art-best-sound

The best sounding albums by these artists.

Spandau Ballet – True

More Spandau Ballet

More Pure Pop Recordings

  • Boasting two surprisingly rich and natural – dare we say Analog? – sides, this early UK Chrysalis pressing had the sound we were looking for on the band’s third studio album
  • Forget the dubby domestic pressings and 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 Brit Pop album, an import pressing like this one is the only way to go
  • “… a set of tunes aimed squarely at the charts. The one that succeeded most spectacularly, of course, was the title cut, a glossily-updated Motown-style ballad that became one of the decade’s biggest hits – aided by a video that cast singer Tony Hadley as a young Frank Sinatra, crooning about the sound of his soul.”
  • This is clearly the band’s best sounding album. Roughly 150 other listings for the best sounding album by an artist or group can be found here on the blog
  • In our opinion, True is the only Spandau Ballet record you’ll ever need. Click on this link to see more titles we like to call one and done

Forget the dubby domestic pressings. Like so many British bands on the Chrysalis label, when it came time to master the album for our domestic market, not theirs, the people in charge (whoever they may have been) took the easy way out and simply ordered up a dub of the tape to send across the pond.

Too many wonderful albums by highly accomplished bands had their records ruined by sub-generation masters. (Ruined for audiophiles. The general public couldn’t care less.)

But this is the real British-pressed vinyl from the real master tape, and that makes all the difference in the world. It has the kind of Tubey Magical midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce.

Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound.

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Deep Purple – Machine Head

More of the Music of Deep Purple

  • This UK import pressing was doing just about everything right, with both sides earning seriously good grades
  • Amazingly spacious and three-dimensional, no doubt the result of the album being recorded practically live in the studio – the sound is HUGE, with real energy, presence and whomp
  • Their superbly talented engineer, Martin Birch, recorded the big, bold, rich, smooth sound of British Rock about as well as anyone ever did
  • 5 stars: “Machine Head was anything but a one-trick pony, introducing the bona fide classic opener “Highway Star,” which epitomized all of Deep Purple’s intensity and versatility while featuring perhaps the greatest soloing duel ever between guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and organist Jon Lord.”
  • It’s our pick for the band’s best sounding studio album. Roughly 150 other listings for the best recording by an artist or rroup can be found here.

When you get a Hot Stamper pressing like this one, Machine Head is a True Rock and Roll Demo Disc. Since our stereo is all about playing these kinds of records, and playing them at good loud levels as nature — and the artists — intended, we had a helluva time with Machine Head.

It had the kind of presence and energy that puts most copies of this album to shame. It’s also amazingly spacious, the result no doubt of it being recorded practically live in the studio. On the best copies, you can really hear the sound bouncing off the studio walls, just as you can on the best Zep, AC/DC and Bad Co. albums. You can just tell they are all playing this one live: it’s so relaxed and natural and REAL sounding.

The vocalist is surely in a booth, but everyone else seems to be in a lively studio. With lovely extension up top, this was a very sweet copy that cried out to be turned up good and loud. The louder we played it the better it sounded.

The best pressings give you exactly what you want from this brand of straight-ahead rock and roll: presence in the vocals; solid, note-like bass; big punchy drums, and the kind of live-in-the-studio energetic, clean and clear sound. (AC/DC is another band with that kind of live studio sound. With big speakers and the power to drive them YOU ARE THERE.)

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Led Zeppelin / Led Zeppelin II

More of the Music of Led Zeppelin

  • An incredible copy of Zep II with killer sound from start to finish – this one is guaranteed to rock your world like no other!
  • The sound is freakishly good – we created a Top Ten list just to put this album on it
  • Years ago we gave up on everything but these killer RL (and SS) pressings, because nothing else can hold a candle to them
  • With copies selling for $1000+ on ebay, sometimes $3000+, we’re forced to pay big bucks for Zep II these days, but if any album is worth it — to us and our customers — it’s this one
  • A Must Own Zep classic from 1969 that belongs in every right-thinking audiophile’s collection
  • It’s our pick for the band’s best sounding album. Roughly 150 other listings for the Best by an Artist or Group can be found here.

At least 80% of the copies we buy these days — for many, many hundreds of dollars each I might add, more than a grand on occasion — go right back to the seller. The biggest problem we run into besides obvious scratches that play and worn out grooves is easy to spot: just play the song “Thank You” at the end of side one. Most of the time there is inner groove damage so bad that the track becomes virtually unlistenable.

It’s become a common dealbreaker for the records we buy on the internet. We get them in, we play that track, we hear it distort and we pack the record up and send it back to the seller.

UPDATE 2023

This was true ten years ago, but we have since found better sources for our copies. The sellers we tend to buy from know not to send us groove-damaged, scratched copies. Something closer to 20% get returned now.

But this copy plays clean all the way to the end on both sides — assuming you have a highly-tweaked, high-performance front end of course.

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Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66 – Stillness

More Sergio Mendes

More Bossa Nova

  • An excellent A&M pressing of this incredibly well-recorded and criminally-overlooked LP with Double Plus (A++) grades from top to bottom
  • We have a devil of a time finding copies that play this quietly and have no major issues — here one is, and I don’t know when we will have another
  • Side two of the best sounding copies will always be out of polarity – for those of you who cannot reverse your polarity, we should have some excellent second-tier copies on the site
  • The soundfield has a three-dimensional quality that will absolutely blow you away (assuming you have big speakers and like to turn them up good and loud)
  • Wonderfully present and breathy vocals from the lovely ladies in Sergio’s band – they provide most of the audiophile  appeal (and all of the sex appeal), and we know of nothing else like them on record
  • A permanent member of our Top 100 and Demo Disc par excellence
  • 4 stars: “Stillness is a concept album — the title tune opens and closes it in moody stillness — and a transition piece all at once…. Overlooked in its day, Stillness is the great sleeper album of Sergio Mendes’ first A&M period.”
  • This is a Must Own album from 1970, which just happens to be a great year for rock and pop music, maybe the greatest of them all

We figure we’re about due for a thank you note from Mr. Mendes, because we’ve turned a huge number of audiophiles into die-hard fans of this album. It’s easy to see why when you play a copy that sounds like this. All of the qualities we look for on this album are right here.

If you are looking for DEMO DISC QUALITY SOUND with music every bit as wonderful, look no further — this is the record for you.

If I had one song to play to show what my stereo can really do, “For What It’s Worth” on a Hot Stamper copy would probably be my choice. I can’t think of any material that sounds better. It’s amazingly spacious and open, yet punchy and full bodied the way only vintage analog recordings ever are. This one being from 1970 fits the bill nicely.

Side two of this album can be one of THE MOST MAGICAL sides of ANY record — when you’ve got a killer copy. I don’t know of any other record like it. It seems to be in a class of its own. It’s an excellent test disc as well. All tweaks and equipment changes and room treatments must pass the Stillness test.

To fail to make this record sound better is to fail completely. The production is so dense, and so difficult to reproduce properly, that only recently have I begun to hear just how good this record can sound. There is still plenty to discover locked in these grooves, and all of us here at Better Records enthusiastically accept the challenge to find all the sounds that Sergio created in the studio, locked away in the 50+ year old vinyl.

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The Grateful Dead – American Beauty

More Grateful Dead

More Hippie Folk Rock

  • The acoustic guitars are magical on this copy, and you won’t believe how wonderfully breathy and sweet these guys’ voices sound
  • American Beauty is one of Stephen Barncard‘s greatest recording achievements – the richness and clarity are really something here
  • A 5 star Top 100 album – “A companion piece to the luminous Workingman’s Dead, American Beauty is an even stronger document of the Grateful Dead’s return to their musical roots. American Beauty remains the Dead’s studio masterpiece.”
  • A permanent resident of our Top 100 rock and pop list — no other album by the band is as well recorded
  • Roughly 100 other listings for the best sounding album by an artist or group can be found here.

This is a longtime Better Records favorite for both music and sound. For those of you who love acoustic guitar-driven folk songs — we call it hippie folk rock — you should find a lot to like about the sound of this album.

Tubey Magical Acoustic Guitar reproduction is superb on the best Hot Stamper pressings. 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).

All the Elements Finally Come Together

All of the elements necessary to take this music to an entirely new level are here, my friends: smooth, sweet vocals; rich, meaty bass; an open and airy top end; top-notch presence and so forth. The sound is so spacious and transparent that you can easily pick out each of the instruments and follow them over the course of the songs.

You could choose any track you wanted to and find lovely sound here, but I’d recommend “Ripple” and “Attics Of My Life” for starters. Most copies suffer from a glaring lack of highs, but just listen to the ride cymbals on this one to find out that the top end is still alive and well here.

The Dead At Their Best

The crowning glory of the Grateful Dead, their MASTERPIECE. Albums like this come along once in a band’s life — if they’re lucky. This is the zenith of the Grateful Dead. Workingman’s Dead is a good album. American Beauty is a great one.

If you don’t have a great-sounding copy yet, it’s time to get on the bus. Stephen Barncard is the recording engineer responsible for this album, Deja Vu, Brewer, and Shipley’s Tarkio, and a host of other amazingly rich, sweet and natural, mostly acoustic recordings that stand head and shoulders above the bulk of their contemporaries. American Beauty is one of them.

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Coltrane / Hartman – John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman

More John Coltrane

  • An incredible copy of this classic Jazz Vocal album, with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it from start to finish
  • Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this killer copy in our notes: “very big and rich and weighty”…”piano and vox jump out [of the speakers]”…”so spacious and sweet”…”present and lively”
  • We had been working on this title for at least five years and had been coming up short time and again, with bad sound and bad vinyl on most of what we’d been buying
  • Five years ago we cracked the code for the right stampers to look for, and we had hoped to do shootouts for this wonderful album on a more regular basis, but that turned out to be a pipe dream
  • They are ridiculously hard to come by, so ridiculously hard that we would be surprised if it doesn’t take another five years to get this shootout going again
  • The sound is huge and spacious with richness and Tubey Magic like nothing you’ve heard
  • I defy anyone to name a Male Vocal record produced in the last forty years that can hold a candle to this one, sonically or musically
  • A wonderful collaboration between a horn player and a singer, perhaps the greatest of all time
  • 5 stars: “John Coltrane’s matchup with singer Johnny Hartman works extremely well. Hartman was in prime form on the six ballads, and his versions of ‘Lush Life’ and ‘My One and Only Love’ have never been topped. Classic, essential for all jazz collections”
  • 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,” with an accent on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman is a good example of a record many audiophiles may not know well but would be well advised to get to know better.

This could very well be the greatest collaboration between a horn player and a singer in the history of music.

I honestly cannot think of another to rank with it. Ella and Louis has the same feel — two giants who work together so sympathetically it’s close to magic, producing definitive performances of enduring standards that have not been equaled in the fifty plus years since they were recorded. And, on the better copies, or should we say the better sides of the better copies, RVG’s sound is stunning. (His mastering, not so much.)

Hats off to Rudy Van Gelder! Here’s an album that justifies his reputation. Not all of them do, you know — or should know — but try telling that to the average jazz-loving audiophile. (more…)

The Byrds / Younger Than Yesterday Sure Sounds Better than It Used To

More Sixties Pop Recordings

  • An original Stereo 360 pressing (the first copy to hit the site in years) with an INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side one mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side two
  • Here are just a few of of the things we had to say about this amazing Triple Plus side one in our notes: “big and tubey vox & bass”…”great size and energy”…”jumping out [of the speakers]”…”crazy good”
  • The sound is Tubey Magical, lively and dynamic, with exceptional transparency and immediacy
  • We’re always blown away at just how much further the better copies are able to take the music – what a difference the right pressing makes
  • Until we hear something better — a possibility we would never rule out — this is The Byrds’ best sounding album
  • In our experience, no red label reissue is even worth the trouble of cleaning and playing it. Some Byrds records have the potential to sound good on the red label, but this is not one of them
  • 5 stars: “Younger Than Yesterday was somewhat overlooked at the time of its release during an intensely competitive era that found the Byrds on a commercial downslide. However, time has shown it to be the most durable of the Byrds’ albums… David Crosby, Roger McGuinn, and especially Chris Hillman come into their own as songwriters on an eclectic but focused set blending folk-rock, psychedelia, and early country-rock.”

Back in 2019 we had this to say about the best sounding copy from the shootout we had just done:

Most Byrds’ records are far from audiophile demo discs. However, what the best originals give you is relatively good sound.

This album will never sound as good as Abbey Road. Keeping that rather obvious point in mind, as I listened to this copy the thought that went through my mind is that this tape had been mastered about as well as it could be.

It’s tonally correct from top to bottom; the frequency extremes are there; and the vocals have a silky, sweet quality to them (when they haven’t been bounced down too many times of course).

Do you know how you can tell when you’re listening to a properly mastered record? It’s very simple. You find yourself getting into the music. Liking songs you never used to like. When music sounds right, it bypasses the intellect and goes straight to the emotional center.

You can analyze these recordings until you’re blue in the face but ultimately it all comes down to this: Do you want to hear the whole album? Do you want to turn it up? If the answer to those two questions is yes, you have a great record. This pressing gets two yeses.

As you can see from the rave at the top of this listing, now the best copy from the shootout we just did in 2024 sounds great! (Yes, it only took us five years to find enough clean 360 label pressings to get another shootout going.)

How did that happen?

Who knows. We just keep working on improving the system using blind faith as our guide.

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Simply Red – Picture Book

More Simply Red

More Debut Albums of Interest

  • This original import pressing of the band’s Masterpiece boasts superb Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides
  • Big, spacious and clear, but also remarkably analog-sounding, with the kind of fullness and richness that’s so rare on records from this era – if you’re a fan of this music, this is the copy for you
  • Even more surprising is how dynamic the best pressings can be — the best are Demo Discs in that respect
  • “Holding Back the Years” was the big hit (#1), but what really sold me on the album was the band’s cover of The Talking Heads’ “Heaven” – not an obvious choice, and a truly inspired one
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The band finds a steady R&B groove reminiscent of ’60s Stax house band the MG’s, and, as with the MG’s, it’s all in the service of a big-voiced soul singer, in this case a British redhead.”
  • If you’re a fan of the band’s, this classic from 1985 belongs in your collection.

Finally, Analog Sound for this wonderful music. The average copy of this album may sound like you’re playing a CD, but not this one. Here is the warmth and richness and depth you didn’t know you could find on Simply Red’s Masterpiece (assuming you were even looking). That flat, opaque, dry CD sound that we all love to hate is nowhere to be found on this pressing.

The domestic pressings can be good, but they sure don’t sound like this killer import.

A recording from 1985 is unlikely to have the Tubey Magic and warmth of an old Columbia. Let’s be serious, the 1980s –- unlike the three decades that preceded them — were not known for the naturalness of their recordings. A few would make our Top 100 list (Let’s Dance springs to mind) but the pool of available candidates is shallow, not wide and deep like that of the decades before, in which so many records sound so good we could not begin to squeeze them into a list limited to merely one hundred. Two hundred would easily make the cut, maybe more.

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Deep Purple – Made In Japan

More Recordings Engineered by Martin Birch

  • Get ready to rumble! This UK copy (one of only a handful to hit the site in over a year) boasts INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on all FOUR sides
  • Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this killer copy in our notes: “huge and tubey and weighty”…”great detail and powerful”…”leaping out [of the speakers]”…”big, transparent and rich”…”extended from top to bottom”
  • A phenomenally well-recorded album that’s a true Demo Disc on an exceptional pressing such as this
  • Turn it up and you will hear sound that is incredibly powerful and natural with amazing presence, energy and weight down low
  • Rolling Stone: “They’ve done countless shows since in countless permutations, but they’ve never sounded quite this perfect.”
  • If you’re a fan of the band, this title from 1972 is clearly one of their best

Having just played a stack of copies of Made In Japan, I’d put the album right up there with the best sounding live albums of all time.

In terms of Tubey Magic, richness and naturalness — qualities that are usually in very short supply on live albums — I would have to say that the shootout winning copies of Made In Japan would be very likely to take Top Honors for Best Sounding Live Album of All Time.

Yes, the sound is that good.

Machine Head Live? That would not be far off, and the fact they brought Martin Birch along with them all the way to Japan in order to engineer a live album that was only supposed to sell to the Japanese market (!) could not have been more fortuitous for us audiophiles.

Machine Head is clearly one of the best sounding hard rock records ever made, and Made In Japan, its successor, sounds more like a top quality studio production than any live album I’ve ever heard. It’s shocking how clean and undistorted the sound is. Equally shocking is the fact that it’s every bit as big and lively as a Hard Rockin’ Live Album should be.

This is a combination the likes of which we have never heard.

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Gene Ammons – Blue Gene OJC-192

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Saxophone

  • Blue Gene returns to the site after a nearly two year hiatus, here with INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them from start to finish, and pressed on fairly quiet vinyl
  • One of the best sounding Ammons records we know of – it’s huge, rich and Tubey Magical, with a solid bottom end and bluesy jazz energy like no other
  • Clean and clear and open are nice qualities to have, but rich and full are harder to come by on this record – this pressing has it all
  • The original pressings we’ve played were astonishingly bad — those of you who are interested can go to the blog in the coming weeks to read all about just how awful they can sound
  • “Some ballad performances in his oeuvre are a testament to an exceptional sense of intonation and melodic symmetry, powerful lyrical expressiveness, and mastery both of the blues and the bebop vernacular that can now be described as, in its own way, ‘classical.'”

For us audiophiles, both the sound and the music here are wonderful. If you’re looking to demonstrate just how good a 1958 All Tube Analog recording by Rudy Van Gelder on Prestige can sound, this killer copy will do the trick.

This pressing is super 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.

This IS the sound of Tubey Magic. No recordings will ever be made like this again, and no CD will ever capture what is in the grooves of this record. There is, of course, a CD of this album, but those of us who possess a working turntable and a good collection of vintage vinyl could care less.

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