1965

Roy Orbison – Orbisongs

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  • Excellent sound throughout with Double Plus (A++) or BETTER on both sides
  • This superb pressing is especially Analog Sounding – lively, warm, with rich bass and breathy, clear vocals 
  • Features one of Orbison’s greatest legacies, “Oh, Pretty Woman,” in stereo no less, and it sounds amazing here
  • While this isn’t the quietest copy we’ve ever heard, it’s clearly one of the best sounding
  • “…every track is strong and showcases Orbison’s immense talent both as a vocalist and a songwriter of effective and poignant lyrics… if you are looking at Orbison at his best you need look no further.”

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Sammy Davis Jr. – Sammy’s Back On Broadway

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Sammy Davis, Jr. Albums We’ve Reviewed

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  • Sammy’s Back On Broadway comes to the site with shootout winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on both sides
  • Rich, smooth, and shockingly Tubey Magical, the sound on this 1965 Reprise Tri-Color Steamboat pressing is Hard To Fault (HTF)
  • Some of the best sound and music we’ve ever heard from the man – this is an album that proves Sammy was more than a member of The Rat Pack
  • 4 stars: “Although the 1965 album was filled with concurrently modern selections, the mixture of enduring classics and lesser-known material further exemplifies the artist’s impeccable taste and performance style.”

There are an awful lot of bad sounding Sammy Davis, Jr. records out there. We must have played at least a half dozen hard, honky, sour sounding copies before we ran into this forgotten gem. (Dean Martin’s albums are the same way; maybe one out of ten sound good and the rest are just terrible.) (more…)

Bola Sete – The Incomparable Bola Sete – Reviewed in 2010

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More Bossa Nova

This is a Minty looking Fantasy LP with EXCELLENT SOUND. Bola Sete is one of my favorite guitarists, Latin or otherwise. Here he is joined by a very talented percussionist who brings authentic Brazilian feeling to this music. The real surprise here is Paul Horne on flute — the music comes alive on the tracks on which he guests, such as ‘Lamento De Negro’. If you like Latin guitar music, you can’t go wrong here.

“There are some performers in jazz, as in other fields, who everybody digs, regardless of style, regardless of preferences, regardless of anything. Bole Sete is that kind of performer. Whether he was playing for the society audiences in the swank Sheraton Palace, the jazz audiences at the Monterey Festival, the night club audiences (with Vince Guaraldi) at El Matador or Shelly’s Manne Hole, Bola Sete captured the people. He always does.” – Liner Notes

The Kinks – Kinda Kinks in Stereo

More of the Music of The Kinks

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of The Kinks

  • Very good Hot Stamper sound on both sides of this original STEREO copy of The Kinks’ sophomore release
  • You’ll find that there’s a healthy dose of the Tubey Magical Richness here, which is exactly what these recordings need in order to sound their best
  • The monos win the shootouts, but the better original stereo pressings can sound quite good on their own terms
  • “…this album showcased a much more sophisticated sound… it also put them right in the front of the British Invasion pack for seriousness and complexity, out in front of where the Beatles or almost any of the competition were in early 1965…”

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Wes Montgomery – Bumpin’

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More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Guitar

  • Incredible sound throughout with each side earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades
  • This vintage stereo pressing is transparent, uncolored and undistorted, as well as tonally correct from top to bottom
  • With Don Sebesky’s lively arrangements and a big group of musicians to play them, a good time is guaranteed for all
  • “Not only is his brilliant command of the six-string present here, so is the vivid color tones of notes and blue notes played between. Backed up by a hauntingly beautiful and mesmerizing orchestra conducted and arranged by Don Sebesky, the music almost lifts the listener off his feet into a dreamy, water-like landscape.”

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Kodaly / Hary Janos Suite / Kertesz

This is a SUPERB recording, a real sleeper in the world of audiophile pressings. The sound is as BIG, BOLD and DYNAMIC as practically any classical record you can name. And the distortion level is vanishingly small as well. 

This British pressing has an AMAZING SIDE ONE (A++) backed with an excellent side two (A+), both on very quiet vinyl.

I’m a fan of this music and here’s a pressing that really delivers. Side one of the album has the complete Suite, and with Super Hot Stamper sound this copy is guaranteed to knock you out.

One of the top Kertesz recordings on London.

Engineering

Kenneth Wilkinson engineered this album for Decca in 1965.

What makes the sound of these recordings so special is the timbral accuracy of the instruments in every section.

This is the kind of record that will make you want to take all your heavy vinyl classical pressings and put them in storage. They cannot begin to sound the way this record sounds. (Before you put them in storage or on Ebay please play them against this pressing so that you can be confident in your decision to rid yourself of their mediocrity.)

Quality record production is a lost art, and it’s been lost for a very long time.

Speakers Corner remastered the recording (seen here) in the ’90s and I believe we carried it back in the day, which means that the sound had to at least be acceptable, if not in fact very good. We played all their releases for sound and only carried the ones we thought met our standards, standards which have obviously changed radically since then.

I doubt we would care for their Heavy Vinyl LP now, but you never know, that was a long time ago.

TRACK LISTING

Side One

Hary Janos Suite

1. Prelude — The Fairy Tale Begins
2. Viennese Musical Clock
3. Song
4. The Battle and Defeat of Napoleon
5. Intermezzo
6. Entrance of the Emperor and His Court

Side Two

Dances of Galanta
Arias from Hary Janos

1. Szegeny Vagyok
2. Hej Ket Tikom

Sammy Davis Jr. – The Nat King Cole Song Book

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  • A superb sounding original stereo copy with solid Double Plus (A++) sound or very close to it on both sides – exceptionally quiet vinyl too!
  • Bigger and richer, with lovely Tubey Magic and breathy vocals, this Tri-Color Reprise pressing lets us hear Sammy at the peak of his powers performing some of Nat’s most memorable songs
  • 4 Stars: “Alongside Cole’s collaborator, Billy May, and notable jazz arranger Claus Ogerman, Davis and company turned in one of the finest and most underrated efforts.”

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Duke Ellington – Ellington ’66

  • Shootout winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound throughout and the first copy to ever hit the site!
  • This Grammy award winning title features Ellington performing some of the biggest pop hits of the day: Red Roses For a Blue Lady, I Want to Hold Your Hand, All My Loving, and more 

The album won a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance – Large Group or Soloist with Large Group. (more…)

Joan Baez / Farewell, Angelina

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Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Joan Baez

Very nice fairly original Vanguard LP with EXCELLENT SOUND.

These early Black Label Vanguard pressings are actually better in some ways than the 180 gram reissue, as good as that one is. Of course, they all vary in their sound. But listen especially to tracks two and six on the first side to hear a more natural sounding Joan.

Side two normally lacks top end and sounds dull on most of the copies I have heard. This copy is actually quite good — not perfect but a lot closer to the mark than others. Listen to the second track to hear Joan at her best. Her voice is breathy and sweet, exactly the way it should be.

This is an Older Review.

Most of the older reviews you see are for records that did not go through the shootout process, the revolutionary approach to finding better sounding pressings we developed in the early 2000s and have since turned into a fine art.

We found the records you see in these older listings by cleaning and playing a pressing or two of the album, which we then described and priced based on how good the sound and surfaces were. (For out Hot Stamper listings, the Sonic Grades and Vinyl Playgrades are listed separately.)

We were often wrong back in those days, something we have no reason to hide. Audio equipment and record cleaning technologies have come a long way since those darker days, a subject we discuss here.

Currently, 99% (or more!) of the records we sell are cleaned, then auditioned under rigorously controlled conditions, up against a number of other pressings. We award them sonic grades, and then condition check them for surface noise.

As you may imagine, this approach requires a great deal of time, effort and skill, which is why we currently have a highly trained staff of about ten. No individual or business without the aid of such a committed group could possibly dig as deep into the sound of records as we have, and it is unlikely that anyone besides us could ever come along to do the kind of work we do.

The term “Hot Stampers” gets thrown around a lot these days, but to us it means only one thing: a record that has been through the shootout process and found to be of exceptionally high quality.

The result of our labor is the hundreds of titles seen here, every one of which is unique and guaranteed to be the best sounding copy of the album you have ever heard or you get your money back.

Miles Davis – My Funny Valentine

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1965 Live Analog at its best. Present and lively with solid, full-bodied tonality, thanks to the engineering of the legendary Fred Plaut. A wonderful live performance, showcasing the more lyrical side of Miles.

Superb sound for this Columbia pressing. The bottom end is strong and full-bodied, there’s plenty of space and presence, and the tonality of the horns is right on.

The lineup on this record is fantastic, featuring George Coleman, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams. (more…)