*The Absolute Sound List

Bob and Ray / Throw a Stereo Spectacular

More Living Stereo Recordings

  • With STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them from start to finish, this TAS-approved Living Stereo pressing could not be beat
  • Originally produced as a sampler record for the Living Stereo line, it is an absolute Must Own for serious audiophiles looking to take their system to the next level
  • Our reference copy here at Better Records is so vital to our operation that it would not be for sale at any (well, almost any) price!
  • It has long been my personal favorite test disc, as well as one of our three best cartridge tweaking and turntable setup discs
  • 4 stars: “The gleefully cacophonous Guckenheimer Sour Kraut Band takes the prize for providing the most unusual musical selection, but the overall program is extremely diverse [and] the comedy and music are enjoyable.”

Bob and Ray Throw A Stereo Spectacular just happens to be our favorite Test Disc, eclipsing all others in the areas of naturalness and difficulty of reproduction. Any tweak or new room treatment — we seem to do them almost weekly these days — has to pass one test and one test only: The Bob and Ray Test.

This record has the power to help you get to the next level in audio like no other.

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The Best Sound Here Is Everything But the 1812

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Recordings Available Now

UPDATE 2026

We no longer do shootouts for this title.

A number of other records have top quality sound for these famous pieces, so we see no reason to continue to struggle to find clean copies of LSC 2241 the way we might have done ten or twenty years ago.

If you see this title at a good price, feel free to pick it up as long as you can return it. Many of these old Shaded Dogs are noisy or groove-damaged, especially those that have dynamic, exciting music like this one.

Our old review follows:

The real stars here are NOT the 1812, but the three coupling works, which demonstrate, on this copy at least, The Real Power of the Orchestra. The remarkably rich, Tubey Magical and oh-so-rosiny Living Stereo strings and powerful, dynamic brass make this a real demo quality orchestral heavyweight.

Lizst’s Mephisto Waltz, Mendelssohn’s The Hebrides Overture, and the Tragic Overture by Brahms are the Must Own 36 minutes worth of music on the record.

A rare and wonderful early Living Stereo Shaded Dog pressing containing an outstanding performance from Reiner and the CSO on everything but the 1812.

Say what?

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Dvorak – Cello Concerto / Starker

More Mercury Classical Recordings

  • Starker and the LSO’s sublime performance, here with big, lively and rich Double Plus (A++) sound throughout this pressing of SR-90303
  • 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
  • The cello is present and immediate, with sound that is wonderfully full and harmonically natural
  • Some old record collectors (like me) say classical recording quality ain’t what it used to be – here’s all the proof anyone with two working ears and top quality audiophile equipment needs to make the case
  • As you may well imagine, shootouts for this album are exceedingly rare. For a sought-after TAS List title such as this, we’re lucky to be able to do one every five years or so. Until the next one comes around, please consider trying some of our other classical and orchestral Hot Stamper pressings

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Julie London – Julie Is Her Name

More Pop and Jazz Vocal Albums

  • This killer MONO pressing of Julie London’s debut LP boasts Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it from first note to last
  • The midrange immediacy of this early Liberty pressing will put Julie in the room with you – more than anything else, it lets her performance come to life
  • The naturalness of the presentation puts this album right at the top of best-sounding female vocal albums of all time
  • This is a lot of money for a somewhat noisy copy, but the sound is so awesome and quiet pressings of the album so hard to come by that we hope someone will take a chance on it and get the thrill we did from hearing it sound right for once
  • 4 stars: “Her debut is her best, a set of fairly basic interpretations of standards in which she is accompanied tastefully by guitarist Barney Kessel and bassist Ray Leatherwood.”

Listen to how rich the bottom end is on Barney Kessel’s guitar. The Tubey Magic here is off the charts. Some copies can be dry, but that is clearly not a problem on this one.

To take nothing away from her performance, which got better with every copy we played. Julie’s rendition of Cry Me a River may be definitive.

If only Ella Fitzgerald on Clap Hands got this kind of sound! As good as the best copies of that album are, this record takes the concept of intimate female vocals to an entirely new level.

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John Williams – The Missouri Breaks (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

More Soundtrack Recordings of Interest

  • With two very good Hot Stamper sides, you’ll have a hard time finding a copy that sounds as good as this original UA pressing
  • It’s richer and fuller than the average copy, with notably more presence, and that will be especially true when you compare it to whatever godawful Heavy Vinyl pressing may be currently available
  • This is true of even our lowest-priced, lowest-graded copies – they are guaranteed to sound much better than any pressing you can find on the market today, as well as any pressing you may already own
  • I recall this record being on the TAS list back in the day – it appears to have since dropped off the newer iterations, but we still think of it as a Super Disc
  • “While eschewing the grandiose string arrangements and heroic sweep of the composer’s best-known efforts, it’s nevertheless one of Williams’ most delightful and ambitious scores, applying traditional Western instrumentation like guitar, banjo, and harmonica to melodies rooted in contemporary pop and jazz.”

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Another Fine Entry for Our Heavy Vinyl Hall of Shame

Hot Stamper Pressings of Orchestral Spectaculars Available Now

UPDATE 2026

It just so happens that I had the time to listen to this work from start to finish twice just last night, 2/11/2026. Saw it performed live just a few months back at Atlanta Symphony Hall.

This wonderful work never gets old.  Next time we do a shootout for the performance we like with Muti on EMI I hope you will see your way to picking up a copy. You won’t regret it.

The Classic Records repressings of Pictures at an Exhibition — whether at 33, 45, or any other speed, on one disc or four –are all godawful sounding.

(Yes, we have auditioned both versions, for as long as we could stand them, which wasn’t long as the sound was painfully bad. The details can be found below.)

Everything that was bad about the worst original Shaded Dog pressings not only hasn’t been fixed, it’s been made even worse!

Yes, we admit to having played a good pressing of LSC 2201 in 2024, but there are just too many bad pressings of the album to bother doing a shootout for it. It’s hard to justify the cost when so few have the sound we are looking for.

The shrillness, the hardness, the sourness, the loss of texture to the strings, the phony boosted deep bass — this is the kind of sound that makes my head hurt and my skin crawl. After a minute or two of listening to sound this bad I’ve had it.

And can you believe that HP put this miserable remastered pressing on his TAS Super Disc List? Sad but true.

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Duke Ellington and Ray Brown – This One’s For Blanton

More of the Music of Duke Ellington

  • You’ll find solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them on both sides of this early Pablo pressing
  • This side one is remarkably dynamic, with an abundance of Tubey Magic and that big, bold sound we can’t get enough of here at Better Records, and side two is not far behind in all those areas
  • 4 stars: “For this set of duets, pianist Duke Ellington is teamed up with bassist Ray Brown in performances a bit reminiscent of Duke’s work with Jimmy Blanton three decades before. In addition to the four-part ‘Fragmented Suite for Piano and Bass,’ the duo plays five standards (including ‘Pitter Panther Patter’ from the Blanton days and three other Ellington-associated tunes). Delightful and often-playful music.”

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Joni Mitchell – Blue

More of the Music of Joni Mitchell

  • Boasting two solid Double Plus (A++) sides, this copy of Joni’s 1971 masterpiece is doing just about everything right – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Full-bodied and balanced with the kind of smooth musicality that’s not always easy to find for Blue
  • We lucked into this quiet copy during our most recent shootout, but in our experience that is something we would not expect to happen very often, but we’re glad it did in the case of this wonderful pressing
  • A Better Records Top 100 title that belongs in any audiophile music collection worthy of the name
  • 5 stars: “Sad, spare, and beautiful, Blue is the quintessential confessional singer/songwriter album. Forthright and poetic, Joni Mitchell’s songs are raw nerves, tales of love and loss (two words with relative meaning here) etched with stunning complexity…”
  • Everything changed for us in 2007 with the release of the Hoffman/Gray Rhino pressing of Blue, a record that made us ask ourselves, “Why are we selling records that we would not want to listen to ourselves?”
  • It was a kicked-by-a-mule moment for all of us here at Better Records, and I am glad to say one kick was all it took to loosen the rocks that had embedded themselves in my head

The best copies bring out the breathy quality to Joni’s voice, and she never sounds strained. They are sweet and open, with good bass foundation and transparency throughout the frequency range.

The best pressings (and our better playback equipment) have revealed nuances to this recording — and of course the performances of all the players along with it — that made us fall in love with the music all over again. Of all the tough nuts to crack, this was the toughest, yet somehow copies emerged from our shootouts that made it easy to appreciate the sonic merits of Blue and ignore its shortcomings.

Hot Stampers have a way of doing that. You forget it’s a record; it’s now just Music. The right record and the right playback will bring this music to life in a way that you cannot imagine until you hear it. That is our guarantee on Blue — better than you ever thought possible or your money back.

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Time Out Is a Classic Case of Live and Learn

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Dave Brubeck Available Now

When we did a shootout for this album way back in October of 2007, we took the opportunity to play the Classic Records 200 gram pressing. Maybe we got a bad one, who knows, but that record did not sound remotely as good as the real thing. (6 eye or 360, both can be quite good. Skip the Red Label ’70s reissues.)

The piano sounded thin and hard, which was quite unexpected given the fact that we used to consider the Classic LP one of their few winners and actually recommended it. Another example of we was wrong.

As we said in our shootout: “We dropped the needle on the Classic reissue to see how it stacked up against a serious pressing. Suffice it to say, the real Time Out magic isn’t going to be found on any heavy vinyl reissue!”

If I were in charge of the TAS Super Disc List, I would not have put this record on it.

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Schumann and Grieg Piano Concertos / Lupu / Previn

More of the Music of Grieg

  • With solid Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last, this vintage London pressing of this wonderful classical Masterpiece is doing just about everything right
  • These sides boast full brass and an especially clear, solid, present piano, one with practically no trace of vintage analog tube smear
  • Dynamic, huge, lively, transparent and natural – with a record this good, your ability to suspend disbelief will require practically no effort at all
  • Back in the days when the TAS Super Disc list meant something, this record was on it and deservedly so
  • Our two favorite recordings of the Grieg Piano Concerto are this one and Rubinstein’s for RCA in 1962
  • There are about 150 orchestral recordings we think offer the best performances with the highest quality sound. This record is certainly deserving of a place on that list.

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