jethrstand

Six Ways in Which Bad Sounding Remasters Get Approved

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Jethro Tull Available Now

UPDATE 2026

The comments you see below for Stand Up were written in 2023.

Unfortunately, we rarely have any stock on Stand Up, or any of the other classic Tull releases for that matter. (There is a copy of Thick as a Brick on the site as of this writing, but it may have sold by the time you read this.)

In our commentary we discuss some of the reasons why a truly awful sounding Heavy Vinyl pressing — in this case Analogue Productions’ remaster of Stand Up — could possibly have gotten released.

Our Commentary from 2023

Here’s how we think it might have gone down.

On whatever crappy audiophile system they are using to play these records, the new pressing beat the original Pink Label Island. Drinks all around.

Not knowing that the original pressings do not sound very good — really, not knowing all that much about records period — made their job seem a lot easier than it actually was.

They didn’t produce a good sounding record. They produced a record that was (perhaps) better than a bad sounding record. They unknowingly set the bar very low.

But unknowingly is how this label has been operating from the very beginning.

I’ve written extensively about many of their bad sounding records, starting all the way back in 1995 with Way Out West.

Not much has changed. You may remember from the Washington Post video years back that Geoff Edgers blind-tested me with two copies of Quiet Kenny, one from The Electric Recording Company (“this guy makes mud pies!”) and the other from Analogue Productions (‘it’s the best record they ever made, because it’s not terrible”), or words to that effect.

If I’d had a good copy of Quiet Kenny on hand, a record I think I know much better now that we have done a couple of shootouts for it, I could have elucidated all the shortcomings of the AP pressing in great detail. Instead I was stuck comparing a very bad pressing of the album to a copy that was not as bad.

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Jethro Tull – Stand Up

More Jethro Tull

More British Blues Rock

  • A Stand Up like you’ve never heard, with solid Double Plus (A++) grades throughout this vintage UK import – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • This is a true Tull Classic – my favorite by the band – and a very tough record to come by with this kind of sound and surfaces that play this well
  • Both of these sides give you richness, Tubey Magic, clarity and resolution few copies can touch, including most Pink Label Island pressings, especially the early ones
  • “Stand Up! has great textural interest, due, in part, to a more sophisticated recording technique, in part to the organ, mandolin, balalaika, etc., which Anderson plays to enrich each song. The band is able to work with different musical styles, but without a trace of the facile, glib manipulation which strains for attention.”

Need a refresher course in Tubey Magic after playing too many modern recordings or remasterings? These UK pressings are overflowing with it. Rich, smooth, sweet, full of ambience, dead-on correct tonality — everything that we listen for in a great record is here. We must give thanks to the brilliant engineer Andy Johns.

This record is the very definition of Tubey Magic. No recordings will ever be made that sound like this again, and no CD will ever capture what is in the grooves of this record. There is of course a CD of this album, quite a few of them I would guess, but those of us with a good turntable could care less.

Tubey Magical acoustic guitar reproduction is superb on the better copies of this recording. Simply phenomenal amounts of Tubey Magic can be heard on every strum, along with richness, body and harmonic coherency that have all but disappeared from modern recordings (and especially from modern remasterings).

If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all-analog recordings are known for — this sound.

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Letter of the Week – “I must say this is being quite an experience which I am enjoying very much.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Jethro Tull Available Now

Our customer Michel wrote to tell us how much he likes some of his Hot Stamper pressings after doing shootouts with others he owns, including a number of audiophile pressings.

Hi Tom,

I finally was able to spend the time to listen and compare my last three purchases. I must say this is being quite an experience which I am enjoying very much.

First up was Aqualung.

So here I did something backwards, as I listened to yours first, instead of the other way around. At first I thought it sounded thin and lacking. I discovered that this particular lp needed the gain controls to be turned up almost all the way in order to reveal itself. This was key. I did of course match volume when I compared the other pressings.

The more I put on the Classic 200gm or the DCC or the UK first press, or the MFSL, or another early US pressing, the better your LP sounded!

This is the very best I have ever heard Aqualung. Truly a stunning experience. This is how it is meant to be heard. Super happy with this one. Thank You.

Second was Stand Up.

Here I went back to normal and listened to my copies first which didn’t include anything of note except for the AP 45rpm. I found that for a UK Jethro Tull pressing the bass was indeed more boomy and warm than normal, which is nice.

I did find it lacking in oomph, but more importantly for me is the tone. The US LPs of the time have that warm deep fuzzy bass that oozes out of the speakers. I couldn’t find that with this UK copy.

It reminded me of the UK first press Aqualung in this regard. I would like to return it.

Third up was Let It Be.

So I had previously determined that the SHS [A++] Let it Be I had purchased prior was indeed the best copy I’d ever heard. So now I bought the WHS and have finally put it to the test here in the mountains.

OMG the woods cried out “play it again, play it again”!

This indeed is one truly amazing pressing. Its like listening to the master tape. I don’t know what else to say… speechless.

Simply dramatic warmth, clarity, punch, dynamic range, and the vinyl is so quiet.

This is truly super worthy of the WHS badge… it just took all the good stuff from the SHS and dialed it all in perfectly and then gave it a little caffeine.

What an amazing discovery BR has made here. I’m so glad I was able to purchase this one.

Who would have ever known it could get this good.

As an individual trying to figure this out, my experience says the chances of success are less than 4%, which is why your business model is working. Like one of your customers wrote “I now have twelve copies in total… eleven of them are useless”.

For every BR lp I’ve purchased there are multiple copies going in the sell pile.

Once again, many thanks!
Michel

Michel,

Glad you liked your Hot Stamper pressings of Aqualung and Let It Be.

As for Stand Up, it has been more than a decade since we played a domestic pressing of Stand Up that could do what the better imports can do. Here is an old commentary to that effect.

Down the road, as you continue to improve your playback, at some point you should probably try another one of our Hot Stamper import pressings of Stand Up. On our system it’s no contest.

And of course we stand behind the copy we sent you with a money back guarantee, so of course you can return it.

Best, TP

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We Were Way Off the Mark with Stand Up in 2006

Hot Stamper Pressings of Jethro Tull Albums Available Now

Years ago we wrote:

This Island Pink Label Original British pressing has ABSOLUTELY AMAZING SOUND! We mention that there was a Sunray pressing that may have been even better, but I didn’t have this copy in hand to compare the Sunray to, so I can’t be sure that pressing was any better.

This one sounds as good as any I’ve ever heard. 

It’s amazingly dynamic and powerful, yet full of tubey magic. I played almost ten different pressings of this record today (11/08/06): every domestic label variation and a handful of imports. This copy is clearly the best of the batch.

A textbook case of live and learn.

My stereo was dramatically less revealing back then and also I did not know how to clean records properly. Those two facts, combined with the underdeveloped or yet-to-be-developed listening skills that go with them, allowed me to arrive at the wrong conclusion.

In 2006 we simply had not done our homework well enough. I had been an audiophile for at least 31 years by then, and a legitimate audiophile record dealer for 19.

Sure, by 2006 my staff and I had auditioned plenty of the pressings that we thought were the most likely to sound good: the original and later domestic pressings, the early and later British LPs: in other words, the usual suspects.

The result? We were roughly in the same position as the vast majority of audiophiles. We had auditioned a sizable number pressings of the album and thought we knew enough about the sound of the album to pick a clear winner. We thought the best pink label Island pressings had the goods that no other copies could or would have.

But of course, like most audiophiles who judge records with an insufficiently large sample size, we turned out to be completely wrong.

Logic hadn’t worked. None of the originals would end up winning another shootout once we’d discovered the right reissues.

But in 2006, we hadn’t stumbled upon the best pressings because we hadn’t put enough effort into the only approach that actually works.

What approach is that? It’s trial and error. Trial and error would eventually put us on the path to success. We had simply not conducted enough trials and made enough errors by 2006 to find out what we know now.

We needed a breakthrough, and we hadn’t gotten it yet.

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Listening in Depth to Stand Up

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Jethro Tull Available Now

Presenting another entry in our extensive listening in depth series with advice on what to listen for as you critically evaluate your copy of Stand Up.

Here are some albums currently on the site with similar track by track breakdowns.

If British blues rock is your thing, then Stand Up is definitely a record that belongs in your collection.

Tubey Magical acoustic guitar reproduction is superb on the better copies of this recording. Simply phenomenal amounts of Tubey Magic can be heard on every strum, along with richness, body and harmonic coherency that have all but disappeared from modern recordings (and especially from modern remasterings).

To prove our point, Analogue Productions hired Kevin Gray to cut this dismal version of the album on vinyl. I hope Chad didn’t pay him too much, because he didn’t get a whole lot for his money, although I’m sure he thinks he did. Like many audiophiles, he blindly puts his faith in so-called experts, and can’t recognize shoddy work when he hears it.

And if you think the original Pink Label Island pressing is going to be the way to go for top quality sound, good luck with that approach. That kind of thinking guarantees you’ll fail before you’ve even begun.

When it comes to classic albums, plenty of reissues have sound that is superior to the originals, and this is one of them.

Side One

A New Day Yesterday

one of my favorite Jethro Tull songs of all time. (This and To Cry You a Song from Benefit are pretty darn hard to beat.) Clive Bunker’s drumming is incredibly energetic; it drives the song to levels few bands could ever hope to reach. It reminds me of the kind of all-out ASSAULT on the skins you hear in the work of Dave Grohl and John Bonham. Bunker is a highly underrated player; his bandmates Barre and Cornick don’t get the respect they deserve either, for reasons that I’ll never understand. They’re about as good as it gets in my book.

Jeffrey Goes to Leicester Square
Bourée
Back to the Family
Look Into the Sun

Another favorite track.

Side Two

Nothing Is Easy

Watch your volume on this track! It starts out quietly, but it gets VERY loud toward the end. If you’ve set your volume properly for side one, don’t change it for side two.

Fat Man

Amazingly spacious, transparent and open on the best pressings.

We Used to Know

I love the way this song starts out quietly and builds to a tremendous crescendo of sound. Dynamics like these are rarely found on pop records.

Reasons for Waiting

On copies of this record that lack bass, this song will have NO bass.

For a Thousand Mothers

In General

It’s very common for pressings of Stand Up to lack bass or highs, and more often than not both are lacking. The bass-shy ones tend to be more transparent and open sounding — of course, that’s the sound you get when you take out the bass. (90 plus percent of all the audiophile stereos I’ve ever heard were bass shy, no doubt for precisely that very reason: less bass equals more detail, more openness and more transparency. Go to any stereo store or audiophile show and notice how bright the sound is. Another good reason not to go to those shows, and we rarely do.)

Just what good is a British Classic Rock Record that lacks bass? It won’t rock, and if it don’t rock, who needs it? You might as well be playing the CD.

The copies that lack extreme highs are often dull and thick, and usually have a smeary, blurry quality to their sound. When you can’t hear into the music, the music itself quickly becomes boring.

If I had to choose, I would take a copy that’s a little dull on top as long as it still had a meaty, powerful, full-bodied sound over something that’s thin and leaned out. There are many audiophiles who can put up with that sound — I might go so far as to say the majority can — but I am not one of them.

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Is The Pink Label The Hot Ticket for Jethro Tull’s Brilliant Stand Up Album?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Jethro Tull Available Now

Well, it certainly can be, but sometimes it isn’t, and failing to appreciate that possibility is a classic case of misunderstanding a crucially important fact or two about records. Audiophile analog devotees would do well to keep these facts in mind, especially considering the prices original British pressings are fetching these days.

Simply put: Since no two records sound alike, it follow that the right label doesn’t guarantee the right sound.

A shootout years ago illustrated both of these truths.

We had a number of Pink Island British pressings to play — if you hit enough record stores often enough, in this town anyway, even the rarest pressings are bound to show up in clean condition from time to time — along with Sunrays (aka Pink Rims), later Brits, early Two Tone domestics and plain Brown Label Reprise reissues. All of them can sound good. (We do not waste time with German and Japanese pressings, or any of the later Chrysalis label LPs. Never heard an especially good one.)

What surprised the hell out of us was how bad one of the Pink Label sides sounded. It was shockingly thin and hard, practically unlistenable.

Keep in mind that during our shootouts the listener has no idea which pressing is being played, so imagine hearing such poor reproduction on vinyl and then finding out that such bad sound was coming from a copy that should have been competitive with the best, on the legendary Pink Island label no less. (Of course the other Pinks were all over the map, their sides ranging from good to great.)

Hearing one sound this bad was completely unexpected, but hearing the unexpected is what we do for a living, so I suppose it shouldn’t have been. Having dubious looking reissues and the “wrong” pressings beat the originals and the so-called “right” pressings from the “right” countries is all in a day’s work here at Better Records.

The audiophiles who collect records by label are asking for trouble with Stand Up.

Assuming they want the best sound, that is.

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Chad Has Served Poor Jethro Tull Most Barbarously

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Jethro Tull Available Now

With a nod to our old friend, John Barleycorn.

We were finally able to get our hands on Analogue Productions’ newly remastered Stand Up, an album we know well, having played the British copies from every era by the score. Our notes for the sound can be seen below.

If ever a record deserved a “no” grade, as in “not acceptable,” this new 45 RPM pressing mastered by Kevin Gray deserves such a grade, because it’s just awful. (This link will take you to a great many more records best avoided by audiophiles in search of better sound. Although we’ve only linked to about 75 pressings here on the blog, it should be noted that the world is full of bad sounding records.)

But let’s put that grade in context. The last time a good sounding version of Stand Up was released, as far as we can tell, was 1989, and that version was the Mobile Fidelity Gold CD. I bought mine soon after it came out. I wasn’t even planning on buying a CD player when the Compact Disc was first invented, but then Mobile Fidelity played a dirty trick on me. Instead of releasing Loggins and Messina’s first album on vinyl, they put it out exclusively on CD as part of their Silver MFCD series.

As a die-hard MoFi fan, that sealed the deal: now I had to buy a CD player. I picked up a cheap Magnavox player, the 1040. I think it ran me less than $100, and played my new Sittin’ In CD, which, as I recall, sounded pretty good. (One of my other early CD purchases was Tumbleweed Connection, the regular label release, and it was dreadful.)

I still own Stand Up on Gold CD, and I still find it superb in every way. (Many of the MFSL Gold CDs from this era are excellent and worth seeking out.)

It sounds nothing like this new vinyl release, and that’s a good thing.

On vinyl, Stand Up has rarely been given the care it deserved. The last version of Stand Up to have sound we would want to listen to was pressed in the UK in the early ’70s. That was close to fifty years ago.

We sold some domestic pressings of the album back in the early 2000s, describing them at the time as made from dub tapes with all the shortcomings that entails, but mastered very well from dub tapes. The best domestic pressings are rich, smooth, tonally correct and natural sounding. They’re too dubby to sell as Hot Stampers, but they are not bad records. Some later Chrysalis pressings are big and open, but often they are too thin and bass-shy for the music to work. We’ve never taken them seriously.

It wasn’t long before we’d eliminated everything but the early UK pressings for our shootouts, and we quickly discovered that the earliest of the UK pressings on the older Island label were not good at all. We wrote about the problem with some originals more than ten years ago.

What was surprising about the shootouts we had done in past years was how disappointing most of the early British pressings we played were. They were flat, lacked energy and just didn’t rock the way they should have.

We learned the hard way that most British Pink label pressings aren’t especially rich, that some are small and recessed, and some are just so smeary, thick and opaque that they frustrate the hell out of you as you’re trying to hear what any of the musicians other than Ian Anderson is doing.

So when a reviewer comes along and says something positive about the new pressing compared to some unidentified original, we appreciate the problem that is at the root of his mistaken judgments:

Here’s the deal: if the goal was to duplicate the original pink label Island sound, this reissue misses that, which is good because this new double 45 reissue is far superior to the original in every possible way.

The tape was in great shape, that’s for sure. Clarity, transparency, high frequency extension and especially transient precision are all far superior to the original. Bass is honest, not hyped up and the mastering delivers full dynamics that are somewhat (but only slightly), compressed on the original. Ian Anderson’s vocals are naturally present as if you are on the other side of the microphone. Most importantly, the overall timbral balance sounds honest and correct. But especially great is the transient clarity on top and bottom.

If you’re fortunate to have an original pink label Island, at first you might think the sound is somewhat “laid back”, but that’s only because the mids and upper mids are not hyped up as they are on the original. That adds some excitement, but it clouds the picture and greatly obscures detail.

If you scroll down to our notes, you will see what we thought of the “laid back” sound this reviewer talks about. (Keep in mind that we first read the above review mere moments ago.)

We think “smaller, thick and stuck in the speakers” may be someone’s idea of “laid back,” but, just so there is no misunderstanding, it’s our idea of “awful.”

None of these are good things. Our Hot Stamper pressings are never small, thick or stuck in the speakers. They’re the records with the opposite of that sound. Our records are big, transparent and open. That’s why we can charge so much money for them and have people scooping them up from our Wednesday mailer the moment they become available.

They deliver the big, bold sound that the brilliant engineer for the album, Andy Johns, was known for. Laid back was not in his vocabulary.

Here is more of what we heard on side one.

Jeffrey Goes to Leicester Square

“Transients are sharp but body is dull. Kinda phony.”

Phony sound is the key here. Messing with the EQ in the mastering benefits some aspects of the sound at the expense of others.

Nothing new there. Audiophile pressings with wacky EQ are the norm. I would be surprised if any common Reprise pressing from back in the day wouldn’t sound more “right,” more tonally correct, more seamless. I’ve played quite a few and I don’t recall ever hearing one sound “phony.”

On side two we played the first two tracks.

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Big Speakers, Loud Levels and Plenty of Bass Work Their Magic on Stand Up

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Jethro Tull Available Now

It’s common for pressings of Stand Up to lack bass or highs, and more often than not the copies that we play in our shootouts, shootouts which are strictly limited to import pressings on Island or Chrysalis, lack both.

The bass-shy ones tend to be more transparent and open sounding — of course, that’s the sound you get when you take out the bass.

90-plus percent of all the audiophile stereos I’ve ever heard were bass shy, no doubt for precisely that very reason: less bass equals more detail, more openness and more transparency. Go to any stereo store or audiophile show and notice how bright the sound is. (Yet another good reason not to go to those shows. We stopped decades ago.)

Just what good is a British Classic Rock Record that lacks bass?

It won’t rock, and if it don’t rock, who needs it? You might as well be playing the CD. (The average CD of Stand Up — I have a couple of them — is terrible, but the MoFi Gold CD is superb in all respects.)

The copies that lack extreme highs are often dull and thick, and usually have a smeary, blurry quality to their sound. When you can’t hear into the music, the music itself quickly becomes boring. Most Island pressings suffer from these shortcomings.

If I had to choose, I would take a copy that’s a little dull on top as long as it had a meaty, powerful, full-bodied sound over something that’s thinner and more leaned out. There are many audiophiles who can put up with that sound — I might go so far as to say the vast majority can — but I am not one of them.

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Stand Up – Notes from 2009

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Jethro Available Now

Our last shootout for Stand Up was over a year ago, early in 2008. By some good fortune we have been able to find a number of fairly clean early British pressings, with both Pink and Sunray labels, as well as some very good sounding domestics. (Yes, they are out there. Few and far between and probably not the ones you would think to buy but out there nonetheless. Buy enough of them and clean them right and you will find some too.)

UPDATE 2025:

We no longer buy domestic pressings of Stand Up. They sound like they are made from second-generation tapes, with the smear and the lack of transparency that are the hallmarks of records mastered from copy tapes.

We did make one very important discovery this time around.

We found a Pink Label copy with a side two that beat all three of the Sunray pressings we had on hand, a copy that made us lower the grade of this very record to Two and a Half Pluses after playing it. Here is our now somewhat mistaken commentary from the last listing we did for a $750 Hot Stamper: 

The Sunray copies CAN and DO beat the best British originals when you get a good one, and this is a very good one. In our many (25+) years of experience with Stand Up vinyl we can tell you categorically that there is no earlier import pressing, no later import pressing, and no domestic pressing of any era that can compete with the sound of this LP. It was well over a year ago that we found the last one that sounded like this, and we don’t expect to find another one anytime soon. They’re a fluke. There are many sonic problems with this recording, but most of them disappear when you get a truly Hot Stamper copy like this one.

Perhaps categorically was poorly chosen. One should rarely be categorical about record pressings, since one is in no position to play them all or to have perfect equipment with which to play them.

Let’s not worry about that now. Let’s talk about this copy. The sound is amazingly dynamic and powerful, yet overflowing with tubey magic. We played almost ten different copies of this record this week (February 2009), every domestic Reprise label variation and close to a half dozen Pink and Sunray label British imports. (No more German pressings for us; they never seem to cut it so we are giving up on that country for Jethro Tull. Pink Floyd and The Beatles, yes, German pressings can be amazing. But for Island label records, Gemany was just not getting good tapes, if our experience is any guide.)

This copy was CLEARLY the best of the batch. Side one just JUMPS TO LIFE right out of the gate. Master Tape Sound is the only way to describe it. You will simply be amazed at how good this record can sound. It belongs in our Top 100 with sound like this.

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