etc.

Dick Schory – Music for Bang, Baaroom and Harp

Living Stereo Titles Available Now

Incredible Living Stereo sound through this 2-pack copy, with side one of the first disc and side two of the second disc both earning INSANELY GOOD Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades
It’s a real treat to hear such a crazy assortment of percussion instruments with this kind of amazingly clear, high-resolution sound
This copy was just plain bigger, richer and clearer than most others in our recent shootout
It also helps that both of these sides are in correct polarity, a subject we discuss in many listings here
If you’re a fan of percussion extravaganzas, this Living Stereo from 1958 is about as good as it gets

The hottest stamper pressings of this album are Demo Discs for three important qualities we listen for in our record auditions. Each of the links below will take you to other recordings we have found to be potentially superior in these areas of reproduction.

Harry Pearson put this record on his TAS List of Super Discs, and rightfully so. It certainly can be a Super Disc, but only when you have the right pressing. This is one of the Demo Discs on the TAS List which truly deserves its status when, and only when, you have the right copy. (The typical copy is quite good, but it sure doesn’t sound like this.) Nothing else in our shootout could touch it. And it’s IN PHASE. Many copies are not.

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Frank Sinatra – Come Fly With Me

More Frank Sinatra

Come Fly With Me touches down on the site for the first time ever, here with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades on both sides of this 60s Stereo Capitol pressing
This copy was doing everything we wanted it to — and on both sides — with an abundance of energy and the kind of immediacy that can put Frank Sinatra front and center right in your very own listening room
We all owe a debt of gratitude to the recording and mastering engineers from the era (50s and 60s) for the glorious sound they managed to achieve, a sound unequalled to this day
Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these early pressings – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
5 stars: “There may be greater albums in Sinatra’s catalog, but few are quite as fun as Come Fly With Me.”

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Billie Holiday – Lady In Satin

More Pop and Jazz Vocal Albums

A vintage Columbia Red Label pressing (one of only a handful of copies to hit the site in fourteen months) with solid Double Plus (A++) grades from top to bottom
Dramatically richer, fuller and more Tubey Magical than most other copies we played, with breathy vocals and rosiny, fairly smooth strings
There may be amazingly good sounding original pressings, 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?
“I’m a Fool to Want You” on this very copy may just send chills racing up and down your spine
4 1/2 stars: “Lady Day herself said that this session was her personal favorite.”
Reviews and commentaries for some of the amazing music recorded in the 30th Street Studios
If you’re a fan of Lady Day, this Columbia recording from 1958 surely belongs in your collection.
The complete list of titles from 1958 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

On the better copies both the sound and music are absolutely breathtaking. They reproduce clearly what, to our minds, are the three most important elements in the recording — strings, rhythm, and vocal — and, more importantly, the are reproduced properly balanced with one another.

The monos, as you might expect, balance the three elements well enough, but the problem with mono is that the vocals and instruments are jammed together in the center of the soundfield, layered atop one another. Real clarity, the kind that live music has in abundance, is difficult if not impossible under the circumstances. Only the stereo pressings provide the space that each of the elements need in order to be heard.

Naturally, the vocals have to be the main focus on a Billie Holiday record. They should be rich and tubey, yet clear, breathy and transparent. To qualify as a Hot Stamper, the pressings we offer must be highly resolving. You will hear everything, surrounded by the natural space of the legendary Columbia 30th Street Studio in which the recording was made.

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Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong – Porgy and Bess

More Ella Fitzgerald

More Louis Armstrong

Boasting seriously good Double Plus (A++) grades on all FOUR sides, these vintage Stereo Verve pressings were giving us the sound we were looking for on this Ella and Louis classic
Spacious, full-bodied and Tubey Magical, with Ella and Louis front and center, this is the sound you want for their brilliant collaboration from 1958
If you’ve never heard exceptionally well recorded male and female vocals from the 50s, this is a great opportunity to have your mind blown
Two vocal giants came together to perform Gershwin’s timeless opera, revered by both music lovers and audiophiles to this day
Problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these early pressings, but once you hear just how superb sounding this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting ticks and pops and just be swept away by the music
4 1/2 stars: “What’s really great about the Ella and Louis version is Ella, who handles each aria with disarming delicacy, clarion intensity, or usually a blend of both.”

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Bob and Ray / Throw a Stereo Spectacular

More of the Music of Bob and Ray

With outstanding Double Plus (A++) grades from start to finish, this TAS-approved Living Stereo pressing will be very hard to beat, practically impossible even
Originally produced as a sampler record for the Living Stereo line, it is an absolute MUST OWN for serious audiophiles looking to take their system to the next level
Our reference copy here at Better Records is so vital to our operation that it would not be for sale at any (well, almost any) price
It has long been my personal favorite test disc, as well as one of our three best cartridge tweaking and turntable setup discs
4 stars: “The gleefully cacophonous Guckenheimer Sour Kraut Band takes the prize for providing the most unusual musical selection, but the overall program is extremely diverse [and] the comedy and music are enjoyable.”

Bob and Ray Throw A Stereo Spectacular just happens to be our favorite Test Disc, eclipsing all others in the areas of naturalness and difficulty of reproduction. Any tweak or new room treatment — we seem to do them almost weekly these days — has to pass one test and one test only: The Bob and Ray Test.

This record has the power to help you get to the next level in audio like no other.

Six words hold the key to better sound: “The Song of the Volga Boatman.”

For the purpose of mounting new carts, our favorite track is “The Song of the Volga Boatman” on Bob and Ray Throw A Stereo Spectacular (LSP 1773). It’s by far the most difficult track we know of to get to sound right.

There are about twenty places in the music that we use as tests, and the right setting is the one that gets the most of them to sound their best. With every change, some of the twenty will sound better and some will sound worse. Recognizing when the sound is the biggest, clearest, and most balanced from top to bottom is a skill that has taken me twenty years to acquire.

It’s a lot harder than it looks. The longer you have been in audio, the more complicated it seems, which may be counterintuitive but comports well with our day-to-day experience extremely well.

All our room treatments and tweaks must pass The Bob and Ray Test. It’s the one record we have relied on more than any other over the course of the last several years.

Presenting as it does a huge studio full of brass players, no record we know of is more dynamic or more natural sounding — when the system is working right. When it’s not working right, the first thirty seconds is all it takes to show you the trouble you are in.

If you don’t have a record like that in your collection, you need to find one. It will be invaluable to you in the long run.

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