Top Artists – Crosby, Still, Nash and (sometimes) Young

Crosby Stills & Nash / Self-Titled – Classic Records Reviewed

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Sonic Grade: B-

Nice enough I suppose, but where’s the Midrange Magic?

The Classic 180g version was a revelation when it came out years ago. Bernie actually cut it pretty darn right. However, his mastering chain cannot compete with the one used on the best original pressings.

The evidence for this is overwhelming. There simply is no Bernie-Grundman-cut record that is the equal of the best pressings not cut on his current chain that I have heard over the years. (His old cutting system, the one that cut Stardust and Blue and much of the Contemporary catalog, was KILLER. Wonder what happened to it?)

Having said that, the Classic version gets you 70-75% of the way there and gives you quiet vinyl to boot, so it must be appreciated for what it is: a very good reissue, maybe even the best one Classic ever made. But not the real thing. Not even close. (more…)

VTA Adjustment on Crosby Stills and Nash – Using the Classic Records Heavy Vinyl LP

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This commentary from way back when (2005!) describes how to go about adjusting your VTA for 200 gram vinyl, using the CSN track Helplessly Hoping from the first album.

Helplessly Hoping is a wonderful song with plenty of energy in the midrange and upper midrange area which is difficult to get right. Just today (4/25/05) I was playing around with VTA, having recently installed a new Dynavector DV-20x on my playgrading table (a real sweetheart, by the way), and this song showed me EXACTLY how to get the VTA right.

VTA is all about balance. The reason this song is so good for adjusting VTA is that the guitar at the opening is a little smooth and the harmony vocals that come in after the intro can be a little bright. Finding the balance between these two elements is key to getting the VTA adjusted properly. (more…)

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young / 4 Way Street

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This outstanding pressing boasts solid Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it on all FOUR sides
The “naked” sound of the real thing – the real voices and the real guitars and the real everything else, in a way that would never happen again
Bill Halverson worked his magic, but only the best pressings let his genius shine the way it does here
4 1/2 stars: “4 Way Street, released in April of 1971: a live double-LP set, chock-full of superb music distilled down from a bunch of nights on that tour that more than fulfilled the promise of the group.”
Rolling Stone raves that “Crosby, Stills. Nash, and Young are all performers of unquestionable talent, and mostly because they stay out of each others’ way, 4 Way Street must surely be their best album to date.”

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Crosby, Stills and Nash – Daylight Again

Hot Stampers of Crosby, Stills and Nash

Commentaries and Letters for Crosby, Stills, Nash and (sometimes) Young

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This outstanding copy of Daylight Again (the last good record these guys would ever make) earned solid Double Plus (A++) sonic grades – relatively quiet vinyl too
This is the embodiment of the Classic CSN sound we love – rich, full-bodied, warm, punchy, dynamic and clear
Steven Barncard, one of our favorite recording engineers, no doubt deserves most of the credit
Allmusic on Wasted on the Way and Southern Cross: “Both were extracted as singles and became among the best-known tracks not only on Daylight Again, but also in the post-’60s CSN canon.”

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Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – So Far

What We Think We Know about

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s So Far

This stunning copy offers exceptionally good Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound on the first side and solid Double Plus (A++) sound on the second
The two tracks exclusive to this album, Ohio and Find the Cost of Freedom, are amazingly well recorded – both have Demo Disc quality sound on this killer side one
Huge, rich and energetic, this pressing brings the gorgeous harmonies of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young to life like nothing you have ever heard
If you’ve made the mistake of buying any Heavy Vinyl pressing containing any of these songs, this record will show you just exactly what you’ve been missing

When you get hold of a pressing as good as this one, the sound is so correct it makes a mockery of the phony EQ and just plain bad mastering and pressing of the Heavy Vinyl and Half-Speed Mastered versions.

The MoFi and the Classic 200g LP are both clearly wrong in important ways. This record will make it clear exactly what’s wrong with them, assuming you have the critical listening skills to recognize the differences. If you are on this site chances are very good you do.

Once you hear this copy you will never be able to enjoy those audiophile pressings again, of that we are quite confident. (more…)

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Deja Vu

A stunning Shootout Winning copy that is guaranteed to blow your mind – Triple Plus (A+++) sound on side one and an outstanding Double Plus (A++) side two
The sound is HUGE — lively, present and rich in a way that nothing you’ve heard can compete with
One of our all time favorite albums at Better Records and one that almost never sounds THIS good
5 stars: “…this variety made Déjà Vu a rich musical banquet for the most serious and personal listeners, while mass audiences reveled in the glorious harmonies and the thundering electric guitars…”

If you play this copy at serious levels and have the kind of full range system that’s both loud and clean like live music, we guarantee you will be nothing less than gobsmacked at the size and power of the music on this album, the band’s inarguable masterpiece.

Both sides here are super high-resolution, tonally perfect, Tubey Magical and ALIVE. The vocals are silky and sweet with very little strain or grain (a very common problem in the loudest choruses). The highs are extended, the bass is deep and punchy, and the overall clarity is breathtaking.

Just listen to the guitars during the solos — you can really hear the sound of the pick hitting the strings. The rhythm guitars sound meaty and chunky like the best sounding copies of Zuma and After The Gold Rush. (more…)

What We Think We Know about Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s Masterpiece: Deja Vu

Hot Stampers of Deja Vu

Letters and Commentaries for Deja Vu

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DEJA VU is an album we admit to being obsessed with — just look at the number of commentaries we’ve written about it.

Presenting another entry in our extensive Listening in Depth series with advice on what to listen for as you critically evaluate your copy of Deja Vu. Here are some albums on our site you can buy with similar Track by Track breakdowns.

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Letter of the Week – “I almost fell off my listening chair.”

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

Hey Tom,

I wanted to thank you and the crew at Better Records for fulfilling my dreams when it comes to your Super hot stampers and, of course, the mind blowing White hot stampers. Two White hot stampers with A+++ sound on all sides come to mind.

I received the Frank Sinatra and Count Basie Live at the Sands about a week ago, and the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Deja Vu a couple of days ago. Not in a million years did I ever think a record could have a truly master tape sound. And man, these two White hot stamper have it in spades.

On the Frank Sinatra and Count Basie Live at the Sands, from the moment I dropped the needle on side four or any other side, I almost fell off my listening chair. The presence and immediacy is so staggering on this Lp its as if Frank Sinatra rose from the dead and he transforms into a living, breathing person in my listening room. (more…)

Letter of the Week – Deja Vu

One of our good customers had this to say about a Hot Stamper pressing he purchased recently:

Hey Tom,

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing on the Crosby Still, Nash & Young Deja Vu White Hot stamper A+++ on both sides and absolutely dead quiet. I think It’s a bargain at $800.00. It absolutely trashes my Mofi version into bits and pieces. I don’t even want to mention the Classic records version because it’s painful to listen to. I’m writing up this record today and the Frank Sinatra and Count Basie Live at the Sands tomorrow. (more…)

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young / Deja Vu – The Joe Gastwirt CD Is a Dead-On-Arrival Abomination

A classic case of Live and Learn.

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More than a decade ago we wrote:

If you bought the Classic Record and you can’t tell what’s wrong with it, this may not be the right hobby for you. I highly recommend you buy the Joe Gastwirt mastered CD and either play it on your system or take it to a hi-fi store in your area. It’s tonally correct and undistorted. The Classic version is neither. Now when a stupid $15 CD is correct in a way that a $40 LP is not, something is very very wrong.

The part where we said this may not be the right hobby for you if you like Classic’s godawful remastering of Deja Vu is still true, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish in the audio hobby. If you’re not too picky about sound quality and just want to play new records, perhaps because old records are hard to find and often noisy, then fine, the Classic should get that job done for you. We of course want nothing to do with it because we want good sounding vinyl, and the Classic is definitely not good sounding by any stretch of the imagination.

No, the problem we see above is that we were recommending the currently available CD. Yes, it’s mostly tonally correct and not distorted, but it has as bad a case of dead-as-a-doornail sound as any badly remastered CD I have ever heard. There is no top, there is no space, there is no life, there is no immediacy, there is no Tubey Magic — in short there is almost nothing left of what makes the best copies of Deja Vu so good. We’ve known this for about five years [since the early 2000s in fact], we just never got around to correcting the record. (more…)