Top Engineers – Stephen Barncard

The Grateful Dead – Barncard Knocked It Out of the Park with This One

More of the Music of The Grateful Dead

Hot Stamper Pressings of Stephen Barncard’s Recordings

Reviews and Commentaries for Stephen Barncard’s Recordings

The crowning glory of the Grateful Dead, this is their MASTERPIECE. Albums like this come along once in a band’s life — if they’re lucky. This is the zenith of the Grateful Dead. Workingman’s Dead is a good album. American Beauty is a great one.

If you don’t have a killer copy yet, it’s time to get on the bus. Stephen Barncard is the recording engineer responsible for this album, Deja Vu, Brewer and Shipley’s Tarkio, and a host of other amazingly rich, sweet and natural, mostly acoustic recordings that stand head and shoulders above the bulk of their contemporaries. American Beauty is one of them.

All the Elements Come Together for Once

All of the elements necessary to take this music to an entirely new level are here, my friends: smooth, sweet vocals; rich, meaty bass; an open and airy top end; top-notch presence and so forth. The sound is so spacious and transparent that you can easily pick out each of the instruments and follow them over the course of the songs.

The acoustic guitars sound magical on this one, and I can’t believe how wonderful these guys’ voices sound. The Tubey Magic and immediacy on this copy are going to STUN you.

You could choose any track you wanted to and find lovely sound here, but I’d recommend Ripple and Attics Of My Life for starters.

Most copies suffer from a glaring lack of highs, but just listen to the ride cymbal on this one to find out that the top end is still alive and well here.

Here are some other records we’ve played that often have No Real Top End.

David Crosby – Fairly Consistent Differences from Side to Side

More of the Music of David Crosby

Other Records with Marked Side to Side Differences

Those of you who’ve played a sufficient number of copies of the album surely know that side one has a marked tendency to be darker and duller than side two.

Finding a good side one is five times harder than finding a good side two. If your copy sounds recessed and lacks extension up top, don’t feel bad. Most of them do.

By the way, the first track has that “home recording” sound and always sounds weak compared to the rest of this album. Don’t expect any wonders. As a wannabe hit single, peaking at #95 on the charts, it may even be sourced here from a dub of the real master tape. That shit happens.

Your Reward Awaits You

As you may have read elsewhere on the site, records like this are the reward for owning the right stereo equipment and having it properly tweaked. There is no way in the world I could have played this album 20 years ago remotely as well as I can now. It only makes me appreciate the music even more.

You Don’t Have to Be High to Hear It

When you drop the needle on this record, all barriers between you and the musicians are removed. You’ll feel as though you’re sitting at the studio console while Crosby and his no-doubt-stoned-out-of-their-minds Bay Area pals (mostly Jefferson Airplaners and Grateful Deads, see list below) are laying down this emotionally powerful, heartfelt music.

The overall sound is warm, sweet, rich, and full-bodied… that’s some real ANALOG Tubey Magic, baby! And the best part is, you don’t have to be high to hear it. You just need a good stereo and the right pressing.

Barncard’s Masterpiece

We all owe a debt of gratitude to the superbly talented recording engineer on this project, Stephen Barncard (American Beauty, Deja Vu, Tarkio, etc.). This album is without a doubt his masterpiece. It fully deserves its standing as one of the Ten or Twenty Best Sounding Rock Recordings of All Time.

(more…)

Brewer & Shipley – Do All the Robert Ludwig Mastered Copies Have Hot Stampers?

More of the Music of Brewer and Shipley

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Brewer and Shipley

This commentary describes some observations we were able to make after doing a shootout a few years back.

Even though all the original Pink Label pressings are mastered by the great Robert Ludwig, they have a marked tendency to be dull, thick and opaque. Other records we’ve played with these same shortcomings can be found by clicking on the links below.

On too many original pressings, the sound is too smooth.

Starting at some point in the mid-’90s, many Heavy Vinyl pressings started to have the same shortcoming, one that we find insufferable to this day: they are just too damn smooth.

The best copies, however, have the top end and the transparency to let you hear all the guitar harmonics, surrounded by the large acoustic of the studio.

This time around we discovered something new: one specific stamper that seemed to be the only one with the potential for an extended top end. This special stamper did not always fare well; some copies with it were mediocre. We have always found this to be the way with the “right” stampers; they often let us down and sometimes they really let us down hard.

But this stamper, when it was right, had an extension on the top that no other copy could match. The Robert Ludwig mastered Band second albums are the same way. Most have no top but boy, when they do, the magic you hear is phenomenal.

We’ve discovered a number of titles in which one stamper always wins, and here are some of the others.

(more…)

Crosby / Nash – Check Out that Zither

More of the Music David Crosby

More of the Music of Graham Nash

What to Listen for?

The zither.

At first I thought it might be a harpsichord placed well back in the mix, but we looked up the list of instruments being played and there it was — the zither. I think we heard it on Taken At All on side two. It’s a favorite test track for that side because the vocals on that song are some of the best of the post-CSN era. If your system is sufficiently transparent, you should be able to pull the zither out of the mix.

Here are some other albums with specific advice on What You Should Be Listening For.

Side two of this album is, in our estimation, the strongest side of any album by the group after Deja Vu (1970).

As a budding audiophile I went out of my way to acquire any piece of equipment that could make these records from the ’70s (the decade of my formative music-buying years) sound better than the gear I was then using. It’s the challenging recordings by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, as well as scores of other pop and rock artists like them, that drove my pursuit of higher quality audio, starting all the way back in high school.

And here I am — here we are — still at it, more than forty years later, because the music still sounds fresh and original, and the pressings that we find get better and better with each passing year.

As we never tire of saying, only one thing drives progress in audio: the music.

That kind of progress is proof that we’re doing it right. It’s a good test for any audiophile. If you are actively and seriously pursuing this hobby, perhaps as many as nine out of ten non-audiophile pressings in your collection should sound better with each passing year. As your stereo improves, not to mention your critical listening skills, the shortcomings of some will be revealed, but for the most part, vintage pressings should sound better each time you play them with continual refinements and improvements to your system, room and cleaning techniques.

That’s what makes it fun to play old records: They just keep getting better!

(more…)

David Crosby – Another in a Long Line of Classic Records’ Mediocrities

More of the Music of David Crosby

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of David Crosby

What do you get with our best Hot Stampers compared to the Classic Heavy Vinyl reissue?

On high quality equipment, you can expect to hear improvements in all of the following areas:

  • Dramatically more warmth,
  • Dramatically more sweetness,
  • Dramatically more delicacy,
  • Dramatically more transparency,
  • Dramatically more ambience,
  • Dramatically more energy,
  • Dramatically more size (width and height),
  • Dramatically more correct timbres (without the boost to the top and the bottom end that the Classic suffers from).

in other words, the kind of difference you almost ALWAYS get comparing the best vintage pressings with their modern remastered counterparts, if our first hand experience with thousands of them can be considered evidentiary.

The Classic is a decent enough record. I might give it a “C” or so. It’s sure better than the Super Saver reissue pressing, but that is obviously setting a very low bar. No original I have ever played did not sound noticeably better than Bernie’s recut.

A Hot Stamper of an amazing recording such as this is a MAGICAL record. Can the same be said of any Classic Records release? None come to mind.

By the way, the remastered CD that came out in 2011 (I think that’s the one I have) is excellent, with a surprising amount of the Tubey Magic that is on the original tape. On a good CD player it would be clearly superior to the Classic vinyl, and for that reason, we say buy the CD.

Here are some records we’ve reviewed that are lacking in the same qualities as this pressing of David Crosby’s first album. If you own any of the titles that we’ve linked to below, listen for their shortcomings and see if your copy doesn’t sound the way we’ve described the copies we’ve played.

Further Reading

New to the Blog? Start here

There is an abundance of audiophile collector hype surrounding the hundreds of Heavy Vinyl pressings currently in print. I read a lot about how wonderful their sound is, but when I actually play them, I rarely find them to be any better than mediocre, and many of them are awful. (Some, of course, are good, and we don’t mind saying so.)

(more…)

Listening in Depth to Tarkio

More of the Music of Brewer and Shipley

Reviews and Commentaries for Brewer and Shipley

More Albums with Key Tracks for Critical Listening

Analog richness, sweetness and Tubey Magic are elements absolutely indispensable to the sound of these recordings. Without them you might as well be playing a CD.

Some of the reissue pressings actually do sound like CDs and are not part of the shootouts for this album anymore. Who wants a record that sounds like a CD? They may be pressed on vinyl but they’re no less an embarrassment to analog for it. As you can imagine we feel the same way about most of the Heavy Vinyl records being made today. They’re just embarrassing.

The best pressings, on the other hand, are everything that’s good about the analog medium — smooth, sweet, relaxed and involving. You had best have a fast cartridge and not overly rich electronics to get the most out of this one. The richness on this record is already baked-in; no need to add more.

(more…)

Grateful Dead / American Beauty – An Honest-to-Goodness Killer MoFi LP

More of the Music of The Grateful Dead

Hot Stamper Pressings of Stephen Barncard’s Recordings

Sonic Grade: B+

This is a Mobile Fidelity LP with SURPRISINGLY GOOD SOUND. The transparency and presence in the midrange is outstanding for a MoFi. This copy does not have the usual midrange suckout that ruins so many of their records.

The bass actually sounds mostly in control on this copy — there’s much less of the typically bloated MoFi bass to be found here.

This is the best sounding Mobile Fidelity American Beauty we have ever heard. It’s not perfect by any means, but it’s hugely better than we expected.

Any original Green Label domestic pressing is sure to be better, but sure to be noisier too, so if you must have quiet vinyl, you can do a lot worse than this MoFi.

Which means it belongs on our list of The Best Sounding Mobile Fidelity Records We’ve Ever Played.

FURTHER READING on the subject of Half-Speed Mastering

People sometimes ask us:

How come you guys don’t like Half-Speed Mastered records?

(more…)

David Crosby – What? No Classic Records Pressing on the TAS Super Disc List?

More of the Music of David Crosby

Hot Stamper Pressings of TAS List Super Disc Titles Available Now

We applaud TAS’s decision not to add the Classic pressing of this title to the list, the way they foolishly have with so many other Classic pressings that have no business being on anything called a Super Disc list.

As you may have read elsewhere on the site, records like this are the reward for owning the right stereo equipment and having it properly tweaked. There is no way in the world I could have played this album 20 years ago remotely as well as I can now. It only makes me appreciate the music even more.

You Don’t Have to Be High to Hear It

When you drop the needle on this record, all barriers between you and the musicians are removed. You’ll feel as though you’re sitting at the studio console while Crosby and his no-doubt-stoned-out-of-their-minds Bay Area pals (mostly Jefferson Airplaners and Grateful Deads, see list below) are laying down this emotionally powerful, heartfelt music.

The overall sound is warm, sweet, rich, and full-bodied… that’s some real ANALOG Tubey Magic, baby! And the best part is, you don’t have to be high to hear it. You just need a good stereo and the right pressing.

Barncard’s Masterpiece

We all owe a debt of gratitude to the superbly talented recording engineer on this project, Stephen Barncard (American Beauty, Deja Vu, Tarkio, etc.). This album is without a doubt his masterpiece. It fully deserves its standing as one of the Ten or Twenty Best Sounding Rock Recordings of All Time.

Here are some Hot Stamper pressings of TAS list titles that actually have audiophile sound quality, guaranteed. And if for some reason you disagree with us about how good they sound, we will be happy to give you your money back.

Here are some others that we do not think qualify as Super Discs.

(more…)

Listening in Depth to Replay

More of the Music of Crosby, Stills and Nash

More Albums with Key Tracks for Critical Listening (112 Strong as of 2022)

We stopped doing shootouts for this album many years ago after running into too many mediocre-at-best if not downright awful sounding copies. These notes are from about ten years ago.

Replay is a very handy record for setting your VTA. The end of Shadow Captain has loud vocals and punchy bass, which are a bit difficult to reproduce. (Forget trying to get this song to sound good if you don’t have an exceptionally good copy.) 

The next song is To The Last Whale, which starts with Nash and Crosby’s multitracked voices in a big hall. With the correct VTA, their voices should sound silky and sweet. If your arm is too far down in the back, they will get a bit dull. Too high, and they will lose that breathy, “fluffy” quality.

And once you get their voices to sound just right, make sure the ending of Shadow Captain is still punchy and dynamic.

Side One

Carry On 

A crappy remix, with added guitar, ugh. (more…)

David Crosby – Hand Claps Are Key

More of the Music of David Crosby

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of David Crosby

Note how Crosby’s voice is “chesty” on the better sounding copies. Some make him sound like he’s all mouth and no diaphragm. When his voice is full-bodied and solid, that’s when he sounds more like a real person and less like a pop recording of a person.

All credit must go to Stephen Barncard.

Harry Pearson put this record on his TAS List of Super Discs, not exactly a tough call if you ask us. Who can’t hear that this is an amazing sounding recording? 

Listening Test

One of our key test tracks for side one is Cowboy Movie, and one thing that separated the best pressings from the lesser ones was the sound of the hand claps. It’s a dense mix and they are not easy to hear, but on the best copies there is audible echo and ambience around them, with a richer “flesh on flesh” quality to their sound.

Not many pressings had it, and the ones that did tended to do most other things well also.

Which is what makes it a good test! (more…)