Top Artists – Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan – Real Live

More of the Music of Bob Dylan

  • An original copy (only the second to hit the site in years) with a KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side one mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side two – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Forget that critical listening stuff and just notice that these Hot Stamper copies are simply more relaxed, musical and involving than anything you’ve heard – guaranteed or your money back
  • Glyn Johns produced Real Live, so its sonic credentials are certainly in order
  • “… if it doesn’t capture a historically significant tour, as Hard Rain did with the Rolling Thunder Revue, this is a better record all the same… it’s a good, solid live album, his best live album since Before the Flood…”

This vintage Columbia pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound.

If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.

What The Best Sides Of Real Live Have To Offer Is Not Hard To Hear

  • The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
  • The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes even as late as 1984
  • Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
  • Natural tonality in the midrange — with all the instruments having the correct timbre
  • Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space

No doubt there’s more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.

Standard Operating Procedures

What are sonic qualities by which a record — any record — should be judged? Pretty much the ones we discuss in most of our Hot Stamper listings: energy, vocal presence, frequency extension (on both ends), transparency, spaciousness, harmonic textures (freedom from smear is key), rhythmic drive, tonal correctness, fullness, richness, three-dimensionality, and on and on down the list.

When we can get a number of these qualities to come together on the side we’re playing, we provisionally give it a ballpark Hot Stamper grade, a grade that is often revised during the shootout as we hear what the other copies are doing, both good and bad.

Once we’ve been through all the side ones, we play the best of the best against each other and arrive at a winner for that side. Other copies from earlier in the shootout will frequently have their grades raised or lowered based on how they sounded compared to the eventual shootout winner. If we’re not sure about any pressing, perhaps because we played it early on in the shootout before we had learned what to listen for, we take the time to play it again.

Repeat the process for side two and the shootout is officially over. All that’s left is to see how the sides of each pressing match up.

It may not be rocket science, but it’s a science of a kind, one with strict protocols that we’ve developed over the course of many years to insure that the results we arrive at are as accurate as we can make them.

The result of all our work speaks for itself, on this very record in fact. We guarantee you have never heard this music sound better than it does on our Hot Stamper pressing — or your money back.

What We’re Listening For On Real Live

  • Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
  • Then: presence and immediacy. The vocals aren’t “back there” somewhere, lost in the mix. They’re front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt would put them.
  • The Big Sound comes next — wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
  • Then transient information — fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.
  • Tight punchy bass — which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.
  • Next: transparency — the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.
  • Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.

Side One

Highway 61 Revisited 
Maggie’s Farm 
I And I 
License To Kill 
It Ain’t Me, Babe 
Tangled Up In Blue

Side Two

Masters Of War 
Ballad Of A Thin Man 
Girl From The North Country 
Tombstone Blues

AMG Review

… if it doesn’t capture a historically significant tour, as Hard Rain did with the Rolling Thunder Revue, this is a better record all the same, capturing a working band — a working band featuring ex-Stones guitarist Mick Taylor, no less — on a pretty good night. That means there are few revelations — though diehards will certainly revel in “Tangled Up in Blue,” which has several brand-new (not necessarily better) verses — but it’s still pretty good all the same, providing lean, relatively muscular renditions of Dylan’s great songs. This isn’t an important, necessary Dylan record, but it’s a good, solid live album, his best live album since Before the Flood, even if it’s hardly as monumental as that.

Bob Dylan – At Budokan

More of the Music of Bob Dylan

  • Here is an excellent copy (only the second to hit the site in over three years) with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER on all FOUR sides
  • The sound here is huge, full-bodied, punchy and relatively smooth throughout, with real space and ambience around the vocals and instruments
  • “The fire and brimstone are behind Dylan, [but] this hardly means the fight has gone out of him: Bob Dylan at Budokan is a very contentious effort—and, for the most part, a victorious one.” – Rolling Stone

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Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited

More of the Music of Bob Dylan

  • Dylan’s 1965 release, here solid Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it on both sides of this vintage Stereo 360 pressing
  • In the same way Sgt. Pepper changed music a mere two years later, Highway 61 Revisited left all of Dylan’s contemporaries behind, scrambling to keep up with the standard he set
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these early pressings – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • 5 stars: “Dylan had not only changed his sound, but his persona, trading the folk troubadour for a streetwise, cynical hipster … it proved that rock and roll needn’t be collegiate and tame in order to be literate, poetic, and complex.”

We had a big stack of 360s and Red Labels with good stampers to compare for this shootout. On the better copies, the bottom end was punchy with real weight and the soundfield was open, spacious and so transparent.

Of course, the music is GENIUS. What separates the best copies from the also-rans is more than just rich, sweet, full-bodied sound. The better copies make Dylan’s voice more palpable — he’s simply more of a solid, three dimensional, real presence between the speakers. You can hear the nuances of his delivery more clearly on a copy like this.

What separates the best copies from the also-rans is more than just rich, sweet, full-bodied sound. The better copies make Dylan’s voice more palpable — he’s simply more of a solid, three dimensional, real presence between the speakers. You can hear the nuances of his delivery more clearly on a copy like this.

Now it should be noted that some songs here definitely sound better than others. Do not expect “Tombstone Blues” to become a favorite demo track. It’s upper midrangey here because that’s the way they wanted it. One must assume that the songs sound the way Dylan wanted them too, because every other track has a slightly different tonal balance, and that change in tonality seems to be a conscious choice designed to bring out the best in each song.

Or not. Who’s to say?

The 360 label pressings are a mixed bag, running from mediocre to mindblowing. Most of the time they are too trashed to even consider playing on an audiophile turntable. Many of the later pressings are sterile, congested, and lean.

On a typical pressing of this record, the harmonica can be shrill and aggressive, but on the best copies, it will sound airy and full-bodied (for the most part). There are times on every copy we’ve ever played where the harmonica solos get to be just a bit much.

The best tracks have fat, meaty, oh-so-analog drums and bass. There’s a certain amount of opacity that modern mastering engineers would be tempted to fix by boosting the highs. This is a very bad idea. Brighter, in this case, is going to destroy what’s good about the sound of the album.

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Bob Dylan & The Band – Before The Flood

More of the Music of Bob Dylan

  • With INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on all FOUR sides, these vintage UK Island pressings could not be beat
  • Dylan and The Band team up for exuberant versions of many classics from each of their repertoires – a copy like this lets you appreciate just how wonderful the performances are
  • “Dylan reworks, rearranges, reinterprets these songs in ways that are still disarming, years after its initial release… “
  • “Without qualification, this is the craziest and strongest rock and roll ever recorded. All analogous live albums fall flat.”
  • There are some bad marks (as is sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs) on “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” but once you hear just how killer sounding this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting ticks and just be swept away by the music

One of the great Live Classic Rock albums of all time in stunning Hot Stamper form!

The version of “Ballad Of A Thin Man” that closes out side one is simply monstrous. Live rock and roll just don’t get much better than that, my friends!

We played a ton of these and found that many copies were too boring to earn our Hot Stamper grade. Some lacked energy, even more never opened up, and most of them were too thin-sounding. We had to play a huge stack of copies to come up with a few good ones, and on a double album like this, that’s a ton of work.

Finding, cleaning and critically evaluating a dozen-plus copies is a lot of work on a single album, so you can imagine how time-consuming it is when we have to double those efforts just for one album.

These ’70s LPs have the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern pressings barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing any sign of coming back.

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Bob Dylan / The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan

More of the Music of Bob Dylan

  • Dylan’s sophomore release is back on the site for only the second time in eighteen months, here with solid Double Plus (A++) sound throughout this vintage Stereo 360 pressing
  • Both of these sides are wonderfully full-bodied, natural and clear, with Dylan’s remarkably present voice front and center, exactly where it should be
  • It’s clear these classic songs have stood the test of time: “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Girl from the North Country,” “Masters of War,” “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” “Don’t Think Twice,” “It’s All Right,” and many more
  • Finding early stereo LPs with audiophile sound and surfaces, and without marks that play, is getting awfully tough nowadays – this one has the sound, and the vinyl is about as quiet as we can find it, but marks are sometimes the nature of these beast with these vintage pressings
  • 5 stars: “This is rich, imaginative music, capturing the sound and spirit of America… Dylan, in many ways, recorded music that equaled this, but he never topped it.”
  • A Folk Classic from 1963 that should appeal to any fan of early Dylan
  • The complete list of titles from 1963 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.
  • We’ve recently compiled a list of records we think every audiophile should get to know better, along the lines of “the 1001 records you need to hear before you die,” but with less accent on morbidity and more on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. On the Border is a good example of a record most audiophiles don’t know well but should.

The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan is clearly our favorite of the early Dylan albums for both music and sound. We’re picking up both mono and stereo copies when we see them clean (which is rare) and both the mono mix and the stereo mix can sound out of this world.

Hearing these great songs sound so intimate and lifelike on a top-quality pressing can be a sublime experience. We should know; we enjoyed the hell out of this very copy.

Having done this for so long, we understand and appreciate that rich, full, solid, Tubey Magical sound is key to the presentation of this primarily vocal music. We rate these qualities higher than others we might be listening for (e.g., bass definition, soundstage, depth, etc.). The music is not so much about the details in the recording, but rather in trying to recreate a solid, palpable, real Bob Dylan singing live in your listening room. The best copies have an uncanny way of doing just that.

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Bob Dylan – Planet Waves

More of the Music of Bob Dylan

  • You’ll find INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides of this vintage Asylum pressing
  • With wonderfully rich, natural tonality, these early pressings are by far the best way to hear the album sound the way it should
  • Lots of great material on this one, not sure why it doesn’t get more respect: “On A Night Like This,” “Going Going Gone,” “Forever Young,” “You Angel You”… these are seriously good, very well-recorded songs
  • “Reteaming with the Band, Bob Dylan winds up with an album that recalls New Morning more than The Basement Tapes, since Planet Waves is given to a relaxed intimate tone…”
  • If you’re a Dylan fan, this 1974 release surely deserves a chance to find a home in your collection

This is an excellent recording, boasting not only great Bob Dylan sound, but some of the best sound for The Band that you’ll ever hear. That’s right, Dylan is backed by Messrs. Robertson, Danko, Helm, Manuel and Hudson on this album, and I don’t know when we’ve ever heard such audiophile quality sound from that crew. It’s a real treat to hear their signature styles without the cardboard-y, compressed quality we usually find on their albums.

This is not one of Dylan’s best-known or most-loved albums, but it’s definitely a good one. You can certainly tell that these are very emotional songs for him, and it really shows in the performances.

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Bob Dylan – Blonde On Blonde

More of the Music of Bob Dylan

  • These early Stereo 360 pressings were doing just about everything right, with all FOUR sides earning roughly Double Plus (A++) grades
  • You won’t believe how rich, full and lively this album can sound on a copy this good (particularly on sides one, two and three)
  • Includes tons of quintessential Dylan classics: “Rainy Day Women,” “I Want You,” “Just Like A Woman,” and more – they all sound phenomenal
  • Marks and problems 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
  • 5 stars: “Blonde on Blonde is an album of enormous depth, providing endless lyrical and musical revelations on each play… It’s the culmination of Dylan’s electric rock & roll period — he would never release a studio record that rocked this hard, or had such bizarre imagery, ever again.”

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Letter of the Week – “…jaw-droppingly good, and with quiet vinyl to boot…”

More of the Music of Bob Dylan

This letter comes from one of our best customers, our good friend Owais, who dropped us a line after he received his latest shipment of tasty Hot Stampers including a mono ’The Times They Are A-Changin’ and ’Bridge Over Troubled Water.’ 

Hi Tom,

Just a quick word on the last set of records that I received a couple of days ago, safe and sound. Have to agree with you – that mono of Dylan’s ‘The Times Thay Are A-Changin’ really is jaw-droppingly good, and with quiet vinyl to boot as well!

As for Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, I have bought quite a few copies of this LP and, to my ears, nothing sounded as good as the Classic reissue… that is, until I got your Hot Stamper. Again, you got this one spot-on. The Classic just doesn’t come close in terms of warmth and tonality.

All the best, 
Owais

Owais, thanks for your letter. We love beating Heavy Vinyl pressings, especially the good ones! Both those titles are quite well-mastered, and that’s precisely why we carry them. Classic and Sundazed are each responsible for a world of bad sounding LPs, but every once in a while they get one right, and those they got right, all things considered.

UPDATE 2025

It is doubtful that these days we would agree with our previous estimation of those two titles being “right.” When we revisit the Heavy Vinyl pressings we used to like, even those with the caveat “all things considered,” rarely do we find that they have stood the test of time sonically.

But of course, as we never tire of pointing out, the real thing just can’t be beat, and the real thing is almost always an old record (and almost never a new one; seems like that should be the logical corollary, and by golly it is).

As for Bob, we were knocked out by that mono copy. We dropped the needle on side one and our jaws hit the floor — we’d never heard a Bob Dylan record sound so warm, rich, and sweet.

Columbia 360 Mono Mania

I was actually a big fan of the Sundazed Mono, but this has more of that Tubey Magic, richness, and overall naturalness that you find on old records, qualities that seem to be sorely lacking on even the best 180 gram remasterings. MoFi also did this title and ruined it in the process (shocker!).

I just don’t think you could make this record sound any better than it does here. Everything you could want from this music is here: wonderful clarity, mindblowing transparency, clearly audible transients on the guitar, texture to the vocals, full-bodied acoustic guitar sound, and so on.

Blonde On Blonde and Some Bad Side Fours

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Bob Dylan Available Now

Here’s a little something that you may have come across on your own, but since we’ve never seen it mentioned anywhere else, perhaps this will come as news to you the way it came as news to us about ten years ago.

There is a stamper used on some Blonde on Blonde side fours that is so ridiculously bad, you might as well be listening to a cassette playing underwater.

To be sure, we pick up plenty of mediocre copies all the time, but these side fours are so beyond terrible it’s clear someone was asleep at the wheel.

They’re fascinating to hear in their own way, because it’s simply shocking that a good recording could sound that bad. Like the best pressings of our favorites (but in a very different way), words don’t do it justice.

Its awfulness has to be heard to be believed.

If you’ve been reading this blog much, you may have noticed that we’ve been saying that more and more lately.

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Letter of the Week – “I almost cried when I heard Girl From North Country.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Bob Dylan Available Now

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

Hey Tom, 

I just got my Freewheelin’ Super Hot Stamper. This may be the best record I have bought from you. Magical. I almost cried when I heard Girl From North Country.

How you could give Side 1 only an A+ is shocking and a real testament to how hard you judge, but I think it was a Double Plus for sure. Side two blew me away. You guys are the best, I love this record.

I have to say I have totally changed my record collecting since I discovered your site. It’s not about quantity, it’s about quality. Otherwise it might as well be streamed.

I think you’re the only people that really understand.

Jamie

Jamie,

Thanks for your letter. We are indeed very tough graders. At these prices we have to be.

Once you’ve heard an early Dylan records sound as good as this one, all your old standards go right out the window!

Best, TP

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