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Stillness – Our Four Plus Shootout Winner from 2013

More of the Music of Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66

TWO AMAZING SIDES, including a BETTER THAN WHITE HOT A++++ SIDE TWO! That’s right folks, four pluses!

Our lengthy commentary entitled Outliers & Out-of-This-World Sound talks about how rare these kinds of pressings are and how to go about finding them.

We no longer give Four Pluses out as a matter of policy, but that doesn’t mean we don’t come across records that deserve them from time to time.

This is an incredibly well-recorded album and a member of our Top 100, in fact. The soundfield itself has a three-dimensional quality that will absolutely blow you away. If you are looking for DEMO DISC QUALITY SOUND with music every bit as good, look no further – this record is for you. 

We figure we’re about due for a thank you note from Mr. Mendes, because we’ve turned a huge number of audiophiles into die-hard fans of this album. It’s easy to see why when you play a copy that sounds like this. All of the qualities we look for on this album are right here.

Side One

The vocals on this side are Right On The Money — present and breathy. It could use a bit more extension up top but at A+ – A++, this side is a nice step up over the average copy.

Side Two

A++++, absolutely As Good As It Gets! The side is doing everything right. It’s big, bold, rich and lively with none of the vocal edginess that plagues the average copy. The vocals are wonderfully breathy and it’s tonally correct from top to bottom.

Even if you don’t know much about this music we encourage you to take a chance on this one. We’re fairly confident that anyone who values amazing sound enough to be in the Hot Stamper market will get a LOT out of this record — it’s pure, unadulterated, audiophile gold. We have turned a lot of people on to this album, and we’ve received quite a few letters from folks who had totally missed out on this wonderful music back in the day, only to fall in love with a Hot Stamper copy forty years after its release. (The album bombed when it was released, which accounts for the fact that it’s not nearly as common in the used record bins as others by Sergio and his bandmates.) (more…)

Santana’s Guitar Solos Soar on Inner Secrets

Hot Stamper Pressings of Albums with Especially Dynamic Guitar Solos Available Now

On side two the final guitar solo Santana takes on Well All Right gets as loud in the mix as any guitar solo on any rock record that I know of (off the top of my head).

This link will take you to some of the other records with especially dynamic guitar solos we have auditioned to date.

The sound gets louder after the first chorus, then louder still right before the second solo, and then the solo itself gets even louder until it seems to be as loud as live music. (Operative word: seems.)

Does it seem odd to you that the only audiophiles writing about the amazing sound of this recording are those who happen to work for Better Records?

Oh, we’ve gotten pretty used to it by now. It’s mostly a function of two things: cleaning and playing lots of copies of the same album to find the ones with the incredible dynamics we’re discussing here, and playing them on big speakers at loud levels so that the power of the music gets reproduced in all its glory.

Two points to keep in mind:

  • Some copies get loud and some do not.
  • Some stereos are dynamic and some are not.

If you have the right stereo, set at the right volume, and the hottest of our Hot Stamper copies, you will hear something that not one out of one hundred audiophiles (or music lovers) have ever heard on a record — LIVE ROCK SOUND.

What makes it possible to play this record so loud and still enjoy it? Simple. Just like Nirvana, when the sound is smooth and sweet, completely free of aggressive mids and highs, records get BETTER as they get LOUDER. (This of course assumes low distortion and all the rest, but the main factor is correct tonality from top to bottom, and this record has it.) 

One reason the turn up your volume test is such a great test — the louder the problem, the harder it is to ignore.

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