More of the Music of Steely Dan
Yet another disastrous Heavy Vinyl release with godawful sound, and in this case, equally godawful music, a fitting entry for our audiophile hall of shame.
Hopelessly murky, muddy, opaque, ambience-free sound, and so artificial I honestly cannot make any sense of it.
This is someone’s idea of analog? It sure ain’t mine.
Is this music for robots? That would explain a lot. Audiophile robots, perhaps?
Why do audiophiles waste their money on crap like this?
Hot Stamper Pressings of Sgt. Peppers Available Now
You might agree with some reviewers that EMI’s engineers did a pretty good job with the new stereo pressing of Sgt. Pepper mastered by Sean Magee from the 2009 digitally remastered tapes.
In the March 2013 issue of Stereophile Art Dudley weighed in, finding little to fault on this title but being less impressed with most of the others in the new box set. His reference disc? The MoFi UHQR! Oh, and he also has some old mono pressings and a domestic Let It Be.
Now there’s a man who knows his Beatles. Fanatical? Of course he is! We’re talkin’ The Beatles for Chrissakes.
When I read the reviews by writers such as these, I often get the sense that I must’ve fallen through some sort of Audio Time Warp and landed back in 1982. How is it that our so-called experts evince so little understanding of how records are made, how variable the pressings can be, and, more importantly, how absolutely crucial it is to understand and implement rigorous protocols when attempting to carry out comparisons among pressings.
Critically comparing LPs is difficult and time-consuming. It requires highly developed listening skills. I didn’t know how to do it in 1982. I see no evidence that the audiophile reviewers of today are much better at it now than I was in 1982.
Just to take one example: They all seem to be operating under the same evidence-free conceit: that the original is the benchmark against which other pressings must be compared.
To those of us who have played Beatles pressings by the hundreds, this is patent nonsense. To cite just one instance, a recent Hot Stamper listing notes [inaccurately as it turns out, see below]:
We defy any original to step into the ring with it. One thing we can tell you, it would not be a fair fight. The cutting equipment to make a record of this quality did not exist in 1967, not at EMI anyway.
We had the opportunity not long ago to audition a very clean original early pressing of the album and were frankly taken aback by how AWFUL it was in virtually every respect. No top end above 8k or so, flabby bass, murky mids — this was as far from Hot Stamper sound as one could imagine. If it were a Heavy Vinyl or Audiophile pressing we would surely have graded it F and put it in our Hall of Shame.
To be fair we have played exactly one early copy of the record on our current system. (Played a copy or two long ago but on much different equipment, so any judgments we might have made must be considered highly suspect.) Perhaps there are good ones. We have no way of knowing whether there are, and we are certainly not motivated to find out given the price that original Sgt. Pepper’s are fetching these days.
We can tell you this much: no original British pressing of any Beatles album up through Pepper has ever impressed us sonically. We’ve played plenty and have yet to hear one that’s not congested, crude, distorted, bandwidth-limited and full of tube smear. (The monos suffer from all of these problems and more of course, which is only natural; they too are made with the Old School cutting equipment of the day.)
If that’s your sound more power to you. It’s definitely not ours. The hotter the stamper, the less congested, crude, distorted, bandwidth-limited and smeary it will be. (Or your money back.)
UPDATE 2023
There is a copy of a Beatles album on the original label that was competitive with our best 70s pressings, this one. We explained why it’s not a problem to admit we were wrong about the album in question, For Sale, this way:
This finding about For Sale is precisely why live and learn is our motto.
We don’t know it all, and we’ve never claimed that we did. We constantly learn things about pressings in our daily shootouts. That should not be too surprising, as record shootouts are the only way to learn anything about the sound of records that’s actually worth knowing.
Start doing your own experiments and your record knowledge might just take off the way ours has. 99% of what we think we know about the sound of records we’ve learned in shootouts over the course of the last twenty years.
Here is our advice on getting started.
Before this, the only Beatles record we would sell on the Yellow and Black Parlophone label was A Collection of Oldies… But Goldies. That title does have the best sound on the early label. In numerous shootouts, no Black and Silver label pressing from the ’70s was competitive with the best stereo copies made in the ’60s.
Until now, it was clearly the exception to our rule. From With the Beatles up through Yellow Submarine, the best sounding Beatles pressings would always be found on the 70s reissue label.
The Best Pepper Pressings
How did we come to find the best Sgt. Peppers pressings? Our recent commentary about a wonderful Benny Carter record on the original Contemporary Black Label may serve to shed some light on the process.
Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Doors Available Now
The Rhino pressing we auditioned from the Doors Box Set was surprisingly good. It’s rich and smooth with an extended top end — tonally correct, in other words — and there’s lots of bass.
This is all to the good. For the thirty bucks you might pay for it you’re getting a very good record, assuming yours sounds like ours, something we should really not be assuming, but we do it because there is simply no other way to write about records other than to describe the sound of the ones we actually have played.
What it clearly lacks compared to the best originals is, first and foremost, vocal immediacy.
Jim Morrison seems to be singing through a veil, an effect which becomes more and more bothersome over time, as these kinds of frustrating shortcomings have a habit of doing.
A bit blurry, a bit smeary, somewhat lacking in air and space, on the plus side it has good energy and better bass than most of the copies we played. All in all we would probably give it a “B.” You could do a helluva lot worse.
Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Burt Bacharach Available Now
Casino Royale under the sway of Bernie’s penchant for bright, gritty, sour, ambience-challenged sound? Not a good match. There is no reissue, and there will never be a reissue, that will sound as good as a properly-mastered, properly-pressed, properly-cleaned original.
And I hope it would go without saying that most copies cannot begin to do what a real Hot Stamper original can.
As is often the case, the Classic Heavy Vinyl Reissue is simply a disgrace.
Is it the worst version of the album ever made?
That’s hard to say. But it is the worst sounding version of the album we’ve ever played, and that should be good enough for any audiophile contemplating spending money on this Heavy Vinyl trash. Our advice: don’t do it.
More of the Music of John Coltrane
John Coltrane – Giant Steps / Rhino 45 RPM 2 Disc Set
The sound of the 45 RPM 2 disc version cut by Bernie Grundman does not exactly tickle our fancy. It sounds thick, dull, and entirely too smooth.
It reminds us of the awful Deja Vu Bernie remastered years ago for Classic Records.
As is the case with so many of the Heavy Vinyl reissues released these days, the studio ambience you hear on these pressings is a pitiful fraction of the ambience the real pressings are capable of revealing. Real pressings like, you know, the ones mass-produced by Atlantic, original and reissue alike. What’s Bernie’s excuse?
Rhino bills their releases as being pressed on “180 gram High Performance Vinyl.” However, if they are using “performance” to refer to sound quality, we have found the performance of their vinyl to be quite low, lower than the average copy one might stumble upon in the used record bins.
If you are stuck in a Heavy Vinyl rut, we can help you get out of it. We did precisely that for these folks, and we can do it for you.
(Like the gentleman who sent me the Steppenwolf album, you may of course not be aware that you are stuck in a rut. Most audiophiles aren’t.)
The best way out of that predicament is to hear how mediocre these modern records sound compared to the vintage Hot Stampers we offer.
Once you hear the difference, your days of buying newly remastered releases will most likely be over.
Even if our pricey curated pressings are too dear, as a Brit might put it, you can avail yourself of the methods we describe to find killer records on your own.
Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Eagles Available Now
Side one: B+ / Side two: B-
The DCC for this album is not a total disaster. In fact, the first side of the DCC is one of the better DCC sides we’ve played in recent memory. We dropped the needle on a few copies we had in the back (pressing variations exist for audiophile records too, don’t you know) and they averaged about a B+ for sound on side one. Side two was quite a bit too clean for our tastes — no real ambience or meaty texture to the guitars, about a B- for sound.
To flip something we say often: you can do worse, but you can do a LOT better.
Differing Grading Scales
Note that the grading scale for Hot Stampers is slightly different than the grading scale we all grew up with in school.
The best Hot Stampers receive a grade of A Triple Plus.
This DCC record for side one is three steps down from that.
Three steps down from an A+ grade in school, the highest grade one could earn, would be a B+, hence the B+ grade you see above.
Our Most Recent Commentary
We are having a devil of a time finding this album in audiophile playing condition these days, which is why you practically never see them on the site anymore, and copies quieter than Mint Minus Minus are rare indeed
We just finished a shootout for this title and this bad boy is truly a Demo Disc quality classic rock LP.
From first note to last, this pressing has superb, mind-blowing, Demo Disc Quality Sound. Drop the needle on any track on either side to hear what we’re talking about. The highs are silky and delicate, the bottom end is tight and punchy, and the vocals sound AMAZING. The bass is PERFECTION, which really brings out the feel of the song “Hotel California.” It’s so deep and loping, the effect is practically narcotic.
“Life In The Fast Lane” is possibly the toughest song on the album to get right — it tends to have that transistory, compressed sound that we’ve come to expect from Bill Szymczyk. On this copy, it REALLY ROCKS — super-punchy with amazing presence and lots of meaty texture to the guitars. It will always sound a bit harsher than ideal on any copy with real presence, texture, and energy; that’s just the sound they were going for. It is what it is, which makes it not a good track to judge the first side by.
On side two, one of the better sounding tracks is “Try And Love Again.” On a superb copy like this one, it’s off the charts. The wonderful clarity and punchy bass here take this song to a whole new level.
Hot Stamper Pressings of Blue Note Recordings Available Now
Sonic Grade: D
An audiophile hall of shame pressing from Cisco / Impex / Boxstar.
You will have a hard time finding any pressing that doesn’t sound better than this “dubby” Cisco LP.
The DMM reissues are worse — no Blue Note pressings could possibly be so ridiculously bad as they are — but I can’t think of any others offhand that would be.
The CDs, maybe, who really knows, but that’s a case of apples and oranges.
If smeared transients and zero ambience are your idea of good sound, this is the record for you!
Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Jethro Tull Available Now
An Audiophile Hall of Shame pressing and another Classic Records Rock LP badly mastered for the benefit of audiophiles looking for easy answers and quick fixes.
By the time the guitars at the end of the title track fade out you will be ready to take your heavy vinyl Classic Record pressing and ceremoniously drop it in a trashcan. (Actually, the best use for it is to demonstrate to your skeptical audiophile friends that no heavy vinyl pressing can begin to compete with a Hot Stamper from Better Records. Not in a million years.)
We Was Wrong on All Counts
Over the course of the last 25 years we was wrong three ways from Sunday about our down-and-out friend Aqualung here.
We originally liked the MoFi from the early ’80s. Wrong. Proof positive that In the early ’80s I didn’t have good reproduction or know much about records, but I sure thought I did!
When the DCC 180g came along in 1997 we liked that one better. Wrong again. It didn’t have MoFi’s usual midrange suckout and sloppy bass, but it was bad in so many other ways that it is hard for me to believe I ever liked it. But I did, to some degree anyway.
Back then I was a DCC believer, a mistake I would come to recognize once a few more years had passed. See here and here.
And a few years back I was briefly enamored with some original British imports. Wrong for the third time.
After playing more than two dozen pressings of Aqualung in our recent [circa 2010] shootout, it’s pretty clear that the right early Reprise pressings KILL any and all contenders. Forget all the Green Label Chrysalis pressings. Forget the reissues. Forget the imports. It’s original domestic Reprise or nothing when it comes to Aqualung.
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Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Yes Available Now
The Analogue Productions 180g reissue shown here is mastered by Steve Hoffman and Kevin Gray, two guys with reputations for doing good work, but the results of their collaboration [can you believe this record came out in 2006!?] leave much to be desired.
The overall sound is too lean.
This is especially noticeable on the too-thin-sounding guitars and vocals.
Believe me, it’s no fun to play a Yes album with thin guitars and vocals.
Also, there’s a noticeable lack of ambience throughout the record. What comes to mind when I hear a record that sounds like this is the dreaded D word: dubby.
I find it hard to believe they had the actual two-track original master tape to work with. The sound is just too anemic to have come from the real tape. If they did have the real tape, then they really botched the job.
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Hot Stamper Pressings of Direct-to-Disc Recordings Available Now
This album was recorded on location. The only other M&K Direct to Disc recording that I like was also recorded on location.
Most of the M&K Direct to Discs were recorded in the showroom of the stereo store that Miller and Kreisel owned, which, like any showroom, was carpeted and draped.
This is why almost all their records sound “dead.” This was their intention, of course. They wanted the sound to be “live” in your living room.
I prefer to hear the kind of ambience that would be found in a real location, and so I have never been much of a fan of their label.