Robert Brook has a blog which he calls
A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE
Below you will find a link to the shootout Robert recently conducted for Thelonious Monk’s amazing Brilliant Corners album on OJC.
Further Reading
brook-shootout
Robert Brook Shoots Out One Flight Up
Hot Stamper Pressings of Blue Note Albums Available Now
Hot Stamper Pressings of Rudy Van Gelder Recordings Available Now
We have never heard the Tone Poets pressing that Robert played against the Van Gelder cutting he discusses in the commentary below.
We have one in stock and are just waiting to do the shootout for the album so that we can compare it to the better pressings we know we will find.
You may have read that we were knocked out by a killer copy way back in 2007. We expect to be no less knocked out in 2023.
Robert concludes with his take on the strengths and weaknesses of the two pressings. Here is a excerpt:
Overall, the Tone Poet is closed, distant and frankly boring to listen to. Where is the energy of the music? Where is the presence of these musicians? Where is the studio space?
He goes on in much more detail, but this is exactly the kind of sound we hear on one Heavy Vinyl pressing after another. For some reason, none of these shortcomings appear to bother the fans of the label. I get why this guy is missing the boat: he actually thinks a system with five inch woofers can play jazz. What excuses do these other people have? [1]
The complete review can be found below. If you are considering following the crowd and buying some of this label’s albums, you might want to take it slow. (Those of you with five inch woofers can charge right ahead. The sonic problems with the Tone Poets releases Robert Brook describes would barely be audible on such a system, so get while the gettin’s good. Just make sure you are never tempted to upgrade to big speakers. You could find yourself in the unfortunate position of needing a new record collection to go along with them. Unlike Tone Poets releases, good records ain’t cheap.)
Dexter Gordon’s ONE FLIGHT UP: One of the Better TONE POETS?
[1] This is rhetorical question. These other folks have no excuses. They have exactly the sound quality they have earned by underutilizing the two most important audio resources they have at their disposal: time and money.
If they have failed to put in enough of either one or both, they have only themselves to blame for letting themselves be fooled by the chalatans currently marketing one meretricious [2] Heavy Vinyl pressing after another.
If they decide to remedy this sad state of affairs, we are more than happy to guide them in the new and exciting direction we’ve pioneered over the course of the last twenty years or so. The advice we give in the commentary below would be a good place to start:
For another 60+ pieces of record collecting advice, more than enough to keep anyone busy for months, perhaps years, please click here.
[2] To save you the trouble of looking it up, Merrian-Webster defines meretricious as apparently attractive but having in reality no value or integrity. Used to suggest pretense, insincerity, and cheap or tawdry ornamentation.
For a deeply meretricious release of recent vintage (OBI strip!, custom booklet!, premium heavy vinyl!, fold-open cover!), see The Cars on Rhino. The only thing left out of the package was a good sounding LP.
Further Reading
Robert Brook and I Discuss His Revolver Shootout on Youtube
One of our good customers, Robert Brook, writes a blog which he calls
A GUIDE FOR THE BUDDING ANALOG AUDIOPHILE
He has now started a youtube channel and he invited me to talk about records for about an hour or so.
Please to enjoy.
Quick tip: set the playback speed at 1.25, 1.5 or 1.75, the conversation will still be intelligible and a lot shorter!
Robert Brook Discusses His Youtube Shootout Video
Hot Stamper Pressings of Revolver Available Now
More Reviews and Commentaries for Revolver
One of our good customers, Robert Brook, writes a blog which he calls A GUIDE FOR THE BUDDING ANALOG AUDIOPHILE.
He recently made a youtube video for his shootout for Revolver, which we wrote about here.
Now he has posted some context and talked about his journey in audio which we think you will enjoy reading. Robert and I will be doing a video next week about his shootout, so expect to see that here on The Skeptical Audiophile soon.
Robert Brook Makes History with the First Shootout Video Ever Posted on Youtube
Hot Stamper Pressings of Revolver Available Now
More Reviews and Commentaries for Revolver
One of our good customers, Robert Brook, writes a blog which he calls A GUIDE FOR THE BUDDING ANALOG AUDIOPHILE. You can find it by clicking the link below.
We recently loaned Robert some copies of Revolver so that he could do the first youtube-acceptable Record Shootout video in the history of mankind. He had three copies of his own to play along with the five we loaned him, plenty to work with.
We hope to be able to discuss the experience of doing the shootout and the video with him soon, but for now, let’s just enjoy the first of its kind.
Robert now knows firsthand something few audiophiles have made the effort to learn:
Shootouts are a great deal of work if you do them right.
If you have just a few pressings on hand and don’t bother to clean them carefully, or follow rigorous testing protocols, that kind of shootout anyone can do. You can find those kinds of shootouts on youtube, but we have never seen fit to take them seriously.
The results of shootouts that are not carried out in the serious way that we do and the way that Robert did cannot be trusted, for reasons that anyone reading this blog should find obvious.
Art Dudley illustrates this approach, but you could pick any reviewer you like — none of them have ever undertaken a shootout worthy of the name to our knowledge.
Here is an especially egregious example of how to go about it all wrong.
We ourselves struggled back in the old days. in 2005, our attempted shootout for Blue could not get off the ground. Two years and scores of shootouts later, we had been able to find and clean some amazing sounding copies, which is how we were able to tell how far off the mark this pressing was.
For a quick tutorial on shootouts, please click on one or both of the links below:
Robert Brook Flips Out Over a Killer Pressing of Way Out West
Reviews and Commentaries for Way Out West
Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Sonny Rollins
Robert Brook writes a blog which he calls A GUIDE FOR THE BUDDING ANALOG AUDIOPHILE.
He recently found himself in the possession of a killer copy of Sonny Rollins’ famous Way Out West album, one that was clearly superior to everything he used to think sounded just fine. Recent improvements meant that his stereo was now capable of showing him a Way Out West he had no idea existed.
This, as you can imagine, is music to our ears. We know exactly how he feels. This has happened to us countless times over the course of the last twenty years. Sometimes we even write about our experiences with these kinds of breakthrough pressings.
Two quick points:
1) This is the reason why all serious audiophiles do their own shootouts. It’s the only way to find the pressing that can show you just how good a record can sound.
2) And it’s the reason that constant audio improvements are the cornerstone of evolving music appreciation.
“… I’m hearing the studio space and everything in it a whole lot better, and I’m relishing all the more the insane chemistry these musicians have on this record. Musically I could always appreciate how dialed in Rollins, Manne and Brown are on WOW, but now I can actually hear that in the sound of the record, and this brings the performance and the experience of listening to it to a whole new level.”
Whole new level? That’s what I’m talking about!
Why are we so dismissive of the Modern Heavy Vinyl Remastered Pressing?
Because we’ve played scores of great copies of albums like Way Out West, the kinds of records that set the bar beyond the reach of any modern LP, regardless of who made it, why they made it or how they made it.
They all fall short of the pressing that Robert played, a record we ourselves know a thing or two about. More than twenty five years ago I wrote my first extended commentary about the Analogue Productions pressing that Doug Sax mastered. It’s too bad Robert did not have one of those on hand, or any of the other pressings that have since been remastered from the tapes on Heavy Vinyl.
He would have heard what I know to be the case: that they’re a disgrace, pure and simple.
If you want to find the endgame in analog audio, you can be sure you will never get anywhere near it playing modern remastered LPs. They’re a scam and a sucker’s game. The better your stereo gets, the worse they sound.
And the way you can prove this to yourself is simply to do what Robert has been doing — making improvements to his system, and noticing that his vintage vinyl is sounding better than ever, while his audiophile records are revealing more and more of their faults.
Robert has exposed many of the new pressings’ shortcomings in his reviews, as have I, but that’s a story to be continued at a later date, not the one he wants to tell about Way Out West at this time. Please to enjoy.
Further Reading
Robert Brook Compares Three Very Different Pressings of Lady in Satin
More of the Music of Billie Holiday
One of our good customers, Robert Brook, writes a blog which he calls A GUIDE FOR THE BUDDING ANALOG AUDIOPHILE
Below is a link to the review he has written for one of our favorite records, Lady in Satin.
In this review he compares our White Hot Stamper pressing to his two originals, a Six Eye Mono and a Six Eye Stereo. We knew where this review was headed; we’ve been down that road ourselves. For our most recent Hot Stamper reissue, we noted:
There may be amazingly good sounding original pressings, as amazingly good as this one, but we’ve never run into one and we have our doubts about the existence of such a magical LP – where could they all be hiding?
Add Robert’s two originals to the pile of pressings that sound good, but not as good as we might want them to.
Robert Brook Compares Different Hot Stamper Pressings of Crosby’s Must Own Debut
More of the Music of David Crosby
Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of David Crosby
One of our good customers, Robert Brook, writes a blog which he calls A GUIDE FOR THE BUDDING ANALOG AUDIOPHILE
Below is a link to the review he has written for one of our favorite records, If Only I Could Remember My Name.
In this review he compares two Hot Stamper pressings, one a Super Hot, and one the next grade up from a Super, a Nearly White Hot stamper pressing.
When an amazing recording meets a system that can play it right, inevitably sparks fly, and these two copies were apparently giving off a lot of sparks.
If you are interested in reading about the Classic Records pressing, we have made a laundry list of its faults here.
Robert Brook Hears the Magic of Spain on Vinyl
More of the music of Emmanual Chabrier (1841-1894)
Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Chabrier
One of our good customers, Robert Brook, writes a blog which he calls A GUIDE FOR THE BUDDING ANALOG AUDIOPHILE
Below is a link to the review he has written for one of our favorite records, Chabrier Orchestral Music with Ansermet (CS 6438).
He also had the famous TAS List recording of Espana to play, CS 6006 with Argenta, in order to compare the two.
We know of no other performances of Espana to compete with these two in terms of sonics. I think you will find Robert’s review of interest, a good overview of what each of the two recordings has to offer the advanced audiophile.
Further Reading
Tom Port Discusses Robert Brook’s Recent Shootout for Abraxas
One of our good customers has started writing a blog which he calls
A GUIDE FOR THE BUDDING ANALOG AUDIOPHILE
If you are new to the audio game, and even if you aren’t, we think you will find much of value there. (If you already think you know it all, his blog will be of little use, but of course neither will mine. You already know it all!)
This link will take you to a comparison Robert Brook carried out between some pressings of Abraxas: his own and a Hot Stamper pressing he borrowed from a friend.
I wrote to him about a few issues I had with his commentary.
Dear Robert,
Of course we love it when one of our records gives you the experience you had.
But there are some fine points to keep in mind so that we present our approach as correctly as possible with no hype.
I would not say you can’t hack a hot stamper.
I would say it is very hard.
You could say something like: “Tom says his superior cleaning techniques make it hard to compete with him. If you have a copy with the same stampers as his, his will sound better most of the time simply because the right cleaning noticeably improves the sound’
Which means that you need a different stamper to beat mine, the stamper of the record that won our shootout, not the one that came in at 2+!
Anyone can do it is our motto.
It’s hard is also our motto. (We have a lot of mottos.)
We only beat your other copies on one side, so imagine if the copy you heard did not have that one great side? That is something to think about!
And all the work you’ve done on your stereo is a key part of hearing Santana, a story we tell often ourselves.
Working on the stereo and working on the collection go hand in hand, you lived it and you know it is the only way it can work.
And now records that you thought were just fine, your copies, are unlistenable. This also is key to my experience.
You recommend doing more shootouts. I would add to your comments that you plan on buying more copies of Abraxas even though you already have some. Buy them when you see them.
And if, after a while, you haven’t found the one that does it, you can buy one from me that will do it.
Your point about the WHS and NWHS is a good one. Hard to beat. Not impossible, but so difficult as to make the effort hardly worth it.
We have no magical powers. We just have a staff of ten and forty years of experience. We can be wrong, but it does not happen very often, and if it does you get your money back.
We’ve written quite a bit about Abraxas, and you can find plenty of our Reviews and Commentaries for the album on this very blog.