lacks-energy

Kevin Gray Sacrifices Another Blue Note to the Lo-Fi Crowd

Hot Stamper Pressings of Blue Note Recordings Available Now

We did a shootout for Cornbread in 2023 and again in 2025. For our latest one, we were fortunate to be able to include both the Tone Poets pressing that came out in 2019 as well as the 75th Anniversary Blue Note pressing from 2014.

Here is the way we described a Hot Stamper that ended up being the best sounding pressing we played on one of its sides, and coming in second on the other side.

  • The sound is everything that’s good about Rudy Van Gelder‘s recordings – it’s present, spacious, full-bodied, Tubey Magical, dynamic and, most importantly, alive in that way that modern pressings never are
  • Exceptionally spacious and three-dimensional, as well as relaxed and full-bodied – this pressing was a big step up over nearly all other copies we played

After hearing a copy of the album that sounded as good as that one, the Tone Poets pressing would have had to be at least a bit of a letdown, right?

To be fair, all it really has to be is good sounding. For $30, the price of the average copy that sells on Discogs, can you really expect great?

I don’t know what any of the purchasers of these Tone Poets records — of this or any other title — are expecting for their thirty bucks, but I can tell you exactly what they are getting. We took notes while their remastered pressing played, and here’s what we heard.

Side One

  • Smoothed out but hard drums and sax
  • Pretty recessed
  • Not extending (high or low)
  • Everything stuck behind the speakers
  • Clean and polite and boring
  • (No Thanks!)

Side Two

  • Pretty clear and clean
  • Horn not congested but
  • Not a lot of depth or warmth in the middle
  • Very clean and recessed
  • A little brighter
  • No real transients or fun
  • Our grade: NFG

Yes, that sounds like the kind of sound you can expect from a record that Kevin Gray remastered. We’ve played plenty of his Heavy Vinyl recuts and it’s hard to find one that’s not ridiculously bad.

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Driving My Car into a Ditch

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now

Mobile Fidelity made a mess of Drive My Car on their Half-Speed mastered release of Rubber Soul in 1982.

Perhaps it’s more accurate to say Stan Ricker, MoFi’s go-to mastering engineer, did.

He equalized out far too much upper midrange and top end.

What fuels the energy of the song are the cow bell, the drums and other percussion. Instead of a scalpel, Mobile Fidelity took a hatchet to this slightly bright track, leaving a dull, lifeless, boring mess.

Some Parlophone copies may be a little bright and lack bass, but at least they manage to convey the musical momentum of the song.

Even the purple label Capitol reissues can be quite good. A bit harsher and spittier, yes, but in spite of these shortcomings they communicate the music, which ought to count for something.

As much as I might like some of the MoFi Beatles records [not so much anymore], and even what MoFi did with some of the other tracks on Rubber Soul, they sure sucked the life out of Drive My Car.

We all remember how much fun that song was when it would come on the radio. Playing it on a very high quality stereo should make it more fun, not less.

If you’ve got a Rubber Soul with a Drive My Car that’s no fun, it’s time to get another one.

By The Way

The best $250 — to the penny! — I ever spent on records is the price I paid for my brand new, still-in-the-shipping-carton MoFi Beatles Box. I ordered it in 1982 when I first learned of it, and it finally came the next year. I already owned all The Beatles albums MoFi had done to date, including the UHQR of Sgt. Pepper, which, like a fool, I got rid of once the set came out.

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