Top Artists – Tom Petty

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers – It Took Us Until 2011 to Resolve the Studio Ambience

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Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Tom Petty

This commentary was written way back in 2011 after playing the best sounding copy of the album we had ever heard up to that point.

For those who may be interested, we offer some unsolicited audio advice toward the end of our review regarding what kind of stereo is not appropriate for Tom Petty’s albums.

Our story from 2011:

This Minty looking Shelter original LP has THE TWO BEST SOUNDING SIDES we have ever heard for this album! It’s a freak in the world of Tom Petty records, which tend to have NO good sounding sides.

And this is the band’s MASTERPIECE to boot, with four or five of their best and Hardest Rockin’ songs.

Both sides come flyin’ out of the gate with straight ahead rockers that have the Big Sound we go crazy for here at Better Records.

Side one was so unbelievable that we had to award it the rare Four Plus (A++++) rating.

Of course the sound is punchy and alive — with Hot Stampers, what else would they be? — but where did all that studio ambience come from?

Simple: the best copies have the RESOLUTION that’s missing from the average pressing. You know the kind of run-of-the-mill LP I’m talking about: punchy but crude and just a bit too aggressive to really enjoy.

Oh, but not this bad boy. Sweetly textured guitars, breathy vocals — all the subtleties of a Top Quality Recording are here, along with prodigious amounts of bass and powerful dynamics. (Check out that drum sound!)

If you can play this one good and loud you will be shocked at how good it sounds.

I’ve paraphrased a bit of commentary from Aja for this listing where we discussed the kind of changes we needed to go through here at Better Records to make it possible to play a hard-drivin’ rock record like this one and get it to sound the way we always wanted it to.

We Now Return to The Revolution, Which Is Already in Progress

As audiophiles we all know that when it sounds this good, it makes you appreciate the music even more. We had to make quite a few improvements in the system before that reality hit home. The third pair of Hallographs and the new EAR 324P phono stage we brought on board since the last shootout made a HUGE difference in the sound. Aja is now without a doubt a real DEMO DISC, and I wouldn’t want to live without it. It’s a THRILL to finally hear this album sound the way it should have sounded, but for various and sundry reasons never quite did.

A World of Sound Awaits You

That’s what the Recent Revolutionary Changes in Audio link is all about. If you haven’t taken advantage of all the new technologies that make LP playback dramatically better than it was even five years ago, Aja won’t do what it’s supposed to do. Trust me, there’s a world of sound lurking in the grooves of the best Aja’s that simply cannot be revealed without better cleaning fluids, Aurios, Hallographs, top quality front ends, big speakers and all the rest. Our playback system is designed to play records like Aja with all the size, weight and power of the real thing. We live for this kind of Big Rock sound here at Better Records. We’re prepared to do whatever it takes to play records like this with Maximum Fidelity, secure in the knowledge that a system that can play Aja can play ANYTHING.

Substitute You’re Gonna Get It! for the word Aja in the paragraphs above and you will get what I’m driving at.

Any system that can’t play a good Tom Petty album has no business being owned by anyone, let alone an audiophile.

That meaty bottom end, those perfectly distorted guitars — find equipment that can play that stuff right and buy it.

Don’t settle for some wimpy audiophile bullshit system.

Get a system that lets you play the music YOU love, not the music your stereo dealer likes to play in his showroom.

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In 2014, This Was the Best Sounding Tom Petty Record We’d Ever Played

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More of Our Favorite Artists’ Best Sounding Albums

In 2014 we wrote:

Damn the Torpedoes is the best sounding Tom Petty album we have ever played.

Credit must go to SHELLY YAKUS, someone who we freely admit, now with a sense of embarrassment, has never been one of our favorite engineers. After hearing this beyond-White Hot Stamper side two and a killer copy of Animal Notes we realize that we have seriously underestimated the man, and for that we deeply apologize.

If your Damn the Torpedoes doesn’t sound good (and it probably doesn’t), you sure can’t blame him — the master tape is mind-boggling in its size, weight, power and rock n’ roll energy.

Our 2014 better than White Hot Stamper copy had the kind of sound we never expected to hear on Damn The Torpedoes, an album that’s typically bright, thin, pinched and transistory — radio friendly but not especially audiophile friendly.

Well folks, all that’s changed, and by “all” I don’t necessarily mean all to include the records themselves. This may very well be a record that sounded gritty and pinched before it was cleaned. And our stereo has come a long way in the last five or ten years, as I hope yours has too.

One sign that you’re making progress in this hobby is that at least some of the records you’ve played recently, records that had never sounded especially good before, are now sounding very good indeed. In our case Damn the Torpedoes is one of those records. It’s the best sounding Tom Petty album we have ever played.

Mindblowing On Both Sides

Side two is OFF THE CHARTS! It’s big and rich with excellent presence and tons of energy. I could go on and on here but all you have to know is that it is BY FAR the best sounding side two we have ever heard.

Side one is almost as good, with lots of space around all of the instruments, tons of energy and less congestion than the average copy. The sound is positively jumpin’ out of the speakers.

Note that we no longer give out the A++++ Beyond White Hot Stamper grade for the kinds of pressings that blew our minds, with sound so far superior to any copy we had ever heard that they actually broke our grading scale.

Tom Petty / Damn The Torpedoes – Is This Audiophile LP Bright Enough For You?

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Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Tom Petty

On this pressing it sure is. If your stereo is dull, dull, deadly dull, this company’s remastering approach, like many of the CBS Half-Speeds, will fix your lack of high end.

A perfect example of Stone Age Audio Thinking – a bright record to fix a dark system.

The only problem is, what happens when you put together a better system, one that’s tonally correct?

Then you will have to get rid of your old record collection and start over, right?

So get your stereo right before you go wasting lots of money on phony sounding records.

And most of the Heavy Vinyl pressings being made today are every bit as bad, but the tonality mistakes are simply reversed. The bass is boosted and the top is too smooth.

Why can’t these ridiculous audiophile labels make up their minds? Should records be bright or dull? Pick a lane!

Tune your system to that crap and you will find yourself in the real predicament down the road, assuming you ever get your stereo working right. Having a collection full of modern remasterings will make any progress in audio that much more difficult to achieve.

Or you could just buy one of these to play your bright records. Problem solved.

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Tom Petty / Damn The Torpedoes

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  • This outstanding hard rockin’ pressing boasts solid Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Credit for the tremendous presence and energy of the recording goes to the brilliant engineer Shelly Yakus
  • Damn the Torpedoes is, simply put, the best sounding Tom Petty album we have ever played
  • Tons of hits too: Refugee, Here Comes My Girl, and my favorite of the bunch, Don’t Do Me Like That
  • 5 stars: “Few mainstream rock albums of the late ’70s and early ’80s were quite as strong as this, and it still stands as one of the great records of the album rock era.”

Credit must obviously go to the man behind the console, SHELLY YAKUS, someone who we freely admit, now with a sense of embarrassment, has never been one of our favorite engineers. After hearing a White Hot Stamper pressing of Damn the Torpedoes and a killer copy of Animal Notes we realize that we have been seriously underestimating the man.

If your Damn the Torpedoes doesn’t sound good (and it probably doesn’t), you sure can’t blame him – the master tape is mind-boggling in its size, weight, power and sheer rock n’ roll energy. (more…)

Tom Petty – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

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  • You’ll find outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last on this superb copy of the Tom and the band’s debut album – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • The sound is present and punchy with excellent bass, freedom from grain and real rockin’ energy
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Petty & the Heartbreakers feel underground on this album, at least to the extent that power pop was underground in 1976… the highlights — ‘Rockin’ Around (With You),’ ‘Hometown Blues,’ ‘The Wild One, Forever,’ the AOR staples ‘Breakdown’ and ‘American Girl’ — still illustrate how refreshing Petty & the Heartbreakers sounded in 1976.”

This is the classic first album, with two of their best songs: Breakdown and American Girl. It’s straight ahead rock and roll, with sonics to match. This is not purely an audiophile album. But when you find a copy with Hot Stampers, the elements start to work together, and the good far outweighs the bad. If somebody tried to EQ this album differently, they’d probably end up taking away some of the Raw Rock Energy. (more…)

Traveling Wilburys – Vol. 3

  • Insanely good sound throughout with both sides earning nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades; the first copy to ever hit the site!  
  • Both of these sides had some of the best sound in our recent shootout — big, full-bodied and present with a massive bottom end and huge amounts of energy
  • Exceptionally quiet vinyl throughout — Mint Minus to Mint Minus Minus
  • “…this record is loaded with charm. Dylan’s ”If You Belonged to Me” is stronger than anything on his last record, and ”You Took My Breath Away” is a first-rate ballad.”

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Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – Pack Up The Plantation

  • The band’s first official live album debuts, with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on three sides and an excellent Double Plus (A++) side four 
  • This album gives you the “naked” sound of the real thing – the real voices and the real guitars and the real everything else
  • The best sides here are big, full-bodied, present and lively, just the way we like ’em
  • “The performances by the Heartbreakers are genuine and crisp, and there’s enough sing-along and banter to the audience to identify this as a true classic rock concert recording. Petty and the Heartbreakers tear it up on hits like Refugee, American Girl, and Rockin’ Around With You, and it’s good to hear Stevie Nicks’ appearance on the wonderful “Insider” (originally from Hard Promises). “

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Letter of the Week – “…just never dreamed the sound quality was there to match the music.”

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

Hey Tom,   

[referring to the coronavirus] But then, with luck, we will pull through and you can get back to finding us those gems. The last one, Tom Petty Southern Accents, was so astoundingly good you have forced me to rethink my whole approach to him as well. I mean the music has always been great, just never dreamed the sound quality was there to match the music.

Love you guys!

Chuck