Robert Ludwig, Engineer

Liszt, Ludwig, Grundman and Sax

Hot Stamper Pressings Engineered by Robert Ludwig Available Now

Liszt & Weber / Ballade No. 2, Mephisto Waltz / Bar-Illan

The Liszt side here actually has the best sound, earning a seriously good grade of A++ to A+++.

This is one of the few audiophile-label recordings I have ever played that actually sounds NATURAL and CORRECT. This is a very real sounding piano; there are not many recordings that can capture that instrument’s weight, but this one sure does.

Side One

A++ sound, very open and real. This is a big piano with a solid bottom end playing in a big room. A trace of smear on the transients keeps it from the full Three Plus grade.

Side Two

A++ to A+++, less smeary so we raised the grade a bit. The music is dark and somewhat “out there” but the sound is AMAZING. 

A top quality solo piano recording from an “audiophile” label? I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t heard it for myself.

That’s not really being fair, though. Some of us remember that Robert Ludwig cut another “audiophile” pressing, this one for Athena, and did a great job on it. (The other four records Athena released before they went out of business were awful, including the one mastered by Doug Sax.)

I suspect that if Ludwig hadn’t stopped cutting records years ago, we would not be complaining nearly as much as we do about the sound of the modern Heavy Vinyl pressings currently inundating the market.

Bernie and Doug really started letting the record lovers of the world down beginning as far back as the ’90s.

The muddy messes Doug Sax cut for Analogue Productions and the awful Living Stereo records Bernie cut for Classic Records were sad chapters in both men’s body of work. Here were two of the All Time Greats. Their fall was precipitous and painful for those of us who never gave up on analog. In those dark days they mastered one record after another so unlike the amazing sounding ones they had made in the ’70s and well into the ’80s.

We have nothing personal against either one of them, of course. We just haven’t liked the sound of very many of the records they’ve mastered for the last thirty years, and we have never been shy about saying so.

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The Band – Rock Of Ages

More of The Band

More Roots Rock LPs

  • A superb vintage Capitol pressing of Rock of Ages with Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER on all FOUR sides
  • The best copies are surprisingly TRANSPARENT – just listen to all the “room” around the vocals on these four sides
  • With tracks from their first four albums, as well as a few handpicked favorites (“Don’t Do It”), not to mention killer horn charts on 11 songs, this is a superb overview of the group’s uniquely rootsy rock
  • A classic double live album with a consistently well-arranged and energetically performed set of songs – if you could only have one album by The Band, wouldn’t it have to be this one?
  • 4 stars: “It could be argued that it captured the spirit of the Band at the time in a way none of their other albums do.”

The performances are uniformly excellent, and the live five-piece horn section adds a lot to the fun and energy of the music. (The same can be said for Little Feat’s live album, Waiting for Columbus. We’ve been offering Hot Stampers on that album for years; it’s the best way to hear the band at their best, outside the studio.)

There’s real Tubey Magic on this album, along with breathy vocals, in-your-listening-room presence, and plenty of rock and roll energy.

All four sides here are just plain bigger, richer, clearer and smoother than the other copies we played. The energy level is off the charts. This is The Band playing live at the peak of their powers. Hearing this outstanding pressing should be unlike anything you have experienced before, unless you saw them back in the day, some fifty years ago, and how many of us can honestly say we did? (“Honestly” being the operative word there.)

It should go without saying that this is music that belongs in any popular music collection. My favorite song here is “I Don’t Want To Hang Up My Rock And Roll Shoes.” It’s The Band at their best — LIVE.

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R.E.M. – Lifes Rich Pageant

  • This outstanding copy of the band’s fourth studio album boasts solid Double Plus (A++) sound on both sides – fairly quiet too
  • You’ll hear more energy and more immediacy, plus an extra shot of analog richness that really ties the sound together
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Where previous records kept the rhythm section in the background, Pageant emphasizes the beat, and the band turns in its hardest rockers to date… the band sound more contemporary both musically and lyrically than they did on either Fables or Murmur, which helps give the record an extra kick.”

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Bryan Ferry – Bete Noire

More of the Music of Roxy Music

  • An exceptional pressing, with Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last
  • Both sides of this hit-packed 1987 Ferry UK pressing are big, rich and tubey – dramatically fuller than most of the others we played
  • Kiss & Tell and The Right Stuff are two of the bigger bangers here, and they both sound the way they should – big and clear
  • Four Stars in AMG: “Bete Noire sparkles as the highlight of Ferry’s post-Roxy solo career… Here, his trademark well-polished heartache strikes a fine balance between mysterious moodiness and dancefloor energy…”

Bigger, richer and cleaner than nearly any other copy we played. Almost no grain or congestion – just sweet, sweet sound like you have never heard on this album before.

There’s much less phony processing and grit on Ferry’s voice than on most of the copies we played. The space and ambience are likewise excellent. The sound by track two is actually quite good (track one being a bit dull as a rule). (more…)

Dionne Warwick – Very Dionne – Our Shootout Winner from 2011

 

SUPERB Super Hot Stamper sound on BOTH sides of this original Scepter pressing, with QUIET VINYL no less. Folks, don’t expect to see records like this coming to the site too often. We can’t find them anymore in this kind of clean condition, so if you like the lovely Ms Warwick, consider taking this one home and giving her (the record, not Dionne) a spin on your table.

Side one is LOVELY — the bass is tight and punchy, the strings have lots of texture, and the background vocals are clean and clear. The grit and grain that plague the average copy are practically nowhere to be found here. The midrange is full of that old analog Tubey Magic, the kind that has completely disappeared from the modern record, (even the modern reissue of a vintage record!). The sound is so open and transparent, you hear directly into the soundfield.

Notice how the limiter on Dionne’s microphone is working overtime. She is practically shouting into it but it never seems to get much louder! Still the energy and the passion come through clearly. That’s the sign of a well-recorded vocal track. (more…)

Dionne Warwick / Soulful – Our Shootout Winner from 2008

There’s a reason this record is on the TAS list, but you’d never know it by playing the average pressing. Most copies of this record just sound like an old Dionne Warwick record. You would never even know how magical this recording is by playing a copy that for all intents and purposes appears to be the pressing that Harry Pearson is recommending on his Super Disc list. The catalog number is the same; the sound is not. Unless you have at least half a dozen copies of this record — and we had more than double that — you have very little chance of finding even one exceptional side.

This has always been the problem with the TAS list. The pressing variations on a record like this are HUGE and DRAMATIC. There is a world of difference between this copy and what the typical audiophile owns based on HP’s list. I’ve been complaining for years that the catalog number that Harry supplies has very little benefit to the typical audiophile record lover. Without at least the right stampers, the amount of work required to find a copy that deserves a SuperDisc ranking is daunting, requiring the kind of time and effort that few audiophiles could ever devote to such a difficult and frustrating project.

Beyond all that, Scepter vinyl is quite problematic. A sealed copy that we cracked open for our shooutout was so noisy, it didn’t even make it past the first round. It takes a lot of work to find a copy of this (or ANY) album that’s truly a Super Disc; just picking up the titles from Harry’s list certainly can’t guarantee good sound. (more…)

Bryan Ferry – Boys and Girls

More Roxy Music

  • You’ll find excellent Double Plus (A++) sound on both sides of this classic Ferry album from 1985 
  • This copy was big, full and lively with plenty of presence and bottom end weight
  • On this record, bigger bass and punchier drums make all the difference in the world
  • “Instead of ragged rock explosions, emotional extremes, and all that made his ’70s work so compelling in and out of Roxy, Ferry here is the suave, debonair if secretly moody and melancholic lover, with music to match…”

Excellent sound and quiet vinyl on both sides! If you’ve spent any time with this album, you will be blown away by how great both sides of this copy sound.

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Brewer & Shipley / Weeds – Our Four Plus Shootout Winner from 2017

More Brewer and Shipley

Reviews and Commentaries for Brewer and Shipley

It took two copies on two different labels to give you BETTER than Triple Plus (A+++) sound on the two sides of this 2-pack. These sides were beyond anything we had ever heard, with weight and Tubey Magic to put other records to shame. On the best copies the midrange is amazingly relaxed and natural, yet completely clear and present. This Bay Area Hippie Folk Rock has much in common with classic albums like Workingman’s Dead and CSN’s first.

Why two different records on two different labels to get top sound on both sides?

Simple: in our shootout no Robert Ludwig mastered side one on the original label sounded remotely as good as it did on the best pressings with the later label.

If you want the absolute best sound, this is the only way we can get it for you in 2017.

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Bad Company – Run With The Pack

SUPERB SOUND on Hot Stamper 2-pack! This is not an easy album to find with audiophile sound, and since our best sides were less impressive on their flipsides, we paired up these two copies to give you incredible sound for the album from first note to last.

Side two of the second record is the real deal, with BIG, RICH and ROCKIN’ White Hot Stamper sound. Side one of the first record is nearly as good (A++ to A+++), boasting exceptional transparency, excellent balance and something we didn’t hear on most copies: ENERGY.

Far too many original pressings (the only ones we liked, the reissues sounded too dubby to be taken seriously) were overly compressed and lifeless. This bad boy brought the band to life like practically no other.

When we set out to do this shootout, our first for the album, there was no question in our minds that Run With The Pack had the potential to be a great sounding LP. Ron Nevison, the man behind the board for the first two Bad Co. releases, both of which can be shockingly good and certainly deserve a place on our Top 100, engineered this one as well, with Eddie Kramer mixing at Kendun. RWTP may not be quite up to the standards set by those two monster rock albums, but on the best copies RWTP delivers the Classic Rock weight and energy that our audiophile fans have come to expect from their better records.

Scratch that — what we should have said was the best sides deliver that sound. The first record here, with nearly White Hot Stamper sound, has a side two with anemic vocals and no top end to speak of. The tonal balance is so far off we just called it NFG and moved on to the next copy. Who wants to play a Bad Company album that sounds as thin as a bad CD?

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