Top Engineers – Frank Laico

I Left My Heart In San Francisco – Notes from Our First Hot Stamper Circa 2010

More Vintage Hot Stamper Pressings on Columbia

Everything that’s good about All Tube Vocal Recordings from the ’50s and ’60s is precisely what’s good about the sound of this record.

The huge studio the music was recorded in is captured faithfully here. The height, width and depth of the staging are extraordinary. We are not big soundstage guys here at Better Records, but we can’t deny the appeal of the space to be found on a record as good as this.

Transparency and Tubey Magic are key to the sound of the orchestra and you will find both in abundance on these two sides.

Some quick notes:

Side One

Highly resolving; tonally balanced; rich bottom end; breathy vocals; instruments are jumping out of the speakers; dynamic; with a touch of grain and spit on even the best copies.

Killer. Can’t be beat.

Side Two

Might be slightly better, but let’s just leave the grade at Triple Plus.

The first track is not as well recorded as those that follow.

The violin is sweeter on the second track here than on any other side we played.

The whole production is so immediate, so right, and so real it may just take your breath away.

The third track is rich, solid and tonally correct, which pretty much sums up the sound we heard on the best copies of the album.

Albums such as this live and die by the quality of their vocal reproduction. On this record Mr. Tony Bennett himself will appear to be standing right in your listening room, along with the 38 other musicians from the session (actually they’re probably sitting).

The space of your stereo room will seem to expand in all directions in order to accommodate them, an illusion of course, but nevertheless a remarkably convincing one.

Johnny Mathis – Up, Up And Away

More Johnny Mathis

More Pop and Jazz Vocal Recordings

  • Up, Up And Away debuts on the site with stunning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades throughout this original Columbia 360 Stereo pressing – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • So hugely spacious and three-dimensional, yet with a tonally correct and natural sounding Johnny, this is the way to hear it
  • “Johnny Mathis’s return to the Columbia label purrs with the rich, romantic tones that suspend the very sensation of conscious listening … ‘Up, Up and Away’, ‘Misty Roses,’ and ‘I Won’t Cry Anymore’ are soothed and coated with Mathis’s seamless style – music running together like prefabricated daydreams padded with a feeling of luxury.” – Billboard Magazine
  • More Reviews and Commentaries for the Recordings of Frank Laico

Having done this for so long, we understand and appreciate that rich, full, solid, Tubey Magical sound is key to the presentation of this primarily vocal music. We rate these qualities higher than others we might be listening for (e.g., bass definition, soundstage, depth, etc.). The music is not so much about the details in the recording, but rather in trying to recreate a solid, palpable, real Johnny Mathis singing live in your listening room. The best copies have an uncanny way of doing just that.

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Frank Laico Knocks Another One Out of the Park

More Recordings by Frank Laico

Amazing vocal reproduction courtesy of the brilliant engineering of Frank Laico at his favorite studio (and ours), Columbia 30th Street studios

We are not big soundstage guys here at Better Records, but we can’t deny the appeal of the space to be found on a record as good as this

Everything that’s good about Vocal Recordings from the ’50s and ’60s is precisely what’s good about the sound of this record.

The huge studio the music was recorded in is captured faithfully here. The height, width and depth of the staging here are extraordinary. We are not big soundstage guys here at Better Records, but we can’t deny the appeal of the space to be found on a record as good as this.

Transparency and Tubey Magic are key to the sound of the orchestra and you will find both in abundance on these two sides.

On this record Mr. Tony Bennett himself will appear to be standing right in your listening room! The space of your stereo room will seem to expand in all directions in order to accommodate them, an illusion of course, but nevertheless a remarkably convincing one. (more…)

Bill Evans / Symbiosis – One of the Few MPS Pressings with (Potentially) Top Quality Sound

More Bill Evans

More Jazz Piano Recordings

  • An outstanding copy of Evans’ wonderful 1974 album accompanied by symphony orchestra with solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER throughout
  • We dropped the needle on a copy years ago and heard wonderful audiophile sound right from the get-go
  • Bigger, richer, more Tubey Magical, with more extension on both ends of the spectrum and more depth, width and height than most other copies we played
  • We are not big fans of the MPS label — most of their stuff, especially the Oscar Peterson records they made, is not very good — but we sure liked this one
  • “… a special and unique entry in Evans’ huge catalog… Not your “typical” Bill Evans album–but that’s what makes SYMBIOSIS such a fine, gently challenging listen.”
  • If you’re a Bill Evans fan, this 1974 release might be a perfect fit for your collection.

On the best copies the strings have wonderful texture and sheen. If your system isn’t up to it (or you have a copy with a problem in this area), the strings might sound a little shrill and possibly grainy as well, but I’m here to tell you that the sound on the best copies is just fine with respect to string tone and timbre. You will need to look elsewhere for the problem. (more…)

Tony Bennett – I’ve Gotta Be Me

More of the Music of Tony Bennett

More Vintage Columbia Hot Stamper Pressings

  • This vintage Columbia 360 label pressing gives Tony the sound he deserves, with Double Plus (A++) grades on both of these early stereo sides
  • Brilliant engineering by Frank Laico, the man who recorded I Left My Heart In San Francisco and Sketches of Spain, among others
  • Tony Bennett was in fine form and still able to sing the hell out of these songs in 1969 – when you hear the quality of his voice on this very album you will perhaps appreciate the toll this century has taken on him
  • Vintage record guys with top quality turntables – like us – get to hear Tony the way he should be heard, with his voice at the peak of its powers

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Bill Evans – The Paris Concert, Edition Two

More Bill Evans

  • A superb original pressing with excellent Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish and fairly quiet vinyl
  • These sides are doing most everything right – as befits a live concert, there’s an overall unprocessed quality to the sound and superb space around all three players
  • 4 1/2 stars: “[T]his could be considered Bill Evans’ final recording and serves as evidence that, rather than declining, he was showing a renewed vitality and enthusiasm in his last year.”

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Frank Sinatra – Cycles

More Frank Sinatra

  • A STUNNING copy of Cycles with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from first note to last
  • Big, full-bodied and musical, with exceptional presence for the most important element of the recording, Sinatra’s clear, richly expressive bourbon baritone
  • The midrange reproduction is superb – breathy and natural, with dramatically more Tubey Magic than you will hear on any other copy you can find, guaranteed
  • “Cycles was Frank Sinatra’s first full-fledged pop/rock-oriented album, concentrating on a more orchestrated variation on the popular folk-rock of the late ’60s.”

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Bossa Nova USA – Who Are We to Talk?

Another Record We’ve Discovered with (Potentially) Excellent Sound

More of the Music of Dave Brubeck

Who knew? Not us and not anybody else it seems. We are not aware that any of the audiophile cognoscenti have ever taken this recording seriously, but that just goes to show how uninformed — or perhaps more likely underinformed — they’ve always been.

Gems such as this sit undiscovered even after thousands of pages of audiophile record reviews have been written. Then, along come a handful of guys in Thousand Oaks, California many years later, 52 to be exact, and reveal to the world a heretofore all but unknown yet nonetheless amazing Brubeck record.

And they back up everything they say with actual records that sound as good as they say they will.

But wait just a minute. We sold an early pressing ourselves back in 2010 for $30 as a “nice sounding” record, nothing more, so who are we to talk?

Which simply goes to show that the decade we spent perfecting the Record Shootout has finally paid off for Bossa Nova U.S.A. Now we can clean them better, play them better, hear them better, and, with a big stack to work with, find one that sounds as good as this one does.

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Tony Bennett – For Once In My Life

More Tony Bennett

  • This vintage Columbia 360 label pressing gives Tony the sound he deserves, with Double (A++) grades on both of these early stereo sides
  • Amazing vocal reproduction courtesy of the brilliant engineering of Frank Laico at his favorite studio (and ours), Columbia 30th Street studios
  • We are not big soundstage guys here at Better Records, but we can’t deny the appeal of the space to be found on a record as good as this

Everything that’s good about Vocal Recordings from the ’50s and ’60s is precisely what’s good about the sound of this record.

The huge studio the music was recorded in is captured faithfully here. The height, width and depth of the staging here are extraordinary. We are not big soundstage guys here at Better Records, but we can’t deny the appeal of the space to be found on a record as good as this.

Transparency and Tubey Magic are key to the sound of the orchestra and you will find both in abundance on these two sides.

Albums such as this live and die by the quality of their vocal reproduction. On this record Mr. Tony Bennett himself will appear to be standing right in your listening room! The space of your stereo room will seem to expand in all directions in order to accommodate them, an illusion of course, but nevertheless a remarkably convincing one.

On this record, like so many others you may have read about on the site, the right amount of Tubey Magic — and by that we mean a very healthy amount — makes all the difference. (more…)

Barbra Streisand – The Barbra Streisand Album

More Vintage Columbia Pressings

  • With two seriously good Double Plus (A++) sides, this 360 original stereo pressing was one of the best sounding copies we played in our recent shootout
  • Amazingly Tubey Magical and intimate, this copy will teleport a living, breathing Barbra Streisand directly into your listening room like no album of hers you have ever heard
  • Another superb recording by Fred Plaut at Columbia’s legendary 30 St. studio
  • 5 stars: “Of course, the first thing that strikes you listening to the first Barbra Streisand album, recorded and released before the singer’s 21st birthday, is that great voice. And it isn’t just the sheer quality of the voice, its purity and its strength throughout its register, it’s also the mastery of vocal effects that produce dramatic readings of the lyrics — each song is like a one-act musical.”

Excellent, natural, unprocessed sound. And Babs does a very nice job with this set of standards. This, her debut, and the album Guilty, are the two Streisand records I’m likely to play.

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