*YouTube

The Audiophile Skeptics on Testing

More Youtube Videos from The Audiophile Skeptics

Co-Hosted by Robert Brook

If you’re looking for a different take on the subjects we will be addressing with our new channel, we happily offer them for your viewing edification and pleasure.

If you would like to know more about audio and records, please feel free to ask any questions you have in the comments section, or send them directly to me at tom@better-records.com.

And whatever you do, stay skeptical.

Further Reading

Robert Brook Has a Story to Tell on The Audiophile Skeptics

More Youtube Videos from The Audiophile Skeptics

Robert Brook and I have now started a YouTube channel whose purpose is to help audiophiles gain a better understanding of analog records and the many difficulties one encounters when playing them. Here I speak from experience, as does Robert.

We felt that it would be worthwhile to briefly talk about our backstories, so that viewers could appreciate why we choose to call ourselves “Skeptical Audiophiles” in the first place. This is Episode 2. Episode 1 can be found here.

If you’re looking for a different take on the subjects we will be addressing with our new channel, we happily offer them for your viewing pleasure.

If you would like to know more about audio and records, please feel free to ask any questions you have in the comments section, or send them directly to me at tom@better-records.com. (The blog has hundreds of letters — from customers and critics alike — you may enjoy reading as well.)

One of the more popular pieces Robert has written recently was entitled: The Biggest Misconception about Modern Audiophile Records. We feel it is well worth reading.

Robert’s Approach

Robert has methodically and carefully — one might even say scientifically — approached the various problems he’s encountered in this hobby by doing the following:

(more…)

The Audiophile Skeptics on YouTube

More Youtube Videos from The Skeptical Audiophiles

Co-Hosted by Robert Brook

Robert and I have now started a YouTube channel. Its purpose is to help audiophiles gain a better understanding of analog records and the many difficulties one encounters when playing them. Here I speak from experience, as does Robert. Hence the maiden voyage of our new channel!

We felt that it would be worthwhile to briefly talk about our backstories, so that viewers could appreciate why we choose to call ourselves “Skeptical Audiophiles” in the first place.

Speaking for myself, I hope to encourage our audiophile viewers to be more skeptical of the claims made by the many experts who have popped up on youtube seemingly out of nowhere, as if there had been a big bang in the record universe. Vast numbers of these channels have exploded onto the scene, all positively overflowing with record and audio advice. Where on earth have so many accomplished, knowledgeable experts been hiding all these years?

When I see the claims made by these individuals, rarely do they comport with my fifty years of experience in the world of audio. With these videos I hope to be able to explain what I mean by that in greater detail. (The blog you are now on has a great many commentaries discussing every aspect of records and audio that I could manage to come up with, all of it informed by actually playing lots of records and working at improving my stereo, starting all the way back in the early 70s.)

(more…)

Robert Brook Shoots Out Brilliant Corners

Robert Brook has a blog which he calls

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

Below you will find a link to the shootout Robert recently conducted for Thelonious Monk’s amazing Brilliant Corners album on OJC.

(more…)

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?

(more…)

Our Filmed Tapestry Shootout Was a Real Shocker

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Carole King Available Now

The Washington Post article that Geoff Edgers wrote includes a video of a little shootout we did for Tapestry, using, without my knowledge, the MoFi One-Step, a Hot Stamper pressing, and a current, modern, standard reissue of the album. Could I spot the Hot Stamper without knowing what record was playing?

First up (and of course unbeknownst to me), the MoFi. My impressions from the video:

That’s probably tonally correct for this record. It’s just missing everything that’s good about this record, which is a meaty, rich piano. And the vocal sounds very dry. There’s no Tubey Magic. It’s tonally correct. If you were playing me a CD right now, I wouldn’t be able to tell you weren’t. 

Next up, the cheap ($20?), current reissue:

Piano’s better.

Voice is better!

Richer and smoother.

That’s what this is supposed to sound like.

Her voice sounds mostly correct.

This might not be a particularly good record. If I played a real one for you, you might just say, oh, my God, there’s so much more.

But this is not a wrong record. It’s not awful. It’s doing something… I don’t know if I would say most things right. I’ll just say something right.

At least the person understands what she’s supposed to sound like.

Then the Hot Stamper (a Super Hot copy as it turns out):

She sounds pretty right on this copy.

I think there’s more space.

You hear more space, more three-dimensional space.

The piano: there’s more richness to the tone of the various notes that she’s playing.

I would probably pick this one.

Geoff sums it all up as follows:

So we have a winner, and I couldn’t fool the Hot Stamper king.

Without knowing what he was listening to, he chose the hot stamper of Tapestry.

If he still had it, that copy would be sold for about $400 on the Better Records website.

 

(more…)

The Search for the Perfect Sound Wins the 2023 Excellence in Audio Digital Storytelling Award

Winner: 2023 Excellence in Audio Digital Storytelling, Use of Audio Storytelling

Apparently readers could not get enough of this old man and his big speakers.

For the story behind the story, and the award it has now won, please click on this link.

The Washington Post talks more about the project:

In “The search for the perfect sound,” arts reporter Geoff Edgers explores the boom in vinyl record sales and the often contentious world of extreme audiophiles through an immersive mix of video, interactive audio and narrative reporting. This multimedia feature revealed the characters behind this growing subculture, from audio elites hunting down rare pressings to populists sharing their hobby with their community.

Edgers had rocked the audiophile world earlier in the year with his reporting on a record company scandal. Through more than two dozen interviews and over a year of reporting; original photography and video; and interactive audio, this project took both newcomers and experts into the debates and technicalities of this growing market — and captured the artistry that make fans so passionate to begin with.

To open the story, Edgers and video journalist CJ Russo joined the controversial audio entrepreneur Tom Port during one of his “shootouts,” sessions in which Port listens to many pressings of the same record to find the best-sounding version.

How could we re-create this scene for readers? Nothing could match the experience of sitting in front of one of these deluxe sound systems.

With the help of contacts in the music world, the team designed the next best thing. Edgers and audio producer Bishop Sand traveled to Brooklyn with a binaural microphone and a stereo microphone to record the same tracks, the Miles Davis Quintet’s “Oleo” and Neil Young’s “Out on the Weekend,” playing once as a digital file and once on vinyl through Jonathan Weiss’s $363,000 Oswalds Mill Audio speakers. Sand matched the loudness of the recordings postproduction.

The team embedded those tracks as audio quizzes in the story, challenging readers to listen and guess which version was the digital file and which was the vinyl track. After meeting the characters who organize their lives around the search for the perfect sound, readers could get a taste of the difference for themselves.

Robert Brook and I Discuss His Revolver Shootout on Youtube

Robert Brook has a blog which he calls

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

He has now started a youtube channel and he invited me to talk about records for about an hour or so.

Please to enjoy.

Quick tip: set the playback speed at 1.25, 1.5 or 1.75, the conversation will still be intelligible and a lot shorter!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf7ja6gdqbk&t=54s

Robert Brook Discusses His Youtube Shootout Video

Hot Stamper Pressings of Revolver Available Now

One of our good customers, Robert Brook, writes a blog which he calls A GUIDE FOR THE BUDDING ANALOG AUDIOPHILE. 

He recently made a youtube video for his shootout for Revolver, which we wrote about here.

Now he has posted some context and talked about his journey in audio which we think you will enjoy reading. Robert and I will be doing a video next week about his shootout, so expect to see that here on The Skeptical Audiophile soon.

REVOLVER SHOOTOUT!!!

(more…)

Do Original Pressings Sound Better?

Robert Brook has a blog which he calls

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

Below is a link to the commentary he’s written about his experience as a guest on The Audiophile Roundtable.

(He’s the fellow in the lower right corner.)

Do ORIGINAL Pressings Sound BETTER?

Do all audiophile represses sound better?

All?

Wouldn’t it be better to pose the question as “Do any audiophile represses sound better?”

But better than what? That’s the $64,000 question. No one seemed interested in answering that one. Or even noticing that it needed answering.

A fellow in the comments section asked:

Here’s a question to Robert, because he said he didn’t like the sound of the Tone Poets he heard… compared to what?

I don’t remember what Robert said but here’s my answer:

Compared to the hundreds of great sounding jazz records you’ve played! Compared to Way Out West if we have to pick one.

(more…)