big-spkr

What Do You Hear on the Best Pressings of Quadrophenia?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Who Available Now

They just plain ROCK HARDER than the other copies we play. Yes, they’re bigger. Yes, they have more weight and whomp down low. Yes, they are smoother and more natural up top.

But what really sets them apart is their tremendous ENERGY. The music explodes out of the speakers and comes to life on the best copies of Quadrophenia like few records you have ever heard. When we find more of that kind of power and energy on a record than the others in our shootout, all other things being equal, we have a name for them: White Hot Stampers.

It’s what you’re paying for — and what you get — for the kind of money we charge.

Dynamics and Energy

The sine qua non of rock records is that they rock. The rock records that earn the highest grades here at Better Records are usually the ones that have the most energy and power.

Transparency, Presence, Clarity, Tubey Magic, Sweetness and other favorites of audiophiles are important qualities in a record, but all of them pale in comparison to raw power when it comes to rock and roll.

For us, a transparent, sweet, lifeless record is just no fun, hence our disdain for Heavy Vinyl, which in our experience almost always lacks energy, along with lots of other things of course.

We like the Big Speaker sound

This means the sound must be dynamic, immediate and full-range. Small speakers, screens and their ilk can do some nice things, but they don’t move much air. They fail to convey the true sense of the power, the “liveness,” of a recording the way dynamic drivers can (assuming of course the drivers are big enough and you have enough of them).

Room treatments play a vitally important role here. Untreated or poorly treated listening rooms constantly fight the speakers’ efforts to play louder without distortion.

The room is the bottleneck, yet because room problems are rarely identified as such, rarely is any effort undertaken to help solve them.

(more…)

Gino Vannelli, Big Speakers and The Amazing SP3A-1 Preamp

Rock Records that (Potentially) Sound Amazing on Big Speakers at Loud Levels

At one time Storm at Sunup was easily my favorite Gino Vannelli album. When it came out in 1975 I immediately fell in love with the music and put it into heavy rotation on my turntable (a phrase that had not been invented yet but perfectly describes how easy it is to become obsessed with an album).

It was one of a group of recordings that made me want to pursue higher quality equipment, hoping that any improvement in playback would allow the music to sound even bigger and more exciting.

It was pretty damn big and exciting already, but I wanted more. 

Right around that time I got my first tube preamp, the Audio Research SP3A-1, which replaced a Crown IC-150. As you can imagine, especially if you know the IC-150 well, playing this album through that state-of-the-art tube preamp was a revelation.

From that point on there was no going back. I started spending all my money on (what I took to be) better and better equipment and (often mistakenly) better records by the score. That was fifty plus years ago and I haven’t stopped yet. [Not so much now that I’m retired, but you get the point.]

Even at the age of 21 I wanted to pursue Big Systems driving Big Speakers.

You need a lot of piston area to move enough air to bring the dynamics of a recording like this to life, and to get the size of all the instruments to match their real life counterparts, or at least to seem to, this being a multi-track studio recording.

For that you need big speakers in big cabinets, the kind I’ve been listening to for more than fifty years. (My last small speaker was given the boot around 1973 or so.)

To tell you the truth, the Big Sound is the only sound that I can enjoy. Anything less is just not for me, mostly because the music I love demands the big sound, whether the listener is aware of that fact or has anything like the system required to reproduce it.

With few exceptions, the records that helped us improve our playback required big speakers that could play at loud volumes.

(more…)

Cat Stevens Wants to Know How You Like Your Congas: Light, Medium or Heavy?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Cat Stevens Available Now

During the shootout for this record a while back [the late 2000s would be my guess], we made a very important discovery, a seemingly obvious one but one that nevertheless had eluded us for the past twenty plus years (so how obvious could it have been?).

It became clear, for the first time, what accounts for the wide disparity in ENERGY and DRIVE from one copy to the next. We can sum it up for you in one five letter word, and that word is conga.

The congas are what drive the high-energy songs, songs like Tuesday’s Dead and Changes IV.

Here is how we stumbled upon their critically important contribution.

We were listening to one of the better copies during a recent shootout. The first track on side one, The Wind, was especially gorgeous; Cat and his acoustic guitar were right there in the room with us. The transparency, tonal neutrality, presence and all the rest were just superb. Then came time to move to the other test track on side one, which is Changes IV, one of the higher energy songs we like to play.

But the energy we expected to hear was nowhere to be found. The powerful rhythmic drive of the best copies of the album just wasn’t happening. The more we listened the more it became clear that the congas were not doing what they normally do. The midbass to lower midrange area of the LP lacked energy, weight and power, and this prevented the song from coming to LIFE the way the truly Hot Stampers can and do.

Now I think I understand why. Big speakers are the only way to reproduce the physical size and powerful energy of the congas (and other drums of course) that play such a big part in driving the rhythmic energy of the song.

(more…)

A Few Quick Thoughts on Correctly Sized Instruments

More Unsolicited Audio Advice

Something I rarely take time to write about on this blog is the sizing of instruments.

Some speakers — typically those with smaller drivers — create images of instruments that are too small, smaller than you would picture them in your mind if you were sitting in the audience with your eyes closed.

Other speakers — typically screens of one kind or another — produce larger-than-life images of instruments and vocalists. In the 70s, I heard a lot of screens and full-range electrostats — these come to mind, and there were plenty of others like them, Magneplanars and the like — but the images never seemed right-sized or real enough to be taken seriously.

I opted for a big dynamic system in the mid-70s and over the course of the next fifty years never heard anything that would give me reason to doubt that choice.

(more…)

In the Market for New Speakers? See How Well They Handle the Energy of Far More Drums

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Dave Brubeck Available Now

The drum solo Joe Morello lets loose on Far More Drums is one of the best on record. I was playing that song recently and it occurred to me that it is practically impossible for a screen or panel speaker of any design to reproduce the sound of those drums properly, regardless of how many subs you have.

Most of the music is not in the deeper bass anyway. It’s the whack of instruments whose energy is in the lower midrange and mid-bass that a screen speaker will struggle with.

A good large-driver dynamic speaker fed by fast electronics can handle the energy in that range with ease.

This is the album you need to take with you next time you head to your local stereo store to audition speakers.

It will help clarify the issues. Screen speakers do many things well, but drums are not one of them, at least in my experience they aren’t. If drums are important to you, do yourself a favor and buy a dynamic speaker, the bigger the better.

brubeck in the studio733

Time Further Out, like most of the classic Brubeck albums, is a big speaker record. It requires a pair of speakers that can move air with authority below 250 cycles and play at fairly loud levels. If you don’t own speakers that can do that, this record will never really sound the way it should.

(more…)

Find a Copy with Drums that Punch Through the Mix on Fleetwood Mac’s Greatest Hits

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Fleetwood Mac Available Now

Many pressings are compressed, murky, veiled and recessed. To find one that is transparent, clear, present and punchy is no mean feat.

Proper cleaning is essential. The early Orange label CBS pressings (the only ones that have the potential to win shootouts) too often just sound like old records until they have been properly cleaned.

There are two tracks to play to hear how well the drums punch through the mix.

Mick Fleetwood is banging the hell out of his toms on Black Magic Woman. If it doesn’t sound like he’s really pounding away, you need a better copy.

Or a better stereo; one must always be open to the possibility that the system may not be up to reproducing the punchiness of the drums.

(more…)

Every Picture Tells a Story Is a Big Speaker Recording Par Excellence

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Rod Stewart Available Now

I Know I’m Losing You rocks as hard as any song from the period, with Demo Disc sound.

If you have a system with big dynamic speakers and can drive them to seriously loud listening levels, you will be blown away by the power of this recording.

You know what album this one has the most in common with? Nirvana’s Nevermind.

Every Pictures Tells a Story is the Nevermind of its day, twenty years earlier.

It has that kind of power in the bass and drums. Off the charts energy too.

But it also has beautifully realized acoustic guitars and mandolins, something that virtually no recording for the last twenty years can claim. In that sense it towers over Nevermind, an album I hold in very high esteem. 

If you’re a fan of big drums in a big room, with jump out of the speakers, live-in-the-studio sound, this is the album for you.

The opening track on side one has drums that put to shame 99% of the rock drums 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.

Some of the best rock bass ever recorded can be found here too — punchy, note-like and solid as a rock. Got big dynamic speakers? A concrete foundation under your listening room? You are going to have a great time playing this one for your audiophile friends who have screens or little box speakers. Once they hear what big well-recorded drums can sound like on speakers designed to move air, they may want to rethink their choices.

(more…)

In the Market for New Speakers? See How Well They Handle the Fat Snare on Dreams

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Fleetwood Mac Available Now

Rumours is a record that is good for testing your speakers’ lower midrange and mid-bass reproduction.

What do the best copies of Rumours have that the also-rans don’t?

Lots and lots of qualities, far too many to mention here, but there is one you should pay special attention to: the sound of the snare.

When the snare is fat and solid and present, with a good “slap” to its sound, you have a copy with weight, presence, transparency, energy — all the analog stuff we adore about the sound of the best copies.

Now if your speaker is not capable of getting the snare to sound that way, perhaps because you have screen speakers or a small boxed design, or a lousy copy of the album (anything without KP in the deadwax), this is still a handy test. Next time you are on the hunt to buy new speakers, see which ones can really rock the snare.

That’s probably going to be the speaker that can do justice to Rumours, and The Beatles, and Zuma, and lots of other favorite records of ours, and we hope favorites of yours too.

The speaker you see to the left is probably not the right kind of speaker for a record such as Rumours. Three 6.5 inch woofers are just not going to be enough to get that snare to sound big and fat.

Here are some other records that are good for testing the sound of the snare drum.

(more…)

This Is Why We Love Pablo in the 70s

Hot Stamper Pressings of Pablo Recordings Available Now

For years we have been including the followinig commentary in our Hot Stamper listings for Farmers Market Barbecue:

Musically FMB is a top Basie big band title in every way. This should not be surprising: many of his recordings for Pablo in the 70s and early 80s display the talents of The Count and his band at their best.

Sonically there’s more to the story. Based on our recent shootout for this title, in comparison to the other Basie titles we’ve done lately, we would have to say that FMB is the best Basie big band title we’ve ever played.

Since so many Basie big band recordings are so good, we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves; after all, we haven’t done shootouts for all of Basie’s Pablo large group recordings. To be safe we’ll just call this one first among equals.

Having recently done another shootout, our first in two and a half years, we would have to say that the album still sounds every bit as amazing as we thought it did when we wrote the above comments more than fifteen years ago.

Our notes for a shootout winning copy get right to the heart of what makes the recording so special.

For those who might have trouble reading our scratch, allow me to transcribe what Riley, our main listening guy, heard and noted as he played the two sides of this copy.

(more…)

Letter of the Week – “These records are all making clear that I need bigger speakers. Much bigger. Twice the size.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Cat Stevens Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:

Goddamit Tom, these records are all making clear that I need bigger speakers. Much bigger. Twice the size. In a bigger room, with treatments. Your stuff makes the path forward very clear. They need the dynamics I’m sure you’re getting. I can hear what is missing.

I don’t know if that’s a good thing, since I was generally unaware of this previously, and can’t afford that level of upgrade for a while.

We’re talking a few years out to buy a house (we’re in an apartment on the corner of the building over a garage, so no neighbor noise problems but the room is only 15×14.5 with average height ceilings) and some big upgrades.

Dear Sir,

You and I seem to be on the same page. The vast majority of audiophiles never get to the higher levels because of all the compromises they make in their rooms, speakers, wires and everything else. They end up with a collection of crap heavy vinyl because their systems don’t let them hear what is really going on with the best vintage pressings.

Call it a breakthrough of a sort. The long road ahead is an expensive one, but I’ve always been of the belief that the money you spend on audio — if you do it right — rewards you a hundred times over in listening pleasure, and it does so for as long as you live, which I hope is many more decades, at least.

These are records that need to be played loud. Until you have a bigger room and bigger speakers, they are not going to be easy to get to sound right.

I ended up building a playback studio that is 17 by 22 with a 12 foot high ceiling, a concrete slab floor and six inch thick double drywall for walls, and dedicated electrical circuits, but it took a lot of work to get it to sound right.

Oddly enough, what made the biggest difference was getting the electricity right: computers and cleaning machines on isolation transformers, stuff unplugged, stuff left plugged in that made the sound better, lights hooked up to batteries rather than plugged in to the main circuits, etc.  Night and day better that way. (More on unplugging here.)

This work is not hard for me, I’ve been doing it for decades, but you have one advantage over everyone else: you have good sounding records to test with.

You have Hot Stampers! The records are correct. If they sound wrong, it’s not their fault. They are not the problem. (more…)