Top Artists – Santana

Santana – Moonflower

More Santana

  • With INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on sides one and four, and seriously good Double Plus (A++) sound on sides two and three, this copy of Santana’s 2-LP live album is practically as good a copy as we have ever heard – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • These sides are doing practically everything right — they’re rich, full-bodied and Tubey Magical with a big punchy bottom end
  • Turn it up and you will hear sound that is incredibly powerful and natural with remarkable presence, energy and weight down low
  • “Santana, which was renowned for its concert work dating back to Woodstock, did not release a live album in the U.S. until this one… Moonflower went Top Ten and sold a million copies, the first new Santana album to do that since 1972 and the last until Supernatural in 1999.”

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Carlos Santana Knows: Louder Is Better

santasanta_1401s

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Santana Available Now

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Santana

Santana’s debut is yet another in the long list of recordings that really comes alive when you turn up your volume.

The commentary below refers to an experience I had playing the album in the late-90s.

This album needs to be played loud. I mean really loud. Years ago I used to demonstrate how important it was to have the level up good and high on the song Waiting.

Back in the mid-90s, I had somehow lucked into my first shockingly good Hot Stamper copy.

As a demonstration of what the Legacy Whisper system and its 8 fifteen inch woofer/midrange drivers could do, I would play the first minute or so of the track at a pretty good level. There’s lots of ambience, there’s a couple of guys who shout things out from way back in the studio, there’s a substantial amount of deep bass, and the whole recording has a natural smooth quality to it, which is precisely what allows you to play it at loud volumes.

Then I would turn it up a notch, say about 2-3 DB. I would announce to my friends that this is probably louder than you will ever play this record, but listen to what happens when you do. The soundstage gets wider and deeper, all those guys that shout can be heard more clearly, you start to really feel that deep bass, and when the song gets going, it really gets going. The energy of the music would jump to another level.

Then I would turn it up another 3 DB or so. At this point I would say that “this is how loud it should be played.” All the effects I mentioned earlier would become even more pronounced — wider, deeper, more clear, more powerful. The record was actually starting to sound like live music in my living room.

But of course, I was showing off a system that few could afford and that nobody in his right mind would put out in the middle of his living room. You would need a custom sound room, and a big one at that, to fit such a massive speaker and be able to turn it up.

But I was a bachelor at the time, and my live-in girlfriend at the time knew that she would have to go before the stereo did.

Unboosted

It was pointed out to me one day that the reason this record can be played loud is that, unlike most popular recordings, this album has a natural, unboosted top end, which means that the louder you play it, the more real it sounds. You can’t do that with most records. Many records have a top end that’s boosted to sound good at lower volumes. Not so with the first album by Santana. [For more records with the kind of vintage smooth sound we find so appealing, click here.]

One of the reasons I [used to] have speakers with eight 15 inch woofers/ midrange drivers is that you need to be able to move a lot of air without distortion in order to play music at realistic listening levels. If you’ve got one or two 12 inch woofers and you try to play a record like this at loud listening levels, the distortion becomes unbearable as the drivers try to move all the air in your listening room and simply compress and distort in the attempt.

As Bill Dudleston, the designer of the Whisper speaker you see to the left, is famous for saying, paraphrasing of course, “It’s like trying to fan yourself on a hot day with a guitar pick. No matter how fast you wave the pick, it simply can’t move enough air to cool you off.”

The exact same principle applies to the reproduction of music at live listening levels. The drivers are not capable of the kind of motion that is required.

What this record has going for it is huge amounts of depth and a wide soundstage; an octave of bass below what would normally be considered bass (a 20 cycle note that sticks its head up from under the more common 40 cycle bass that drives the music); wonderful transparency and sweetness in the midrange; dynamics; and lastly, the kind of low-distortion, naturally un-hyped sound that this record shares with the Nirvana Nevermind LP that’s on the site.

[Correction: virtually never on the site. And the pressing we used to like happens to be one we no longer consider Hot Stamper worthy since almost any original domestic LP will beat it.]

When you turn up the volume on records like these, assuming you can turn up the volume to the levels we are talking about, you will hear something that approaches the sound of live music. Not many records allow you to do that, but this one does, if your stampers and your system are hot enough.

Obsessed Since 1969

Santana‘s debut is an album we freely admit to being obsessed with for a very long time. I had just turned 15 when this album came out in 1969 and I had never heard anything like it. Naturally, I went crazy for it and played it all the time on my godawful all-in-one stereo system through big-but-no-doubt-terrible-sounding Wharfedale speakers. (At least they had a 12″ woofer, which is more than you can say for a lot of audiophile speakers being made today, and for 100x the price.)

As should be clear from the commentary above, Santana’s debut deserves credit for helping me become a better listener.

  1. It’s a must own record.
  2. It’s a rock and pop masterpiece.
  3. And it’s a personal favorite.

The blog you are on now as well as our website are both devoted to very special records such as this.

It is the very definition of a big speaker album. The better pressings have the kind of ENERGY in their grooves that are sure to leave most audiophile systems begging for mercy.

This is the audio challenge that awaits you. If you don’t have a system designed to play records with this kind of sonic power, don’t expect to hear them the way the band and those involved in their production wanted you to.

This album wants to rock your world, and that’s exactly what our Hot Stamper pressings are especially good at doing.

Naturally, the band’s debut is also part of our extensive listening in depth series. Any record we get obsessed with we tend to play hundreds and hundreds of times and make notes of what to listen for on specific tracks.

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Santana / Abraxas – A 180 gram Columbia Disaster

More of the Music of Santana

Reviews and Commentaries for Abraxas

Sonic Grade: F

There is a 180 gram domestic pressing of Abraxas that may still be available. The reason we never sold it even when we were selling Heavy Vinyl many years ago is that it’s AWFUL. One side, I don’t remember which one, is actually Mono.

You will see people selling this record on Ebay as an audiophile pressing. Believe me, no audiophile in his right mind would want this record.

Is it the worst version of the album ever made? Hard to imagine it would have much competition.

We play mediocre-to-bad sounding pressings so that you don’t have to, a public service from your record-loving friends at Better Records.

You can find these two in our Hall of Shame, along with others that — in our opinion — are best avoided by audiophiles looking for hi-fidelity sound. Some of these records may have passable sonics, but we found the music less than compelling.  These are also records you can safely avoid.

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Did Carlos Santana want to make music or produce fireworks?

More of the Music of Santana

Reviews and Commentaries for Abraxas

Our good customer Aaron has lately been putting a great deal of time and money into the pursuit of perfect sound. His progress in audio since he discovered Hot Stampers and the kind of high quality vintage equipment we’ve recommended he use to play them has been remarkable.

In 2022 he wrote to tell us that the Super Hot Stamper Abraxas we had sent him and the Mofi One-Step he already owned were comparable in sound quality. Knowing what an awful label Mobile Fidelity is, and what a foolish idea Half-Speed Mastering is, you can imagine that we might have been a wee bit skeptical of this estimation, and we asked him to clarify his position.

Aaron also has made many improvements to his system since then. He carefully listened to both versions of Abraxas again and reported his findings. We believe that there is much to be learned from the kind of shootout that Aaron did for the album.

Hey Tom,

Oh it’s a fascinating comparison! Here’s some data points, with the final one being the most relevant to your question.

I did another series of shootouts yesterday with my new vintage amp and speakers, and I included Abraxas in it. The bass on the onestep is monstrous and unreal. Sometimes the cymbals and chimes leap out of the speakers. I understand why people go gaga for this record. If you listen for sound, it doesn’t get any better than this.

Then I put on the hot stamper. The bass was back under control. Driving, but not dominating. The overall character was lighter and less ponderous. It was more listenable, more musical, and overall it was a relief to be less distracted by the fireworks. The vocals are back in front where they belong, and more palpable.

But, the hot stamper simply doesn’t grab ahold of you the way the onestep does.

When you describe the sound of the MoFi One-Step of Abraxas, with bass that’s “monstrous and unreal. Sometimes the cymbals and chimes leap out of the speakers,” all I hear in my head is a classic case of smile curve equalization, the kind MoFi has been using since the day they produced their first rock record in 1978, Crime of the Century. Years ago we noted:

We get these MoFis in on a regular basis, and they usually sound as phony and wrong as can be. They’re the perfect example of a hyped-up audiophile record that appeals to people with lifeless stereos, the kind that need amped-up records to get them to come to life.

I’ve been telling people for years that the MoFi was junk, and that they should get rid of their copy and replace it with a tonally correct version, easily done since there is a very good sounding Speakers Corner 180g reissue currently in print which does not suffer from the ridiculously boosted top end and bloated bass that characterizes the typical MoFi COTC pressing. [Of course, we no longer recommend anyone buy Crime of the Century on Speakers Corner. The better our system gets, the less we like them.]

That’s the sound of MoFi all right. The Hot Stampers we offer would never have those “qualities,” if you care to call them that.

Leaping cymbals and chimes? Are they supposed to do that?

Also, the bass on our early pressing would have to be “back under control” or we wouldn’t have sold it to you as a Hot Stamper.

Unsurprisingly, without all that extra added bass, the sound is “lighter and less ponderous.” Saints be praised.

Smile Curve Redux

With the smile curve adding to the top and the bottom, what suffers the most? The midrange. There’s less of it relative to the  now-boosted frequency extremes. We described the effect here:

The Doors first album they released was yet another obvious example of MoFi’s predilection for sucked-out mids. Scooping out the middle of the midrange has the effect of creating an artificial sense of depth where none belongs. Play any original Bruce Botnick engineered album by Love or The Doors and you will notice immediately that the vocals are front and center.

The midrange suckout effect is easily reproducible in your very own listening room. Pull your speakers farther out into the room and farther apart and you can get that MoFi sound on every record you own. I’ve been hearing it in the various audiophile systems I’ve been exposed to for more than 40 years.

Nowadays I would place it under the general heading of My-Fi, not Hi-Fi. Our one goal for every tweak and upgrade we make is to increase the latter and reduce the former.

Or as Aaron might have phrased it, “The vocals are back in front where they belong, and more palpable.” You sure got that right.

Musicality

Aaron was impressed with how much more musical our pressing is, noting: “It was more listenable, more musical, and overall it was a relief to be less distracted by the fireworks.”

Then he concludes with this, sending my head into a spin: “But, the hot stamper simply doesn’t grab ahold of you the way the onestep does.”

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Letter of the Week – “I was actually bouncing up and down in my listening chair like a complete idiot.”

More of the Music of Fleetwood Mac

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Fleetwood Mac

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

Hey Tom, 

I just wanted to say THANK YOU (!!!!!) a billion times over, for bringing me the most musical pleasure I’ve had in recent memory. I just spun the copy of “Barboletta” you guys sold me, and it’s so jaw-droppingly SPECTACULAR I was actually (literally) weeping (or at least, eyes welling up). SO many micro-details I had NEVER heard before – little tonal shifts in the guitar, ride patterns in the background I’d never been able to previously discern, etc. On “Mirage” I was actually bouncing up and down in my listening chair like a complete idiot – I simply could not resist the incredible groove!!!

I mean, we’re talking MASTER TAPE here. I don’t know how you guys do it – but thank the gods you do!!!!

I can only afford to buy a few LPs from you every couple of years, but I hope ya’ll know that your hard work and labor is SO appreciated by your loyal customers – because you’re opening new musical vistas up to us, through hearing beloved albums the way they were MEANT to be heard.

Steve M.

 

Santana’s First Album on MoFi Vinyl – We Owe You an Apology

More of the Music of Santana

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Santana

Sonic Grade: F

Santana is a record we admit to having liked when it came out back in 2007. Since then we have changed our minds. As embarrassing as it may be, and let’s be clear, this pressing is very embarrassing, We Got This One Wrong and there is no sense trying to hide it.

It’s just so damn compressed and lifeless.

The Whomp Factor on this pressing is Zero. Since whomp is critical to the sound of Santana’s music, it’s Game Over for us. The review below is exactly what we wrote at the time the record came in.

We tried to like it, but it’s clear to us now that we tried to like it too hard. Please accept our apologies.

I noted in my [now discontinued] blog on the site: “But now I would have to say that the MoFi LP is far too lifeless to be acceptable to anyone, even those with the worst kinds of Audiophile BS systems.”

And I noted that the Abraxas they remastered never got past the first elimination round. It had to have been one of the worst half-speeds I have ever heard. Dead dead dead as a doornail.

We also mentioned a while back (4/29/08, time flies) on our blog how bad the latest crop of MoFi vinyl was, with the heading: “Mobile Fidelity, Ouch.” Please to enjoy:

On another note, we played some godawful sounding MoFi pressings over the last few weeks:

  • Linda Ronstadt;
  • Metallica (with blobby bass at 45 RPM no less; only half-speed mastering can guarantee muddy bass under any and all circumstances!); and
  • Rush (nothing even resembling a top end. How do these things happen?).

These three albums have to be some of the worst sounding vinyl I have ever heard in my life. I won’t waste any more of your time or mine talking about them. Buy them if you feel the need, and if you like what you hear, drop us a line.

Maybe the copy we cracked open was a “bad” one, unrepresentative of the general pressing run.

Well, maybe so, but we are going to leave that conundrum unsolved for the time being. To crack open more copies to see if they are all as bad as the first one we played is not something we are particularly inclined to do. We call that throwing good money after bad around here at Better Records.

This is a label making some seriously bad records these days.

But why single them out? They all are.

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Listening in Depth to Santana’s First Album

More of the Music of Santana

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Santana

First off, a 360 label doesn’t mean much on this record except the POTENTIAL for good sound. The badly mastered or pressed copies can be recognized easily: they are muddy and smeary. The recording itself has a bit of that too-many-tubes-in-the-signal-path quality to start with, so unless the record is mastered and pressed clearly and cleanly the whole presentation is likely to turn to mud. 

Santana’s first album came out of nowhere and rocked in a way that few had heard before. In that sense it has something in common with Led Zeppelin’s debut. That album took the blues and added heavy guitars. Santana took African and Latin rhythms and added his own heavy guitar sound. Each is a landmark recording in its own right.

Musicianship

Like Abraxas, when you play a Hot Stamper copy Santana’s first album very loud, soon enough you find yourself marvelling at the musicianship of the group — because the best Hot Stamper pressings, communicating every bit of the energy and clarity the recording has to offer, let you hear what a great band they were.

On badly mastered records, such as the run-of-the-mill domestic LP, or the audiophile pressings on MoFi and CBS, the music lacks the power of the real thing. I want to hear Santana ROCK. Most pressings don’t let me do that. Only the best do.

Side One

Waiting

The first 30 seconds of this track will tell you if you have a good side one. The drums and percussion on the good copies are clean and clear, neither grainy nor smeared. Smearing is the most common problem for the originals, and graininess is the most common problem for reissues, which are usually made from sub generation EQ’d tapes.

And the other thing the Hot Stampers have going for them is deep, solid bass, as mentioned above. There is a bass fundamental on this opening track that’s WAY down there. If you have small speakers you can just forget ever hearing this record sound right, because the bass is critical to Santana’s sound.

Evil Ways

The key thing to listen to on this track is the quality of the vocals. On the best pressings they are very silky and sweet. It’s the kind of sound that modern recordings simply fail to capture. Or they’re not interested in that sound. Whatever the reason, they don’t have it.

Shades of Time 
Savor 
Jingo

BIG DRUMS, BIG HALL. You want to listen to this song on the biggest speakers you can find, playing as loud as they will play, in the biggest room in the house. You’ll never forget it.

Side Two

Persuasion 
Treat 
You Just Don’t Care

This is probably my favorite track on side two. This song doesn’t even make sense at normal listening levels. If you can’t play it loud, don’t even bother. There are big guitar power chords on this song that are meant to be heard at loud levels. Gregg Rolie is practically screaming his vocals because he needs to shout to be heard over those crashing guitar chords. I like to say that when I come across a song like this, I can’t play it loud enough. The music cries out for more volume. The louder it gets the better it gets, because it’s all about power.

This song will sound somewhat muddy at normal listening levels. All the energy is in the lower frequencies. The voice is correct, however, so when the voice sounds tonally correct and there’s tons of energy in the bass and lower midrange, you probably have yourself a good copy.

Soul Sacrifice

Further Reading

Letter of the Week – “Santana’s guitar is scorching on this record!”

More of the Music of Santana

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Santana

Our good customer, Dan, wrote to tell us he was positively astounded by our Hot Stamper pressing of Abraxas. We told Dan to listen to this record as loud as his ears could take it. Take it from the man himself: “As you suggested, I played this album as loud as my ears could tolerate and the result was astounding.”

Hey Tom,

Today I was blown away by yet another Hot Stamper I bought from your store: Santana’s Abraxas. Now, I have always been in awe of the musicianship of the band’s first three albums, but it was not until I heard the grooves in this Hot Stamper that I realized they are geniuses. Santana’s guitar is scorching on this record! Those leads just burst out of the musical soundscape that’s behind him. But it never sounded like that in the hundreds of times I’ve heard it. Sure, his leads always stood out, but they didn’t leap out.

As you suggested, I played this album as loud as my ears could tolerate and the result was astounding. Though my stereo is still short of being able to reproduce a live concert (for now!), it felt pretty damn close to that experience with this record! Mike Shrieve’s drums positively exploded with power after that organ intro on “Hope You’re Feeling Better”. There’s no denying it, playing this music at a polite volume would be a sin, and one I happily did not commit. This record is just poppin’ all over the place with dynamics, and the only way to hear everything is to set the dial to 11.

On a similar topic, I recently purchased the Mofi pressing of Santana’s first album and later stumbled upon your commentary on it. It is indeed good, but no nowhere near alive. My hot stamper of “Abraxas” gives me an excellent reference point for the Santana sound, and I can see just how much is missing now from Mofi’s pressing of their debut.

Anyhow, just wanted to say thank you again a keep up the great work at Better Records!

Dan

Dan, I’m glad to see you hadn’t wasted your money on the awful MoFi pressing of Abraxas, which, as I pointed out in my blog, is so bad (compressed to death, whomp factor = zero) we refused to carry it.

The first album barely made the cut, and part of the reason we let that questionable sounding pressing onto the site is that the originals are almost always noisy, and the reissues lean and flat sounding, so what’s an audiophile to do? Our Hot Stampers for the first album are killer, but they get expensive in a hurry. Down the road, if you want a first album that kills the MoFi, we would be more than happy to get you one.

[We have since apologized for carrying the first album on MoFi, which you can read about here.]

Musicanship

Like Abraxas, when you play a Hot Stamper copy good and loud, you find yourself marvelling at the musicanship of the group — because the Hot Stamper pressings, communicating all the energy and clarity the recording has to offer, let you hear what a great band they were. On badly mastered records, such as the MoFi or CBS Half-Speed, the music lacks the power of the real thing. I want to hear Santana ROCK. Only the best pressings let me do that. Dan, you heard one of them; you know what I’m talkin’ about.

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Various Artists / Woodstock

More Live Albums

  • These original pressings boast seriously good Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER on all SIX sides
  • With Mint Minus Minus vinyl and no marks that can be heard, you will have a very hard time finding a copy that plays this well
  • We guarantee there is dramatically more richness, fullness, vocal presence, and performance energy on this copy than others you’ve heard, and that’s especially true if you made the mistake of buying whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing is currently on the market
  • “As potent a musical time capsule as ever existed, it captures the three-day, 1969 concert event that united close to half a million members of what came to be known as the ‘Woodstock Generation.’ It topped the Billboard Charts for four weeks and sold two million copies.”

You will have a very hard time finding a quieter copy!

Folks, it was a struggle, let me tell you! Not as much of a struggle as putting on the concert itself to be sure, but a struggle for those of us charged with finding good sound on this famously badly recorded album.

First off there are six sides to play for every copy.

Secondly the sound is problematical at best; figuring out what the best copies do well that the run-of-the-mill copies don’t takes quite a bit of concentration, and one has to stay focused for a long time (most of the day in fact). After a while it can really start to wear on your nerves. (more…)

Santana – Welcome

More Santana

  • You’ll find outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER throughout this vintage pressing of Santana’s 1973 release
  • Both sides are big and rich, yet still wonderfully clean, clear and open with fantastic energy – you will not believe all the space and ambience here
  • An ambitious follow-up to Caravanserai, Welcome continued Carlos Santana’s foray into Jazz-Rock Fusion with music that remains powerful and intriguing even today
  • 4 stars: “Welcome was merely ahead of its time as a musical journey and is one of the more enduring recordings the band ever made. This is a record that pushes the envelope even today and is one of the most inspired recordings in the voluminous Santana oeuvre.”

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