Top Artists – Graham Nash

Graham Nash’s Wild Tales and Their Mysteries Many and Deep

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Graham Nash Available Now

What hurts so many pressings of this album is a generally lifeless quality and a lack of presence in the midrange.

Were the stampers a bit worn for those copies, or no good to start with, or was it bad vinyl that couldn’t hold the energy of the stamper, or perhaps some stampers just weren’t cut right?

Maybe it’s something as simple as the pressing plates going out of alignment at some point in the cycle?

Don’t ask us. We sure don’t know. And one thing we’ve learned over the years is not to pretend to.

These are record mysteries, and they are mysteries that will always be mysteries, if for no other reason than the number of production variables hopelessly intertwined at the moment of a pressing’s creation can never be teased apart no matter how smart you are.

As we never tire of saying, thinking is really not much help with regard to finding better sounding records.

Not surprisingly, we’ve found that cleaning and playing them seems to work fairly well.

Those two things work fairly well because nothing else works at all.

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Crosby, Stills and Nash – Daylight Again

More of the Music of Crosby, Stills and Nash

  • With excellent Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides, this vintage copy is doing just about everything right
  • 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 / 4 Way Street

More of the Music of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

  • These early Atlantic pressings boast roughly Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades or close to them on all FOUR sides, just shy of our Shootout Winner (side four actually won the shootout) – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • This live album gives you 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 better pressings let his genius shine the way it does here
  • This is a record we rarely do shootouts for, simply because reasonably quiet, unscratched copies are getting more scarce by the day – much of what we can find is not in good enough condition to pass audiophile muster
  • 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.”

If you want to hear Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young rock out live in your listening room, this copy will let you do it. It’s not easy to find good sound on even one side of this album, let alone all four!

The Naked Sound of Live Music

The song “Triad,” just to cite one example, presents us with a lone David Crosby and his acoustic guitar. It’s as real sounding as anything I’ve ever heard from the band. Listening to that natural guitar tone brings home the fact that their studio recordings (and studio recordings in general) are processed and degraded compared to what the microphones must have picked up.

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Is So Far Really Just a Waste of Money?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Crosby, Stills and Nash Available Now

The All Music Guide considers So Far to be a waste of money (on CD) because it was a slapped together effort to capitalize on CSN’s success, combining material from only two albums and then adding two unreleased tracks.

Their attitude boils down to the idea that the first two records are essential, so why buy this album for two songs?

I’ll tell you why.

Because finding good sounding pressings of either of the first two albums is practically impossible for the average audiophile record collector.

I mean that literally: as a practical matter, it is very, very difficult to find Hot Stamper versions of the band’s first two releases. This is especially true for the self-titled album from 1969, which sounds best in our experience on a later reissue that we have a devil of time finding and therefore rarely have in stock.

Both the first two albums and So Far are records we credit with helping us dramatically improve the playback quality of our system.

A Few Words About Deja Vu

Deja Vu is a special album for me, one I have been obsessed with since I first became an audiophile.

I was a big Crosby, Stills and Nash fan already — the first album being life-changing to a 15 year old music lover such as myself, on 8-track tape in the care no less — so it was only natural that I would fall in love with Deja Vu when it came out in 1970.

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Graham Nash – Songs for Beginners

More of the Music of Graham Nash

  • This vintage pressing boasts very good Hot Stamper sound on both sides
  • We guarantee there is more space, richness, presence, and performance energy on this copy than others you’ve heard or you get your money back – it’s as simple as that
  • Arguably the best of the solo CSN albums and a founding member of our Top 100 Rock and Pop List
  • 4 1/2 stars: “From the soaring “I Used to Be a King” through the gossamer “Simple Man” to the wah-wah-laden “Military Madness,” the record is filled with gorgeous melodies, flawless singing, and lyrical complexities that hold up decades later.”

When you hear Chicago here you will not believe how cinematic the sound is! It’s everything we love about analog and then some.

Most of the credit must go to the team of recording engineers, led here by the esteemed Bill Halverson, the man behind all of the Crosby Stills Nash and Young albums. Nash was clearly influenced by his work with his gifted bandmates, proving with this album that he can hold his own with the best of the best. Some songs (We Can Change The World, Be Yourself) are grandly scaled productions with the kind of studio polish that would make Supertramp envious. For me, a big speaker guy with a penchant for giving the old volume knob an extra click or two, it just doesn’t get any better.

Others (Sleep Song, Wounded Bird) are quiet and intimate. Their subtlety is highlighted by the big productions surrounding them. This is the rare album in which every aspect of the production, from the arrangements to the final mix, serves to bring out the best qualities in the songs, regardless of scale. (more…)

Money CAN Buy You Happiness, You Just Have to Spend It Right

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Crosby, Stills, Nash and (Sometimes) Young

A testimonial from a customer for his Hot Stamper Deja Vu discusses what it takes to get good sound from your stereo. (Hint: it starts with a good sounding record, or two as in this case.)

An excerpt. (Emphasis added.)

Tom:

I received my Deja Vu 2 Pack yesterday. Even though I have not yet listened to all of the mother load that I got on Marathon week, I had to take a listen to this tonight.

Whew – Mother of God!

I have never heard even a semi-decent copy of this album before on either LP or CD – although the music is outstanding and chock full of memories for anyone my age. This white hot stamper is transcendental nirvana. Tom was not kidding when he said master tape sound. The vocals and instrumentals were so alive it was unbelievable. Some of the songs were so good that I just tilted my head back and opened my mouth real wide and just zoned out. Crosby’s vocal on Almost Cut My Hair is masterful. I took your advice and played it twice at even louder volumes. Yikes – better than acapulco gold. Neil Young’s Country Girl was so huge – a vast wall of sound with every single voice and instrument standing out.

This album is even better than I ever thought it was.

I was just not prepared to hear how it really sounds after all that crap I had been listening to for 30 years.

I have come to a conclusion – no matter whether I had the best $50,000 amps in the world or a $29,000 phono supply or the $150,000 Wilson Alexandria speakers or all that other incredible stuff that audiophiles lust for – not one of those items can make a shit record sound anything but like a shit record.

There is no overcoming the original source material that you play on your stereo system.

Buying a hot stamper for what can seem like a lot of money – especially if you want a whole lot of them – is really a bargain for those who have invested in a super audio system (with analog capability of course). It is true that the better your system is the more you will get out of hot stampers – but at some point in the process it is more effective to spend available resources on the LPs rather than on more better mega equipment.

I just don’t believe an additional $20,000 spent on a better amplifier can deliver as much as $20,000 spent on Super or White Hot Stampers played with my current amplifier. Additionally, I do believe that even a modest analogue system will sound fabulous when you have master tape sound coming out of it.

Bless Tom and all the folks at Better Records. My system enjoyment quotient has increased dramatically this year since I have been buying the good stuff to play on it. Keep up the good work.

Regards,
John

John,

So glad to hear you loved that Deja Vu as much as your enthusiastic letter indicates you did. When we come across a copy as good as the one we sent you, it is indeed a cause for celebration here at Better Records: We know someone is very likely going to have their mind blown, and soon. Obviously, in this case the mind that was blown was yours.

As far as megabuck equipment is concerned, we discussed the subject in a commentary entitled Money Can’t Buy You (Audio) Happiness [since removed] in which we noted that a certain reviewer’s very, very expensive equipment did not seem to be helping him tell the difference between good sounding records and bad. From our perspective, there’s little difference in the sound of the Heavy Vinyl pressings he seems to like so much from Classic, Sundazed, Speakers Corner and the like. To us almost all of them leave a lot to be desired.

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What Track Here Would Be Right at Home on David Crosby’s First Album?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Graham Nash Available Now

Our last shootout for this album took place in 2021. I wish we could keep the record in stock but finding the right stampers these days is not easy.

Still, as a favorite album of mine, I listen to the album regularly, just not on vinyl. Both the standard CD and the cassette I have sound right to me, sounding very much like the original record.

Recently I was playing the album and heard a song that sounded an awful lot like it might have been produced by the same team that recorded David Crosby’s first album, If Only I Could Remember My Name.

If you’re up for it, listen to the Crosby, then play the Nash and see if you can spot it. Feel free to leave your impressions in the comments section below.

Digging Deeper

Songs for Beginners is one of those albums that made me want to dig deeper into audio. After every improvement I managed to make to the system, Songs for Beginners would be one of the records that I would play (at very high volume) to see what changes I had brought about.

All the best changes — the ones I kept — always made the album sound better than I had last heard it. Over the course of decades the sound became amazingly good, a true Demo Disc that belonged in the company of Tea for the Tillerman or Dark Side of the Moon.

Back in the 70s and the 80s, not so much later as I had found plenty of other tough test discs by then, it helped me dramatically improve the playback quality of my system, which, to be honest, had a very long way to go, although I sure didn’t know that at the time. I thought it sounded great.

Early on in the history of our track by track breakdowns, written in order to aid listeners in testing their stereos and the other copies of the record they might own, we did a breakdown for the album which you can read here.

If you can’t find a nice original, whatever you do, don’t buy the awful Classic Records pressing of the album. They ruined it.

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Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – So Far

More Crosby / More Stills / More Nash / More Young

  • Boasting INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades on both sides, this copy is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other So Far you’ve heard
  • 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 amazing 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
  • We don’t imagine we’ll be tracking down too many copies that sound this good so if you’re a fan, scoop this one up!
  • 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
  • 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
  • If I were to compile a list of my favorite rock and pop albums from 1974, this album would definitely be on it
  • Not many compilation albums offer top quality sound, but this one does, and these are some others

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 of Deja Vu 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 Hot Stamper pressing, you will never be able to enjoy those audiophile pressings again, of that we are quite confident. (more…)

Letter of the Week – “Here is where the life and groove of the music is!”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Crosby, Stills, Nash and (Sometimes) Young

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

What a batch of records! I just finished playback last night.

It only occurred to me afterwards that some of these titles I had only heard on compact disc or streaming, I thought I knew this music but the Hot Stampers – particularly Aja and CSNY So Far – defied me.

Here is where the life and groove of the music is! The digital formats have been calling my attention to all the wrong details.

I could go on and on. All eight titles are a knockout. Close To The Edge is a monster – the presentation is massive, and I’m sure my system isn’t doing it full justice, but I love this record and it’s by far the best I have ever heard it.

Thanks again to the Better Records team for everything you do – for this music lover it’s manna from heaven.

Cheers,

Austin

Austin,

Yes, you are so right about the digital formats. They get the sound of classic albums wrong by drawing your attention to recording details at the expense of the flow and drive and energy of the music.

As for So Far, I am a huge Crosby, Stills and Nash fan — the first album being life-changing to a 15 year old music lover such as myself, on 8-track tape in the car no less — and my ardor never flagged in all the years that have gone by since then.

It seems that there are some albums that will last you a lifetime — the first two albums, produced in 1969 and 1970, are still right at the top of my All Time Favorites.

Close to the Edge is a monster and always has been. I listen to it regularly, along with The Yes Album and Fragile. What a run of albums they released before hitting a wall with Tales of Topographic Oceans in 1973.

Aja is record I have been writing about for decades. It’s often an overblown mess, on vintage and modern pressings alike.

The copies that do well in our shootouts are the ones that are coherent, where the over-production suits the songs and does not draw too much attention to itself.

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Listening in Depth to So Far

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Crosby, Stills and Nash Available Now

This is a very difficult record to find with proper mastering (and good vinyl, ouch!). It seems that all of Crosby, Stills and Nash’s albums are that way. The average domestic pressing rarely even hints at how well recorded this band really was (and the imports are even worse — we’ve never heard one that didn’t sound dubby, veiled and compressed).

In my experience not even one out of ten LPs sounds right; I put the figure at one out of twenty. Most of them are shrill, dull, grainy, flat, opaque, harsh and in varying degrees suffer from every other mastering and pressing malady known to man.

But the best ones have some tracks in superb sound. When you hear the Hot Stampers for records like this you will simply be AMAZED. If you’ve ever heard a really good If Only I Could Remember My Name, an album that CAN be found with proper mastering, that should give you some idea of how good the first two albums can sound.

Side One

Déjà Vu

When you get a good copy of this album, this song sounds like it was lifted right off of a Hot Stamper copy of Deja Vu itself. It’s so rich and Tubey Magical you’d swear it couldn’t get any better. Huge amounts of deep bass. Acoustic guitars that ring for days. Midrange magic to die for. Not many of them sound this way, unfortunately.

If I could indulge in some more MoFi and Half-Speed bashing for a moment, the bass “solo” at the end of this song is a great test for bass definition. The notes are relatively high, and it’s easy for them to sound blurred and wooly. The MoFi, like virtually all Half-Speed mastered records, has a problem with bass definition. If you own the MoFi, listen for how clearly defined the notes are at the end of this track. Then play any other copy, either of So Far or Deja Vu. It’s a pretty safe bet that the bass will be much more articulate. I know how bad the MOFI is in this respect. Rarely do “normal” records have bass that bad.

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