big-drums-in-a-big-studio

These records have big drums which sound like they are being played in a big studio.

Big speakers playing at loud levels are the only way to hear just how exciting and powerful sound like that can be.

Cat Stevens – Mona Bone Jakon

More of the Music of Cat Stevens

  • Incredible sound throughout this UK Island pressing of Cat Stevens’s brilliant third album, with both sides earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them
  • So transparent, open, and spacious, nuances and subtleties that escaped you before are now front and center
  • When you play “I Wish, I Wish” and “I Think I See The Light” on this vintage pressing, we think you will agree with us that this is one of the greatest Folk Rock albums of them all
  • One of the most underrated titles on the site – you owe it to yourself to see just how good the album that came out right before Tillerman can be when it sounds this good
  • 4 stars: “A delight, and because it never achieved the Top 40 radio ubiquity of later albums, it sounds fresh and distinct.”

So many copies excel in some areas but fall flat in others. This side one has it ALL going on — all the Tubey Magic, all the energy, all the presence and so on. The sound is high-rez yet so natural, free from the phony hi-fi-ish quality that you hear on many pressings, especially the reissues on the second label.

Right off the bat, I want to say this is a work of GENIUS. Cat Stevens made three records that belong in the Pantheon of greatest popular recordings of all time. In the world of Folk Pop, Mona Bone Jakon, Teaser and the Firecat and Tea for the Tillerman have few peers. There may be other Folk Pop recordings that are as good but we know of none that are better.

Mike Bobak was the engineer for these sessions from 1970. He is the man responsible for some of the best sounding records from the early ’70s: The Faces’ Long Player, Rod Stewart’s Never a Dull Moment, The Kinks’ Lola Versus Powerman And The Moneygoround, Part One, (and lots of other Kinks albums), Carly Simon’s Anticipation and more than his share of obscure English bands (of which there seems to be a practically endless supply).

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 the richness, body and harmonic coherency that have all but disappeared from modern recordings (and remasterings). (more…)

10cc – The Original Soundtrack

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  • With two seriously good Double Plus (A++) or BETTER sides, you’ll have a hard time finding a copy that sounds remotely as good as this vintage UK import
  • Superb clarity and energy, solid down low, silky up top, and as huge as any recording you’ve ever heard
  • A Top 100 Album and a real sonic blockbuster on a copy that sounds as good as this one does
  • “Musically there’s more going on than in ten Yes albums, yet it’s generally as accessible as a straight pop band… 10cc is among the few groups actively engaged in stretching rock’s restrictive boundaries in a constructive and meaningful manner, without falling prey to pretense or excess.” – Rolling Stone

The recording itself is a Tour De Force, one reason I’ve been demonstrating my stereo with it for more than thirty years. The extended suite that opens side one, One Night in Paris, has ambience, sound effects, and incredibly dynamic multi-tracked vocals at its climax that will make your jaw drop.

Reinventing The Wall of Sound The Right Way

This is the kind of record that makes you sit up and take notice. It’s classic 10cc everything-but-the-kitchen-sink “Wall of Sound” sound (minus the Phil Spector distortion), the kind big speaker guys like me live for.

Supertramp; Yes; Ambrosia; Blood, Sweat and Tears; Zeppelin; Bowie — to this day I’m a sucker for the Cinerama soundstage these musicians liked to play on. It’s one of the reasons I was the proud owner of the Legacy Whisper speaker system for close to ten years, with its eight fifteen inch woofer complement. You need that kind of piston power to produce The Really Big Sound with Super Low Distortion at Really High Levels. The louder the better.

We now have a pair of highly modified Focuses set up in our listening room. Three twelves per channel moves a fair amount of air too, and can do it with much less power, so that the system has much more resolving power than the Whispers could manage.

We’re CRAZY About This Album

This was my first 10cc album, and I fell in love with it completely. Used to play it all the time. “Une Nuit a Paris,” the suite that opens side one, is just an phenomenal Demo Quality track. As you may have read elsewhere on the site, it’s the kind of sound that a big powerful stereo reproduces well. Even back in 1975 I had speakers nearly as tall as I was that weighed 300 pounds apiece (the famous Fulton J!), so playing a record like this was just a thrill.

It still is. I still love it. And I recommend it highly to those of you who are fans of the band. If you don’t know who 10cc are, this album and this band may not make much sense to you, but if you have an open mind and like Art Rock from the 70s, you may end up falling for it the way I did all those years ago.

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Jennifer Warnes – Famous Blue Raincoat

More of the Music of Jennifer Warnes

More of the Music of Leonard Cohen

  • A Demo Disc quality pressing of this longtime audiophile favorite with solid Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last
  • Turn this one up good and loud (which you can do when the sound is right) and you’ll have a living, breathing Jennifer Warnes singing her heart out right in front of you
  • The space, resolution, and clarity here are wonderful – for evidence, just listen to the rosiny texture on the strings behind the “Song of Bernadette”
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The high point may have been the Warnes-Cohen duet on ‘Joan of Arc,’ but the album was consistently impressive.”

We’re big fans of this album here at Better Records. It’s the only thing Jennifer Warnes ever did that we would consider a Must Own recording or Desert Island Disc. In my humble opinion, it’s clearly both.

This copy showed us the Famous Blue Raincoat Magic we know and love. The drums are big and punchy with plenty of WHOMP and the sound of skins being thwacked. Jennifer’s voice is clear and breathy. If you know the record well you will surely be amazed at just how good this music can sound on a pressing as hot as this one.

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Led Zeppelin – Presence

More of the Music of Led Zeppelin

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  • Massive amounts of Zeppelin rock and roll energy on this copy, with both sides earning INSANELY GOOD Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades
  • Here is a pressing with the power, the dynamic contrasts, the low end WHOMP, as well as the in-the-room midrange presence (pun only slightly intended) you’ve been waiting for
  • Featuring a stripped down, harder rock sound, Presence really benefits from the outstanding bottom end found on this early LP
  • “Presence has more majestic epics than its predecessor, opening with the surging, ten-minute ‘Achilles Last Stand’ and closing with the meandering, nearly ten-minute ‘Tea for One.'”

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Our 2024 Shootout Winner of Mac’s Greatest Hits Was Amazing Sounding

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Fleetwood Mac Available Now

With a KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side one, this vintage British import is doing practically everything right.

Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this incredible copy in our notes: “big and tubey and weighty”…”lots of space and detail”…”sweet and breathy vox”…”jumping out of the speakers.”

Big, rich, energetic, with an abundance of analog Tubey Magic, this original Orange Label UK pressing has exactly the right sound for this music.

“Oh Well, Parts One and Two,” “Black Magic Woman,” “Man of the World,” and the surprise Number One single “Albatross” are all here and guaranteed to blow your mind.

Peter Green is hands down our favorite British Blues Guitarist of All Time – play this record and you will surely see why we feel that way.

This is a lot of money for a somewhat noisy copy, but the sound is so awesome and quiet pressings of the album so hard to come by that we hope someone will take a chance on it and get the thrill we did from hearing it sound right for once.

We’ve recently compiled a list of records we think every audiophile should get to know, 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.

If you’re a fan of Fleetwood Mac, this copy is guaranteed to blow your mind. Like all the best vintage British pressings, the sound is smooth, rich and full.

This is Old School ANALOG, baby. They don’t make ’em like this anymore because they don’t know how to.

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Blood, Sweat & Tears – Self-Titled on the 70s Red Label

More of the Music of Blood, Sweat and Tears

  • Here is a superb Red Label copy of BS&T’s self-titled LP with Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it throughout
  • The sound is huge, rich, dynamic and powerful (particularly on side two) – BS&T is a permanent member of our Top 100 and a Demo Disc par excellence
  • This is Roy Halee‘s engineering masterpiece, and here’s the kind of pressing that, given the right equipment, room, and setup, really makes our case (also particularly on side two)
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Their finest moment and a testimony to the best of the jazz/rock movement … The album is bold, brassy and adventurous.”

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Dave Brubeck Quartet – Time Further Out on 360

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Reviews and Commentaries for Time Further Out

  • Excellent sound throughout this black print 360 Stereo pressing, with both sides earning Double Plus (A++) grades – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • It’s bigger, richer, more Tubey Magical, and has more extension on both ends of the spectrum than most other copies we played
  • This copy demonstrates the big-as-life Fred Plaut Columbia Sound at its best – better even than Time Out(!)
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The selections, which range in time signatures from 5/4 to 9/8, are handled with apparent ease (or at least not too much difficulty) by pianist Brubeck, altoist Paul Desmond, bassist Eugene Wright, and drummer Joe Morello on this near-classic.”

Time Further Out is consistently more varied and, dare we say, more musically interesting than Time Out.

If you want to hear big drums in a big room, these Brubeck recordings will show you that sound better than practically any record we know of. These vintage recordings are full-bodied, spacious, three-dimensional, rich, sweet and warm in the best tradition of an All Tube Analog recording.

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Cat Stevens – Tea For The Tillerman on the Island Pink Rim Label

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More Reviews and Commentaries for Tea for the Tillerman

 

  • This early Pink Rim Island UK pressing of TFTT, an album we consider the Pinnacle of British Folk Rock, boasts two excellent Double Plus (A++) sides
  • The emotional power of the songs is communicated completely on a pressing that sounds like this one – the experience will be like hearing the album for the first time, and how can you put a price on that?
  • Here’s your chance to relive the experience of hearing this groundbreaking album for the first time, but with much better sound than you ever thought possible
  • 5 stars on Allmusic, a stunning Demo Disc, and a permanent member of the Better Records Top 100

Hearing this Hot Stamper is a privilege that affords the listener insight into Cat Stevens’ music that is simply not possible any other way.

This album, I hope it goes without saying, is one of the greatest Folk Rock recordings of all time, the kind of music that belongs in any collection. I’ve been playing this album for 40+ years and I can honestly say I’ve never once tired of hearing it. I do get tired of hearing bad copies.

Cat’s mixes are full of subtle elements that may require many listening sessions over the course of years, even decades, to recognize and appreciate. Consider them an extra reward for having played the record so many times. I’ve played hundreds of copies over the last thirty-plus years and never tired of it once. As every music lover knows, the best albums only get better with time.

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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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War / Why Can’t We Be Friends? – Amazing Demo Disc Sound

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This Well Recorded Album Should Be More Popular with Audiophiles

  • A vintage copy (only the second to hit the site in over two and a half years) that was doing just about everything right, earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades from top to bottom
  • The best song this band ever recorded, “Don’t Let No One Get You Down,” is on side one we guarantee you’ve never heard it sound better
  • WCWBF is one of our favorite albums here at Better Records and clearly the band’s masterpiece – the bass and dynamics on the better pressings make this a Demo Disc on a big system
  • 4 stars [but we give it 5]: “Cut from the same cloth as the band’s 1973 Deliver the Word LP, War’s 1975 Why Can’t We Be Friends? is a masterpiece in its scope and breadth. [It] remains one of War’s truly outstanding efforts, and has become an integral part of the funk genre’s landscape. It also remains the nightcap of their finest hour.”
  • This is a Must Own title from 1975, a great year for popular music of all kinds
  • 1975 was an exceptionally good year for music — here are some other excellent pressings of well-recorded albums available now

Engineered by the brilliant Chris Huston, this recording displays all his trademark gifts. His mixes feature lots of bass; huge, room-filling choruses that get loud without straining or becoming congested; and rhythmic energy that few pop recordings could lay claim to in 1975.

“Low Rider” sounds awesome on this one. This is the kind of record you can take to any stereo store or audiophile friend’s house and bring their stereos to their knees. Audiophile systems are rarely designed to play this kind of music at the levels it demands, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be. Records like this are the challenge we audiophiles need to make our stereos even better. When the music is this good, it’s worth the effort.

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