live-in-the-studio

These albums sound like they were recorded live in the studio, and no doubt some of them were.

Dave Brubeck Quartet – Time Further Out on 360

More Dave Brubeck

Reviews and Commentaries for Time Further Out

  • Excellent sound throughout this black print 360 Stereo pressing, with both sides earning Double Plus (A++) grades – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • It’s bigger, richer, more Tubey Magical, and has more extension on both ends of the spectrum than most other copies we played
  • This copy demonstrates the big-as-life Fred Plaut Columbia Sound at its best – better even than Time Out(!)
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The selections, which range in time signatures from 5/4 to 9/8, are handled with apparent ease (or at least not too much difficulty) by pianist Brubeck, altoist Paul Desmond, bassist Eugene Wright, and drummer Joe Morello on this near-classic.”

Time Further Out is consistently more varied and, dare we say, more musically interesting than Time Out.

If you want to hear big drums in a big room, these Brubeck recordings will show you that sound better than practically any record we know of. These vintage recordings are full-bodied, spacious, three-dimensional, rich, sweet and warm in the best tradition of an All Tube Analog recording.

(more…)

Neil Young – On The Beach

More Neil Young

More Country and Country Rock


  • An original Reprise pressing of this Neil Young classic with two solid Double Plus (A++) or BETTER sides
  • Side two was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be shocked at how big and powerful the sound is
  • The title track has that live-in-the-studio sound we love about Zuma, but in this case it sounds like it was recorded at three in the morning in a room full of pot smoke
  • Problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these Classic Rock records – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • 5 stars: “…where Time Fades Away was embattled and Tonight’s the Night mournful, On the Beach was savage and, ultimately, triumphant… he was saying goodbye to despair, not being overwhelmed by it.”

Folks, we don’t find too many Hot Stamper copies of this great album, so don’t assume that another one will pop right up once this one goes. This album may not be as well-known as Harvest or After The Gold Rush, but it’s every bit as worthy of a place in your collection — especially when it sounds this good!

Prime Time For Neil Young

I want to take a moment to acknowledge the string of superb studio albums Neil released from 1970 to 1976. I mean, look at these titles: After The Gold Rush, Harvest, On The Beach, Tonight’s The Night, and Zuma. Not a dog in the lot, to say the least. I can’t think of anyone else besides Led Zep (first five titles) and The Beatles (pick ’em!) who put out at least this many killer albums consecutively. We consider each of those albums a work of genius, and we can proudly claim to have found copies of each with the sonic credentials necessary to bring you these masterpieces at their absolute best — exactly the way you want to hear them.

Live In The Studio Sound

On the better copies, the title track is out of this world. It’s got that live-in-the-studio sound we recognize and love from Zuma, but in this case it sounds like it was recorded at three in the morning in a room full of pot smoke! When you play a Hot Stamper copy, the soundfield is huge — big, wide, and deep — and there’s lots of space around each of the instruments. You will not believe all the studio ambience, and you can probably catch a contact high from it! (Results may vary.)

Al Schmitt handled production for many of these songs, and he did the same kind of bang-up job that earned him Grammy awards for his production on the Hatari soundtrack (a TAS List title) and his engineering on Steely Dan’s Aja, Toto IV, and more.

(more…)

Deep Purple – Machine Head

More of the Music of Deep Purple

  • This UK import pressing was doing just about everything right, with both sides earning seriously good grades
  • Amazingly spacious and three-dimensional, no doubt the result of the album being recorded practically live in the studio – the sound is HUGE, with real energy, presence and whomp
  • Their superbly talented engineer, Martin Birch, recorded the big, bold, rich, smooth sound of British Rock about as well as anyone ever did
  • 5 stars: “Machine Head was anything but a one-trick pony, introducing the bona fide classic opener “Highway Star,” which epitomized all of Deep Purple’s intensity and versatility while featuring perhaps the greatest soloing duel ever between guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and organist Jon Lord.”
  • It’s our pick for the band’s best sounding studio album. Roughly 150 other listings for the best recording by an artist or rroup can be found here.

When you get a Hot Stamper pressing like this one, Machine Head is a True Rock and Roll Demo Disc. Since our stereo is all about playing these kinds of records, and playing them at good loud levels as nature — and the artists — intended, we had a helluva time with Machine Head.

It had the kind of presence and energy that puts most copies of this album to shame. It’s also amazingly spacious, the result no doubt of it being recorded practically live in the studio. On the best copies, you can really hear the sound bouncing off the studio walls, just as you can on the best Zep, AC/DC and Bad Co. albums. You can just tell they are all playing this one live: it’s so relaxed and natural and REAL sounding.

The vocalist is surely in a booth, but everyone else seems to be in a lively studio. With lovely extension up top, this was a very sweet copy that cried out to be turned up good and loud. The louder we played it the better it sounded.

The best pressings give you exactly what you want from this brand of straight-ahead rock and roll: presence in the vocals; solid, note-like bass; big punchy drums, and the kind of live-in-the-studio energetic, clean and clear sound. (AC/DC is another band with that kind of live studio sound. With big speakers and the power to drive them YOU ARE THERE.)

(more…)

Neil Young – Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

More Neil Young

One of Our Favorite Titles from 1969


  • Stunning sound throughout this vintage pressing of Neil’s second studio album, with both sides earning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • When we say “just shy of our Shootout Winner,” we want to make clear than practically no one playing this Hot Stamper pressing would ever think it could possibly get any better than this very record — it’s simply a phenomenally well-recorded album
  • The best tracks have that live-in-the-studio quality Neil is famous for (of which Zuma is the best example), with minimal processing and maximum energy
  • Includes some of Neil Young’s most beloved classics: “Cinnamon Girl,” “Cowgirl in the Sand,” and “Down by the River” just to name three
  • 5 stars: “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere was breathtakingly different when it appeared in May 1969, both for Young and for rock in general, and it reversed his commercial fortunes….”

Although not quite in the league with the best of the best — the likes of Gold Rush, Harvest, or Zuma, all titles we have a devil of a time keeping in stock — the best sounding tracks here are a rough guide for to what was to come as Neil and his producer, David Briggs, got better and better until they were As Good As It Gets by the time they got around to After the Gold Rush in 1970 (for which they seem to get no credit, outside of Better Records’ raves for the album of course).

We absolutely love the Live-in-the-Studio quality that only the best pressings of this album can give, with minimal processing and maximum energy. Man, with a good copy played back on a big pair of speakers this album can ROCK like nobody’s business. Nine minutes of “Down by the River”? A ten minute long version of “Cowgirl in the Sand”? “Cinnamon Girl”? We are so there!

This kind of musical, natural sound is not easy to come by. If you own any copy of the album you know what we mean. (more…)

Free / Tons Of Sobs – A Classic of British Blues

More Free

More British Blues Rock


  • Tons of Sobs returns to the site for only the second time in over two and a half years, here with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER from top to bottom – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Side one was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be shocked at how big and powerful the sound is
  • This Island Pink Rim UK pressing gave us what we were looking for from these British Blues rockers – it’s smooth, weighty, and overflowing with Tubey Magical richness
  • The key is to find a copy with a top end — a lot of what we played was just too dull up high, and we take a lot of points off for the copies that are too smooth, because that is simply not the right sound for this album
  • It’s tough to find these imports in audiophile condition, which is why they only hit the site at most every two years or so
  • 4 1/2 stars: “…a blistering combination of youth, ambition, and experience that, across the course of their debut album, did indeed lay the groundwork for all that Zeppelin would embrace. …Tons of Sobs has a density that makes Zeppelin and the rest of the era’s rocky contemporaries sound like flyweights by comparison.”

Here is just the kind of sound you want on an album like this — big and bold!

If you’ve got the full range dynamic speakers to play Tons of Sobs good and loud, you will discover, as we have, what a powerful British Blues Rock album this is. No hits, just heavy electric blues played with feeling, months before Zeppelin would come along and take the genre to a whole new level.

(more…)

Linda Ronstadt – What’s New

More of the Music of Linda Ronstadt

  • Boasting KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides, we guarantee you’ve never heard What’s New sound this good
  • So hugely spacious and three-dimensional, yet with a tonally correct and fairly natural sounding Linda, this is the way to hear it
  • What engineer George Massenburg gets right is the sound of an orchestra, augmented with jazz musicians (Ray Brown, Tommy Tedesco, Plas Johnson, Bob Cooper), all performing live in a huge studio
  • “…the best and most serious attempt to rehabilitate an idea of pop that Beatlemania… undid in the mid-60s.”
  • If you’re a Ronstadt fan, this title from 1983 is surely a Must Own. The complete list of titles from 1983 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

With two outstanding sides, this pressing gets two critically important elements of the recording right:

The strings in the orchestra, and, for obvious reasons, even more importantly, Linda’s voice.

We guarantee that these sides give you a more natural sounding Linda than you’ve ever heard, or your money back.

If all you own is a mediocre sounding pressing or the truly awful Mobile Fidelity from 1983, you are in for a world of better sound with this pressing.

(more…)

Stevie Ray Vaughan – The Sky Is Crying

More Stevie Ray Vaughan

Albums with Especially Dynamic Guitar Solos

  • SRV’s rock masterpiece, here with a KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side one mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side two – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • A Triple Plus side one means you get a “Little Wing” that is guaranteed to be one of the best sounding tracks you have ever played in your audiophile life
  • Some of the most blistering performances of electric blues we have ever had the pleasure of rocking out to
  • Hands down the best sounding SRV recording – “Little Wing” is an absolute monster on this side one and a demo track to beat them all
  • 4 stars: “Doing away with vocals, Vaughan augments Hendrix’s concise two-and-a-half minute original, turning the track into a nearly seven-minute-long electric tour de force. The cover would earn Vaughan his sixth Grammy, for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, in 1992.”
  • We know about quite a few records that rock this hard. We seek them out, and we know how to play them.

This is one of the most blistering recordings of electric blues we’ve ever played. Few other records recorded in the ’80s have this kind of big, bold sound. Maybe none. The sheer impact and wallop of this music is a real treat, but only if you have the right pressing, and the right kind of stereo to play it on.

Stevie’s take on Jimi’s “Little Wing” is the surest proof that SRV was one of the greatest Electric Blues Guitarists of All Time. I know of no other guitar showcase to compete with it.

Turn it up good and loud and you will be amazed at how dynamic the guitar solos are.

Sonically it’s a knockout, with one of the tallest, widest, and deepest soundstages I have ever heard on record. It brings to mind Gilmore’s multiple solos on Money from the hottest Dark Side of the Moon pressings, high praise indeed.

“Little Wing” deservedly won SRV the Grammy in ’92 for Best Rock Instrumental.

And, if you want to hear Stevie channel Wes Montgomery instead of Jimi Hendrix, take a listen to “Chitlins Con Carne.”

(more…)

The Turn Up Your Volume Test – Almost Cut My Hair

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Crosby, Stills, Nash and (Sometimes) Young

The only time Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young actually sound like a real rock and roll band is on the track Almost Cut My Hair.

According to Stephen Barncard, one of the engineers on Deja Vu, the track was actually recorded live in the studio.

Boy, it sure sounds like it. The amount of energy the band generates on this one song exceeds the energy of the entire first album put together. 

The reason this song presents such a tough test is that it has to be mastered properly in order to make you want to turn it up, not just louder, but as loud as your stereo will play.

This song is not to be used as background music whilst sipping wine and smoking cigars.

It positively cries out to be played at serious volume levels on monstrously large speakers. Nothing else will do justice to the power of the band’s one and only live performance captured on the album.

Listen to Neil in the left channel wailing away like a man possessed. Imagine what his grunged-out guitar would sound like blasting out of a stack of Marshall amps the size of a house.

Now hold that sound in your head as you turn up the volume on your preamp.

When your system starts to distort, back it off a notch and take your seat.

Deja Vu Letters

Some of our customers have written to tell us about the amazing sound they heard on our Hot Stamper pressings of Deja Vu.

“I know in one sense you’re only doing your job but who the hell else does what you do?”
“I almost fell off my listening chair.”
“I think It’s a bargain at $800. It absolutely trashes my Mofi version…”
“I had no idea that vinyl could produce this sound.”

(more…)

Free / Fire and Water

More British Blues Rock

  • Fire and Water is finally back on the site after a four year hiatus, here with hard rockin’ Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on both sides of this wonderful copy of the band’s third release
  • Yes, it takes us about four years to find a copy that sounds this good and plays this quietly – if you want to find your own Hot Stamper pressing, we wish you the best of luck
  • The recording sounds more alive than 99 out of 100 rock records we’ve played, and we’ve played the best sounding rock records ever made
  • Present, spacious and lively, with a solid bottom end – this is the lean and mean sound you want from Free
  • Top 100 and 4 1/2 stars: “From Paul Kossoff’s exquisite and tasteful guitar work, to Paul Rodgers’ soulful vocals, this was a group that was easily worthy of the mantle worn by Cream, Blind Faith, or Derek & the Dominos.”
  • This is our pick for Free’s best sounding album. Roughly 150 other listings for the best recording by an artist or group can be found here on the blog.

To find a copy that plays this quietly and sounds this good is no mean feat, but here one is.

This is one of our favorite recordings and a member of our Top 100, but it only works when you get the right pressing. This one has the big, spacious soundstage and punchy bottom end to bring this album to life.

This is the sound of a real rock ‘n’ roll band — no gimmicks, no tricks — just guitar, bass, drums, and vocals. This album has stunning live-in-the-studio rock sound that must be heard to be believed.

It’s got exactly what you want from this brand of straight-ahead rock and roll: presence in the vocals; solid, note-like bass; big punchy drums, and the kind of live-in-the-studio energetic, clean and clear sound that Free practically invented. (AC/DC is another band with that kind of live studio sound. With big speakers and the power to drive them you are there.)

Side one leads off with “Fire and Water,” and boy does it ever sound good. This track will show you exactly what we mean by live in the studio sound. You can just tell they are all playing this one live; it’s so relaxed and natural and real sounding.

One thing that really took us by surprise on the first track is how big and fat the toms are on the better copies and how thin and small they are on the average copy. Play a few copies for yourself and just listen for the size and power of the toms. Most copies will leave you wanting more.

If you’re a fan of big drums and jump out of the speakers sound, this is the album for you.

(more…)

The Faces – A Nod Is As Good As A Wink…

More Rod Stewart

More British Blues Rock

  • Two excellent WB Green Label sides, both with Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish – The Faces are rockin’ their asses off on this copy
  • Punchy, solid and rich through and through, with driving energy like nothing you’ve ever heard from the band
  • Impossibly quiet vinyl for a Green Label original – good luck finding one that plays this well (and sounds anything like this)
  • 5 stars: “[It] doesn’t feel cobbled together and it serves up tremendous song after tremendous song… It’s another classic — and when you consider that the band also had Long Player to their credit and had their hands all over Every Picture in 1971, it’s hard to imagine another band or singer having a year more extraordinary as this.”

(more…)