1969-best

Bob Dylan – Nashville Skyline

More Bob Dylan

More Country Rock Recordings

  • Here is a vintage Stereo 360 pressing of Nashville Skyline (the first copy to hit the site in thirteen months) with an INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side one mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side two
  • We guarantee this copy will blow your mind, and blow every other copy you have ever played out of the water, or your money back
  • “Lay Lady Lay,” “To Be Alone With You,” “I Threw It All Away,” “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You” are true country-rock standards
  • 5 stars: “It’s a warm, friendly album, particularly since Bob Dylan is singing in a previously unheard gentle croon — the sound of his voice is so different it may be disarming upon first listen, but it suits the songs.”
  • This is a Must Own Dylan classic from 1969 that belongs in every right-thinking audiophile’s collection

Problems to Watch For

Some of the more common problems we ran into during our shootouts were slightly veiled, slightly smeary sound, with not all the top end extension that the best copies have.

You can easily hear that smear on the guitar transients; usually, they’re a tad blunted and the guitar harmonics don’t ring the way they should.

These problems are just as common to the 360 label original Columbia pressings as they are to the later red label LPs. Smeary, veiled, top-end-challenged pressings were regularly produced over the years. They are the rule, not the exception.

360 Issues

I’m fairly amazed at how bad most 360 pressings sound. Many of them are as dull as dishwater. The top end is rolled off and there is very little presence in the midrange. Often the first track of either side will sound good, but the following tracks are dullsville.

If you think that buying an original of this record guarantees you top quality sound I’m here to tell you it does not. Not unless you are lucky and actually end up with a record that was properly mastered and pressed. These I have found are not as common as most audiophiles and record collectors think.

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Free / Tons Of Sobs – A Classic of British Blues

More Free

More British Blues Rock


  • Tons of Sobs returns to the site for only the second time in over two and a half years, here with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER from top to bottom – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Side one was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be shocked at how big and powerful the sound is
  • This Island Pink Rim UK pressing gave us what we were looking for from these British Blues rockers – it’s smooth, weighty, and overflowing with Tubey Magical richness
  • The key is to find a copy with a top end — a lot of what we played was just too dull up high, and we take a lot of points off for the copies that are too smooth, because that is simply not the right sound for this album
  • It’s tough to find these imports in audiophile condition, which is why they only hit the site at most every two years or so
  • 4 1/2 stars: “…a blistering combination of youth, ambition, and experience that, across the course of their debut album, did indeed lay the groundwork for all that Zeppelin would embrace. …Tons of Sobs has a density that makes Zeppelin and the rest of the era’s rocky contemporaries sound like flyweights by comparison.”

Here is just the kind of sound you want on an album like this — big and bold!

If you’ve got the full range dynamic speakers to play Tons of Sobs good and loud, you will discover, as we have, what a powerful British Blues Rock album this is. No hits, just heavy electric blues played with feeling, months before Zeppelin would come along and take the genre to a whole new level.

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Santana’s Debut Is a Masterpiece

More Santana

More Debut Albums of Interest

  • A superb Columbia 360 Label pressing of Santana’s debut album with Double Plus (A++) sound on both sides
  • The drums have real snap to them – fast, clean percussion is critical to the energy and drive of Santana’s music and this copy has the top end and the speed to bring it all together
  • A Must Own album, clearly their masterpiece, and one of the truly groundbreaking debuts in rock history
  • It’s also a personal favorite that knocked me out when I first heard it back in high school – over the decades it has become even more impressive, especially these days with the revolutions in cleaning and playback quality letting it sound as big and bold as it does
  • “Santana combined Latin rhythms with jazz-inspired improvisation, hard-rock guitar and lyrical, B.B. King-style blues – and even had a hit single, “Evil Ways. The combination of rock guitar and funk percussion was undeniable.” – Rolling Stone
  • 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 of an accent on morbidity and more on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. Santana’s first album is a good example of a record many audiophiles may not know well but should.

Santana’s first album came out of nowhere and rocked in a way that few music lovers (especially those who knew nothing about Tito Puente) had heard before.

In one sense it had something in common with Led Zeppelin’s debut from early in 1969. Zep’s first album took the blues and added heavy metal guitars. Santana took African and Latin rhythms and added his own style of heavy guitar.

Each is a landmark recording in its own right. It’s hard to imagine any collection of popular music that would be without both.

Folks, you owe it to yourself to hear what a great band Santana were back in the day. Hot Stampers of any of the first three records will do the trick. If you’ve got the stereo that can play loud rock and roll, we’ve got the records that sound like Santana playing live in your listening room. Take it from someone who likes to listen to his music at fairly loud levels, Santana’s first album is truly a thrill. (more…)

The Band – Self-Titled

More of The Band

More Roots Rock LPs

  • A killer copy of an absolutely essential album with Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades on both sides – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • One of the most difficult albums to find great sound for, but the music makes it worth all the time and trouble we spent finding this outstanding copy
  • Huge amounts of deep bass (something that only the best Robert Ludwig-mastered original pressings can offer), meaty guitars and silky vocals make this pressing of The Band’s second album a very special listenng experience indeed
  • Problems in the vinyl, especially for this title, are sometimes the nature of the beast with vintage LPs – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of analog is important to you
  • 5 stars: “As had been true of the first album, it was the Band’s sound that stood out the most… The arrangements were simultaneously loose and assured, giving the songs a timeless appeal…”

The lucky person who takes this record home is in for quite a shock. This very pressing is proof positive that this album is much better recorded than the audiophile community gives it credit for being. How could anyone judge the sound of the record without a great copy such as this one to play?

This vintage pressing has no trace of phony sound from top to bottom. It’s raw and real in a way that makes most pop records sound processed and wrong. These two sides have plenty of the qualities we look for in an album by The Band. Energy, presence, transparency, Tubey Magic… you name it, you will find it here. Its biggest strength — and the biggest strength of the album as a whole — is its wonderful, natural midrange.

And the bass is huge. On the better copies it always is.

Drop the needle on “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” or “King Harvest Has Surely Come” and get ready for some serious Analog Magic. This is The Band’s second album like you have never heard it before.

Overview

This copy has superb space in the midrange — it was wider, deeper and clearer than practically all of the Robert Ludwig originals we played (which are, of course, the only way to go on this album). Few copies were this full-bodied, solid, meaty and rich, yet clear. It was so tubey, never dry, unlike more copies than we care to remember.

Despite what anyone might tell you, it’s no mean feat to find good sounding copies of this record. There are good originals and bad originals, as well as good reissues and bad reissues. Folks, we’ve said it many times — the label can’t tell you how a record sounds, but there’s a sure way to find out that information. You’ve got to clean ’em and play ’em to find out which ones have Hot Stampers, and we seem to be the only record dealers who are doing that, in the process making unusually good pressings like this one available to you, the music-loving audiophile.

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The Beatles – 1967-1970

More of the Music of The Beatles 

  • With KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades on all FOUR sides, this vintage 2-LP compilation set from 1973 is certainly as good a copy as we have ever heard
  • Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this amazing copy in our notes: “weighty and rich and jumping out [of the speakers]”…”silky and upfront vox”…”massive…no veil” (side three)”…”natural and rich”…”no smear or boost” (side four)”
  • These import pressings are rich, smooth and sweet, with plenty of Tubey Magic and little of the grain and grunge of others (and don’t get us started on the domestics)
  • You get clean, clear, full-bodied, lively and musical analog sound from first note to last
  • Twenty-seven(!) incredible songs, including “Penny Lane,” “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds,” “All You Need Is Love” – and that’s just side one
  • 4 1/2 stars: “As a précis of the group’s final 36 months, it’s all mightily impressive…”
  • Not many compilation albums offer top quality sound, but this one does, and here are some others

This is a wonderful sounding import 2-LP set. We are on record as finding the British pressings of 1967-1970 too bright; certainly most of them are anyway.

(The original domestic pressings, as anyone who has ever played one can attest, mastered at Sterling no less, are absolutely godawful.)

Like most compilations, some songs sound better than others, but “Don’t Let Me Down” and “Come Together” are two that really stand out here. For those of you out there who have never tried one of our Hot Stamper Beatles records, this may be the best sound you’ve ever heard from them. The CDs — even the new ones — sure don’t sound like this!

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Creedence Clearwater Revival – Willy and the Poor Boys

More of the Music of Creedence Clearwater Revival

More Rock Classics

  • Both sides of this early pressing were giving us the big and bold sound we were looking for, earning stunning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • Whatever you do, don’t waste your money on the awful Heavy Vinyl remasters of CCR’s albums that Acoustic Sounds commissioned – they are so wrong they should make your head ache
  • Features “Down On The Corner,” “Fortunate Son,” “Midnight Special,” and more, and we guarantee you’ve never heard them sound as good as they do on this vintage copy
  • 5 stars: “…a fun record, perhaps the breeziest album CCR ever made. Fogerty’s rage remains, blazing to the forefront on “Fortunate Son,” a working-class protest song that cuts harder than any of the explicit Vietnam protest songs of the era, one of the reasons that it hasn’t aged where its peers have. Also, there’s that unbridled vocal from Fogerty and the ferocious playing on CCR…”
  • This is a Must Own album from 1969, one that deserves a place in any audiophile collection’s pop and rock section, especially for fans of roots rock

The Virtues of Shootouts

The story of our recent shootout is what real progress in audio is all about.

Many copies were gritty, some were congested in the louder sections, some never got big, some were thin and lacking the lovely analog richness of the best — we heard plenty of copies whose faults were obvious when played against two top sides such as these. The best copies no longer to seem to have the problems we used to hear all the time.

Of course the reason I hadn’t heard the congestion and grittiness in the recording is that two things changed. One, we found better copies of the record to play — probably, can’t say for sure, but let’s assume we did, and, Two, we’ve made lots of improvements to the stereo since the last time we did the shootout.

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The Fifth Dimension – The Age of Aquarius

More of The Fifth Dimension

More Sixties Pop

  • A vintage pressing that was doing pretty much everything right, with both sides earning excellent Double Plus (A++) grades – EXCEPTIONALLY quiet vinyl too
  • Tubey Magical sweetness and richness is key, and here you will find plenty of both, with virtually no sacrifice in presence, clarity or resolution
  • You can thank legendary engineer and producer Bones Howe, the man behind the amazing recordings of The Association, The Turtles and even the likes of Tom Waits(!)
  • 4 stars: “The Age of Aquarius, the 5th Dimension’s fourth album, was the group’s commercial peak… The 5th Dimension were the successors to the L.A. vocal group mantle passed on by The Mamas and the Papas… their work had a sheen and a zest that sometimes contrasted with the original tone of the material.”

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The Paul Butterfield Blues Band – Keep On Moving

More Butterfield Blues Band

More Electric Blues

  • A KILLER sounding copy with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from start to finish
  • Forget whatever dead-as-a-doornail Heavy Vinyl record they’re making these days – if you want to hear the Tubey Magic, size and energy of this wonderful album, a vintage Elektra stereo pressing is the only way to go
  • “People who liked Butter long ago usually don’t like what he’s become. I’ve only dug him over the past two years and I think he just gets better and better. This record, vocally oriented and produced by Jerry Ragavoy, is his best yet, hard-driving and very tight. ” – Robert Christgau (A)

I would have never guessed this band’s records could sound so good! We’ve been trying to find good sound for the Butterfield Blues Band for years, and we lucked into a very hot Red Label Elektra pressing here. There’s serious weight down low, nice extension up top, tons of Tubey Magic and surprising transparency to be found. Good luck finding better sound for this kind of bluesy rock and roll!

My favorite thing about the sound here is how three-dimensional it is. You get real depth to the soundfield and lots of separation between the various parts. With so many musicians doing their thing, it’s essential to be able to make sense of what each guy is going. It really added to my appreciation of the music.

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Joe Cocker – Joe Cocker!

More Joe Cocker

  • Consistently stronger material than his debut – did Cocker ever release an album with more good songs than this one?
  • Take a gander at this track listing: “Dear Landlord,” “Bird on the Wire,” “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window,” “Something,” “Delta Lady,” “Darling Be Home Soon” – and there’s plenty more where those came from
  • Records like these are getting awfully hard to find these days in audiophile playing condition, which explains why you so rarely see them on the site
  • 4 stars: “Cocker mixed elements of late-’60s English blues revival recordings (John Mayall, et al.) with the more contemporary sounds of soul and pop; a sound fused in no small part by producer and arranger Leon Russell, whose gumbo mix figures prominently on this eponymous release and the infamous Mad Dogs & Englishmen live set.”
  • This is a Must Own album from 1969, one that should have a place in any audiophile collection’s pop and rock section

This is a surprisingly good recording. Cocker and his band — with more than a little help from Leon Russell — run through a collection of songs from the likes of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and the Beatles, and when you hear it on a White Hot Stamper copy it’s hard to deny the appeal of this timeless music.

This album is a ton of fun, with Cocker and his band putting their spin on some of the best songs of the era. You need energy, space and full, rich, Tubey Magical sound if this music is going to sound right, and on those counts these copies deliver. (more…)

Blind Faith – Self-Titled

More Eric Clapton / More Steve Winwood

  • The band’s debut LP is back on the site, here with killer Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades throughout this original UK Polydor pressing – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • From the moment we dropped the needle and heard all that fluffy, correct-sounding tape hiss, we knew we were in for a treat – the sound on both sides is punchy, open, spacious, big, bold, and alive!
  • If you doubt this record can sound as good as you remember from back in the day, assuming you are an old goat like me, this pressing will be a revelation
  • 4 stars: “Blind Faith’s first and last album, more than 30 years old [make that 55 years old] and counting, remains one of the jewels of the Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, and Ginger Baker catalogs. . . it merges the soulful blues of the former with the heavy riffing and outsized song lengths of the latter for a very compelling sound unique to this band.”
  • If you’re a Classic Rock fan, this band’s debut from 1969 is an absolute Must Own, especially when it sounds as good as this copy does

Here is the Blind Faith you’ve been waiting for: Tubey Magical, transparent, full of life and energy — dear friends, it’s all here. And the vinyl is some of the quietest we’ve ever heard for this album.

Sick of buying one harsh, thin, distorted, veiled, closed-in, smeary LP after another in a vain attempt to find a copy that reminds you of why you LOVED this record so much when it came out back in 1969?

(Assuming you’re as old as I am; we had the 8 track tape that could play in the car and the house — music was so convenient back then. Of course I had the domestic original vinyl – I was 15 years old, I had never seen an import record in my life.)

This is no audiophile made-from-the-master-tape snake oil. This is the real thing. This copy is guaranteed to blow the bad memories of all those other versions you’ve owned right out of your memory banks.

A short list of the pretenders: the MoFi LP and Gold CD, the Simply Vinyl LP, the new Heavy Vinyl version if there is one, and anything else that comes out from here until the end of time.

Face it: It’s all JUNK compared to a record like this.

Why mince words? We’ve played all those records (except for the bad ones that have yet to be pressed of course). (more…)