Top Artists – The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones / Rolled Gold – Our Shootout Winner from 2011

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UPDATE 2025

We will likely never do this shootout again.

We understand now that the album releases are capable of much better sound than we had previously thought.

We know that because we’ve done scores of shootouts for them. A

dd to that the fact that our system is much more revealing and we would be very surprised if any side of this album scored better than 1.5+ on any side, although it is certainly possible.

We don’t do shootouts for pressings with very little hope of top quality sound.

Some compilations have the potential for great sound, these for example, but not many do.

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The Rolling Stones – Their Satanic Majesties Request

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  • Their Satanic Majesties Request is back on the site after a twelve month hiatus, here with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on this vintage British Decca pressing
  • The band’s one and only psychedelic album, one that came out right before the raging bluesy rock of Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers
  • This is some crazy Stones music, with loads of psychedelic madness, balanced by a good number of catchy tunes
  • It’s a lot of fun on a pressing that sounds as good as this one, with the space, clarity and richness that vintage vinyl offers in such abundance
  • Every one of the original Decca stereo pressings we’ve played has come up short against these recuts from the Seventies – if you want an original on this album, the one with the cool lenticular 3-D cover, just know that you’re choosing second-rate sound (which, of course, is your choice)
  • 4 stars: “Never before or since did the Stones take so many chances in the studio… a fascinating anomaly in the group’s discography”.

This is the Stones at their most experimental, so there are plenty of strange effects and trippy arrangements. Only the best copies manage to make sense of it, but when you find one this music is a lot of fun.

If you’re looking for the raging bluesy rock of Sticky Fingers and Let It Bleed, you’ll find some of that here but also a lot of psychedelia too. You do get some great rockers though — “Citadel,” “2000 Man,” and “2000 Light Years From Home” to name a few. “She’s A Rainbow” is the poppiest song here, and on this copy it sounds WONDERFUL.

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How Good Are the UK Original Unboxed Deccas of Satanic Majesties?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Rolling Stones Available Now

How good are the original Unboxed Deccas on Satanic Majesties?

They can be very good.

But they are never as good as the right later pressings with the Decca in a box label, the ones produced from about 1970 on.

The Unboxed Decca pressing earned a Super Hot Stamper grade (A++). The later pressing, with the right stamper, showed us just how good the album can sound.

Since the originals are pricey and hard to find, and, as a rule, noisier than the later pressings, we don’t pick them up unless we find them for cheap, which rarely happens. They have not won any shootouts, and that is very unlikely to change.

There is one set of stampers for this album that always wins, and those stampers are not found on the early label.

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The Rolling Stones – Out of Our Heads

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  • With INSANELY GOOD Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades from top to bottom, this is certainly as good a copy as we have ever heard – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • These British sides impressed us with their Tubey Magical, fairly natural sound
  • With top engineers like Dave Hassinger and Glyn Johns one would hope for better sonics, but this is pretty much as good as it gets as far as we know
  • 4 1/2 stars: “In 1965, the Stones finally proved themselves capable of writing classic rock singles that mined their R&B/blues roots, but updated them into a more guitar-based, thoroughly contemporary context. The first enduring Jagger-Richards classics are here…”
  • Out of Our Heads is an album with one set of very special stampers that consistently win shootout after shootout, for years now

Like the really good Decca version of Aftermath, this record has amazing transparency, rich bass and relatively little distortion compared to many of the other versions we’ve played.

Also, like Aftermath, some songs sound much better than others. That’s just the way old Stones record are. Part of this album was recorded in Hollywood and part of it was recorded in Chicago — that may explain some of the variation in the quality of the sound.

By the way, stick with true stereo on this album; the mono pressings — at least the ones we played — aren’t worth anybody’s time (scratch that: any audiophile’s time).

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The Rolling Stones – It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll

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  • It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll returns to the site for only the second time in three years, here with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them on both sides
  • On this side two you will find sound quality that is both clean and clear, with much less grit and grain than you are used to, assuming you have any copy of the album at all, and side one is not far behind in all those areas
  • I’m guessing most audiophiles gave up on this one after hearing the average pressing, but here you will find the kind of richness that is fundamental to getting this album to sound its best (particularly on side two)
  • The superbly talented Andy Johns engineered, so you can be sure that this is the sound the Stones were aiming for
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these Classic Rock records – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • “Throughout, the Stones wear their title as the ‘World’s Greatest Rock & Roll Band’ with a defiant smirk, which makes the bitter cynicism of ‘If You Can’t Rock Me’ and the title track all the more striking, and the reggae experimentation… all the more enjoyable.”

It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll is a consistently good, straight-ahead, no-frills rock album from the Stones with Mick Taylor still in the band. It was the last of its kind for a while; their next release was the reggae-influenced Black and Blue. The sound can be a bit gritty and grainy at times, but you gotta believe that that’s precisely the sound the Stones heard in the booth and were totally cool with. Andy Johns (younger brother of Glyn Johns) engineered and he’s made as many super-tubey, super-rich and super-smooth recordings as anybody this side of Bill Porter.

The Stones didn’t want that sound this time around. The Stones wanted this sound.

This album may have some of the best The Rolling Stones music, but those looking for top quality sonics for the Stones should head in the direction of Beggars Banquet, Sticky Fingers, or Let It Bleed. They’re simply more audiophile-friendly recordings.

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The Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers

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  • With outstanding Double Plus (A++) grades from top to bottom, this copy will be very hard to beat – reasonably quiet vinyl too, about as quiet as we can find them
  • If you have never heard one of our Hot Stamper pressings of the album, you (probably) cannot begin to appreciate just how amazing the sound is
  • A landmark Glyn Johns / Andy Johns recording, our favorite by the Stones, a Top 100 Title (of course) and 5 stars on Allmusic (ditto)
  • Q magazine said this was “the Stones at their assured, showboating peak … A magic formula of heavy soul, junkie blues and macho rock.”
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these Classic Rock records – those on “Wild Horses” are especially bad – but if you can tough those out, this copy is going to blow your mind
  • 5 stars: “With its offhand mixture of decadence, roots music, and outright malevolence, Sticky Fingers set the tone for the rest of the decade for the Stones.”
  • If I had to compile a list of my favorite rock albums from 1971, this album would definitely be on it

This is the best record the Stones ever made, with Let It Bleed and Beggars Banquet right up there with it but just a half-step behind. Today I would probably modify that assessment to say that Sticky Fingers is better understood as being first among equals, primus inter pares, rather than ahead of the brilliant Let It Bleed and Beggars Banquet.

The sound is exactly what you want from a Stones album, with deep punchy bass and dynamic, grungy guitars. This record is to be played loud like it says on the inner sleeve and the surface noise is to be ignored. The louder you play it, the less bothersome the noise will be. This album ROCKS and it was not made to be listened to in a comfy chair while sipping wine.

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).

Play I Got the Blues to hear exactly what we mean.

A QUICK TEST: The best copies have texture and real dynamics in the brass. The bad copies are smeared, grainy and unpleasant when the brass comes in. Toss those bad ones and start shooting out the good ones. Believe me, if you find a good one it will be obvious and worth whatever you had to pay for it.

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The Rolling Stones – Aftermath

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  • Excellent Tubey Magical 60s British sound throughout this vintage UK Decca pressing, with both sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • “Lady Jane,” “Under My Thumb” and “Mother’s Little Helper” are three of the best sounding tracks – all are lively and solid here on this outstanding Double Plus side one
  • 5 stars: “… the group began incorporating the influences of psychedelia and Dylan into their material with classics like ‘Paint It Black,’ an eerily insistent number one hit graced by some of the best use of sitar (played by Brian Jones) on a rock record. Other classics included the jazzy ‘Under My Thumb,’ where Jones added exotic accents with his vibes, and the delicate Elizabethan ballad ‘Lady Jane,’ where dulcimer can be heard…”

The sound of this pressing is going to be very hard to beat. Until just recently it had been ages since we’d found a copy of Aftermath with sound quality of this caliber to list on the site. It’s surprisingly clean, clear and smooth, with prodigious amounts of Tubey Magic, which is the kind of sound that lets you play the album at the appropriate volume — LOUD.

Although some songs sound amazing, not every track is well recorded. We just have to accept that the Stones are not The Beatles when it comes consistent quality for their earliest recordings. However, a strong copy like this one paired with the great music on the album will certainly deliver a lot of pleasure to audiophile Stones fans.

Finally! Top Sound for the Stones

This is our favorite of the early Stones records. You can’t argue with “Lady Jane” and “Under My Thumb,” two of the best tracks this band ever put down on tape.

“Lady Jane,” “Under My Thumb” and “Mother’s Little Helper” are three of the best sounding tracks on side one. On side two, “Out of Time” and “I Am Waiting” are especially well recorded

Credit must go to the engineering talents of Dave Hassinger.

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How Does the Abbey Road Half-Speed of Sticky Fingers Sound?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Rolling Stones Available Now

A listing for an early domestic Hot Stamper pressing for Sticky Fingers will typically be introduced this way:

If you have never heard one of our Hot Stamper pressings of the album, you (probably) cannot begin to appreciate just how amazingly well-recorded an album it is.

It is truly a landmark Glyn Johns / Andy Johns / Chris Kimsey recording, as well as our favorite by the Stones, a Top 100 Title (of course) and one that earned 5 stars on Allmusic (ditto).

5 stars: “With its offhand mixture of decadence, roots music, and outright malevolence, Sticky Fingers set the tone for the rest of the decade for the Stones.”

However, we found the new Half-Speed Heavy Vinyl pressing mastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road to be seriously lacking in “outright malevolence.” It’s so tame that even at high volume it would be unlikely to disturb the most innocuous afternoon tea in the back garden of a country estate.

Brown Sugar is:

  • It’s smaller
  • Not as weighty or lively
  • Tonally pretty close

Sway is:

  • Tonally pretty close
  • Just missing some weight and dynamics

Oh, is that all? Well then, not as bad as it could have been, right?

1.5+, which means it would qualify for our lowest Hot Stamper grade. But no record that does not earn at least that grade on both sides can make it to our site, and when we flipped the album over, side two let us down even more than side one.

Bitch is:

  • A little sandy up top

I Got the Blues is:

  • Missing the dynamics

Grade for side two: 1+. Substandard. Not good enough to sell.

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Letter of the Week – “I haven’t felt better listening to an album in decades.”

More of the Music of The Rolling Stones

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

Hey Tom,  

Just a quick note to thank you for the extraordinary copy of “Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out.” I won’t enumerate all the remarkable qualities of the pressing since you know them well. I’ll just say that I haven’t felt better listening to an album in decades. What a remarkable experience.

By the way, since I bought this as a birthday present for my brother please let me know if another copy of equal or better quality becomes available. You know how this copy made my Londons and Japanese pressing sound. (more…)

Talk About Getting the Sound Wrong – What Was Decca Thinking?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Rolling Stones Available Now

Even though we know that the UK Decca pressings have not done well in our shootouts for more years than I care to remember, if we see one for cheap locally you know we’re going to buy it and get it another chance at the brass ring no matter how many times it’s failed in the past.

As you can see from our shootout notes, the Decca import has once again let us down.

It’s bright, with no warmth or weight. It’s not musical like the London pressings with the right stampers are.

If a certain kind of audiophile were to play this record, the kind of audiophile who might be given to simplistic conclusions based on insufficiently small sets of data — which, in our experience, pretty much covers the entire audiophile record collector community, including, if not especially, the so-called expert reviewers — the conclusion such a person might reach is that Beggars Banquet is just not very well recorded.

If Decca pressings don’t sound good, what on earth would?

Or, to put it another way, if Decca, the label that the Stones recorded this album for, can’t figure out how to make Beggars sound its best, why would we assume that any other company could?

We would, naturally, assume that Decca did the best they could with the tape and the mediocre quality of the sound you hear — 1+/1.5+ is pretty much our definition of mediocre — is all there is.

The Option that Is Almost Always Wrong

Worse — if a new Heavy Vinyl pressing of the album came out with even halfway-decent sound, then it would prove beyond a doubt that some modern mastering engineer had finally figured out how to get Beggars to sound right.

But of course it would prove no such thing.

If all you have to guide you is conventional collector wisdom, then the one thing you can be sure of is that the Decca pressing from the UK should have better sound than any other, especially any record made in the states.

But it doesn’t. It’s possible I suppose – we haven’t played every pressing ever made – but it sure is unlikely based on the evidence presented to our ears over the course of the last twenty to thirty years or so.

If you would like to hear Beggars Banquet sound right, and have the hundreds of dollars we charge for a copy that is guaranteed to sound right or your money back, click on the link. It’s rare that we have one in stock, but you never know.

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