100 or two

Here you will find a group of records we think every audiophile should get to know, along the lines of “the 1001 records you need to hear before you die,” with the accent on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life.

Each of the albums linked here is a good example of a record you may not know well, but could very well find great enjoyment in getting to know better. These are titles that have stood the test of time, in most cases many, many decades after their first release.

Herrmann – The Fantasy Film World of Bernard Herrmann

More of the Music of Bernard Herrmann

  • This early British London pressing gives you plenty of blockbuster sound for those who can play a record like this good and loud, here with incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sonics on both TAS-approved sides – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • On the better copies, you will hear the power of the orchestra come to life right in your very own listening room
  • The soundfield is big, open and transparent, with the kind of wall to wall and floor to ceiling spaciousness that may just leave you in awe
  • A superb Phase 4 recording by Arthur Lilley, taking advantage of the legendary acoustics of Kingsway Hall
  • If like us you’re a fan of blockbuster orchestral recordings, this is a killer album from 1974 that belongs in your collection.

The soundfield is big, open and transparent, with the kind of three-dimensionality most orchestral recordings simply fail to reproduce. The brass here is weighty and powerful, and you can really hear the pluck of the strings on the harp.

Taxing the Limits

An orchestral dreadnought such as this requires mastering and pressing of the highest quality. It taxes the limits of LP playback itself, with deep organ notes (listen for the famous Decca rumble accompanying the organ if you have the deep bass reproduction to hear it); incredible dynamics from every area of the stage; masses of strings playing at the top of their registers with abandon; huge drums; powerful brass effects everywhere — every sound an orchestra can produce is found on this record, and then some. (You will hear plenty of sounds that defy description, that’s for sure. Some of the time I can’t even imagine what instrument could possibly make such a sound!)

Harry Pearson put the Decca pressing of this title on his TAS List of Super Discs. (We take issue with that choice below.)

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Saint-Saens / Chabrier / Danse Macabre / Espana and More

More of the music of Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921)

More of the music of Emmanual Chabrier (1841-1894)

  • An outstanding EMI import pressing of these sublime orchestral works with Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last
  • Both of these sides are bigger and richer than most of what we played – they’re super clean and clear, tonally correct from top to bottom, and have all of the weight of the orchestra down low
  • If you want a classical record to test your system and demo your system, this copy is for you!
  • This Demo Disc Quality recording should be part of any serious Orchestral Music Collection. Others that belong in that category can be found here.
  • There are about 150 orchestral recordings we think offer the best performances with the highest quality sound. This record is certainly deserving of a place on that list.

Orchestral Showpieces

Who can resist these sublime orchestral works? To quote an infamous (around here) label, “they are an audiophile’s dream come true.”

The sound is clear, with wonderful depth to the stage. These recordings may just be the ideal blend of clarity and richness, with depth and spaciousness that will put to shame 98% of the classical recordings ever made.

Clean bottom and lower mids. Zero smear. They’re so full-bodied and rich, yet clear and clean, and spread out on such a huge stage, these sides may become your go-to reference disc for Orchestral Reproduction.

One More Thing

This is the kind of record that will make you want to take all your Heavy Vinyl classical pressings and put them in storage. None of them, I repeat: not a single one of them, can ever begin to sound the way this record sounds. (The worst of them can be found here. If these 30-odd Heavy Vinyl titles sound good to you, something is definitely wrong somewhere.)

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Eric Clapton / Just One Night – An Exceptionally Good Album of Classic Blues Rock

More Eric Clapton

More Live Albums

  • With superb Double Plus (A++) grades on all FOUR sides, we guarantee you’ve never heard Just One Night sound this good
  • This one is bigger, bolder and richer, as well as more clean, clear and open than most of the other pressings we played
  • Sure to be the best live Clapton sound you’ll hear on vinyl – and the music is wonderful as well
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The most notable difference between Just One Night and Clapton’s other live albums is his backing band. Led by guitarist Albert Lee, the group is a collective of accomplished professionals who have managed to keep some grit in their playing. They help push Clapton along, forcing him to spit out crackling solos throughout the album.”
  • If you’re a Clapton fan, this title from 1980 is surely a Must Own live rock album

With so many bad sounding Clapton albums from the mid- to late ’70s out there in the bins, it’s refreshing to hear this material sounding lively and clear for a change. The performances seem to hold up as well. If you like the “Tulsa Time” era, this record is going to be hard to beat.

Many of his best songs are here, including Lay Down Sally, Wonderful Tonight, After Midnight, Blues Power, Cocaine, Further on Up the Road and plenty more.

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Billy Joel / Songs in the Attic

More of the Music of Billy Joel

  • Demo Disc live rock concert sound on this vintage Columbia pressing, with both sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades
  • The sonics have so many wonderful analog qualities when you get a good copy — the hardness of the typical pressing just disappears, leaving surprisingly transparent and sweet sound on virtually every track
  • The WHOMP factor here is off the scale. There are few studio recordings that have these kinds of dynamics. We forget how compressed most of them are. It takes a record like this to show you how much life there is in live music
  • 4 stars: “Songs in the Attic is an excellent album, ranking among his very best work… even if Joel wasn’t a celebrity in the early 70s, his best songs of the era rivaled his biggest hits.”

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Ambrosia – Somewhere I’ve Never Travelled

Ambrosia

  • An original pressing of this truly phenomenal 70s big rock production (one of only a handful of copies to hit the site in years) with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them from top to bottom
  • Side two was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be shocked at how big and powerful the sound is
  • The reason you never see this album on the site is that it’s extremely difficult to find good sounding pressings that play quietly — most of our best copies are just too noisy to sell, making this shootout pretty much a bust
  • This copy gives you the harmonic coherency, richness, body and Tubey Magic that nothing being pressed today can begin to offer
  • The better sides have the trademark Alan Parsons sound, with huge amounts of space in the studio, and the kind of musical energy that made the first Ambrosia album (which he mixed) such a joy to play
  • I’ve been listening to this album a lot lately — even though I was never that big of a fan of their sophomore effort, now that I’ve played thousands of albums since this one came out, I can tell you that I became obsessed with trying to understand all the musical influences that went into the heads of these four guys and came out on this album
  • “There is an unusual dreamlike quality that pervades its work. The songs seem to be reaching the listener direct from some strange and beautiful realm of the unconscious. It is an experience rare in popular music today or at any time.” – Billboard

Alan Parsons produced this album, and at its best, it is truly a Demo Disc — if you have the system to play it.

This album needs lots of space and a big, wide, open soundstage if it’s going to work, and the best sides deliver that sound. It’s a rare copy that manages to have real presence and top end without getting too edgy; on the good ones, the bass is big, solid and punchy and the energy is superb. (more…)

Tony Mottola / Warm, Wild and Wonderful

More Exotica Albums with Hot Stampers

  • You’ll find solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER throughout this original Project 3 pressing
  • Both of these sides are tubier, more transparent, and more dynamic than most others we played, with plenty of that “jumpin’ out of the speakers” quality that only The Real Thing (an old record) ever has
  • We have never heard the electric guitar sound more real than it does on the better copies of this very album
  • The arrangements of these mostly familiar songs are clever and innovative – the last thing this music could be called is boring or obvious
  • When you’ve played as many records as we have, you’re bound to run into this kind of amazingly good sound from time to time – it’s what makes record collecting fun

The hottest stamper pressings of this album are Demo Discs for three important qualities we listen for in our record auditions. Each of the links below will take you to other recordings we have found to be potentially superior in these areas of reproduction.

  1. Size and space,
  2. Correct timbre and
  3. Tubey Magic.

This is clearly one of the best sounding guitar records we’ve ever had the pleasure to play here at Better Records. Project 3 was an audiophile label in the truest and best sense of the word: a label that not only cared about the sound of their recordings, but actually proved they could produce title after title of the highest quality, equal or superior to anything on the market.

This, of course, places them in stark contrast with the audiophile labels of the modern era, the last forty years say, which only on rare occasion produce records of any real quality. (Here’s one, which proves it can be done!)

Instead these modern labels endlessly grind out one mediocrity after another to the consternation of those of us who know the difference.

But I digress.

We had a mind-blowing percussion record on the Somerset label years ago that raised the bar for us regarding that genre, and this jazz guitar record on Project 3 has achieved the same effect. Some of the following is borrowed from the listing for that Somerset record.

Soundfield, Timbre and Dynamics

The spaciousness of the studio is reproduced with uncanny fidelity, with both huge depth and width, but there is another dimension that this record operates in that few others can — the instruments here are capable of jumping out of your speakers seemingly right into your listening room.

The effect is astonishing. I have never heard the electric guitar sound more real than it does here. The timbre is perfection. The dynamics are startling.

The One Per Cent

Obviously we are charging a lot of money for this kind of Exotica/Bachelor Pad record. Let me make the case by saying that there is likely to be no better sounding record on the site as you read this, and not that many that can compete with it. Out of the thousands and tens of thousands of records we have played over the years, we put this copy in the Top One Per Cent.

It is our belief that no one with an up-to-date, highly tweaked big system, a properly setup front end (with the VTA adjusted specifically for this record), and a carefully treated listening room can fail to have his mind blown by the sonics of this pressing.

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Michael Jackson – Off The Wall

More Michael Jackson

Reviews and Commentaries for Off the Wall

  • A vintage pressing of this MJ classic with some of the most heartfelt, emotional and powerful music he ever recorded, here with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Believe it or not, no copies in our most recent shootout, aside from the shootout winner and Nearly White Hot, had even Super Hot stampers on both sides, which was surprising since we know the right stampers and there were plenty of them in the shootout
  • If you need top quality sound, and assuming it takes as long to get our next shootout going as it did this last one, please check back with us in late 2025
  • The sound is lively, punchy, and powerful (particularly on side one) – with all due respect, it should murder whatever copies you may have
  • We’re constantly blown away by just how good the best copies of Off The Wall sound – what a recording!
  • 5 stars: “This was a visionary album … part of a colorful tapestry of lush ballads and strings, smooth soul and pop, soft rock, and alluring funk.”
  • This is our pick for MJ’s best sounding album. Roughly 150 other listings for the best recording by an artist or group can be found here on the blog

As consistently brilliant as Thriller may be musically — it is the biggest selling album of all time, after all [scratch that, the Eagles Greatest Hits took the top spot away from Thriller in 2018] — speaking strictly in terms of sonics, the sound of the better copies of Off The Wall are substantially sweeter, tubier, more natural, richer, and more analog than Thriller.

Thriller is clearly more aggressive and processed-sounding than Off The Wall. “The Girl Is Mine” or “Human Nature” from Thriller would fit just fine anywhere on Off The Wall, but could the same be said for “Beat It” or “Thriller”? Just thinking about them you can hear the artificiality of the sound of both those songs in your head. Think about the snare that opens “Beat It.” I’ve never heard a snare sound like that in my life. Practically no instrument on Off The Wall has that kind of overly processed EQ’d sound.

Normally when you have a copy with plenty of presence, it can be somewhat sibilant in places. Sibilance is hardly a problem here. For some reason this copy has all the highs, but it’s cut so clean it practically doesn’t spit at all. Even on the song “I Can’t Help It,” which normally has a problem in that respect. Since that’s my favorite song on this album, and probably my favorite MJ song of all time, hearing it sound so good was a revelation.

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The Eagles / On The Border – A Must Own Country Rock Classic

More Eagles

More Country and Country Rock

  • An outstanding British SYL copy of this criminally underrated California Country Rock classic
  • If you’ve never heard one of these early pressings, you have simply never heard this album sound the way it should, mastered with the correct polarity, for one thing
  • “You Never Cry Like A Lover” and “The Best Of My Love” (their first No. 1) offer Glyn Johns magically delicious DEMO DISC quality sound
  • We’re HUGE fans of the album here at Better Records; it’s some of the most sophisticated, well-crafted, heartfelt music these guys ever made, and that’s saying a lot coming from us – we’ve been big fans for decades
  • This killer album from 1974 belongs in your collection.
  • We’ve recently compiled a list of records we think every audiophile should get to know better, along the lines of “the 1001 records you need to hear before you die,” but with less accent on morbidity and more on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. On the Border is a good example of a record most audiophiles don’t know well but should.

Many of you have probably forgotten how good this album is (assuming you were ever familiar with it in the first place) probably because the typical domestic copy you would have played back in the day is fairly hard on the ears. Most pressings, even the British ones, barely hint at the kind of sound you’ll hear on this vintage UK pressing (the only kind we sell of course).

The LIFE and ENERGY of this pressing are going to knock you right out of your seat. Most copies leave you with a headache, but this one will have you begging to turn up the volume.

Tubey Magical acoustic guitar reproduction is superb on the better copies of this album. Simply phenomenal amounts of Tubey Magic can be heard on every strum, along with richness, body and harmonic coherency that have all but disappeared from modern recordings (and especially from modern remasterings). (more…)

Duke Ellington / Ellington Indigos on Six Eye from 1958

More Duke Ellington

More Records with Exceptionally Tubey Magical Sound

  • With solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER throughout, this wonderful late-50s pressing (the first copy to hit the site in close to four years) has the magic of analog in its grooves
  • Side one was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be amazed at how big and rich and tubey the sound is
  • Our 6-Eye Stereo Columbia here impressed us with its superbly well-recorded large group jazz, in the romantic style Ellington refined to an art form – never more sublime than on this very album
  • A near-perfect demonstration of just how good 1958 All Tube Analog sound can be – no modern record can hold a candle to a pressing as good as this one
  • If you like your jazz ballads performed with deep feeling, by a road-tested group of virtuoso players, this record is going to be hard to beat

If you like the sound of relaxed, tube-mastered jazz, you can’t do much better than Ellington Indigos. Many of the other 6-Eye copies we played suffered from blubbery bass and transient smearing, but the clarity and bass definition here are surprisingly good. The warmth and immediacy of this sound may just blow your mind.

We played a handful of later pressings that didn’t really do it for us. They offer improved clarity, but can’t deliver the tubey goodness that you’ll hear on the best early pressings. We won’t be bothering with them anymore. It’s tubes or nothing on this album.

The key for vintage super-tubey recordings is balancing clarity with richness. The easiest way to test for those two qualities on this album is to find a track with clear, lively, loud trumpets that also includes rich trombones and other low brass. On side one that track is “Where or When.” If your copy has clear, lively trumpets and rich, full-bodied, Tubey Magical low brass, it is definitely doing something right.

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The Association – Insight Out

More of The Association

  • An Insight Out like you’ve never heard, with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER from start to finish – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Side two was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be amazed at how big and rich the sound is
  • The Tubey Magical sound, the lively, tight playing by The Wrecking Crew, not to mention some killer chart topping 60s pop, make this the Association album to own
  • With this copy the Sound of the Sixties will fill your room like never before – wall to wall, floor to ceiling, with layers upon layers of analog depth
  • These original Gold Label stereo pressings are potentially the best sounding, with the ideal balance of richness and transparency
  • Potentially – again, the label is no guarantee of top quality sound, only proper cleaning and careful shootouts can do that
  • “The harmonies and choruses are among the most beautifully textured singing in a rock outfit this side of the Beach Boys.”
  • One of our favorite Sixties pop records

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