Martin Birch, Engineer

Deep Purple – Machine Head

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  • This UK import pressing was doing just about everything right, with both sides earning seriously good grades
  • Amazingly spacious and three-dimensional, no doubt the result of the album being recorded practically live in the studio – the sound is HUGE, with real energy, presence and whomp
  • Their superbly talented engineer, Martin Birch, recorded the big, bold, rich, smooth sound of British Rock about as well as anyone ever did
  • 5 stars: “Machine Head was anything but a one-trick pony, introducing the bona fide classic opener “Highway Star,” which epitomized all of Deep Purple’s intensity and versatility while featuring perhaps the greatest soloing duel ever between guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and organist Jon Lord.”
  • It’s our pick for the band’s best sounding studio album. Roughly 150 other listings for the best recording by an artist or rroup can be found here.

When you get a Hot Stamper pressing like this one, Machine Head is a True Rock and Roll Demo Disc. Since our stereo is all about playing these kinds of records, and playing them at good loud levels as nature — and the artists — intended, we had a helluva time with Machine Head.

It had the kind of presence and energy that puts most copies of this album to shame. It’s also amazingly spacious, the result no doubt of it being recorded practically live in the studio. On the best copies, you can really hear the sound bouncing off the studio walls, just as you can on the best Zep, AC/DC and Bad Co. albums. You can just tell they are all playing this one live: it’s so relaxed and natural and REAL sounding.

The vocalist is surely in a booth, but everyone else seems to be in a lively studio. With lovely extension up top, this was a very sweet copy that cried out to be turned up good and loud. The louder we played it the better it sounded.

The best pressings give you exactly what you want from this brand of straight-ahead rock and roll: presence in the vocals; solid, note-like bass; big punchy drums, and the kind of live-in-the-studio energetic, clean and clear sound. (AC/DC is another band with that kind of live studio sound. With big speakers and the power to drive them YOU ARE THERE.)

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Deep Purple – Made In Japan

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  • Get ready to rumble! This UK copy (one of only a handful to hit the site in over a year) boasts INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on all FOUR sides
  • Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this killer copy in our notes: “huge and tubey and weighty”…”great detail and powerful”…”leaping out [of the speakers]”…”big, transparent and rich”…”extended from top to bottom”
  • A phenomenally well-recorded album that’s a true Demo Disc on an exceptional pressing such as this
  • Turn it up and you will hear sound that is incredibly powerful and natural with amazing presence, energy and weight down low
  • Rolling Stone: “They’ve done countless shows since in countless permutations, but they’ve never sounded quite this perfect.”
  • If you’re a fan of the band, this title from 1972 is clearly one of their best

Having just played a stack of copies of Made In Japan, I’d put the album right up there with the best sounding live albums of all time.

In terms of Tubey Magic, richness and naturalness — qualities that are usually in very short supply on live albums — I would have to say that the shootout winning copies of Made In Japan would be very likely to take Top Honors for Best Sounding Live Album of All Time.

Yes, the sound is that good.

Machine Head Live? That would not be far off, and the fact they brought Martin Birch along with them all the way to Japan in order to engineer a live album that was only supposed to sell to the Japanese market (!) could not have been more fortuitous for us audiophiles.

Machine Head is clearly one of the best sounding hard rock records ever made, and Made In Japan, its successor, sounds more like a top quality studio production than any live album I’ve ever heard. It’s shocking how clean and undistorted the sound is. Equally shocking is the fact that it’s every bit as big and lively as a Hard Rockin’ Live Album should be.

This is a combination the likes of which we have never heard.

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Fleetwood Mac – Bare Trees

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Reviews and Commentaries for Fleetwood Mac

  • With two Double Plus (A++) or BETTER sides, you’ll have a hard time finding a Bare Trees that sounds remotely as good as this vintage UK import
  • It’s the impossibly rare copy that’s this lively, solid and rich… drop the needle on the title track and you’ll see what we mean
  • Many copies were gritty, some were congested in the louder sections, some never got big, some were thin and lacking the lovely analog richness of the best — we heard plenty of copies whose faults were obvious when played against two superb sides such as these
  • “Arguably the first consistently strong album Fleetwood Mac ever recorded [not true, Kiln House is] … 1972’s Bare Trees is also the album where the band finally defines its post-blues musical personality.”

This period of Fleetwood Mac, from Kiln House (1970) through Mystery to Me (1973) — both are albums I would put at the top of my list to take to my Desert Island — has always been my favorite of the band. I grew up on this stuff, and I can tell you from personal experience that it is a positive THRILL to hear the albums from this era sound so good.

Until not that many years ago we simply were not able to successfully shootout Bare Trees, Fleetwood Mac’s wonderful album from 1972. The pressings we were playing just didn’t sound very much like Hot Stampers to us. British, German, Japanese, domestic originals, domestic reissues; all of them left much too much to be desired.

Thankfully we can tell you that the best copies sound a whole lot better now than they did then. (more…)

Fleetwood Mac – Penguin

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  • This early Reprise LP is a huge step up from most – this copy is full-bodied, smooth and musical – classic Fleetwood Mac sound
  • One of my favorite songs on the album is one of Christine McVie’s best from this period, Did You Ever Love Me – on this pressing it’s rich and sweet exactly the way it should be
  • “Fleetwood Mac’s first album made after the departure of Danny Kirwan features the additions of guitarist Bob Weston and singer Dave Walker… This album gave Fleetwood Mac its best U.S. chart showing yet…”

On the best pressings, the sound is positively JUMPING out of the speakers in a way that is completely unexpected. We often talk about the size of the soundfield on a particular pressing, side to side, bottom to top, and even more often about the energy found on one copy relative to another.

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Fleetwood Mac – Kiln House

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  • Excellent sound from beginning to end for this hard-to-find Fleetwood Mac album from 1970, with both sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Tubey Magical sound is key to the better copies, and this one really delivers, with the analog richness the music needs to work its Buddy Holly magic
  • Three of the best songs Fleetwood Mac ever did are here: “Tell Me All The Things You Do,” “Station Man” and “Jewel Eyed Judy”
  • Danny Kirwan is brilliant here on this grossly underappreciated album from Fleetwood Mac’s awesome post-Peter Green period
  • Kiln House is the last of the Mac’s grungy guitar-based releases, and more’s the pity
  • If you’re a fan of the band, this classic from 1970 belongs in your collection.

This is a favorite Fleetwood Mac album of ours here at Better Records and one that’s very hard to find with anything resembling good sound. Grungy guitars and punchy drums in a huge acoustical space. The louder you play it the better it sounds.

This period Fleetwood Mac, from Kiln House through Mystery to Me (both are the kind of records I would take to my Desert Island), has always been my favorite of the band. I grew up on this stuff, and I can tell you from personal experience, having played a dozen copies of Kiln House practically all day at some pretty serious levels for our shootout not that long ago, it is a positive THRILL to hear the album sound as good as it does right here. (more…)

Black Sabbath – Heaven and Hell

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  • Sabbath’s first album with Dio finally makes its Hot Stamper debut, with outstanding Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on both sides
  • With Martin Birch (Fleetwood Mac, Deep Purple) producing, the band put their recent bad albums with Ozzy behind them to record this 4 1/2 Star return to form
  • Forget whatever Heavy Vinyl LP they’re making these days – if you want to hear the Tubey Magic, size and energy of this Heavy Metal Classic from 1980, a vintage pressing like this one is the way to go
  • “The Sabs found a worthy replacement in former Elf and Rainbow singer Ronnie James Dio, and bounced back to issue their finest album since the early ’70s… The band sounds reborn and re-energized throughout… One of Sabbath’s finest records. “

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Deep Purple – Mark I & II – Reviewed in 2009

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More British Blues Rock

This is a Minty looking EMI Import Double LP. It’s a compilation with a single LP dedicated to each era of the band’s early history. As with any compilation some tracks sound better than others here but don’t let the German sourced tapes scare you. These sound like really high quality tapes, close to, if not the actual, master tapes.

The second LP features the most recognizable and probably best lineup (Mark II) the band ever had, with songs such as Black Knight, Speed King, Smoke on the Water and Highway star, to name but a few. 

Fleetwood Mac / Mystery To Me

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Reviews and Commentaries for Fleetwood Mac

Here it is, folks — the best sounding copy of Mystery To Me to ever hit our site. This copy positively DOES IT ALL — it’s super open and spacious with tons of energy and incredible presence. The bottom end is just KILLER and there’s dramatically more richness and fullness than you get on most copies out there. 

It’s beyond difficult to find great sounding copies of this album, which is why it’s been about four years since we last had these on the site.

Mystery To Me is my All Time Favorite Fleetwood Mac album, and this White Hot Stamper copy has the sound that I always DREAMED this album could have, but didn’t — until now. This is just the second Hot Stamper shootout that we’ve been able to do, since clean copies with the right stampers are ridiculously hard to come by. I’m not kidding. I have spent the last ten years and more trying to find the right stampers for this record. I can tell you I was dead wrong so many times in the past that I had almost given up. Time and time again, just when I thought I had it figured out, I would go back and play my so-called “hot” copy, to find myself miserably disappointed all over again. (more…)