Videos

Does It Seem to You That This Guy Knows Much About Dark Side of the Moon?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Pink Floyd Available Now

It doesn’t to me, but I admit to some bias when it comes to DSOTM. I must have played more than a hundred different pressings over the last forty-odd years.

Year after year I was sure I understood exactly which copies had the best sound, and again and again I was proved wrong. (To be clear, I proved myself wrong. Shootouts have a way of doing that.)

We only found out what the best sounding versions were about five or six years ago [make that ten]. We did that by doing shootout after shootout with every version we could lay our hands on, starting around 2005. We even did a shootout for two different Mobile Fidelity pressings many years ago, which we think makes for some good reading to this day.

It’s especially good reading for those who don’t appreciate how dramatic pressing variations can be for even quality controlled limited editions. The comparison of the two MoFi’s centers around the idea that midrange tonality is by far the most important quality to listen for on Dark Side, and that, surprisingly to some audiophiles, but obviously not to us, there are MoFi pressings with a correct midrange and there are some without.

Is this fellow listening for midrange tonality? If you watch the video and he says he is, then you can let me know!  And if not, you can ask him in the comments why he wasn’t. Maybe he just likes the chiming clocks and the deep bass of the heartbeat.

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Are Hot Stampers a Better Mousetrap? A Case of Added Value? A Scam?

Basic Concepts and Realities Explained

This hobby is supposed to be fun. If you’ve been in it for any length of time you know that sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t.

But if you enjoy doing it at least some of the time, and you devote the proper resources to it — the three big ones are time, effort and money — you will no doubt derive much more pleasure from it than you ever dreamed would be possible.

Especially if you use our approach. It works for us and there’s no reason it can’t work for you.

Finding Hot Stampers is all about doing shootouts for as many different pressings of the same title as you can get your hands on.

There are four basic steps you must take, and you have to do right by each of the four if you are going to be successful at discovering and evaluating your own Hot Stampers. 

We discuss every one of them in scores of commentaries and listings on this blog. Although none of it will come as news to anyone who has spent much time reading our stuff, we cobbled together this commentary to help formalize the process and hopefully make it easier to understand and follow.

If you want to make judgments about recordings — not the pressing you have in your collection, but the actual recording it was made from — you have to do some work, and you have to do it much more thoroughly and carefully and above all scientifically than most audiophiles and record collectors apparently think is necessary.

Don’t be one of those guys. Do it right and get the results that are out of reach with any other approach.

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Check Out the Big Beat of Drummer Bruce Gary

Hot Stamper Pressings of Rock Records that Sound Better on Big Speakers at Loud Levels 

If you’re a fan of big drums and jump out of the speakers sound, this is the album for you.

We rarely have Get The Knack in stock, but we do have a good selection of other debut albums.

This Monster Power Pop Debut by the Knack is an AMAZINGLY well-recorded album, with the kind of wall to wall big beat live rock sound that rivals Back in Black and Nevermind — if you’re lucky enough to have a copy that sounds like our Shootout Winning pressings do. (If you’re not, then it doesn’t.)

This is a Rock Demo Disc that is very likely to lay waste to whatever rock Demo Disc you currently treasure — certainly in some areas of sound reproduction.

My Sharona is simply stunning here. You just can’t record drums and bass any better. That’s why it’s a lifelong member of the prestigious none rocks rarder club. We love the sound of punchy drums and these are as punchy as they get.

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Small Speakers and Some Audio Lessons I’ve Learned Over the Last 50+ Years

These Are the Fundamentals of Good Sound

UPDATE 2026

The video linked to below is now private. A smart move on the part of its creator.

However, as you will see from our commentary, it really doesn’t make much of a difference whether it is or not. What we had to say about it years ago is still true.

Do not believe a word you hear in this video. [Not a problem!]

You probably shouldn’t even watch it. [Indeed, and now you can’t.]

Let me state clearly one of our core beliefs here at Better Records.

Small speakers are incapable of lifelike musical reproduction in the home.

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An Overview of Beatles Oldies But Goldies

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now

This is a Beatles album we think we know well.

We’ve done a number of shootouts for A Collection of Beatles Oldies over the last ten years or so, and our experimental approach using many dozens of copies provides us with strong evidence to support the following conclusions regarding the sound of the originals vis-a-vis the reissues:

  1. The best of the early pressings always win our shootouts. No reissue has ever earned our top grade of A+++ and it is unlikely any reissue ever will.
  2. The reissues can be quite good however. The best of them have earned grades of Double Plus (A++).
  3. The worst of the early pressings also earned grades of Double Plus (A++).
  4. Conclusion: if you have a bad original and a good reissue, you might be fooled into thinking the sound quality was comparable.

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We Get in Near Mint Pressings Like This All the Time

More Entries from Tom’s Audiophile Notebook

The spindle trails are the strongest evidence that this record is more than likely completely worn out and noisy as hell.

At a cost of roughly $50 to send it back, and more than $150 to buy it and have it shipped across the Atlantic in the first place, this is the kind of pain we have to be willing to accept.

We eat noisy records like this week in and week out. There is simply no way around it. If there was another way to find the well cared for pressings that we offer our customers, I think we would have found it by now. If you know of one, please drop us a line.

Once you discover that Machine Head only sounds its best on the early British pressings, and you therefore would like to acquire one for your collection, you have your work cut out for you, my friend. Ask lots of questions and hope you get honest answers.

Robert Brook’s Guide to Legrand Jazz on Impex

Robert Brook has a blog which he calls

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

Robert tries to remain positive when choosing the words that would best describe the award winning Impex release of Legrand Jazz. In the end he goes with the spoken word over the written one.

Years ago I wrote about how important the Legrand Jazz album was for me in my growth as a critical listener. It’s yet another example of an album that helped make me a better audiophile by showing me the errors of my tweaking and tuning ways.

Let’s watch the video and see what Robert has learned about Impex’s recent release.

Legrand Jazz (featuring Miles Davis) – the 2019 IMPEX Double 45 rpm

Michael Fremer gives the Impex pressings an 11 for sound. He writes (emphasis added):

“This IMPEX reissue is sourced from an “analog mix-down transfer of the original 1958 work tape by Mark Wilder at Battery Studios” and cut by Chris Bellman and Bob Donnelly at Bernie Grundman Mastering on Grundman’s all-tube mastering system. I have a clean, original 6-Eye pressing that this superbly pressed reissue betters in every way. This will make both your stereo and your heart sing. Some of the greatest jazz musicians of that or any era wailing and clearly having a Legrand time. Limited to 3000 copies. Don’t miss it!”

Who are you going to believe, the Self-Appointed Vinyl Experts of the World and Bestowers of Prestigious Audio Awards (awards which you may have never heard of; I sure hadn’t), or some guy who’s just dedicated to being an Analog Audiophile and knows a good record when he hears one? (Or doesn’t hear one, as the case may be.)

Like Robert, I tried being kinder and gentler, but it didn’t take. I may resolve to try harder in 2024 2026. Then again, I may not. If we’re nicer to the people currently making Heavy Vinyl records, aren’t we running the risk, to cop a line from the late, great P.J. O’Rourke, of encouraging them?

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A Collection of Beatles Oldies on Video – Expert Advice?

The LOST Beatles Album | Cancelled By Apple – Should It Be Re-released?

Click on the link above to see an interesting and informative video that we think is well worth watching.

Allow me to make a few points:

As to the question posed above, my vote would of course be no. The new Beatles albums are awful sounding. Here are a few of rour eviews detailing their many shortcomings:

After playing those three, we gave up on the idea of playing the rest of the set.

The Mono Box (in analog!) was even worse. We played one record, heard truly awful sound, and that was all she wrote.

Mushy Sound Quality

Andrew Milton, the Parlogram Auctions guy, offers opinions about the sound quality of the various pressings he reviews. Naturally we are skeptical of reviewers’ opinions for reasons that should be clear to readers of this blog.

We have no idea how he cleans his records or how carefully he plays his records, or even what he listens for.

Frankly, even if we knew all those things it wouldn’t mean much to us. So many reviewers like so many bad sounding modern records that we’ve learned not to take anything they say seriously.

The comment about the 1G stampers being “mushy” that Andrew makes about 19 minutes in is one we take exception to. Part of the problem with his comment is that we can’t really be sure what he means by “mushy.” If it means smeary or thick, that has not been our experience with the best cleaned originals.

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These Kelly Blue Reissues from the 70s Are a Real Mess

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Wynton Kelly Available Now

Sometimes the 70s reissues of vintage jazz recordings that were made in the fifties, sometimes released with different covers similar to the one you see pictured, have excellent sound.

We know that for a fact because we’ve played some very good ones.

In the case of Kelly Blue, we felt we were obligated to play a few to make sure we were hearing as wide a range of different pressings as possible. We wanted to be sure we were hearing the best sounding pressings regardless of what era they were pressed in. (We’re very open minded that way.)

Here are our notes for the Black Label Riverside Stereo pressing with “1971” stampers:

  • Thin,
  • Dry,
  • Honky,
  • Veiled.
  • Severe stereo spread. (Hard left and right, unmusical this way, players are disconnected.)
  • Grade: 1+ on both sides

The other copy we had was even worse:

  • NFG on side one, side two never played.

The Riverside originals we’ve played in the past, like a lot of other Riverside originals from the 50s, such as those by Thelonious Monk, were uniformly terrible.

And trying to find one in audiophile playing condition is as easy as it sounds.

We’ve auditioned countless pressings like this one in the 38 years we’ve been in business — buying, cleaning and playing them by the thousands. This is how we find the best sounding vinyl pressings ever made.

Not the ones that should sound the best. The ones that actually do sound the best.

If you’re an audiophile looking for top quality sound on vintage vinyl, we’d be happy to send you the Hot Stamper pressing guaranteed to beat anything and everything you’ve heard, especially if you have any pressing marketed as suitable for an audiophile. Those, with very few exceptions, are rarely better than mediocre, and some of them are just awful, with many of the newest releases being the most awful of them all!

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How to Avoid Making this Rookie Record Collecting Mistake

Record Shopping Day Video!

Not sure how much of this video you can stand — nothing could interest me less than watching a couple of vinyl enthusiasts spouting off on what they think about some random records sitting in a local store’s bins.

But one or two bits caught my eye. I thought I might take the opportunity to share my take on them with you.

Is there any value to the comments of these two collectors? If you care about what music they like, perhaps.  Anything about what to look for on the label or jacket that might correspond to better sound?  If it’s there I sure didn’t see it, but I admit to speeding through most of it, so I can’t say for sure.

The first bit I refer to above is at 18:42.  The album in question is the legendary Kind of Blue. At this point the unseen helmet-cammed audiophile picks up the record, recognizes the cover, and proceeds to pull the record out to see what era the pressing is from.

Drat! The disappointment in this audiophile’s voice is palpable as he drops the record back in the bin with his dismissive comment that  “it’s a later pressing.”

But we here at Better Records would be falling all over ourselves to get our hands on that later pressing.

Those late pressings can and often do win shootouts. We would never look down our noses at a Red Label Columbia jazz LP, and neither should you.

UPDATE 2025

As good as the best pressings on the Red Label can sound, it has been years since one won a shootout. Here is our commentary for a recent 70s copy that went up on the site, one that earned a Super Hot grade on both sides.

They tend to sell for four or five hundred dollars these days. Why so much you ask? Because they beat the pants off of every so-called audiophile pressing of the album ever made. The testimony of one of our customers does a good job of describing the differences.

In addition, it turns out that at least nine out of ten of the copies with the red label are not remotely as good as the ones that earn Super Hot grades. The good ones are so rare that we only pick them up locally since practically none of the ones we find on the web have the right stampers. Trying to find the right red label needle in the haystack is more trouble than it’s worth, so don’t expect to see many coming to the site.

Our intrepid audiophile explorer does much the same thing about 23 minutes in. It seems pretty clear to us that he has no respect for such reissues, another example of one of the most common myths in record collecting land, the myth that the  original pressing is always, or to be fair, usually better.

This is simply not true, and those of our customers who have purchased White Hot Stamper pressings from us that turned out to be reissues know exactly what I am talking about. This is especially true for the records we sell by The Beatles. No original pressing has every won a shootout. [With one exception.]

Let’s get back to Kind of Blue.

Is the 50s original always better, is the 70s reissue always better, is the 60s 360 pressing always better?

No to one, two and three.

Why? Because no pressing is always better. All pressings are unique and should only be judged on their merits, and you do that by playing them, not by looking at their labels. For us this truth is practically axiomatic. It is in fact the premise of our entire business. Over the course of the 28 years we have been selling records we have never found any compelling evidence to invalidate it.

The day that someone can accurately predict the sound quality of a specific record by looking at the label or cover is a day I do not expect to come, ever.

UPDATE 2025

The above is somewhat misleading. With enough clean 6-Eye pressings on hand to play in a shooout, one of them will win.

That being the case, we have created two lists for those who would like to know which Columbia labels win shootouts — one for 6-Eye winners and one for 360 Label winners.

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