art-best-sound

The best sounding albums by these artists.

Rod Stewart – Every Picture Tells A Story

More of the Music of Rod Stewart

  • You’ll find solid Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides of this vintage Mercury pressing
  • If you’re a fan of big drums in a big room, with jump-out-of-the-speakers sound, this is the album for you
  • The drum solo in “(I Know) I’m Losing You” is one of the best reasons any red-blooded audiophile should have big dynamic speakers, a big room, and enough power to drive them to very loud levels
  • A Top 100 album, and Rod’s best music and best recording by far – nothing can touch it
  • 5 stars: “It’s a beautiful album, one that has the timeless qualities of the best folk, yet one that rocks harder than most pop music — few rock albums are quite this powerful or this rich.”
  • f the best folk, yet one that rocks harder than most pop music — few rock albums are quite this powerful or this rich.”
  • On big speakers at loud levels, this is a Demo Disc of the highest order

This is a superb recording, and on a pressing like this, it is a Demo Disc with little competition (if you have the kind of system designed to play these sorts of records).

Not too many of our Hot Stamper titles are going to ROCK the way this one can. We put it in a class with Zep II, Sticky Fingers, Nevermind, and Back In Black — elite company to say the least. In other words, no album rocks harder.

The opening track on side one has drums that put to shame 99% of the rock drum kits ever recorded. The same is true of I Know I’m Losing You on side two. It just doesn’t get any better for rock drumming, musically or sonically. Micky Waller is brilliant throughout. Kenney Jones, who only plays on the show-stopping “(I Know) I’m Losing You”, is clearly out of his mind.

Some of the best rock bass ever recorded can be found here too — punchy, note-like and solid as a rock. If you have the system for it you are going to have a great time playing this one for your friends, audiophiles or otherwise. (more…)

Joni Mitchell – For The Roses

More of the Music of Joni Mitchell

  • With stunning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades on both sides, this early White Label Asylum pressing is practically as good a copy as we have ever heard, right up there with our Shootout Winner – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • The sound is rich, warm and natural, with wonderful immediacy to Joni’s vocals and Tubey Magic for days – this is the amazing sound of Asylum in the Seventies, a subject nobody seems to talk about but us
  • One of the best sounding Joni records, on a par with Court and Spark and Blue – fine company indeed
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The lyrics here are among Mitchell’s best, continuing in the vein of gripping honesty and heartfelt depth exhibited on Blue…. More than a bridge between great albums, this excellent disc is a top-notch listen in its own right.”

This copy has real energy and dynamics that just could not be heard on most of the pressings we played. With dynamics and the warmth and richness found here, this copy will be hard to beat.

Listen to how huge the piano is. No two copies will show you the same piano, which makes it a great test for sound. Both sides have clear, present, breathy vocals, about as good as Joni can sound on vinyl, which is saying a lot.

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Men At Work – Business As Usual

More Titles We Only Offer on Import

  • This UK import copy boasts a STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side one – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • “Who Can It Be Now” and “Down Under” are the big hits, and we guarantee you’ve never heard them sound as good as they do on this vintage pressing
  • Big and full-bodied, and much smoother than practically all others, with an abundance of energy, the sound here immediately set the sonic bar very high
  • “The production sound was low-key, but clean and uncluttered. Indeed, the songs stood by themselves with little embellishment save for a bright, melodic, singalong quality.”
  • In our opinion, Business As Usual is the band’s best sounding album, and probably the only Men at Work record you’ll ever need. Click on this link to see more titles we like to call one and done.

As a bit of background, just in case you are not familiar with the album, the domestic pressings are horrendously bright. We have never played one that didn’t sound like the treble was jacked up to a level just this side of ear-bleed.

The only way to hear this album sound right is on Australian, Dutch, British and, more than a little surprisingly, even Japanese vinyl. Yes, we have heard them all. We’ve liked about one out of every one hundred Japanese pressings we’ve played over the last twenty years. We were surprised to find that the Japanese copy of Business As Usual we played many years ago was pretty good, for what that’s worth.

(We can’t be sure that on our current system with our current ears we would feel the same.)

We tend to prefer the Brits but it seems that any import is worth a listen. The key, as always, is in the mastering and pressing.

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B.B. King – Lucille

More Electric Blues

  • Boasting solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER throughout, you’ll have a hard time finding a Lucille (the album, not the guitar) that sounds remotely as good as this vintage Bluesway pressing – impossibly quiet vinyl too, the quietest we’ve come across in twenty years of doing shootouts for this title
  • An exceptionally hard album to find with good sound, but here it is – clean, clear and spacious with a solid bottom end – qualities that bring out the best in B.B.’s Blues
  • It has taken us years to find clean copies with the right stampers for Lucille, but finally our efforts have paid off with this knockout Hot Stamper
  • “The soulful empowerment that comes from Lucille resonates vocally from Mr. King and the signature vibrato and trill of the guitar’s namesake. The album itself is a dedication to thick, yet airy blues filled with quirk and real-world relatives, staying thoroughly intimate through its production. At thirty-seven minutes, the nine-tracked record isn’t a lengthy export, but its replay value is priceless.”
  • If you’re a fan of the Mr. King, this vintage pressing of his 1968 classic surely belongs in your collection
  • The complete list of titles from 1968 that we’ve auditioned to date can be found here. As of 2026, there are about 100 or so reviews for them, most of them describing the better copies from our shootouts
  • We don’t mess around. We play all the clean copies of good titles that we can get our hands on. It’s the only way to find the hi-fidelity recordings that actually sound good — they’re the ones that were mastered and pressed properly — and you have to clean them and play them to have any hope of figuring out which are which.
  • Everything else is a guess, and we prefer not to guess. We want to know.

Lucille is by far the toughest 60s B.B. King record to find these days in audiophile playing condition. Most copies are just beat, and the ones that aren’t tend to be rare and pricey. The reason for all of the above is simple enough: it’s one of the man’s most consistently enjoyable, best sounding albums. Who can blame people for playing it to death when the music is so good?

Mobile Fidelity remastered the record in the 90s for their consistently awful Anadisq series on Heavy Vinyl, and we used to sell it, albeit somewhat reluctantly. It’s not nearly as bad as most of their catalog from the period, but I would it goes without saying that our Hot Stamper pressing will show you a Lucille that a Heavy Vinyl pressing or Half-Speed can only hint at.

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Blind Faith – Self-Titled

More of the Music of Eric Clapton

  • The band’s debut LP, here with solid Double Plus (A++) grades throughout this original UK Polydor pressing
  • 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
  • There are some bad marks (as is sometimes the nature of the beast with these Classic Rock records) on “Had to Cry Today,” but once you hear just how excellent sounding this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting ticks and just be swept away by the music
  • 4 stars: “Blind Faith’s first and last album, more than 30 years old [make that 57 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.

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?

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Paul McCartney – McCartney

More of the Music of Sir Paul McCartney

  • INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it brings McCartney’s Apple debut to life on this vintage pressing – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • It’s practically impossible to find copies of this album that sound any good, let alone this good
  • The musicality, energy and presence are right on the money, not to mention that the studio space is huge
  • On the more resolving audiophile systems of today, the ambience, three-dimensionality and transparency of the best originals are aspects of the sound that only the highest quality vintage vinyl pressings are capable, in our experience, of reproducing
  • Record Collector highlighted “Every Night,” “Junk,” and “Maybe I’m Amazed” as songs that “still sound absolutely effortless and demonstrate the man’s natural genius with a melody.”
  • A Top 100 pick and Paul McCartney’s one and only Masterpiece – a Must Own when it sounds this good
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • This is our pick for Paul McCartney’s best sounding album. Roughly 100 other listings for the Best Sounding Album by an Artist or Group can be found here.
  • A Must Own Title from 1970, a great year for rock and pop music

The best tracks here have the quality of live music in a way that not one out of a hundred rock records do. The music jumps right out of the speakers and fills up the room.

The album sounds like it’s recorded live in the studio, but of course that’s impossible, because Paul plays practically all the instruments himself! It just goes to show how good a multi-track studio recording can sound when done well.

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Gary Wright / The Dream Weaver – One and Done

More of the Music of Gary Wright

  • Outstanding sound throughout this vintage Warner Bros. pressing, with both sides earning Double Plus (A++) grades – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Big, rich and full-bodied with lovely texture to the synths and relatively little grit – these are all qualities critically important to the sound of the better copies
  • One of only a handful of copies to hit the site in nearly two years – pressings with this kind of sound are tougher to come by than you might imagine
  • 4 stars: “Backed with only drums and a wide assortment of keyboards, Gary Wright crafted instantly recognizable tunes such as the title cut and ‘Love Is Alive,’ which caught on and remain staples of classic rock stations around the U.S. … Dream Weaver hasn’t lost any of its magic over time.”
  • If you’re a Gary Wright fan, or perhaps a fan of mid-70s synth-pop, this title, a personal favorite of mine from 1975, is surely a Must Own.
  • In our opinion, Dream Weaver is the only Gary Wright record you’ll ever need. Click on this link to see more titles we like to call one and done

Keyboards and More Keyboards

An all-keyboard pop record like this was a rarity at the time. The only other instruments besides drums (and one track with guitar) are keyboards. Every song is layered with multi-tracked clavinets, organs, and Moogs – it was a remarkable feat in 1975 to create an album with nothing but keys. Listen to the title track, the most dynamic song on the record, and you will hear just how well all of those stacked keyboards and synths work together. (Steve Winwood’s Back in the High Life borrowed a page or two from Gary’s solo debut here.)

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Jeff Beck – Truth

More of the Music of Jeff Beck

  • A vintage reissue pressing of Beck’s debut LP with two killer Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sides, just shy of our Shootout Winner – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Easily – and by a wide margin – the best sounding record Jeff Beck ever made – thanks, Ken Scott!
  • This pressing embodies the “big rock sound” that we go crazy for here at Better Records
  • Really fun music – it’s a blast to hear Rod Stewart fronting such a heavy rock band
  • Problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these Classic Rock records – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • 5 stars: “…almost as groundbreaking and influential a record as the first Beatles, Rolling Stones, or Who albums.”

These Nearly White Hot Stamper pressings have top-quality sound that’s often surprisingly close to our White Hots, but they sell at substantial discounts to our Shootout Winners, making them a relative bargain in the world of Hot Stampers (“relative” meaning relative considering the prices we charge). We feel you get what you pay for here at Better Records, and if ever you don’t agree, please feel free to return the record for a full refund, no questions asked.

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Michael McDonald / If That’s What It Takes – His Masterpiece of Blue-Eyed Soul

More Blue Eyed Soul

  • An original Warner Bros. pressing with very good Hot Stamper sound from start to finish
  • One of the All Time Great Jeff Porcaro Drum Exhibition Records (with the equally amazing Steve Gadd handling the other tracks)
  • Some of the best Pop Rock engineering of all time, courtesy of Lee Herschberg and Donn Landee
  • 4 1/2 stars on AllMusic – more importantly, this is a dramatically better album than anything the Doobies ever released

I’m proud to count Michael McDonald among my favorite recording artists. He made this Desert Island Disc and single-handedly turned the Doobie Brothers into a band I could enjoy and even respect. This is a Must Own if you like the later Doobies, and the kind of highly-polished but heartfelt and intelligent pop records the major labels excelled at in the 70s.

With the right pressing, the highs open up and his vocals jump out of the speakers. He’s right there. The next step is to check to see if you have punchy, well-defined bass, a key element in this rhythmically complex music. With plenty of presence in the vocals and punch down below, you have a copy that can hold its head high, with sound that really brings this music to life.

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Love – Da Capo

More of the Music of Love

  • This vintage Gold Label pressing was doing practically everything right, with both sides earning killer Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • The recording quality here is big, rich and Tubey Magical, with lovely breathy vocals and a massive bottom end – thanks, Bruce Botnick!
  • The first Love album is without a doubt the punchiest, liveliest, most powerful recording in the Love catalog (all three albums of it).
  • “… a truly classic body of work, highlighted by the atomic blast of pre-punk rock ‘7 and 7 Is’ (their only hit single), the manic jazz tempos of ‘Stephanie Knows Who,’ and the enchanting ‘She Comes in Colors,’ perhaps Lee’s best composition (and reportedly the inspiration for the Rolling Stones’ ‘She’s a Rainbow’).”

These Nearly White Hot Stamper pressings have top-quality sound that’s often surprisingly close to our White Hots, but they sell at substantial discounts to our Shootout Winners, making them a relative bargain in the world of Hot Stampers (“relative” meaning relative considering the prices we charge). We feel you get what you pay for here at Better Records, and if ever you don’t agree, please feel free to return the record for a full refund, no questions asked.

If you’re looking to demonstrate just how good 1967 All Tube Analog sound can be, this killer copy will do the trick. This Gold Label pressing is spacious, sweet and positively dripping with ambience. Talk about Tubey Magic, the liquidity of the sound here is positively uncanny. This is vintage analog at its best, so full-bodied and relaxed you’ll wonder how it ever came to be that anyone seriously contemplated trying to improve it. (more…)