Top Engineers – Larry Levine

Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66 – Stillness (with Correct Polarity)

More Sergio Mendes

More Bossa Nova

  • An excellent A&M pressing of this incredibly well-recorded and criminally-overlooked LP with Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them throughout
  • Both sides of this copy are in correct polarity, so no need to worry about switching the polarity, as we must do with many of the copies – just drop the needle and enjoy!
  • The soundfield has a three-dimensional quality that will absolutely blow you away (assuming you have big speakers and like to turn them up good and loud)
  • Wonderfully present and breathy vocals from the lovely ladies in Sergio’s band – they provide most of the audiophile  appeal (and all of the sex appeal), and we know of nothing else like them on record
  • A permanent member of our Top 100 and Demo Disc par excellence
  • 4 stars: “Stillness is a concept album — the title tune opens and closes it in moody stillness — and a transition piece all at once…. Overlooked in its day, Stillness is the great sleeper album of Sergio Mendes’ first A&M period.”
  • This is a Must Own album from 1970, which just happens to be a great year for Rock and Pop Music, maybe the greatest of them all

We figure we’re about due for a thank you note from Mr. Mendes, because we’ve turned a huge number of audiophiles into die-hard fans of this album. It’s easy to see why when you play a copy that sounds like this. All of the qualities we look for on this album are right here.

If you are looking for DEMO DISC QUALITY SOUND with music every bit as wonderful, look no further — this is the record for you.

If I had one song to play to show what my stereo can really do, “For What It’s Worth” on a Hot Stamper copy would probably be my choice. I can’t think of any material that sounds better. It’s amazingly spacious and open, yet punchy and full bodied the way only vintage analog recordings ever are. This one being from 1970 fits the bill nicely.

Side two of this album can be one of THE MOST MAGICAL sides of ANY record — when you’ve got a killer copy. I don’t know of any other record like it. It seems to be in a class of its own. It’s an excellent test disc as well. All tweaks and equipment changes and room treatments must pass the Stillness test.

To fail to make this record sound better is to fail completely. The production is so dense, and so difficult to reproduce properly, that only recently have I begun to hear just how good this record can sound. There is still plenty to discover locked in these grooves, and all of us here at Better Records enthusiastically accept the challenge to find all the sounds that Sergio created in the studio, locked away in the 50+ year old vinyl.

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We Get Letters – Do the “Wrong Stampers” Sometimes Win Shootouts?

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Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66

Soren has some questions about shootouts and our White Hot Stamper pressing of Stillness. His questions are indented, our answers are not.

Tom,

Does it ever bug you to realize, maybe one or two years down the road and with (as Tom mentions) better playback/cleaning technology, that stampers which you dismissed in a shootout turn out to win the next one, meaning that you could have let many possible hot stampers go?

Soren,

We talk about that a bit here:

But being bugged by it does no good. It is a reality that must be accepted.

Because we know how easy it is to be wrong, or, more precisely, to not know everything we would like to know, we never stop doing Research and Development for the titles we sell.

We tell people all the time, go play your heavy vinyls and half-speeds that you haven’t played recently. If you’ve made improvements to your system, they will often start to show themselves to be not as good sounding as you remember, and that means you are making progress.

I was actually reaching out to you to inquire whether the super hot Sergio Mendes Stillness that I bought from you a couple of years ago is the version with the phase reversed on side 2?

I ask because I don’t recall a phase issue on this specific title was ever mentioned on your site back when I bought it (i would have remembered, I think) so maybe you only found out recently?

Side 1 on the record sounds better to me than side 2. The matrix on this side 2 ends in “M3”.

Both M2 and M3 are in correct polarity. M3 used to win shootouts by the way. For the longest time, at least ten years, I thought M3 was the ultimate side two.

Having done many, many shootouts since then, along with making many changes to everything involving the cleaning and playing of records, we believe Super Hot (2+) is about the highest grade any M stamper can earn.

The fact that you like an M2 pressing better than the Hot Stamper you bought from us is not a polarity issue. It is most probably a system-dependent issue.

Your stereo is different from ours. Our stereo probably would prefer the M3 we sent you, and your stereo likes the M2 you have. It’s really not much more complicated than that.

Finally concerning this magic Stillness white hot stamper (and don’t worry, I am not going to ask you which one it is because you wouldn’t tell me, and you shouldn’t, because it’s a trade secret that you worked hard for and besides I am probably better off with my own super hot copy where I don’t have to bother about that phase issue on side 2).

But out of curiosity: Has this “magic” stamper/pressing turned out to be great on other Sergio Mendes records also (and thereby defied your previous knowledge and caused you to evaluate your game on those titles also), or was it simply a magical one-off revelation with Stilness?

Part of the reason we were wrong about Stillness is that the best copies broke the rule we tend to use about stampers for A&M albums. In this case, the “wrong” stampers turned out to be the best! The stampers we tend to like for most A&M records, the “right stampers,” are not the ones that currently win shootouts.

But that’s what shootouts are for, so that we take our biases and previous judgments out of the search and just go with what actually does sound the best.

Haha!
How beautiful actually, that the “wrong” stampers turned out to be the best on this one title. Records are nice that way. You must always keep on your toes. Thank you for taking the time to answer my three questions.

Best regards,
Søren

Soren,

Staying on your toes is indeed the name of the game when it comes to records. With every change to your system, the record you used to like the best could turn out to be second-rate compared to the record you used to think was second-rate but is now first-rate.

This, of course, drives most audiophiles crazy, so they ignore or downplay the possibility.

Being in the shootout business means we have no way to avoid these realities, which is why it is so easy for us to accept them.

The amateurs and professionals alike who review records for audiophiles want there to be clear-cut answers for every album they write about. Uncertainty and trade-offs upset them no end.

We recognized twenty years ago that the empirical pursuit of record knowledge, practiced scientifically, must be fundamentally Incomplete, Imperfect, and Provisional, and that is never going to change no matter how upsetting anyone may find it.

Thanks very much for writing.

TP

Stillness checks off a few of our favorite boxes here at Better Records:

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Sergio Mendes + Psych + Your Mind Will Be Blown

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More Albums with Key Tracks for Critical Listening

This commentary was written sometime around 2010.

If you are looking for DEMO DISC QUALITY SOUND with music every bit as wonderful, look no further — this is the record for you.

If I had one song to play to show what my stereo can really do, For What It’s Worth on a Hot Stamper copy would probably be my choice. I can’t think of any material that sounds better. It’s amazingly spacious and open, yet punchy and full-bodied the way only vintage analog recordings ever are.

This one being from 1970 fits the bill nicely.

Side two of this album can be one of THE MOST MAGICAL sides of ANY record — when you’ve got a killer copy. I don’t know of any other record like it. It seems to be in a class of its own. It’s an excellent test disc as well. All tweaks and equipment changes and room treatments must pass the Stillness test.

To fail to make this record sound better is to fail completely. The production is so dense, and so difficult to reproduce properly, that only recently have I begun to hear just how good this record can sound. There is still plenty to discover locked in these grooves, and I enthusiastically accept the challenge to find all the sounds that Sergio created in the studio, locked away in the 40 year old vinyl.

Side One

Stillness
Righteous Life

This is my favorite song on side one. Sergio Mendes magic at its best, with Demo quality sound.

Chelsea Morning

The real test for side one. Without a doubt it’s the hardest song to get to sound right on the entire album. Only certain stampers have the potential and not all of them have the kind of balanced, natural sound that allows the song to work. There’s a certain hardness to the piano on most copies that doesn’t sit right. On the best pressings the piano sounds correct and natural, no doubt the way it was recorded. Why the piano on this track is so difficult to reproduce is beyond me.

Cancao Do Nosso Amor
Viramundo

This track features a room full of Latin percussionists with some of the sweetest female vocals ever recorded layered over them. Another Demo Disc quality track.

Side Two

Lost In Paradise

This is a very difficult track. I never really appreciated how wonderfully different it is from most of Sergio Mendes’ music. I’ve grown to love it. The original version by Brazilian great Caetano Veloso is excellent as well and worth seeking out.

For What It’s Worth

Demo Disc quality sound. This is the track that blows everybody’s mind. The percussion alone is worth the price of admission. Sergio and his merry band take this music in a completely fresh direction, making a version that holds its own against the classic original by Buffalo Springfield. And that’s saying something.

Sometimes In Winter

Another case where Sergio completely reinvents a familiar song, previously done superbly by another band. Who does it better? He’s practically unique in his ability to improve upon a song that was wonderful to start with.

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The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds

More Beach Boys

Hot Stamper Pressings that Sound Their Best on the Right Reissue

  • A Pet Sounds like you’ve never heard, with seriously good Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it on both sides
  • Fairly quiet for this pressing – noisy vinyl is the rule, not the exception
  • Forget whatever dead-as-a-doornail Heavy Vinyl record they’re making these days – if you want to hear the Tubey Magic, size and energy of this wonderful album, a vintage pressing like this one is the way to go
  • The Beach Boys revolutionized the popular music of the day with their genius for harmony, and a copy like this has their voices sounding the way they should (particularly on side one)
  • 5 stars: “The group here reached a whole new level in terms of both composition and production, layering tracks upon tracks of vocals and instruments to create a richly symphonic sound.”

Important Details About This Pressing

There have been a great many versions of Pet Sounds released on vinyl over the years, and most of them in our opinion are awful. (The DCC is acceptable at best.) We’re not going to give away what pressing this is, mostly because it took us many years, a huge amount of effort, and quite a large supply of expensive, ultimately rejected pressings in order to finally figure out what version of Pet Sounds sounds the best.

In short, we ask that you please not order this copy of Pet Sounds expecting to receive an original pressing. We’ve never heard an original that sounded better than tolerable, and tolerable is simply not going to cut it for a Hot Stamper, not at these prices anyway.

What you will receive is the only version of the material that has ever sounded right to us, and naturally that means it will be made from the original mono mix. We would be very surprised to discover another pressing that can compete with it.

As per our policy, if for any reason you are not happy with the sound of the album we send you (or the condition, or the cover, or absolutely anything else, that’s our policy and always has been), feel free to return it for a full refund.

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Sergio Mendes – Look Around, Then Listen for the Huge Room on Roda

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Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66

If you have a good copy of Look Around and a high-rez stereo/room and want to have some fun, play the second track on side one, Roda. In the left channel there is some double-tracked clapping (or two people, how could you tell the difference?) in a HUGE room. Actually although it sounds like a huge room it’s probably a normal sized room with lots of reverb added. Either way it sounds awesome. 

These hand claps drive the energy and rhythm of the song, and they are so well recorded you will think the back wall of your listening room just collapsed behind the left speaker. On the truly transparent copies the echo goes WAY back.

(Note that it can also be heard in the center of the soundfield and off to the right as well, but, of course, those effects can only be heard on the best copies, on the best equipment, in the best rooms.)

Without a doubt it was the most fun sound we heard in a full day of shootouts.

The typical copy of the album won’t show you that room.

The long out of print Speakers Corner heavy vinyl pressing won’t either. Their version is okay, not bad, but by no stretch of the imagination competitive with any Hot Stamper pressing.

The typical audiophile stereo will also have a hard time reproducing the huge room in which those hand claps can so clearly be heard. You will need to have all the latest stuff, a very good front end and a very fast cartridge to get the sound of that room to come out of your speakers.

Most pressings of this album are grainy, shrill, thin, veiled, smeary and full of compressor distortion in the louder parts. This is not a recipe for audiophile listening pleasure.

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Herb Alpert – Whipped Cream & Other Delights

More Sixties Pop Recordings

More 5 Star Albums

  • An amazing copy of this wonderful 1965 release, with a KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to an excellent Double Plus (A++) side one
  • Tubey Magical, punchy, spacious, natural sound – this copy has what we love about Larry Levine‘s engineering, with special emphasis on the huge amounts of deep bass that Herb liked to put on his records back in 1965. (Quick question: Where did that sound go?)
  • Not many audiophiles know how well recorded some of these early Herb Alpert albums were, but we count ourselves among the ones that do, going back more than twenty years
  • Alpert’s most famous album, 5 stars on Allmusic: “Three Grammy Awards alone for the update of the Bobby Scott and Ric Marlow-penned theme ‘A Taste of Honey.'”
  • For those of you who are fans of the pop and jazz music of the mid-sixties, this has to be seen as a Must Own from 1965.

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Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66 – Stillness

More Sergio Mendes

More Bossa Nova

  • An early A&M pressing of this incredibly well-recorded and criminally-overlooked LP, with STUNNING Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound from start to finish – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • Side two of the best sounding copies will always be out of polarity – for those of you who cannot reverse your polarity, we should have some excellent second-tier copies on the site
  • The soundfield has a three-dimensional quality that will absolutely blow you away (assuming you have big speakers and like to turn them up good and loud)
  • Wonderfully present and breathy vocals from the lovely ladies in Sergio’s band – they provide most of the audiophile  appeal (and all of the sex appeal), and we know of nothing else like them on record
  • A permanent member of our Top 100 and Demo Disc par excellence
  • 4 stars: “Stillness is a concept album — the title tune opens and closes it in moody stillness — and a transition piece all at once…. Overlooked in its day, Stillness is the great sleeper album of Sergio Mendes’ first A&M period.”
  • This is a Must Own album from 1970, which just happens to be a great year for Rock and Pop Music, maybe the greatest of them all

We figure we’re about due for a thank you note from Mr. Mendes, because we’ve turned a huge number of audiophiles into die-hard fans of this album. It’s easy to see why when you play a copy that sounds like this. All of the qualities we look for on this album are right here.

If you are looking for DEMO DISC QUALITY SOUND with music every bit as wonderful, look no further — this is the record for you.

If I had one song to play to show what my stereo can really do, “For What It’s Worth” on a Hot Stamper copy would probably be my choice. I can’t think of any material that sounds better. It’s amazingly spacious and open, yet punchy and full bodied the way only vintage analog recordings ever are. This one being from 1970 fits the bill nicely.

Side two of this album can be one of THE MOST MAGICAL sides of ANY record — when you’ve got a killer copy. I don’t know of any other record like it. It seems to be in a class of its own. It’s an excellent test disc as well. All tweaks and equipment changes and room treatments must pass the Stillness test.

To fail to make this record sound better is to fail completely. The production is so dense, and so difficult to reproduce properly, that only recently have I begun to hear just how good this record can sound. There is still plenty to discover locked in these grooves, and all of us here at Better Records enthusiastically accept the challenge to find all the sounds that Sergio created in the studio, locked away in the 50+ year old vinyl.

(more…)

Botnick and Levine Knocked Equinox Out of the Park

More of the Music of Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66

Hot Stamper Pressings of Bossa Nova Records Available Now

The music is of course wonderful, but what separates Sergio from practically all of his ’60s contemporaries is the AMAZING SOUND of his recordings. Like their debut, this one was engineered by the team of Bruce Botnick and Larry Levine.

Botnick is of course the man behind the superb recordings of The Doors, Love and others too numerous to mention. 

Levine is no slouch either, having engineered one of the best sounding albums on the planet, Sergio Mendes’ Stillness.

Just play the group’s amazing versions of Watch What Happens, Night and Day, or Jobim’s Wave to hear the kind of Mendes Magic that makes us swoon. For audiophiles it just doesn’t get any better. (Well, almost. Stillness is still the Ultimate, on the level of a Dark Side of the Moon or Tea for the Tillerman, but Equinox is right up there with it.)

Only the best copies are sufficiently transparent to let the listener hear all the elements laid out clearly, with each occupying a real three-dimensional space within the soundfield. When you hear one of those copies, you have to give Botnick and Levine their due. These guys knew what they were doing like few that have come along since.

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Sergio Mendes / Look Around – The Speakers Corner Pressing Had Us Fooled

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Sonic Grade: C

We were very impressed with the Speakers Corner pressing of this album when it came out on Heavy Vinyl in 2001. We simply could not find a vintage pressing that could beat it. I actually took it over to a good customer’s house so that he could hear how much better the album sounded on Heavy Vinyl when played head to head with whatever vintage pressing he might have.

I’m sure you can see where this is going. I Could Not Have Been More Wrong. His copy smoked mine right from the get-go. I wiped the egg off my face, wrote down the stamper numbers for his copy, and proceeded to get hold of some good early pressings so that I could hear the album sound as good as his copy did.

Eventually — eventually in this case being at least five years and maybe more —  we felt we had this album’s number and knew which pressings tended to have the goods and which ones didn’t. All that was left was to do the shootout so that we could actually be sure, or sure enough, keeping in mind that all knowledge about records is provisional.

The Speakers Corner pressing is decent, not bad, but by no stretch of the imagination would it ever be able to compete with any Hot Stamper pressing found on our site.

Most pressings of this album are grainy, shrill, thin, veiled, smeary and full of compressor distortion in the louder parts.

This is hardly a recipe for audiophile listening pleasure.

But there are good sounding pressings. You must have to work to find them.

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Listening in Depth to Ye-Me-Le

More of the Music of Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66

More of our favorite Sixties Pop albums

The first three tracks on side 1 are the best reason to own this album, especially the first two (Wichita Lineman and Norwegian Wood), which are as good as anything the group ever did. I’m a big fan so that has to be seen as high praise indeed.

Let’s be frank: the average LP of this album is terrible. Shrill, aggressive sound is the norm, but compression and overly smooth (read; thick and dull) sound are also problems common to Ye-Me-Le. There’s also a “strained” quality to the loud vocal passages on almost every copy; only the best are free of it.

In-Depth Track Commentary

Side One

Wichita Lineman

The best copies have out of this world sound on this track, every bit as good as anything Sergio Mendes ever did. This was the song that made me search out the best sounding copies. Even when I had mediocre copies, I loved the music and KNEW there had to be better sounding versions out there.

Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)

Love the arrangement. When the voices get loud, the sound can be painful. On the better pressings there is practically no strain whatsoever.

Some Time Ago

I love this song! It’s so relaxed and easygoing.

Moanin’

This is actually a pretty good arrangement of Moanin’. I’ve grown to like it.

Look Who’s Mine

Side Two

Ye-Me-Le

The best copies have DEMO DISC QUALITY sound for this song.

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