dry-sound

These are some of the records that we’ve found to have dry sound. We felt they could benefit greatly from more Tubey Magic somewhere in the recording chain.

Does 1s Sound Great or Does It Sound Good (but Hot, Dry and Crude)?

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Recordings Available Now

Below you will see the complete stamper sheet for a shootout we did recently.

Note that the album you see pictured is not the record we did the shootout for.

We are not revealing what record had these stampers and earned these grades for the simple reason that we rarely if ever give out the specific information that identifies the best sounding pressing of any album.

As I’m sure you can understand, we want you to buy the copy with the Hottest Stampers from us, not find one on your own! We’re happy to be moderately helpful, but naturally we find it necessary to draw the line somewhere, and giving out “the shootout winning stampers” is where we choose to draw it.

How Come?

Since, as we discovered recently, 1s wins, and handily, why would any 1s pressing sound as bad as the one at the bottom does?

(Which by the way is not actually bad — just far from the best.)

If the 1s wins the shootout as it did here, that means that the received knowledge about RCA Living Stereo pressings being better on the first pressing is correct.

But if you are the unlucky buyer of the 1s that did not do nearly as well, you might say to yourself “Hey, I thought the 1s pressing was supposed to be the hot ticket. Wha’ happen?” (Assuming you don’t conclude that the recording is at fault, which is what most audiophiles and record collectors would be likely to do. I did it and I bet you did too.)

We noted in a commentary from many years ago that the record collecting theories we see commonly promoted by those who consider themselves “in the know” seem to have a great deal of trouble accounting for these anomalies.

We had two copies of Court and Spark, each with one good side opposite a bad side on the same pressing. An excerpt:

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The Original Jazz Classics Series Put Out a Passable Relaxin’ in ’85

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Miles Davis Available Now

We much prefer the 70s Two-Fer reissue (PR 24001) to the OJCs of both Cookin’ and Relaxin’. Previously we had written:

These 70s reissue pressings are practically as good as any we have ever heard. Full-bodied, warm and natural, with plenty of space around all of the players, this is the sound of vintage analog.

It had been a while since we last played the OJC pressing of either album, so we picked up a copy of Relaxin’ and threw it into the shootout, where it did about as badly as expected.

The first side earned our 1+ grade, which means that, like a lot of reissues it’s passable, but really not good enough for a serious audiophile (hopefully meaning you) to bother with, which is why we didn’t even play side two (the N/A you see noted where the grade should be).

The OJC is clearly better suited to the old school audio systems of the 60s and 70s rather than the modern systems in use today. These kinds of reissues used to sound good on those older systems, and I should know, I used to have an old school stereo, and some of the records I used to think sounded good back in the day don’t sound too good to me anymore (although this one never did).

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These Kelly Blue Reissues from the 70s Are a Real Mess

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Wynton Kelly Available Now

Sometimes the 70s reissues of vintage jazz recordings that were made in the fifties, sometimes released with different covers similar to the one you see pictured, have excellent sound.

We know that for a fact because we’ve played some very good ones.

In the case of Kelly Blue, we felt we were obligated to play a few to make sure we were hearing as wide a range of different pressings as possible. We wanted to be sure we were hearing the best sounding pressings regardless of what era they were pressed in. (We’re very open minded that way.)

Here are our notes for the Black Label Riverside Stereo pressing with “1971” stampers:

  • Thin,
  • Dry,
  • Honky,
  • Veiled.
  • Severe stereo spread. (Hard left and right, unmusical this way, players are disconnected.)
  • Grade: 1+ on both sides

The other copy we had was even worse:

  • NFG on side one, side two never played.

The Riverside originals we’ve played in the past, like a lot of other Riverside originals from the 50s, such as those by Thelonious Monk, were uniformly terrible.

And trying to find one in audiophile playing condition is as easy as it sounds.

We’ve auditioned countless pressings like this one in the 38 years we’ve been in business — buying, cleaning and playing them by the thousands. This is how we find the best sounding vinyl pressings ever made.

Not the ones that should sound the best. The ones that actually do sound the best.

If you’re an audiophile looking for top quality sound on vintage vinyl, we’d be happy to send you the Hot Stamper pressing guaranteed to beat anything and everything you’ve heard, especially if you have any pressing marketed as suitable for an audiophile. Those, with very few exceptions, are rarely better than mediocre, and some of them are just awful, with many of the newest releases being the most awful of them all!

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Monk’s Music on Riverside 9242 Didn’t Make the Grade

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Thelonious Monk Available Now

The Riverside 9242 pressing of Monk’s Music we played recently was very much not to our liking.

In fact, every copy of this record we have ever played sounded terrible. The early pressings sounded bad and the OJC sounded bad.

We give up. We’re cutting our losses. We love Monk, but why on earth would we keep throwing money down this rathole? Our notes for this copy read:

  • Dry (more records with dry sound can be found here), and
  • Bright (more records with bright sound can be found here),
  • Overall grade: No Good

Some reviewers of the audiophile persuasion prefer to review only records that sound good to them and ignore the rest. We think this does the audiophile community a disservice.

Like Consumer Reports, we like to test things. They test toasters, we test records. We put them through their paces and let the chips fall where they may.

They want to find out if the things they are testing offer the consumer good quality and value.

We want to find out if the records we are testing offer the audiophile good sound and music.

It takes a dedicated group of people and a healthy budget to carry out these kinds of tests in large numbers.

No other record dealers, record reviewers or record collectors could possibly have auditioned more than a small fraction of the records that we’ve played. We’ve been looking for the best sounding pressings of the recordings that have stood the test of time for decades. Now, with a staff of ten or more, we can buy, clean and play records at a scale that would be unimaginable for any single person to attempt.

That puts us in a unique position to help audiophiles looking for the highest quality pressings.

Yes, we have the resources, the staff and the budget. More importantly, we came up with a much scientifically reliable approach.

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When Fisher Took Over from Goodall, He Really Let the Side Down

Hot Stamper Pressings of Recordings by Decca Available Now

Please keep in mind that, as per our usual, the record you see pictured is not the record we are discussing in this posting.

The stamper numbers you see below belong to a different album.

The quick takeaway: Stan Goodall (“E”) cut the Shootout Winning early pressings.

Then, for reasons known only to the folks at Decca, Harry Fisher (“W”) took the reins and managed to cut some side twos that were very good. Not as good, but still very good: 2+ most of the time, some slightly worse. They were not as weighty or rich, and we take a lot of points off for records that are not as weighty or rich as they should be.

By the time Decca had changed its label to the Decca in a Box design, Mr. Fisher was cutting all the pressings, and, in our experience, not doing an especially good job. We do not even offer records with grades that low.

The sound might be passable, and would probably still be better than whatever Heavy Vinyl pressings might have been made from the tapes in the last twenty years, but that’s not good enough for us here at Better Records, not at the prices we charge anyway.

We described Fisher’s sound as dry and hot on side one, and thin and very small on side two of the 5W-stamped pressing we played. We only had the one, and the reason we had even one after having heard other Boxed Decca pressings do poorly, is that it’s a good way to stay honest and to have a better baseline to work with.

If we played nothing but 3E/1E originals, most of those 1E side twos would have earned a 2+ grade, but they would have sounded much better than the 2W-graded copies, and that seriously screws up the grading scale, especially when clean originals cost us a hundred bucks or more these days.

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Don’t Waste Your Money on this Living Stereo from 1964

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Recordings Available Now

The copies of LSC 2606 we’ve played to date have never impressed us with the quality of their sound.

They are tonally natural, sure, but the acoustic tends to be too dry for our taste.

We are officially giving up on it since it’s very unlikely to sound good enough on the high quality modern equipment we, as well as our customers, use.

It’s much better suited to the old school audio systems of the 60s and 70s, but we would be surprised if anyone reading this blog still has one of those in this day and age.

Audio has come a long way since then.

Higher quality playback has revealed that some vintage records are dramatically better sounding than anything that has come after them over the course of the last fifty years.

Others have been left behind, and rightly so. Based on our experience of playing and critically listening to thousands and thousands of vintage pressings, it is our belief that the latter group must now include LSC 2606.

If you see a copy sitting in the bins of your local record store, by all means pick it up (for cheap) if you’re interested in the repertoire. Audiophiles looking for higher quality sound are advised to look elsewhere.

On that note, readers might want to consider trying something from our Hot Stamper Classical section. It typically has close to a hundred titles and they are all guaranteed to demonstrate dramatically better sound than any other pressing of the same album you can find, especially when compared to any record pressed on Heavy Vinyl.

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Don’t Waste Your Money on this Living Stereo from 1959

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Recordings Available Now

The sound of the copies we’ve played of LSC 2293 with Piatigorsky performing these two works for cello have never impressed us with their sound.

They are tonally natural but the acoustic is much too dry for our taste.

Perhaps Radio Recorders was not the ideal place to record this music.

Or we got unlucky with the copies we’ve played. Either way, we are not going to pursue this one. It’s a title that is very unlikely to sound right on high quality modern equipment.

There are quite a number of other vintage classical releases that we’ve run into over the years with similar shortcomings.

For fans of vintage Living Stereo pressings, here are some to avoid.

1959 was a phenomenal year for audiophile quality recordings – as of 2025 we’ve auditioned and reviewed more than one hundred and seventy titles, and there are undoubtedly a great many more that we’ve yet to discover.

We think there are close to 50 that belong in any audiophile record collection worthy of the name.

Our Pledge of Service to You, the Discriminating Audiophile 

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Verve Released this Awful Sounding Mel Torme Album in 1960

Hot Stamper Pressings of Pop and Jazz Vocal Recordings Available Now

Smeary and dry. As far as we can tell, based on the sound of this copy, Swingin’ on the Moon is not an album worthy of a Hot Stamper shootout. If we hear a better one down the road, we would certainly be open to the possibility.

If you want a better sounding moon-themed album, Sinatra made a very good one.

This particular Mel Torme album came out in 1960, along with a great many wonderful titles from the Golden Age of vacuum tube recording. Although we love the cover, this unfortunately doesn’t happen to be one of the better releases from that year.

We play mediocre-to-bad sounding pressings so that you don’t have to, a public service from your record-loving friends at Better Records.

You can find this one in our hall of shame, along with others that — in our opinion — are best avoided by audiophiles looking for hi-fidelity sound. Some of the records on the list may have passable sonics, but we found the music less than compelling.  These are also records you can safely avoid.

We also have an audiophile record hall of shame for records that were marketed to audiophiles for their putatively superior sound. If you’ve spent any time on this blog at all, you know that these records are some of the worst sounding pressings we have ever had the displeasure to play.

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I’m Starting to Get a Bad Feeling About Record Store Day

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Neil Young Available Now

For some reason, don’t ask me why, they keep hiring Chris Bellman to make Heavy Vinyl reissues of Neil Young’s albums, even though he has shown again and again that he has no idea what these recordings are supposed to sould like.

So far he’s ruined After the Gold Rush and Neil Young’s Greatest Hits, and there may be others he’s remastered to death, but no copies of those have come our way so we really don’t know, or care to know, to be honest.

If this is your idea of analog, you are most likely in the wrong hobby and should consider finding a different one. At the very least you are wasting your time and money on worthless crap vinyl pressings put out by the legion of Heavy Vinyl Grifters who emerge from the bowels of the earth on Record Store Day, targeting their rip-off LPs at the low- to mid-fi vinyl collector types who have yet to figure out what a giant scam the whole thing is.

These records have virtually no redeeming features, none that we could find anyway. Allow us to catalog the shortcomings of the three sides that comprise the 2017 Record Store Day release of Harvest Moon.

For the first time in five years we had finally been able to do a shootout for the imports we like, so we knew exactly how good the best pressings could sound. Long story short, they sure don’t sound like this!

Side One

Track Two (From Hank to Hendrix)

  • Blary harmonica
  • Much more treble
  • Still flat and dry
  • Just louder with less bottom
  • Edgy vocals in the chorus

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A Disappointing OJC of Swinging With The Mastersounds

Hot Stamper Pressings of Top Quality Jazz Recordings Available Now

UPDATE 2025

We did a shootout for this Mastersounds title many years ago. It didn’t sell very well so we decided to give it a rest for a decade or so.

Recently we got another couple of copies in, including their other album we used to like on OJC, A Date with the Mastersounds, and found none of them to be nearly as impressive as we thought they were back in the day. Some quick notes:

  • A Date with the Mastersounds

Vibes are dry and glassy. Not much Tubey Magic.

  • Swinging With The Mastersounds

Rich but veiled sound. Just OK, not great.

With that said, we still like the music, so if you see one of these pressings for cheap and you like vibes-based jazz from the 50s, pick it up and discover the music of The Mastersounds for yourself.

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