Top Artists – Dionne Warwick

Dionne Warwick – Very Dionne – Our Shootout Winner from 2011

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A distinguished member of the Better Records Rock and Pop Hall of Fame.

SUPERB Super Hot Stamper sound on BOTH sides of this original Scepter pressing, with QUIET VINYL no less. Folks, don’t expect to see records like this coming to the site too often. We can’t find them anymore in this kind of clean condition, so if you like the lovely Ms Warwick, consider taking this one home and giving her (the record, not Dionne) a spin on your table.

Side one is LOVELY — the bass is tight and punchy, the strings have lots of texture, and the background vocals are clean and clear. The grit and grain that plague the average copy are practically nowhere to be found here. The midrange is full of that old analog Tubey Magic, the kind that has completely disappeared from the modern record, (even the modern reissue of a vintage record!). The sound is so open and transparent, you hear directly into the soundfield.

Notice how the limiter on Dionne’s microphone is working overtime. She is practically shouting into it but it never seems to get much louder! Still the energy and the passion come through clearly. That’s the sign of a well-recorded vocal track. (more…)

Dionne Warwick – Soulful – Our Shootout Winner from 2008

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A distinguished member of the Better Records Rock and Pop Hall of Fame.

There’s a reason this record is on the TAS list, but you’d never know it by playing the average pressing. Most copies of this record just sound like an old Dionne Warwick record. You would never even know how magical this recording is by playing a copy that for all intents and purposes appears to be the pressing that Harry Pearson is recommending on his Super Disc list. The catalog number is the same; the sound is not. Unless you have at least half a dozen copies of this record — and we had more than double that — you have very little chance of finding even one exceptional side.

This has always been the problem with the TAS list. The pressing variations on a record like this are HUGE and DRAMATIC. There is a world of difference between this copy and what the typical audiophile owns based on HP’s list. I’ve been complaining for years that the catalog number that Harry supplies has very little benefit to the typical audiophile record lover. Without at least the right stampers, the amount of work required to find a copy that deserves a SuperDisc ranking is daunting, requiring the kind of time and effort that few audiophiles could ever devote to such a difficult and frustrating project.

Beyond all that, Scepter vinyl is quite problematic. A sealed copy that we cracked open for our shooutout was so noisy, it didn’t even make it past the first round. It takes a lot of work to find a copy of this (or ANY) album that’s truly a Super Disc; just picking up the titles from Harry’s list certainly can’t guarantee good sound. (more…)

Dionne Warwick – Make Way for Dionne Warwick – Our Shootout Winner from 2011

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A distinguished member of the Better Records Rock and Pop Hall of Fame.

AMAZINGLY GOOD White Hot Stamper sound on side two – WOW! I cannot recall ever hearing Dionne sound better than she does on this side two. Her voice is so clear and present, so natural and real, the truest way to describe the sound here is simply to say that the sound is natural, natural in a way that not three out of a hundred female vocal recordings sound.

But side one is a DISASTER — veiled, smeary and murky, with noisy vinyl thrown in for good measure.

Thank goodness we are the kind of record dealers / audiophiles who know that the two sides of a record often sound vastly different, otherwise why would we ever have bothered to play side two?

We recently reviewed a Dionne Warwick record for the site and had this to say, comments that apply equally well to this album.

Just played a Linda Ronstadt album that she did with Nelson Riddle earlier today and I can tell you one thing, the sound of that album and this one are on opposite sides of the recording spectrum in terms of naturalness. On a scale of one to a hundred, Linda scores about a two, and Dionne scores 90, maybe more. It’s a JOY to hear a record with this kind of sound.

Play this one for your audiophile friends who own and respect the recordings of Dianna Krall, Patricia Barber and the like. Be sure to repeat the phrase “boy, they don’t make ’em like they used to” whenever there is a pause in the music or conversation.

You might also want to ask them if they think the invention of digital reverb was such a good idea after all.

If they’re good analog buddies that you want to keep being your buddies you might not want to say anything at all. Just keep quiet and let their own ears shame them. This is the record that can do it. (more…)

You Know What’s Shocking About a Record Like This?

What’s shocking about a record like this is the fact that the instruments you hear behind and to the side of Dionne Warwick are REAL instruments, and for the most part they are not really being processed much, they are simply being recorded. How many times do you hear a pop album with sound like that? Rarely in our case, and we play them by the hundreds.

Just played a Linda Ronstadt album that she did with Nelson Riddle — you know the one — and I can tell you one thing, the sound of that album and this one are on opposite sides of the recording spectrum in terms of naturalness. On a scale of one to a hundred, Linda scores about a two, and Dionne scores 90, maybe more. It’s a JOY to hear a record with this kind of sound.

Play this one for your audiophile friends who own and respect the recordings of Dianna Krall, Patricia Barber and the like. Be sure to squeeze in the phrase “Boy, they don’t make ’em like they used to…” whenever there is a pause in the music or conversation.

You might also want to ask them if they think the invention of digital reverb was such a good idea after all.

If they’re good analog buddies, ones that you want to keep being your buddies, you might not want to say anything at all. Just keep quiet and let their own ears shame them. This is the kind of record that can do it.