Top Artists – Jethro Tull

Two of Robin Black’s Engineering Masterpieces

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More of the Music of Jethro Tull

Hot Stamper Pressings with Exceptionally Tubey Magical Guitars Available Now

Thick As A Brick is quite possibly the BEST SOUNDING ALBUM Jethro Tull ever made. It’s dynamic; has really solid, deep punchy bass; transparency and sweetness in the midrange; Tubey Magical acoustic guitars and flutes; in other words, the record has EVERYTHING that we go crazy for here at Better Records. I can guarantee you there is no CD on the planet that could ever do this recording justice. The Hot Stamper pressings have a kind of MAGIC that just can’t be captured on one of them there silvery discs.

Amazing Acoustic Guitars

Acoustic guitar reproduction is superb on the better copies of this recording. The harmonic coherency, the richness, the body and the phenomenal amounts of Tubey Magic can be heard on every strum.

A Real Gem

When we do these shootouts we play quite a few original copies of the record (the reissues are not worth the vinyl they’re stamped on) and let me tell you, the sound and the music are so good we can’t get enough of it. Until about 2007 this was the undiscovered gem (by TP anyway) in the Tull catalog. The pressings we had heard up until then were nothing special, and of course the average pressing of this album is exactly that: no great shakes.

With the advent of better record cleaning fluids and much better tables, phono stages, room treatments and the like, some copies of Thick As A Brick have shown themselves to be simply amazing sounding. Even the All Music Guide could hear how well-engineered it was.

We Love the Complexity

When you can hear it right, the music really comes to life and starts to work its magic. All the variations on the themes separate themselves out. Each of the sections, rather than sounding repetitive or monotonous, instead develop in ways both clever and engaging. The more times you listen to it the more nuances and subtleties you find hidden in the complexity of the music. (Just the number of time-signature changes on either side is enough to boggle the mind. Of course, if you listen very carefully you can hear that most of them are accompanied by edits, but it’s fun to listen for those too!)

Simply put, the more you play it the better you understand it and the more you will like it. (This is of course true for all good music.)

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Commoner’s Crown

We happened to do the shootout for Thick as a Brick the same week as Commoner’s Crown, and let us tell you, those are two records with shockingly real dynamics in the grooves of the best copies. If you like your music loud — which is just another way of saying you like it to sound LIVE — then the better copies of either album are guaranteed to blow your mind with their dynamic energy and power.

It’s the Engineer?

That can’t be a coincidence, can it? Well, it can, but in the case of these two albums it seems it isn’t. The engineering for both records was done by none other than Robin Black at Morgan Studios. Robin co-produced Commoner’s, takes the main engineering credit, and is solely credited with the mix. He is the sole engineer on TAAB (along with lots of other Tull albums, including Benefit and Aqualung).

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Jethro Tull – A Top Test for System Accuracy

More of the Music of Jethro Tull

Reviews and Commentaries for Thick as a Brick

From 2009 to 2010 this was our single go-to record for testing and tweaking our system.

Although we now use an amazing copy of Bob and Ray (the big band version of The Song of the Volga Boatmen located therein has to be one of the toughest tests we know of), we could easily go back to using TAAB.

Artificiality is the single greatest problem that every serious audiophile must guard against with every change and tweak to his stereo. cleaning system, room, electricity and everything else.

Since TAAB is absolutely ruthless at exposing the slightest hint of artificiality in the sound of the system, it is clearly one of the best recordings one can use to test and tune with. Here are just some of the reasons this was one of our favorite test records back in the day:

Dynamics

The better copies are shockingly dynamic. At about the three minute mark the band joins in the fun and really starts rocking. Set your volume for as loud as your system can play that section. The rest of the music, including the very quietest parts, will then play correctly for all of side one. For side two the same volume setting should be fine.

Bass

The recording can have exceptionally solid, deep punchy bass (just check out Barrie “Barriemore” Barlow’s drumming, especially his kick and floor toms. The guy is on fire).

Midrange

The midrange is usually transparent and the top end sweet and extended on the better pressings.

Tubey Magic

The recording was made in 1972, so there’s still plenty of Tubey Magic to be heard on the acoustic guitars and flutes.

Size and Space

The best copies can be as huge, wide and tall as any rock record you’ve ever heard, with sound that comes jumping out of your speakers right into your listening room.

Tonality

Unlike practically any album recorded during the 80s or later, the overall tonal balance, as well as the timbre of virtually every instrument in the soundfield, is correct on the best copies.

Gone, Gone, Gone

That kind of accuracy practically disappeared from records about thirty years ago, which explains why so many of the LPs we offer as Hot Stampers were produced in the 70s. That’s when many of the highest fidelity recordings were made. In truth this very record is a superlative example of the sound the best producers, engineers, and studios were able to capture on analog tape during that time.

Which is a long way of saying that the better copies of Thick As A Brick have pretty much everything that we love about vinyl here at Better Records.

Furthermore, I can guarantee you there is no CD on the planet that will ever be able to do this recording justice. Our Hot Stamper pressings – even the lowest-graded ones – have a kind of analog magic that just can’t be captured on one of them there silvery discs.

Want to find your own top quality copy of this Jethro Tull classic?

Consider taking our moderately helpful advice concerning the pressings that tend to win our shootouts.

In our experience, this record sounds best this way:

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Jethro Tull – Thick As A Brick

More Jethro Tull

Reviews and Commentaries for Thick as a Brick

  • Thick As A Brick is back on the site for only the second time in sixteen month hiatus, here with INSANELY GOOD Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades on both sides of this early Reprise pressing
  • We had only one summarizing thought for this amazing side two: “Top detail.”
  • One of the few copies we’ve found lately with this kind of sound, but marks 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
  • A Top 100 title and the best sounding album Jethro Tull ever recorded – allow us to make the case
  • A stunning Demo Disc to rule them all – sure to be the best you’ve ever heard Tull sound if you have the system for it
  • 4 1/2 stars: “A masterpiece in the annals of progressive rock – a dazzling tour de force, at once playful, profound, and challenging, without overwhelming the listener.”

Accuracy

The kind of tonal accuracy you hear on the better copies of this album practically disappeared from records over forty years ago, which explains why so many of the LPs we offer as Hot Stampers were produced in the 70s and before. That’s when many of the highest fidelity recordings were made. In truth this very record is a superlative example of the sound the best producers, engineers, and studios were able to capture on analog tape during that very decade.

Which is a long way of saying that the better copies of Thick As A Brick have pretty much everything that we love about vinyl records here at Better Records.

Furthermore, I can guarantee you there is no CD on the planet that will ever be able to do this recording justice. Our Hot Stamper pressings — even the lowest-graded ones — have a kind of Analog Magic that just can’t be captured on one of them there silvery discs.

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Jethro Tull – This Was

More Jethro Tull

More British Blues Rock

  • You’ll find solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER on both sides of this British Island pressing of Tull’s debut album – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Side two is very close in sound to our Shootout Winner – you will be shocked at how big and powerful the sound is
  • We’ve only had a handful of copies go up since 2013 – it’s tough to find these vintage UK pressings in clean condition with this kind of sound
  • Guaranteed to soundly trounce any Pink Label Island original you may have heard – these are the Hot Stampers
  • Melody Maker thoroughly recommended the album in 1968 for being “full of excitement and emotion” and described the band as a blues ensemble “influenced by jazz music” capable of setting “the audience on fire.” — Wikipedia
  • If you’re a fan of Ian and his band, this UK reissue originally recorded in 1968 belongs in your collection
  • More reissue pressings that, in our experience, handily beat the best originals can be found here. Skeptical of that claim? Please order this record so that you can play if for yourself. If it does not beat your original (or any other pressing you may have), we will pay the domestic shipping to return it and happily refund 100% of your money. What have you got to lose?

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Jethro Tull – Minstrel In The Gallery

More Jethro Tull

  • With solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them from start to finish, you’ll have a hard time finding a copy that sounds remotely as good as this original UK Chrysalis import
  • This side one is remarkably big and full with wonderfully breathy vocals and deep punchy bass, and side two is not far behind in all those areas
  • Here is the rock energy and power this music needs that few other copies we played could compete with (particularly on side one)
  • 4 stars: “Minstrel in the Gallery was Tull’s most artistically successful and elaborately produced album since Thick As a Brick…”

This original British copy gets BIG when it needs to (the proggy parts), and that makes it fun. Plenty of Tubey Magic is on offer as well, with rich, sweet acoustic guitars and a lovely freedom from hi-fi-ishness on the vocals.

As you probably know, Ian Anderson can get a little carried away with the processing on his voice, but the better copies make that processing sound right within the context of the overall sound. Most copies have added distortion and grit on the vocal effects, making them much less pleasing to the ear than the engineers envisioned.

Tubey Magical Acoustic Guitar reproduction is superb on the better copies of this recording. Simply phenomenal amounts of Tubey Magic can be heard on every strum, along with richness, body and harmonic coherency that have all but disappeared from modern recordings (and especially from modern remasterings).

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Listening in Depth to Stand Up

More of the Music of Jethro Tull

More Reviews and Commentaries for Stand Up

Presenting another entry in our extensive Listening in Depth series with advice on what to listen for as you critically evaluate your copy of Stand Up.

Here are some albums currently on the site with similar track by track breakdowns.

If British Blues Rock is your thing, then Stand Up is definitely a record that belongs in your collection.

Tubey Magical acoustic guitar reproduction is superb on the better copies of this recording. Simply phenomenal amounts of Tubey Magic can be heard on every strum, along with richness, body and harmonic coherency that have all but disappeared from modern recordings (and especially from modern remasterings).

To prove our point, Analogue Productions hired Kevin Gray to cut this dismal version of the album on vinyl. I hope Chad didn’t pay him too much, because he didn’t get a whole lot for his money, although I’m sure he thinks he did. Like many audiophiles, he blindly puts his faith in so-called experts, and can’t recognize shoddy work when he hears it.

And if you think the original Pink Label Island pressing is going to be the way to go for top quality sound, good luck with that approach. That kind of thinking guarantees you’ll fail before you’ve even begun.

When it comes to classic albums, plenty of reissues have sound that is superior to the originals, and this is one of them.

Side One

A New Day Yesterday

one of my favorite Jethro Tull songs of all time. (This and To Cry You a Song from Benefit are pretty darn hard to beat.) Clive Bunker’s drumming is incredibly energetic; it drives the song to levels few bands could ever hope to reach. It reminds me of the kind of all-out ASSAULT on the skins you hear in the work of Dave Grohl and John Bonham. Bunker is a highly underrated player; his bandmates Barre and Cornick don’t get the respect they deserve either, for reasons that I’ll never understand. They’re about as good as it gets in my book.

Jeffrey Goes to Leicester Square
Bourée
Back to the Family
Look Into the Sun

Another favorite track.

Side Two

Nothing Is Easy

Watch your volume on this track! It starts out quietly, but it gets VERY loud toward the end. If you’ve set your volume properly for side one, don’t change it for side two.

Fat Man

Amazingly spacious, transparent and open on the best pressings.

We Used to Know

I love the way this song starts out quietly and builds to a tremendous crescendo of sound. Dynamics like these are rarely found on pop records.

Reasons for Waiting

On copies of this record that lack bass, this song will have NO bass.

For a Thousand Mothers

In General

It’s very common for pressings of Stand Up to lack bass or highs, and more often than not both are lacking. The bass-shy ones tend to be more transparent and open sounding — of course, that’s the sound you get when you take out the bass. (90 plus percent of all the audiophile stereos I’ve ever heard were bass shy, no doubt for precisely that very reason: less bass equals more detail, more openness and more transparency. Go to any stereo store or audiophile show and notice how bright the sound is. Another good reason not to go to those shows, and we rarely do.)

Just what good is a British Classic Rock Record that lacks bass? It won’t rock, and if it don’t rock, who needs it? You might as well be playing the CD.

The copies that lack extreme highs are often dull and thick, and usually have a smeary, blurry quality to their sound. When you can’t hear into the music, the music itself quickly becomes boring.

If I had to choose, I would take a copy that’s a little dull on top as long as it still had a meaty, powerful, full-bodied sound over something that’s thin and leaned out. There are many audiophiles who can put up with that sound — I might go so far as to say the majority can — but I am not one of them.

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Letter of the Week – “Here I was with all these copies at home… went through them all, and yes, yours came out on top.”

More of the Music of Jethro Tull

Reviews and Commentaries for Aqualung

This week’s testimonial letter comes from our good customer Michel, who was blown away by the Hot Stamper pressing of Aqualung we sent him.

Michel did a shootout of his own, comparing our Hot Stamper with everything he could throw at it. The result? Predictable, from where we stand anyway. If we can’t beat our copy, how can he expect to beat our copy?

Note that a well known audiophile reviewer did his own shootout for the album years ago, in which he failed rather embarrassingly to come up with anything resembling a good answer. We are glad to report that our new customer, Michel, succeeded admirably.

To be fair, Michel had a lot of help.

He had a group of experts with many hard-won years of experience on his side. Audiophile reviewers, without exception, at least to our knowledge, simply have neither the time nor the resources to figure out a title like Aqualung. When you’re a one-man band, Aqualung is not a puzzle you are very likely to solve.

We ourselves didn’t solve it until 2008, by which time I had been in the audiophile record business for more than twenty years. Without a staff to find, clean and help play the large numbers of copies needed to unlock  Aqualung’s secrets, not to mention a stereo that’s designed to be exceptionally hard to please, we would be just as lost as everyone else in the audiophile world, reviewers and forum posters alike.

Michel’s letter:

Thank You, Fred

I’ve got a LOT of listening to do ahead of me. Looking forward to it very much.

Reading on your website… omg… there is so much to read there… has been a real treat. I don’t read the intense notes on the LPs I buy until after I have listened to them, so as to be as objective as possible. It is really interesting to discover that LPs with the same stamper do not always sound the same. This is something I never really understood prior to discovering your company.

My sell pile of other copies, both reg. and fancy ‘audiophile,’ is growing. I don’t care what all the “experts” and youtubers say… if I can feel the music and it connects with me making me want to move my body around, then that is the best pressing.

Some of these titles are epic, like Aqualung for example. So here I was with all these copies at home… went through them all, and yes, yours came out on top.

I tried so hard to make it not so, but the proof is in the pudding as they say.

I am not a ‘high class audiophile’ with a mondo expensive system whose power amps costs more then everything I’ve got, but I’ve got a good set of ears, and I play it loud (no distortion) to expose everything… and I let me ears and my feelings do the selecting. All that gibberish people spout out is endless. I do not feel the need to justify how much I spent on this or that….just listen.

I have very much been enjoying my journey with Better Records, and yes I have spent of bunch of dollars, and yes if I tried to resell them I’d never get it back, but none of that matters…. only the sound is what matters to me…. and apparently to your company as well. Discovering BR has been a real blast!

Take Good Care,
Michel

Michel,

What can I add to anything you say? You totally get it.

You know exactly what your money is buying: the feeling you get from this music. You are not buying a collectible, nor an investment, nor anything but the rapture of a purely musical experience, one that you can repeat as often as you like for the rest of your life. What you have now is the beginning of a priceless collection.

Some might argue that the cost of the records you bought is excessive. I often read on forums that paying fifty or a hundred dollars for one record is a ridiculous waste of money. Some audiophiles think that having thirty Heavy Vinyl Jazz pressings that sound “just fine” is a much better use of your money than spending a thousand dollars on one exceptionally good vintage pressing.

We do not hold to that view, for the simple reason that when we play these modern records we feel next to nothing for the music or the musicians. (We feel contempt for those who make such shoddy products; I guess that that might be the strongest feeling aroused by most of the junk vinyl being pressed today.)

Oscar Wilde had a good take on it:

A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.

 I think that speaks volumes for what some of us, like yourself, are trying to get out of this hobby. Thanks for writing,

TP

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Jethro Tull / Thick As a Brick on MoFi

More of the Music of Jethro Tull

Reviews and Commentaries for Thick as a Brick

Sonic Grade: D

An Audiophile Hall of Shame pressing and another Half-Speed Mastered Audiophile LP reviewed and found wanting.

Here you will find the same problems as the MoFi Meddle, released the previous year, 1984. Here is what we had to say about it back in the day when we were selling this kind of crap.

The MoFi is TRANSPARENT and OPEN, and the top end will be lush and extended. If you prize clarity, this is the one.

But if you prize clarity at the expense of everything else, you are seriously missing the boat on Meddle (and of course Thick As A Brick too).

The MoFi is all mids and highs with almost nothing going on below.

This is a rock record, but without bass and dynamics the MoFi pressing doesn’t rock, so why would anyone want to own it or play it?

The one thing these pressings have going for them is that they tend to be transparent in the midrange.

It sounds like someone messed with the sound, and of course someone did. That’s how they get those audiophile records to sound the way they do.

For some reason, some audiophiles like their records to sound pretty and lifeless with blurry bass.

The Whomp Factor on this pressing is Zero. Since whomp is critical to the sound of this album, it’s Game Over for us.

That is not our sound here at Better Records. We don’t offer records with shortcomings like these and we don’t think audiophiles should have to put up with records that sound the way this one does.

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Is The Pink Label The Hot Ticket for Jethro Tull’s Brilliant Stand Up Album?

Jethro Tull Albums Available Now

More Reviews and Commentaries for Stand Up

Well, it certainly can be, but sometimes it isn’t, and failing to appreciate that possibility is a classic case of misunderstanding a crucially important fact or two about records. Audiophile analog devotees would do well to keep these facts in mind, especially considering the prices original British pressings are fetching these days.

Simply put: Since no two records sound alike, it follow that the right label doesn’t guarantee the right sound. A shootout years ago illustrated both of these truths.

We had a number of Pink Island British pressings to play — if you hit enough record stores often enough, in this town anyway, even the rarest pressings are bound to show up in clean condition from time to time — along with Sunrays (aka Pink Rims), later Brits, early Two Tone domestics and plain Brown Label Reprise reissues. All of them can sound good. (We do not waste time with German and Japanese pressings, or any of the later Chrysalis label LPs. Never heard an especially good one.)

What surprised the hell out of us was how bad one of the Pink Label sides sounded. It was shockingly thin and hard, practically unlistenable. Keep in mind that during our shootouts the listener has no idea which pressing is being played, so imagine hearing such poor reproduction on vinyl and then finding out that such bad sound was coming from a copy that should have been competitive with the best, on the legendary Pink Island label no less. (Of course the other Pinks were all over the map, their sides ranging from good to great.)

Hearing one sound this bad was completely unexpected, but hearing the unexpected is what we do for a living, so I suppose it shouldn’t have been. Having dubious looking reissues and the “wrong” pressings beat the originals and the so-called “right” pressings from the “right” countries is all in a day’s work here at Better Records.

The audiophiles who collect records by label are asking for trouble with Stand Up. Assuming you want the best sound, that is.

Still, a Pink Label Stand Up sounding this bad? I have to admit I had a hard time wrapping my head around it.

But we don’t let our heads, or our eyes, tell us which pressing sounds the best, an approach that most audiophiles to this day subscribe to, if my reading of their reviews, forum posts and such like are correct.

We find blind testing using our ears works much better.

This approach has the added benefit of regularly leading us to amazingly good sounding “unknown” pressings.

The flip side, in the case of Stand Up, is that it helps us to see clearly the amazingly bad well-known ones too.

Want to find your own top quality copy?

Consider taking our moderately helpful advice concerning the pressings that tend to win our shootouts.

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Jethro Tull – Years Ago We Badly Misjudged the Recording Quality of Tull’s Debut

More of the Music of Jethro Tull

Hot Stamper Pressings of British Blues Rock Available Now

A clear case of live and learn.

We listed a White Hot copy of This Was in 2008 on the Island pink label and noted at the time:

Be forewarned: this ain’t Stand Up or Aqualung. I don’t think you’ll be using any copy of This Was to demo your stereo, because the recording has its share of problems. That said, this record sounds wonderful from start to finish and will make any fan of this music a VERY happy person. We guarantee you’ve never heard this album sound better, or your money back.

Now we know a couple of things that we didn’t back in 2008.

1). This album is a lot better sounding than we gave it credit for years ago. It’s not perfect by any means but it is much better than the above comments might lead you to believe.

We chanced upon an exceptional sounding copy of the album in 2017 or so, and that taught us something new about the record:

2). The Pink Label pressings are not the best way to go on this album.

Once we heard the exceptional copy alluded to above, we played it against our best Pink Label copies and it was simply no contest.

In 2008 we still had a lot to learn. We needed to do more research and development, which of course we are doing regularly with Classic Rock records, our bread and butter and the heart of our business.

We do them as often as is practical, considering how difficult it is to find copies with audiophile quality playing surfaces.

Nine years later, we felt we finally had a proper understanding on the various pressings of This Was. It goes like this:

The Pink Label original British pressings can be good, but they will never win a shootout up against copies with these stampers (assuming you have more than one copy — any record can have the right stampers and the wrong sound, we hear it all the time. Beware of small sample sizes).

Other albums that can sound good on the UK Island Pink Label, but not as good as our Shootout Winning Hot Stamper pressings, can be found here.

Want to find your own killer copy?

Consider taking our moderately helpful advice concerning the pressings that tend to win our shootouts.

As of 2024, this album sounds best to us this way:

Of course it does!

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