Top Engineers

Various Composers – Balalaika Favorites

More Mercury Label Recordings

  • This delightful collection – a longstanding member of the TAS list of Super Discs – returns to the site for only the second time in nearly four years, here with solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER from start to finish
  • It’s also fairly quiet at Mint Minus Minus, a grade that even our most well-cared-for vintage classical titles have trouble playing at
  • Both sides here are wonderful – clean, clear and present with an abundance of energy and lots of space around all of the players
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these early pressings – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • “For what it is, it doesn’t get any better than this. What it is, of course, is a collection of Russian folk music played with astonishing artistry by the Ossipov State Russian Folk Orchestra…”

What do you hear on this pressing that you don’t hear on others? It’s very simple: the Balalaikas are delicate and sweet. There’s air all around them.

They have the kind of midrange magic that you hear on the best pop guitar records, the Tea For The Tillerman’s and the After The Gold Rush’s of this world. When you hear that sound there’s no mistaking it. It’s what we audiophiles live for.

The Classic Records Reissue Was a Real Bust

(more…)

Brilliant Corners – This Pig Sure Wears Pretty Lipstick

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Thelonious Monk Available Now

During our most recent shootout of Brilliant Corners, we took the opportunity to play the Craft pressing cut by Bernie Grundman and released in 2023.

We thought it was godawful, the worst sounding version of the album we’ve ever played.

But how is that possible? Read all about the best practices being followed and look at the description of the fancy packaging below. Why would they go to all that trouble just to produce a bad souding record?

For the answer to that question, you will have to ask them. We’re stumped.

  • Pressed using a one-step lacquer process at RTI utilizing Neotech’s VR900 compound
  • All-analog mastering by Bernie Grundman from the original master tapes
  • Housed in a foil-stamped, linen-wrapped slipcase
  • Numbered and limited to 4,000

They used Neotech’s VR900 compound! Really?! That must be one awesome compound!

Apparently even the VR900 compound was not enough to save this pathetic excuse for a record.

For those of you who might be new to this blog, we should point out that we have been dumbfounded by Bernie Grundman’s work for more than twenty five years. The first RCA he remastered for Classic Records, LSC 1806, was so bright and the strings were so shrill that it probably lasted on our turntable maybe all of three minutes. My ears just couldn’t take it, even on a system that was dramatically darker and less revealing than the one we have now.

Equally bad sounding Classic Records were to follow by the hundreds.

Our quickie notes for side one are shown on the left. After hearing side one fall so short of the mark, we dropped it from the shootout and put the Craft pressing on the shelf to go back to whoever loaned it to us. Who cares what side two sounds like if side one is that bad? Time is money. We are in the business of finding good records to sell to our customers, not playing crap Heavy Vinyl that only the most hard-of-hearing collector types would consider owning.

Before long we had a change of heart. We thought we owed it to Bernie’s fans to be more thorough, so we took our best side two and played it against the Craft pressing.

(more…)

Star Wars, Close Encounters and Other Multi-Miked Messes

Decca and London Hot Stamper Pressings Available Now

This Mobile Fidelity LP contains the music of Star Wars and Close Encounters, conducted by Zubin Mehta. The MoFi pressing is far more transparent than the London pressings we have auditioned of the album, even the ones Half Speed mastered by Stan Ricker himself.

Yes, he cut the original Londons! At Half Speed! (We’ve also played some later pressings not mastered by Stan, of course. We don’t pretend to be able to predict which version would sound the best.)

It’s still one of the better MoFi remasters, all things considered. The music, to these ears, has always been hi-fi-ish schlock, and the recording itself is too multi-miked to be taken seriously. It sounds far too much like a bad Phase IV recording, and we know whereof we speak when it comes to Phase IV, good or bad. We’ve played them by the score.

This famous record from the Top Seven of the TAS Super Disc List has the same problem, but I never hear anybody mention it. Why that is I cannot imagine, other than our favorite explanation for just about everything that seems to fly under the audiophile radar, or perhaps a better description would be flying over the heads of the self-appointed audiophile cognoscenti, our old standby, reviewer malpractice.

Bottom line, a loser, but the original Londons in our experience are even worse!

(more…)

We Review the DCC and an Original Pressing of Lush Life

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of John Coltrane Available Now

Sonic Grade: B or so (DCC) 

The DCC heavy vinyl pressing is a nice record. I remember liking it when it came out. Nowadays I would probably call it passable, similar in quality to those on this list.

If for some reason we could not find copies of the album that substantially beat the sound of remastered LPs such as the DCC LP, we simply would not have anything to offer.

It was only a few months ago, early in 2016 in fact, that we chanced upon the right kind of pressing — the right era, the right label, the right stampers, the right sound. Not just the right sound though. Better sound than we ever thought this album could have.

Previously we had written:

“There are great sounding originals, but they are few and far between…”

We no longer believe that to be true. In fact we believe the opposite of that statement to be true. The original we had on hand — noisy but with reasonably good sound, or so we thought — was an absolute joke next to our best Hot Stamper pressings. Half the size, half the clarity and presence, half the life and energy, half the immediacy, half the studio space. It was simply not remotely competitive with the copies we now know (or at least believe, all knowledge being provisional) to have the best sound.

Are there better originals than the ones we’ve played? No doubt. If you want to spend your day searching for them, more power to you. And if you do find one that impresses you, we are happy to send you one of our Hot Copies to play against it. We are confident that the outcome would be clearly favorable to our pressing. Ten seconds of side one should be enough to convince you that our record is in an entirely different league, a league we had no idea even existed until just this year.

By the way, the mono original we played was by far the worst sound I have ever heard for the album. By far. (more…)

Steely Dan – Aja

More of the Music of Steely Dan

  • Killer sound for Steely Dan’s magnificent Jazzy Pop breakthrough album, with both sides earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them
  • Punchy, full and smooth, with the kind of rhythmic energy that brings out the jazzy funk in the music
  • A Better Records Rock and Pop Top 100 album and a true Demo Disc on a pressing that sounds as good as this one does
  • If I were to make a list of my favorite rock and pop albums of 1977, this album would definitely be right at the top
  • Considering how dismal the releases by Cisco Music and Mobile Fidelity were, it seems that no one outside of Bernie Grundman has managed to get Aja sounding right on vinyl, and that was 47 years ago
  • The sound is as heavily processed, artificial and overly glossy as practically anything produced in the 70s, which means that its Mid-Fi appeal is all but assured
  • For those of you on the Higher Fidelity end of the spectrum, our best Hot Stampers get everything sounding as right, balanced and natural as Aja can possibly sound
  • Unfortunately for those of you who don’t like paying our prices or doing your own shootouts, Bernie’s new UHQR leaves a lot to be desired. With mediocre-to-bad sound on all four sides and a price tag of $150, what else can you call it but another Analogue Productions rip-off?
  • 4 1/2 stars: “With Aja, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen’s obsession with sonic detail and fascination with composition reached new heights. A coolly textured and immaculately produced collection of sophisticated jazz-rock, Aja has none of the overt cynicism or self-consciously challenging music that distinguished previous Steely Dan records … a shining example of jazz-rock at its finest. “

(more…)

The Polydor Super Deluxe UK Pressings Are the Only Way to Fly

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Roxy Music Available Now

No domestic pressing or other import in our experience has ever been better than passable; we know, we’ve been cleaning and playing them for more than thirty years.

This British LP is cut by one of my favorite mastering houses in England, which no doubt accounts for the excellent sound. The estimable Robert Ludwig cut the domestic pressings. Unfortunately for us Americans it sounds to us like they gave him a dub tape to master from. (The same thing happened on Avalon by the way.)

This is a transitional album. Some of it sounds like Avalon (Oh Yeah, Over You, etc.) and some of it sounds more like their earlier material. It may not be as consistent as Avalon but it’s well worth owning for its best songs (listed below) and comes highly recommended for fans of the band. 

Best Tracks

Standout tracks on side one include In the Midnight Hour / Oh Yeah / My Only Love

Standout tracks on side two include Over You / Eight Miles High / Rain, Rain, Rain

Insightful reviews for the album follow:

(more…)

Our Tarkio Four Plus Shootout Winner from 2012

Hot Stamper Pressings of Hippie Folk Rock Albums Available Now

UPDATE 2026

Here is our 2012 review for this amazing sounding breakthrough pressing of Tarkio.

It’s records like these that are the payoff for all the money, time and effort you’ve put into your system.

This White Hot Stamper side one of our beloved Tarkio, Brewer and Shipley’s Folk Rock Masterpiece, is without a doubt the BEST SOUND we have ever heard on any pressing bar none. This side sets a standard that no other copy on any side could touch. True, we awarded a Triple Plus grade to an amazing side two copy, but this side one is still the better of the two. We could easily have called it Four Pluses but chose to go with the simpler A+++ and this explanation.

However you frame it, this side is OFF THE CHARTS in a big way. It’s amazingly rich, yet clear and transparent as any we played — what a combination!

This, like Dark Side and so many other White Hot Stamper records we offer to the discriminating audiophile, is ANALOG at its finest. To our knowledge there hasn’t been a single record mastered in the last thirty years with this kind of sound, and we know whereof we speak: we’ve played them by the hundreds.

A Desert Island Disc for me with wonderfully NATURAL sound. This copy had the ULTIMATE Side One (A+++) and a very competitive Side Two (A++), making it the King of our Shootout. If you love this record as much as you should, this is the copy to own. I would love to keep it for my desert island, but we know there is surely a deserving soul out there who will treasure it as much as I do, and probably play it a lot more often, so if you know the album at all this is your chance at greatness. (And I still haven’t found a desert island I’m all that partial to anyway.)

Not Really One Toke Over the Line

Please don’t assume that this album has much in the way of uptempo country rockers like One Toke Over the Line, Flying Burrito Brothers style. Nothing could be further from the truth. Practically every other song on the album is better, almost all of them are taken at a slower pace, with none of them having the “poppy” arrangement of that carefully calculated Top Forty hit. The rest of the music on the album, the music you probably don’t know, is much better than the music that you do know if what you know is that song.

(more…)

The Firebird on Speakers Corner

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Stravinsky Available Now

This is probably one of the better Speakers Corner Deccas.

We haven’t played a copy of this pressing in years, but back in the day we liked it, so let’s give it a “B” for sound with the caveat that the older the review, the more likely we are to have changed our minds about the grade.

Come to think of it, it’s somewhat misleading to say that we change our minds at all.

Most of the time we are forced to raise our standards, or, to be more pedantic, have our standards raised by simply hearing better sounding pressings than the ones we had previously auditioned. This is an insight that came to us by doing regular shootouts, answering a question that we, along with every other serious audiophile, never thought to ask: “How high is up?”

It’s also one that, like so many other big questions in this crazy hobby of ours, can never be satisfactorily answered.

Back to this Heavy Vinyl Pressing. We can’t be sure if we would still agree with what we wrote when this record came out, but here it is anyway.

“Excellent sound with a wonderful performance from Ansermet.”

Currently our favorite Firebird is an early pressing on Mercury with Dorati conducting. Our opinion is very unlikely to change concerning the best combination of sound and performance for that work. The record is simply a monster on the right pressing.

We have never heard an especially good sounding London or Decca of Ansermet’s performance, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. We tend to avoid judging records we have not played and we encourage the audiophile community to do the same.

(more…)

Elton John – Self-Titled

More of the Music of Elton John

  • With two solid Double Plus (A++) or BETTER sides, this copy was giving us the sound we were looking for on Elton’s sophomore release – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • These sides are huge, and the music positively jumps out of the speakers – accept no substitutes!
  • A vintage British DJM pressing with sound this good is a Must Own for all right thinking music lovers of the audiophile persuasion – this is a very special recording, one that will reward countless plays for as long as you live
  • Some of the most remarkable string arrangements (and Tubey Magical string sound) ever recorded for a pop album
  • Top 100 and 4 1/2 stars: “Even with the strings and choirs that dominate the sound of the album, John manages to rock out on a fair share of the record. …Elton John remains one of his best records.”
  • A permanent resident of our Top 100 rock and pop list — this album is a Must Own from 1970
  • We’ve recently compiled a list of records we think every audiophile should get to know better, along the lines of “the 1001 records you need to hear before you die,” with an accent on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. Elton John is a good example of a record many audiophiles may not know well but would certainly benefit from getting to know better.

Folks, if you’re looking for classic popular music that still appeals to sophisticated adults fifty-plus years after it came out, this is the album for you. It’s one of the four classic Elton John records (five if you count GYBR) that belong in every right-thinking audiophile’s collection.

(more…)

Before and After Science – Rules Are Made to Be Broken

Hot Stamper Pressings of Art Rock Recordings Available Now

The domestic pressings of Before And After Science are typically grainy, low-rez and hard sounding. But that doesn’t mean our best Hot Stamper pressings are imports.

No. The best pressings are made right here in the good old U.S. of A.

Say what? Yes, it’s true. We were SHOCKED to find such Hot Stamper sound lurking in the grooves of a domestic Eno LP. It’s the only one of its kind. In thirty plus years of record playing I can’t think of any domestic Eno LP that ever sounded this good.

Now hold on just a minute. The British pressings of Eno’s albums are always the best, aren’t they?

For the first three albums, absolutely. But rules were made to be broken. This pressing has the knockout sound we associate with the best British originals of Eno’s albums, not the flat, cardboardy qualities of the typical domestic reissue.

The UK pressings we have played have always been awful. We put one in a shootout in 2025 and it was as awful as we remember it. Our notes read:

  • Very lean and dry.
  • Zero bass!
  • Lousy!

(more…)