dark-sound

The records linked here have what we refer to as “dark” sound.

Bright sound is even worse, but the best records are neither dark nor bright. They are just right.

Virtuoso Guitar Is Potentially an Awesome Direct to Disc Record

Hot Stamper Pressings of Direct-to-Disc Recordings Available Now

This recording has very little processing or EQ boost, and the studio is somewhat dead sounding (all too common in the late-70s). That combination can mean only one thing: If you don’t play this record loud, it will not sound right. 

The famous Sheffield S9 is exactly the same way. It sounds dead and dull until you turn it up good and loud. When you do, lookout — it really comes alive. The best pressings can sound shockingly like live music, something one just does not hear all that often, even when one plays records all day long as we do.

The snare drum on this copy represents one of the most realistic and dynamic sounding snares I have ever heard. Talk about jumping out of the speakers! If you have plenty of large, fast, powerful dynamic drivers like we do, you are in for a real treat. Track one, side one — lookout!

Our Shootout Winner from Years Ago

As usual, the shootout allowed us to hear what was lacking on side two.

Side One

A+++ As Good As It Gets sound from top to bottom. No copy was as transparent, lively or high-rez. No copy actually did ANYTHING better, which is unusual. The distortion level is close to zero on this one. The louder you play it the better it sounds.

Side Two

With a grade of A Double Plus this copy was close to the best, falling a bit short in the area of upper midrange presence and top end. Still, there’s lots of space, the cello sounds full and rich, as does the guitar, and none of the plucked instruments suffer from smear at all.

A great side, just a bit dark compared to the very best.

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Born Under a Bad Sign in Mono – Maybe Passable, Maybe Not

Hot Stamper Pressings of Electric Blues Albums Available Now

The Shootout Winning early stereo pressing that we played recently was indeed a very special record. Everything we said about it in our review was true:

These are just a few of the the things we had to say in our notes: “big and tubey and 3D”…”jumping out of the speakers”…”very full vox”…”weighty and rich”…”great energy”…”so much room and detail.”

No other copy came close to this one, and we had a bunch, many of which earned minimal grades of 1.5+ because,  on this record, you really have to know what to look for in the dead wax.

But nothing of the sort can be said of the early Blue Label mono pressing we played. It was barely passable on side one, and we didn’t even bother to play side two since no pressing that earns a grade of 1+ on either side can be considered a Hot Stamper.

Here is what we heard on side one:

  • Hard and dark
  • Vocals get lost
  • Sounds a little faster (sped up)

And that was enough. Who wants to play a record with that kind of sound? Or one that’s been sped up?

If you’re one of those music lovers who’s still holding a torch for mono, Born Under a Bad Sign is not a hill you want to die on.

We personally don’t care one way or the other if any particular mono record has good sound or bad. We just play them and call them as we hear them. We called this one “meh” and recommend you steer clear of it if you are looking for good sound.

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Bruch & Mozart Violin Concertos – Were We Wrong?

Living Stereo Orchestral Titles Available Now

Many years ago we wrote the following review for LSC 2472:

Superb sound. The violin is wonderful on both sides. The Mozart is absolutely gorgeous; the best I’ve ever heard it.

The orchestra on the Bruch side gets a little congested in the louder passages, which is typical for records of this era.

Laredo plays these pieces beautifully. The Bruch is an especially romantic work and his violin sings sweetly and with deep emotion throughout. The Mozart is more spritely and he plays it with the light touch it requires. You will have a hard time finding a better violin concerto record. This ranks with the best of them.

UPDATE 2024

More recently we got in a nice 1S/1S pressing that sounded thick and dark, even after a good cleaning.

Were we wrong years ago? Hard to say. That copy from many years ago is gone.

Three things to always keep in mind when a pressing doesn’t sound like we remember it did, or think it should:

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Is CTFR-1 Dark and Congested, or Flat and Bright?

Hot Stamper Pressings of Mercury Classical Records Available Now

For Mercury classical and orchestral recordings, the original RFR-1 pressings on the plum label are the way to go, right? 

In some cases, yes. The first pressings of Mercury albums often win our shootouts.

And for both sides of a copy to win a shootout, like our gold promo seen in the stamper sheet below, everything about the pressing must be right. We call records that win their shootout, earning 3+ grades on both sides, Top Shelf pressings. They are rare and special enough to have a section of their own on the site (which, as of this writing, has all of 19 records in it.)

What we find to be interesting about this specific shootout, however, is that we had two later pressings, both with the same stampers, and they sounded markedly different from each other. (Note that the stamper numbers you see below belong to a different album than the one shown above.)

If a collector were to tell you that that the CTFR pressings tend to be dark and congested, and you owned one with the exact same stampers, CTFR-1, you might be inclined to agree with this person.

But if you were the owner of the copy we played that was flat and bright, again, with CTFR-1 in the dead wax of both sides, you would think this person was 1.) Out of his mind, or, 2.) Deaf as a post, or, 3.) The owner of some very inaccurate playback equipment.

He could be all three, but in this case, an unusual one to be sure, his copy of the album doesn’t tell you anything about the sound of your copy of the album. They could match, or they could be completely different. Some records are like that. Not all that many, but definitely some.

Sample Sizes and One Man Bands

Those of us who play a variety of pressings of the same album know how easy it is to draw mistaken conclusions about records. CTFR-1 on this title is the perfect example of a record whose stampers don’t tell you much about its sound. (Even RFR-1 on side one of one copy was no better than “good,” quite a long ways from the best.)

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Ein Heldenleben – A Half Speed I Used to Like for Some Reason

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Richard Strauss Available Now

As you may know, this is one of the earliest RCA stereo recordings, dating from 1954 and the same sessions as the famous Reiner recording LSC 1806. This two microphone, two-channel recording, however, was never released in stereo on vinyl until the Victrola era ten years later.  

We used to like the RCA Half-Speed pressing of the work, but playing it recently made me realize just how dark, smeary and thick it is.

Don’t know what I ever saw in it to tell you the truth.

We Make Mistakes

The first is that anyone who has been on an audio journey for very long has made a lot of mistakes along the way.

Uniquely among reviewers and record dealers, we go out of way to admit when we were wrong. You might say we are even proud of the fact that we used to get so many things wrong about records and audio.

Our experimental, evidence-based approach, requiring that we not only make mistakes but that we embrace them, is surely key to the progress we have made in understanding recordings and home audio. One of our favorite quotes on the subject is attributed to Alexander Pope.

“A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying… that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.”

To say that few audiophiles have followed our approach is not to admit defeat. Rather it is simply to say that the approach we use to find better sounding pressings involves a great deal of tedious, expensive, time-consuming work, work that few audiophiles seem interested in doing.

There are quite a number of other records that we’ve run into over the years with obvious shortcomings.

Here are some of them, a very small fraction of what we’ve played, broken down into the three major labels that account for most of the best classical and orchestral titles we’ve had the pleasure to play.

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How Would You Ever Know This Was a Good Recording with these Crap Pressings to Play?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beach Boys Available Now

You sure wouldn’t know this was a good recording by playing the crappy reissues Capitol put out on the Yellow Label in 1975.
We found that they tend to suffer from these sonic shortcomings:
They are either dark and recessed, and/or murky and smeary.

There are good Rainbow Label pressings and bad ones. We of course only sell the good ones.

Here is how we described our most recent White Hot shootout winner.
  • With two STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides or close to them, this early Capitol pressing could not be beat.
  • This copy gets the midrange right, and since that is where The Beach Boys’ voices are, that puts it ahead of everything else we heard.
  • What’s shocking to those of us who have played The Beach Boys records by the bucketful is how rich and open the best pressings of this album are.
  • You will have an awfully hard time finding another Beach Boys album that sounds as good as this one, and you may just find that it simply can’t be done.

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Chad and Bernie Step on Another Rake

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Art Pepper Available Now

Just in time for Record Store Day — what could be better?

In the interest of streamlining the process of getting reviews like this up on the blog, we’ll try to stick mostly to the facts and let the description of the strengths and weaknesses of the pressings speak for themselves.

One quick note: the sonic qualities you see described below are the ones we heard with the mono switch on our EAR 324P phono stage activated.

Without the switch set to mono, the sound is even thicker and darker.

Yes, as bad as this pressing sounds, you can make it worse if you don’t switch your preamp or phono stage to mono. Hard to believe but it’s true!

The notes for side one can be seen below. For side one we started with the second track.

Side One

Track Two / Red Pepper Blues

  • Boomy low end
  • Sax is stuck [in the speakers]
  • And lacking in breath and space

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Art Pepper Today – Latest Findings

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Art Pepper Available Now

UPDATE 2024

In 2010 we wrote a commentary about the album which can be found here.

It’s a long story that goes into great detail comparing the sound of the original Galaxy pressings with those of the much more common OJC’s.

Fourteen years later (!) and here we are, finally getting to the point where we have enough copies of Art Pepper Today to do a proper shootout.

Since this is a title we have not played in a very long time, we took the opportunity to give a quick listen to both kinds of pressings just to make sure that both could be expected to do well enough to be included in the shootout.

The OJCs Fall Short in a Different Way

Well, it turns out that the OJC pressings are no longer cutting it. That’s money down the drain.

It seems to be the case that they are dark and hard sounding compared to the Galaxy pressings.

This is a bit surprising because most of the OJC pressings that we don’t like are thin and bright, not dark and hard.

That’s not the way OJC’s typically sound, but in the world of records, when has that ever counted for anything?

Patterns are helpful up to a point, but on this album, the patterns we see across the label have broken down, which is why our business is built upon a foundation of playing every record we sell and judging it strictly on its own merits.

There are just too many exceptions to whatever patterns we may think we have detected.

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Tea for the Tillerman – This Is Your Idea of Analog?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Cat Stevens Available Now

Dear Record Loving Audiophiles of Earth,

I’m afraid we have some bad news. [This was written back in 2011 when the record came out so it’s hard to imagine that what I am about to say is news to anyone after all these years.]

Regrettably we must inform you that the 2011 edition of Tea for the Tillerman pressed by Analogue Productions on Heavy Vinyl doesn’t sound very good. We know you were all hoping for the best. We also know that you must be very disappointed to hear this unwelcome news.

But the record is what it is, and what it is is not very good. Its specific shortcomings are many and will be considered at length in our review below.

Yes, we know, the folks over at Acoustic Sounds, in consultation with the late George Marino at Sterling Sound, supposedly with the real master tape in hand, and supposedly with access to the best mastering equipment money can buy, labored mightily, doing their level best to master and press the Definitive Audiophile Tea for the Tillerman on Vinyl of All Time.

It just didn’t come out very good, no matter what the reviewers say. And what do they say? Allow me to quote one.

…superbly dynamic, spacious and detailed…The attack of the pick on the guitar strings is astonishingly clean and detailed.

Depth is pronounced…

…the resolution of low level detail reveals a host of details that are either buried or glossed over on the other versions I’ve heard…

Uh-oh, wait a minute, here’s a blindingly red flag:

If you have the edition, you’ll find this similar in one way: there’s nothing “mellow” about the overall production and when the music gets loud (and Marino lets it get so) it can get a bit hard, but better that than to soften it and lose the clarity, focus and detail of this superb recording, especially in the quieter passages where the resolution of low level detail is astonishing.

More about that later.

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So at 45 RPM – One Side Bad, Another Awful, What’s a Mother to Do?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Peter Gabriel Available Now

In 2016 a version of So came out using this currently popular vinyl format:

2 180g discs / 45 RPM / Deluxe, Numbered, Limited Edition /Half Speed mastered

As of this writing, there are 15 copies on Discogs, the cheapest of them starting at $139.77.

Sounds like it must be pretty good for that kind of money!

This So release was mastered by a fellow named Matt Colton, who has been doing this kind of work for a very long time, judging by the fact that he has 3,775 technical credits under his name on Discogs.

That did not stop this particular 2 LP set from being one of the worst sounding albums we have played in quite a while.

Let’s take a closer look at the specifics. We played sides one and four of the two-disc, four-sided album. That was more than enough to evaluate the sound quality.

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