Top Engineers – Glyn Johns

Rod Stewart – Never A Dull Moment

More Rod Stewart

More British Blues Rock

  • Extremely well-recorded, full of great songs, Rod Stewart was on top of the world when he followed up the brilliant Every Picture Tells a Story with this album in 1972
  • The music comes alive on this vintage pressing, assuming you have your volume up good and loud
  • 5 stars in AMG, and simply “… a masterful record … He never got quite this good ever again.”

Listen to the percussion on Angel — you can really hear all the transients and the sound of the drum skins. The meaty guitar in the left channel sounds mind-blowingly good. The bass is deep and well-defined, and the sound of the drums is awesome in every way. Who has a better drum sound than Rod Stewart on his two best albums?

Along with Every Picture Tells A Story this is one of the two Must Own Rod Stewart albums. Practically every song here is a classic, with not a dog in the bunch. Rod Stewart did what few artists have ever managed to do: release his two best albums back to back.

And this Hot Stamper, not to overstate the obvious, is clearly the way to hear it. (more…)

The Steve Miller Band – Brave New World

More Steve Miller Band

More Psych Rock

  • This outstanding pressing boasts solid Double Plus (A++) sound from top to bottom – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • We guarantee you have never heard Space Cowboy and Brave New World sound remotely as good as they do here
  • Engineered by the one and only Glyn Johns – until we heard this specific pressing we had no idea the album could sound as good as this one does
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Brave New World was more fully realized, and rocked harder, than the Steve Miller Band’s first two albums.”

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Joe Cocker / Mad Dogs and Englishmen – The Wrong Early Pressings Have Horrendous Sound

Well, for one thing, if you get the wrong stampers on this record, you will discover, as we did, that it’s clearly been mastered from a badly made dub. The “cassette-like” sound quality will not be hard to recognize. If you have stumbled onto one of those pressings, give up on it and try your luck elsewhere, making sure to note the bad stampers.

Most copies have a tendency to sound smeary and congested.

Listen for good transients and not too much compression.

Most copies are opaque, as well as dull up top; try to find the ones with some degree of transparency and as much top end extension as you can (the percussion will be helped most of all by the extended top).

And of course you need to find a copy that rocks, as this is a definitely a Rock Concert, although what it most reminds me of is Ray Charles doing a choice set of modern classics, mixing it up by off-handedly mixing in a few of his own. See how they all fit together? That’s how the pros do it. (The main pro in this case is Leon Russell, the mastermind of the whole operation. He clearly knows what he is doing.)

All tracks were selected and mixed by none other than the legendary Glyn Johns.

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The Glorious Sound of the SYL Pressing of On The Border

More of the Music of The Eagles

Reviews and Commentaries for On the Border

This commentary was written about fifteen years ago when we discovered how good the British originals of this album can sound.

‘You Never Cry Like A Lover’ is breathtaking on this copy — Glyn Johns is a genius I tell you!

We’re HUGE fans of the album here at Better Records; it’s some of the most sophisticated, well-crafted, heartfelt music these guys ever made, and that’s saying a lot. Many of you have probably forgotten how good this album is (assuming you were ever familiar with it in the first place) probably because the typical domestic copy you would have played back in the day is fairly hard on the ears. Most pressings, even the British ones, barely hint at the kind sound you’ll hear on this Super Hot Stamper LP!

You Never Cry Like A Lover and The Best Of My Love have SUPERB Glyn Johns Demo Disc Sound on this copy. The LIFE and ENERGY of this pressing are going to knock you right out of your seat. Most copies leave you with a headache, but this one will have you begging to turn up the volume!

Let’s talk about the Eagles’ records from an audiophile perspective.

The Last Of The Glyn Johns Eagles Records

For their debut the Eagles recorded what we consider to be one of the Ten Best Sounding Rock Records in the history of recorded media. Wait a minute, the Eagles didn’t record anything, Glyn Johns did. He deserves all the credit for turning that first album into a Demo Disc of the highest order. Partway through this album, their third, they fired him. (The British ran Winston Churchill out of office after the war, so go figure.) Johns is credited with only two tracks, and as would be expected, those two are the real Demo Disc tracks on the album. (more…)

The Faces / A Nod Is As Good As A Wink – Glyn Johns Lets It Rip

This album was produced by one of our very favorite engineers around here, Mr. Glyn Johns, the man behind tons of Better Records faves — Sticky Fingers, The Eagles’ 1st, Who’s Next, and many, many more.

The proper sound for a band like this is RAW AND ROCKIN’. Any phony EQ or overproduction would really make a mess of what the band does here, which put simply is kickin’ out the jams. It would be fair to call these guys a bar band, but they’re the best darn bar band I’ve ever heard!

The best Faces pressings have amazing live-in-the-studio sound that completely conveys the power of one of the hardest rockin’ bands of all time. What more can you ask for?

You won’t be a minute into this record before you’re blown away by all the ambience and echo. You can really hear the sound of the big room around these guys as they rock out. The vocals sound Right On The Money — smooth, but with all of the raspiness that Rod Stewart is famous for.

The drums are big and punchy and the guitars sound grungy and  right.

The sound on both sides is open, spacious, and transparent — nothing like the muddy, congested sound we heard on most of what we played (all originals – no reissue has ever won a shootout and we don’t really bother much with them anymore).

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Letter of the Week – “No Record I Own Ever Did That!”

This week’s letter came from a long time customer of ours, Dan. When he ordered this album he left the following note in his order comments:

“This is one of my favorite albums of all time!! One of my personal desert island discs. Can’t wait to hear it!.”

I’m not sure his ears were prepared for what was about to happen though. Read on to see what Dan thought of his Very Hot Who’s Next. 

Hey Tom,

Just listened to the Very Hot Stamper of “Who’s Next” and thought I’d drop a little note: Holy FUCK that was POWERFUL!!!

No record I own ever did that!

And I’m talking bone-rattling, earth-shaking, sock-you-in-the-gut POWERFUL. I’ve always known that The Who were one of the most intense bands in the history of rock n’ roll. Hell, everybody knows that and it’s part of the reason we love ’em so much. But with this record, I experienced the sheer physical force of their music like I NEVER have before. I couldn’t believe I heard bass notes hang in the air and resonate for long stretches. Bass notes never just hang like that! No record I own ever did that. (more…)

The Who – Who By Numbers

More of The Who

More Records We Only Sell on Import Vinyl

  • An outstanding pressing with solid Double Plus (A++) sound from the first note to the last
  • Glyn Johns’ MAGIC is on display here, with open mics in a big studio space creating the 3-D Soundscapes we love
  • Features two of their most iconic songs, Slip Kid and Squeezebox, and both sound great on this copy
  • In our opinion this is the best — and best sounding — Who album released post-Quadrophenia
  • 4 Stars – Rolling Stone raves: “They may have made their greatest album in the face of [their personal problems]. But only time will tell.”
  • If you’re a Who fan, this title from 1975 is surely a Must Own.
  • The complete list of titles from 1975 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here

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The Who By Numbers – More Bass or More Detail, Which Is Right?

With Doug Sax mastering from the real tape, you get a Rock Solid Bottom End like you will not believe. Talk about punchy, well-defined and deep, man, this record has BASS that you sure don’t hear too often on rock records. 

And it’s not just bass that separates the Men from the Boys, or the Real Thing from the Classic Reissue for that matter. It’s WEIGHT, fullness, the part of the frequency range from the lower midrange to the upper bass, that area that spans roughly 150 to 600 cycles.

It’s what makes Daltry’s voice sound full and rich, not thin and modern.

It’s what makes the drums solid and fat the way Johns intended.

The good copies of Who’s Next and Quadrophenia have plenty of muscle in this area, and so do the imports we played.

But not the Classic. Oh no, so much of what gives Who By Numbers its Classic Rock sound has been equalized right out of the Heavy Vinyl reissue by Chris Bellman at BG’s mastering house.

Some have said the originals are warmer but not as detailed. I would have to agree, but that misses the point entirely: take out the warmth — the fullness that makes the original pressings sound so right — and you of course hear more detail, as the detail region is no longer masked by all the stuff going on below it.

Want to hear detail? Disconnect your woofers — you’ll hear plenty of detail all right!

Keep that in mind when they tell you at the store that the record you brought in to audition is at fault, not their expensive and therefore “correct” equipment. I’ve been in enough of these places to know better. To mangle another old saying, if you know your records, their excuses should fall on deaf ears. (more…)

Glyn Johns Is One of Our Favorite Engineers

glynReviews and Commentaries for the Recordings of Glyn Johns

More of Our Favorite Engineers

Glyn Johns is one of our favorite producers and recording / mixing engineers. Click on the link to find our in-stock Glyn Johns engineered or produced albums, along with plenty of our famous commentaries.

It was only about 2000 or so that we discovered what an amazing engineer and producer Glyn Johns is. A Hot Stamper of the first Eagles album on the original Asylum White Label blew my mind, produced and engineered by none other, so I quickly started looking around for other records he might have had a hand in. How about Who’s Next? Let It Bleed? On The Border (my personal favorite Eagles album)? Led Zeppelin’s debut? And of course, Sticky Fingers, a record that I’ve always known had the potential for great sound — you can hear it buried under all that bad vinyl and groove wear. You can hear it; you just can’t enjoy it through the noise.

And just recently I was reading the liner notes for Graham Nash’s solo debut, Songs For Beginners, one of the best sounding rock records ever made, and whose name should I see in the credits as mixing engineer, thirty plus years after I first fell in love with the album? The man himself of course. Here’s what we wrote:

The sound is of course superb throughout, in the best tradition of Crosby Stills and Nash’s classic early recordings: transparent, smooth and sweet vocals, with loads of midrange magic ; deep punchy bass (wait until you hear Better Days!); lovely extension on the top to capture the shimmer of the cymbals and harmonic trails of the acoustic guitars; with the whole balanced superbly by one of our all-time heroes, Glyn Johns.

Eagles / On The Border – A Country Rock Classic from 1974

More Eagles

More Country and Country Rock

  • An outstanding British SYL copy with solid Double Plus (A++) sound for this criminally underrated California Country Rock Classic – exceptionally quiet vinyl for this album, because early UK pressings are almost impossible to find in audiophile playing condition
  • If you’ve never heard one of these early pressings, you have simply never heard this album sound the way it should
  • You Never Cry Like A Lover and The Best Of My Love (their first No. 1) offer Glyn Johns magically delicious DEMO DISC quality sound
  • We’re HUGE fans of the album here at Better Records; it’s some of the most sophisticated, well-crafted, heartfelt music these guys ever made, and that’s saying a lot coming from us – we’ve been big fans for decades
  • This killer album from 1974 belongs in your collection.
  • The complete list of titles from 1974 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.
  • 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,” but with less accent on morbidity and more on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. On the Border is a good example of a record most audiophiles don’t know well but should.

Many of you have probably forgotten how good this album is (assuming you were ever familiar with it in the first place) probably because the typical domestic copy you would have played back in the day is fairly hard on the ears. Most pressings, even the British ones, barely hint at the kind of sound you’ll hear on this vintage UK pressing (the only kind we sell of course).

The LIFE and ENERGY of this pressing are going to knock you right out of your seat. Most copies leave you with a headache, but this one will have you begging to turn up the volume.

Tubey Magical Acoustic Guitar reproduction is superb on the better copies of this album. 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). (more…)