on London (CS 6212, his second stereo recording, from 1961, not the earlier and noticeably poorer sounding recording from in 1959); the Ormandy on Columbia, and a few others we felt had potential.

The only recordings that held up all the way through — the fourth movement being the Ball Breaker of all time, for both the engineers and musicians — were those by Reiner and Ansermet. This was disappointing considering how much time and money we spent finding, cleaning and playing those ten or so other pressings, but such is the nature of our business.

TAS List

Harry Pearson put this record on his TAS list of super discs.

Of course, the fact that a recording is on the TAS list doesn’t guarantee that the pressing you buy will have great sound, but Better Records does precisely that. If you don’t think a record sounds as good as we’ve described it, we’ll always happily take that record back and refund your money.

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Rodrigo / Concierto Andaluz & Concierto de Aranjuez

More TAS Super Disc Recordings

  • An original Mercury pressing of this wonderful TAS-approved recording (the first to hit the site in years) with incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades from top to bottom – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • Our last shootout was in 2010 — we really dropped the ball on this one!
  • This is a TAS list title that deserves its place on a list of Super Discs, as long as you are talking about one that sounds the way this one does
  • The vinyl was a problem with many of our better copies — those of you who are fans of later Mercs, perhaps the Starker titles, just to take one example, know what I am talking about with the less-than-audiophile-quality surfaces so common to these pressings
  • These sides are exceptionally transparent and full of energy, with the lush strings of the guitars more textured and real than on practically all other copies we played
  • The orchestra sounds rich and sweet, yet the guitars are clear, present and appropriately placed relative to the surrounding ensemble

These Nearly White Hot Stamper pressings have top-quality sound that’s often surprisingly close to our White Hots, but they sell at substantial discounts to our Shootout Winners, making them a relative bargain in the world of Hot Stampers (“relative” meaning relative considering the prices we charge). We feel you get what you pay for here at Better Records, and if ever you don’t agree, please feel free to return the record for a full refund, no questions asked.

This is a wonderful record and fully deserving of its place on Harry’s TAS list. The performance here by the first family of guitar is legendary. More importantly, the music is delightful and belongs in any serious classical collection. (Others that belong that category can be found here.)

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Art Pepper / Meets The Rhythm Section – OJC style

More Art Pepper

More Contemporary Label Jazz Recordings

  • A vintage Contemporary recording pressed on OJC vinyl, here with very good Hot Stamper sound from first note to last
  • True, this reissue earned a minimal Hot Stamper grade of 1.5+, but we still guarantee that it will beat the pants off any Heavy Vinyl reissue, because every one of those that we played was opaque, muddy and thick enough to have us crying “uncle” after five minutes
  • Many consider this to be the best record Art Pepper ever made, along with Art Pepper + Eleven, and I agree completely
  • If you are looking for a shootout winning copy, let us know – with music and sound like this, we hope to be able to do this shootout again soon
  • 5 stars: “… this recording convinced [Pepper] that emotion was the paramount impulse of jazz performance… a diamond of recorded jazz history.”
  • This is a Must Own jazz album from 1957 that belongs in every jazz-loving audiophile’s collection

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Bruch & Mozart / Violin Concertos / Heifetz

Hot Stamper Pressings with Jascha Heifetz Performing

  • Heifetz’s lively performance of these wonderful violin concertos debuts on the site with excellent Living Stereo sound  throughout this original Shaded Dog pressing
  • This is right at the top of all the recordings Heifetz made for RCA in the glory days of Living Stereo — there may be titles that are comparable, but we have yet to hear a violin concerto recording that can surpass it
  • Both of these sides are exceptionally relaxed and spacious, with the rich, textured sheen of the violin that Living Stereo made possible in the 50s and early 60s clearly evident throughout these pieces
  • It’s simply bigger, more transparent, less distorted, more three-dimensional and more real than practically all of the other copies we played
  • LSC 2652 is one of the hardest Heifetz titles to find with the original Shaded Dog label, and quite a few of the copies we paid premium prices for turned out to have marks or other problems in the vinyl
  • Skip the Red Seal pressings from the 70s — the ones we played were bright, screechy, thin and missing just about everything that makes the early pressings so amazingly good

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Art Pepper / Meets The Rhythm Section

More Art Pepper

More Contemporary Label Jazz Recordings

  • A vintage Contemporary pressing that was doing just about everything right, with both sides earning seriously good Double Plus (A++) grades – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Many consider this to be the best record Art Pepper ever made, along with Art Pepper + Eleven, and I agree completely
  • The Contemporary stereo sound here is completely natural in all respects – rich, warm, and smooth, in short, the sound we love
  • Recorded in 1957 (the same year as Way Out West) by the legendary Roy DuNann, the sound of the better pressings is absolutely superb
  • 5 stars: “… this recording convinced [Pepper] that emotion was the paramount impulse of jazz performance… a diamond of recorded jazz history.”
  • This is a Must Own jazz album from 1957 that belongs in every jazz-loving audiophile’s collection

Many consider this to be the best record Art Pepper ever made, along with Art Pepper + Eleven, and I agree completely.

This one has many of the qualities of the better black label originals, without their bad vinyl and bloated bass. We get black label original Contemporary pressings in from time to time, but few of them are mastered right and most never make it to the site.

Some are pure muck. Some have bloated bass that is hard to believe. Don’t buy into that record collecting slash audiophile canard that Original Equals Better. That’s pure BS. It just doesn’t work that way, and anyone with two good ears, two good speakers and a decent-sized record collection should know better.

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Respighi / Pines of Rome – Our Favorite for Performance and Sound

More Music Conducted by Fritz Reiner

  • This Shaded Dog pressing of Reiners’s excellent 1960 recording had the glorious Living Stereo sound we were looking for
  • It’s also fairly quiet at Mint Minus Minus, a grade that even our most well-cared-for vintage classical titles have trouble playing at
  • There were only three performances with audiophile quality sound in our shootout, and the Shaded Dog pressings not only had the best performances, but the sound that the team of Mohr/Layton managed to achieve was second to none
  • In other words, Harry was right to put this on his TAS Super Disc list – it really is a super disc
  • If you know anything about these works, you know that have tons of top and bottom end, and it is the rare pressing that can capture both
  • The texture and harmonic overtones of the Living Stereo strings are near perfection – as we listened we became completely immersed in the music on the record, transfixed by the remarkable virtuosity Reiner and the CSO brought to these difficult and demanding works so many years ago
  • There are roughly 150 orchestral recordings that we think offer the discriminating audiophile the best combination of superior performances with top quality sound. This record has moer than earned a place on that list.

This shootout has been at least five years in the making, and the case could be made that something like fifteen is closer to the truth. Around 2016 we surveyed the recordings of the work we had on hand — close to a dozen different performances, I think — and found them all wanting, save three: this one (which is still on the TAS list), a Reader’s Digest pressing with Kempe (our second favorite), and a London with Kertesz.

If a particular performance had any distortion or limitation problems in the higher frequencies, it was quickly rejected out of hand. Same with low end whomp and weight. On these works both are crucial.

No other pieces of music of which we are aware have so much going on up high and down low. This narrowed the field of potential Hot Stampers considerably. Great performances by top conductors could not get over these hurdles — high and low — time and time again.

For these reasons, it took us years to find the right recordings. We knew the Reiner would be hard to beat, but we kept trying record after record hoping that we could find one to wrest the crown away from what is widely considered the greatest recording of the works ever made.

We never did find something better. Our best Shaded Dog ended up winning the shootout. The best RCA pressings were doing everything right. There was plenty of top end, with virtually no harmonic distortion, and when I say plenty, I mean the right amount. Not many engineers managed to get all the highs correctly onto the tape, but Lewis Layton nailed it — in 1960!

So many recordings had screechy strings and horns. When the music would get loud — and both the Pines and the Fountains get very loud indeed, assuming the recording will let it — the sound would become unbearably harsh and unpleasant. This is the opposite of what should happen, and it was obvious that those recordings would not make it past the first round.

All three of the finalists could claim enthusiastic performances with powerful energy and top quality orchestral playing. Still, with the best copies going head to head with each other, Reiner had more of all the qualities we were looking for.

How did the famous 1S/1S pressing fare? No idea. I haven’t seen one in twenty years. It may be better than the White Hot copy we are offering here. I certainly would not make the mistake of saying what it sounds like without having played it. If someone has one and wants to send it to me to audition, I would love to give it a spin.

Some recordings we played lacked transparency, as well as the relaxed sense of involvement that eases one’s ability to be tricked into thinking “you (really) are there.”

The famous 1977 Maazel recording for Decca, which was on the TAS List for a long time, suffered from a bad case of multi-miking and the transparency issue mentioned above. What do you expect from 1977?

This is, of course, the knock on the Modern Heavy Vinyl Pressing — where is the transparency? The space? The three-dimensional depth? If your stereo can reproduce these qualities — a big if, since even as recently as twenty years ago mine could not — you should have given up on these opaque and airless frauds years ago.

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Mussorgsky-Ravel / Pictures at an Exhibition / Reiner

More of the music of Modest Mussorgsky

  • For fans of Reiner’s performance from 1958, we here present a Shaded Dog pressing of this TAS Super Disc, here with outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish
  • It’s also fairly quiet at Mint Minus Minus, a grade that even our most well-cared-for vintage classical titles have trouble playing at
  • Both of these sides are remarkably open and natural in the best Living Stereo tradition, with rich lower strings that have little Golden Age smear.
  • Spacious, rich and smooth – only vintage analog seems capable of reproducing all three of these qualities without sacrificing resolution, staging, imaging or presence

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Chet Atkins – Caribbean Guitar

More Chet Atkins

More Recordings in Living Stereo

  • You’ll find superb Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides of this famous TAS Super Disc RCA Living Stereo LP
  • Plays fairly quiet too – about as quiet as these RCA pressings from the early 60s ever will
  • If you have ever heard one of our luscious Living Stereo Chet Atkins records, you know what to expect – off the charts Tubey Magic unlike anything made in the last fifty years, or more!
  • Engineer Bill Porter just doesn’t know how not to make an amazing sounding Living Stereo recording – everything the guy touches is gold
  • If you’re a fan of the smooth guitar stylings of Mr. Atkins, this is a classic from 1962 that belongs in your collection.

This is one of Chet Atkins’ best albums. Sonically, it’s right up there with The Other Chet Atkins and the Hollywood album. It seems like Bill Porter just doesn’t know how not to make an amazing sounding Living Stereo recording. He knocked this out of the park.

I suppose we owe a debt of gratitude to Harry Pearson for pointing out to us with his TAS List what a great record this is, although I’m pretty sure anybody playing this album can tell after a minute or two that it’s in that very special class of great recordings.

This album is a little more lively than some of his other recordings, which can be criticized for being a little too laid back. For example, try side 2, cut 2 where Chet actually jams.

The last track on side 2 where Chet is joined by a trumpet player is my favorite on the album. That guitar-trumpet combination is pretty magical on that song. And you’ve got to love the kind of sound Bill Porter get from a trumpet. That’s the kind of sound we audiophiles drool over. I do anyway.

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Rodrigo / Guitar Concerto / Fantasia Para Un Gentilhombre / Argenta / de Burgos

More of the music of Joaquín Rodrigo (1901-1999)

More Classical and Orchestral Music

  • Both sides of this wonderful classical guitar masterpiece on lovely boxed Decca UK vinyl boast outstanding Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER
  • The sound of the orchestra is as rich and sweet as would be expected from the Decca engineers, yet the guitar is clear, present and appropriately placed relative to the ensemble around it
  • Glorious sound from the first note to the last, brimming with the wonderful qualities that make listening to classical music in analog on top quality audiophile equipment so involving and pleasurable
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you

If you were only to be allowed one Guitar Concerto recording, the Concierto De Aranjuez would probably be the one to own. You will recognize the main theme instantly; it’s the one Miles Davis appropriated for the astonishingly innovative Sketches of Spain album he did with Gil Evans.

The second picture in this listing is the original London, CS 6046, from which the piece is taken. It is a longtime member of the TAS List, and deservedly so.

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