boxes

The Three / Self-Titled (45 RPM)

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Piano

  • Amazing sound throughout this Japanese import pressing, with both sides earning KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them
  • The transients are uncannily lifelike – listen for the powerful kinetic energy produced when Shelly whacks the hell out of his cymbals
  • My favorite piano trio jazz album of all time — every one of the tracks is brilliantly arranged and performed
  • 4 stars: “One of Joe Sample’s finest sessions as a leader” – with Shelly Manne and Ray Brown, we would say it’s clearly his finest session, as a leader or simply as the piano player in a killer trio
  • Some of the other records we’ve discovered with top jazz piano sound can be found here
  • More amazing sounding piano recordings, of every kind of music, can be found here

If you want to hear the full six tunes recorded by The Three at that famous Hollywood session (which ran all day and long into the night, 4 AM to be exact), our 33 RPM pressings are your best bet.

If you want absolutely amazing, mind-blowing, you-are-there sound, a Hot Stamper 45 is the only way to go.

The music is so good that I personally would not want to live without the complete album. The Three is, in fact, my favorite piano trio jazz album of all time. Very one of those six tracks is brilliantly arranged and performed (if you have the right takes of course; more about that later).

This album checks off a number of important boxes for us here at Better Records:

(more…)

On Super Session, Tonally Correct Vocals Are Key

More Music Produced or Performed by Al Kooper

Most copies have bright, gritty, spitty, edgy, harsh, upper-midrangy vocals.

The Red Labels tend to have more problems of this kind, but plenty of original 360 pressings are gritty and bright too. Let’s face it, if the vocals are wrong, this album pretty much falls apart.

Most copies are far too bright and phony sounding to turn up loud. At higher volumes the distortion and grit are just too much.

On the better copies, the one with more correct tonality and an overall freedom from distortion, you can turn the volume up and let Super Session rock.

Man’s Temptation, track 3 on side one, has got some seriously bright EQ happening (reminiscent of the first BS&T album), so if that song even sounds tolerable in the midrange, you are doing better than expected.

We’re Big Fans

Super Session is an album we think we know well, one that checks off a number of boxes for us here at Better Records:

(more…)

Advances in Playback Technology Are More Than Blind Faith

More of the Music of Eric Clapton

In a 2007 commentary for a Hot Stamper pressing of Blind Faith we noted that:

When it finally all comes together for such a famously compromised recording, it’s nothing less than a THRILL. More than anything else, the sound is RIGHT. Like Layla or Surrealistic Pillow, this is no Demo Disc by any stretch of the imagination, but that should hardly keep us from enjoying the music. And now we have the record that lets us do it.

The Playback Technology Umbrella

Why did it take so long? Why does it sound good now, after decades of problems? For the same reason that so many great records are only now revealing their true potential: advances in playback technology.

Audio has finally reached the point where the magic in Blind Faith’s grooves is ready to be set free.

What exactly are we referring to? Why, all the stuff we talk about endlessly around here. These are the things that really do make a difference. They change the fundamentals. They break down the barriers.

You know the drill. Things like better cleaning techniques, top quality front end equipment, Aurios, better electricity, Hallographs and other room treatments, amazing phono stages like the EAR 324p, power cables; the list goes on and on.

If you want records like Blind Faith to sound good, we don’t think it can be done without bringing to bear all of these advanced technologies to the problem at hand, the problem at hand being a recording with its full share of problems and then some.

Without these improvements, why wouldn’t Blind Faith sound as dull and distorted as it always has? The best pressings were made more than thirty years ago [thirty? make that fifty] — they’re no different.

(more…)

Listening for Harmonically Correct Acoustic Guitars on America’s Debut

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of America Available Now

The guitars on this record are a true test of stereo fidelity. As it says below, most of the pressings of this record do not get the guitars to sound right. They often sound veiled and dull, and on a copy with a bit too much top end they will have an unnatural hi-fi-ish sparkle.

This kind of sparkle can be heard on many records Mobile Fidelity made in the ’70s and ’80s. Tea for the Tillerman, Sundown, Year of the Cat, Finger Paintings, Byrd at the Gate, Quarter Moon in a 10 Cent Town — the list of MoFis with sparkling acoustic guitars would be very long indeed, and these are just the records with prominent acoustic guitars!

Three Roses and Rainy Day

The key song on side one that we use to test is Three Roses. There are three sonically-separated individuals each playing six string acoustic guitars, and when this side is cut right the guitars sound just gorgeous: sweet, with all their harmonic structures intact. (It’s also my favorite song on side one.)

The real test on side two is the song Rainy Day. Lots of guitars, and when the close-miked descending guitar figure comes in after the first few couplets, if it’s too bright, you’re going to know it. This song is the hardest one to cut and almost never sounds right. Some copies are cut JUST RIGHT. The vocals are breathy, the guitars are full-bodied, and the overall sound is airy, open, and spacious.

(more…)

Domestic Pressings of Clear Spot? Forget ‘Em!

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Captain Beefheart Available Now

We did this shootout many years ago, so many years ago that I cannot find a record of it.

I remember we thought the German pressings were perhaps a bit boosted on both ends and not as natural sounding as the domestic pressings.

After a multitude of improvements in our cleaning and playback, we would agree with our previous understanding that the German pressings are often wrong, but now we also know how right the right ones can be.

It turns out tha some German pressings are not particularly good, another piece of the puzzle that fell into place during our most recent shootout, as painful as that turned out to be considering the money wasted on them.

Did we have the bad German stamper pressings last time around? Who knows?

The producer, Ted Templeman, (Doobie Brothers, James Taylor) brought his mainstream talents to bear on this music, and when the Captain’s free-form tendencies smashed into Templeman’s conservatism, the result was this musical supernova — out there, but not too far out there.

(Play Trout Mask Replica sometime if you miss that feeling from your old hippie days of being on acid. With that music, drugs are entirely superfluous.)

I don’t know how many audiophiles like Captain Beefheart, probably not too many, but if you’re ever going to try one of his albums, this is the place to start: his masterpiece.

(more…)

Steely Dan – Can’t Buy A Thrill

More Steely Dan

Reviews and Commentaries for Can’t Buy a Thrill

  • Big, bold, rich, Tubey Magical sound for this Steely Dan classic, with two solid Double Plus (A++) or BETTER sides
  • Side one was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be shocked at how big and powerful the sound is
  • After doing so many shootouts over the years, and hearing the guitars and vocals jumping out of our speakers right into our listening room, we now find the recording a lot more to our liking than we used to
  • A surprisingly difficult record to find these days with good sound and audiophile quality playing surfaces
  • If you made the mistake of buying the Speaker Corner reissue from 2000, this is your chance to hear the record with all the energy that this band put into their debut, the kind of energy and presence the remastering engineers took out!
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Walter Becker and Donald Fagen were remarkable craftsmen from the start, as Steely Dan’s debut illustrates. Each song is tightly constructed, with interlocking chords and gracefully interwoven melodies, buoyed by clever, cryptic lyrics.”
  • Two of the key instruments we test for with on album are the piano and the snare, and we break it all down for you here
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Walter Becker and Donald Fagen were remarkable craftsmen from the start, as Steely Dan’s debut illustrates. Each song is tightly constructed, with interlocking chords and gracefully interwoven melodies, buoyed by clever, cryptic lyrics.”

“Dirty Work” sounds great here — rich and sweet mids, breathy brass, and lots of texture to the vocals. This track often sounds dull and dubby, but it’s actually just a case of the mix being smoother than most of the other songs on the album. If this track sounds smooth, and the other songs sound right, the tonality is correct for the whole side because that’s what the better copies sound like.

Flip the record over and the good times begin all over again. Elliot Randall’s guitar on “Reeling In The Years” has the meaty texture and uncanny presence to take the song to an entirely new level.

“Fire In The Hole” is dynamic with real weight to the piano, and the double-tracked vocals on “Turn That Heartbeat Over Again” sound rich and poppy the way they should.

(more…)

Steely Dan – Testing for Energy with Green Earrings

More of the Music of Steely Dan

The first two tracks on side two tell you everything you need to know about the sound. Most copies are going to be aggressive. There’s an edge to Fagen’s vocals. It’ll become especially apparent when the backing vocals come in on the line “The rings of rare design.”

If the sound is too midrangy and edgy, you simply do not have a good copy. You will probably not find the experience particularly enjoyable. Rather than getting lost in the music, you may find yourself wondering what the fuss was all about when this classic album came out.

On a musical note, it’s songs like this one and the two that follow that make me realize how energetic an album this is. It’s actually the last high energy album Steely Dan made, second only in that respect to Countdown To Ecstasy.

Here are more of our favorite records for testing energy.

Regarding the importance of energy in the pressings we audition, this commentary on Zuma may be of interest.

Here are a couple of hundred other albums with specific advice on what to listen for.

Checking the Boxes

The Royal Scam is an album we’ve been playing since 1976, and we think we know it well,

It checks off a number of key boxes for us here at Better Records:

(more…)

Listening in Depth to Deja Vu

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Crosby, Stills, Nash and (Sometimes) Young

DEJA VU is an album we admit to being obsessed with — just look at the number of commentaries we’ve written about it. It’s yet another in the long list of rock and pop records that really come alive on big speakers at loud levels .

One obvious reason that our turn up your volume is such a good test is that the louder the problem, the harder it is to ignore.

Presenting another entry in our extensive listening in depth series with advice on what to listen for as you critically evaluate your copy of Deja Vu. Here are some albums on our site you can buy with similar track by track breakdowns.

Side One

Carry On

This song is a great test for the quality of the vocals. If you can get through the first part of the song with little to no strain in the voices, you’re on the right track.

The bass on this track always lacks a measure of definition, but you’ll know by track three if your bass is solid enough to set the foundation this music requires to really get going. Carry On has a huge number of overdubs, so it will never have very high resolution, but on a Hot Stamper copy like this one it can sound wonderful.

Teach Your Children 
Almost Cut My Hair

One of the key test tracks we use for side one, this is the only time Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young actually sounds like a rock and roll band. According to Stephen Barncard this was recorded live in the studio. It sure sounds like it. The amount of energy the band generates on this track exceeds all the energy of the first album put together.

The reason this track presents such a tough test is that it has to be mastered perfectly in order to make you want to turn it up as loud as your stereo will play. This song is not for sipping wine and smoking cigars. It positively cries out to be played at serious volume levels on monstrously large speakers. Nothing else will do justice to the power of the band’s one and only live performance.

(more…)

A Big Group of Musicians Needs Big Speakers to Sound This Big

Hot Stamper Percussion Records Available Now

At times this record really sounds like what it is: a bunch of guys in a big room beating the hell out of their drums and singing at the the top of their lungs. You gotta give RVG credit for capturing so much of that energy on tape and transferring that energy onto a slab of vinyl.

Of course this assumes that the record in question actually does have the energy of the best copies. It’s also hard to know who or what is to blame when it doesn’t, since even the good stampers sound mediocre most of the time. Bad vinyl, worn out stampers, poor pressing cycle, it could be practically anything.

Fingers is one of our all time favorite records, a real Desert Island Disc to be sure. I’ve been playing this album for more than thirty years and it just keeps getting better and better. Truthfully, I have to admit it’s the only Airto record I like. I can’t stand Dafos, and most of the other Airto titles leave me cold.

I think a lot of the credit for the brilliance of this album has to go to the Fattoruso brothers, who play keyboards, drums, and take part in the large vocal groupings that sing along with Airto. 

(more…)

For the Best Sound, Stick to the 360s on Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme

More of the Music of Simon and Garfunkel

More superb sound from the legendary CBS 30th street studios in New York!

This album checks off some big boxes for us here at Better Records.

Turn up the volume, turn down the lights, and you’ll have one of the best — if not THE best — folk duos of all time performing right there in your listening room for you. The sound is open, spacious, and transparent with breathy vocals and unusually low levels of spit. The strings are more dynamic than we’re used to hearing and the bottom end has really nice weight to it.

These old Simon & Garfunkel records weren’t often owned by audiophiles who kept their records in pristine condition. 

No, these were the popular records of their day, purchased by the record-buying public, and they were played and played hard, typically on cheap equipment. There are many quiet passages on this album that are going to reveal whatever surface issues might exist, so a copy that plays Mint Minus Minus is about as good as you can hope for.

Since only the right vintage 360 pressings have any hope of sounding good on this album, that will most often be the playing condition of the copies we sell.

(more…)