piano-weight

The best pressings of these recordings have solid, weighty piano reproduction.

Cecil Taylor Quartet – Looking Ahead!

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Piano

More Contemporary Label Jazz Recordings

  • Looking Ahead! is back on the site for only the second time in years, here with incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound from start to finish – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • We play a lot of vintage Contemporary recordings, but this one surprised us right from the first track with sound that stands out — this on a label that produced many of our favorite standout recordings
  • Both of these sides are clean, clear, and transparent, with an abundance of energy and wonderful clarity in the mids and highs
  • This is not an easy record to come by, as evident by how long it took us to get our most recent shootout going, and they usually don’t sound anywhere near this good when you manage to track one down
  • 4 1/2 stars: “It’s an amazing document of a talent fairly straining at the reins, a meteor about to burst onto the jazz scene and render it forever changed.”

These Nearly White Hot Stamper pressings have top-quality sound that’s often surprisingly close to our White Hots, but they sell at substantial discounts to our Shootout Winners, making them a relative bargain in the world of Hot Stampers (“relative” meaning relative considering the prices we charge). We feel you get what you pay for here at Better Records, and if ever you don’t agree, please feel free to return the record for a full refund, no questions asked.

This vintage Contemporary pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. 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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Chopin / Concerto No. 1 / Rubinstein / Skrowaczewski

Living Stereo Classical and Orchestral Titles Available Now

  • Rubinstein’s superb performance of Chopin’s concerto for piano is finally back in the site after a three year hiatus, here with INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) Living Stereo sound or close to it on both sides of this original Shaded Dog pressing
  • Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this stunning copy in our notes: “3D rich piano”…”big and tubey and dynamic”…”lush brash and strings”…”very full bodied”…”zero smear” (side one)
  • So big and transparent, with weight and heft to the brass, we guarantee you have never heard a better piano concerto recording (unless you already one of our White Hot Stamper LPs)
  • The secret to the superior sound of this particular Rubinstein recording over so many others is the engineering by Kenneth Wilkinson – the glorious hall the London Symphony plays in doesn’t hurt either
  • Chopin, according to Arthur Hedley, “had the rare gift of a very personal melody, expressive of heart-felt emotion, and his music is penetrated by a poetic feeling that has an almost universal appeal…”

“Present-day evaluation places him among the immortals of music by reason of his insight into the secret places of the heart and because of his awareness of the magical new sonorities to be drawn from the piano.”

The latest notes for this RCA recording point out that this is the best combination of sound and performance for Chopin’s first piano concerto, with more emotion and finesse in the playing than other versions we auditioned.

The piano is in the foreground, with the orchestra reasonably balanced and clearly more powerful than some of the other recordings we played.

The biggest issue for the lesser pressings — which means the ones that did not win the shootout — is the possibility of some tube compressor smear on the loudest orchestral passages. (This is a subect we discuss on the blog quite a bit, by the way,)

The strings have lovely Living Stereo (Decca-engineered) texture as well. As befits a Wilkinson recording from 1961, there is no shortage of clarity to balance out the Tubey Magical warmth and richness.

We have lately been surveying some of his recordings from the late-60s and 70s to our great disappointment. The All Tube Recording Chain was gone. Opacity and lack of warmth prevented us from proceeding with any shootouts we might have attempted.

We love the huge, Tubey Magical sound of this recording. The piano is solid and powerful — like a real piano.

With tremendous hall space, weight and energy, this is Demo Disc quality sound by any standard.

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Supertramp – Even In The Quietest Moments (UK)

More Supertramp

  • This original A&M import pressing was doing practically everything right, earning INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them from start to finish
  • The bottom end is big and punchy, the top is smooth and sweet, and the vocals are present and breathy
  • On a transparent copy such as this, the drums really punch through the dense mixes clearly, giving the music more life and energy
  • “…it’s a transitional album, bridging the gap between Crime of the Century and the forthcoming Breakfast in America… [it] has plenty of fine moments aside from ‘Give A Little Bit,’ including the music hall shuffle of ‘Loverboy,’ the Euro-artiness of ‘From Now On,’ and the ‘Fool on a Hill’ allusions on ‘Fool’s Overture.'”
  • If you’re a Supertramp fan like me, this art rock classic from 1977 belongs in your collection

What To Listen For

The piano on “Give A Little Bit” can get buried in the dense mix. Side ones that are rich and tubey and smooth with a clear piano did very well in our shootout.

“Lover Boy” is a Demo Quality Track on the better copies. It can be huge, spacious and lively. Getting the strings to sound harmonically rich without sliding into shrillness may not be easy but some copies manage it. On the biggest, richest copies the breakdown at about 2:20 is a lot of fun.

On side two, the recording quality of the solo piano at the start of the second track is nothing short of breathtaking. No piano on any Supertramp album sounds as good.

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Prokofiev & Rachmaninoff / Piano Concertos / Janis / Kondrashin

More of the music of Sergei Prokofiev

More of the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff

  • This pressing has White Hot Stamper (A+++) sound on side one – sound that must be experienced to be believed! – backed with stunning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on the second side – exceptionally quiet vinyl too 
  • The finest recordings of the Prokofiev No. 3 and Rachmaninoff No. 1 – these performances by Janis are legendary, and with phenomenal sonics such as these, the combination of sound and performance here is virtually unmatched in our experience
  • So big, so, rich, so transparent, so dynamic and full of life, we guarantee you have never heard a better piano concerto record in your life
  • This is one of the two Must Own Mercury piano concerto recordings, the other being SR 90283, which often suffers from inner groove distortion — not to worry, as a matter of grading policy, we check the inner grooves of every record we offer on the site
  • For a more complete list, the highest quality recordings of piano concertos that we’ve auditioned to date can be found here
  • To see more of the best orchestral recordings with top quality sound we know of, click here

This is a superb early Mercury Plum label stereo pressing of two of Byron Janis’s most famous performances (along with the Rachmaninoff 3rd, which is every bit as good). It’s a longtime member of the TAS Super Disc list.

The recording is explosively dynamic and on this copy, the sound was positively jumping out of the speakers. In addition, the brass and strings are full-bodied and rich, with practically no stridency, an unusual feat the Mercury engineers seem to have accomplished while in Russia.

Big, rich sound can sometimes present problems for piano recordings. You want to hear the percussive qualities of the instrument, but few copies pull off that trick without sounding thin. This one showed us a piano that was both clear and full-bodied.

With huge amounts of hall space, weight and energy, this is Demo Disc Quality sound by any standard. Once the needle has dropped you will quickly forget about the sound and simply find yourself in the presence of some of the greatest musicians of their generation captured on some of the greatest analog recordings of all time.

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Rachmaninoff / Favorite Classics for Piano / Pennario

More of the music of Franz Liszt (1811-1880)

More Classical ‘Sleeper” Records We’ve Discovered

We found White Hot Stamper sound on side two of this solo piano recording.

It’s big, rich and above all REAL sounding, with natural studio space. The legendary soloist Leonard Pennario is presented here at the height of his powers.

Superb choice of material, from Clair De Lune to Liebestraum to the Hungarian Rhapsody No . 2.

On the rare Stereo pressing of course — we want to hear all that studio space reproduced, just as your two ears would have heard it (more or less).

Side One

Graded Super Hot for the huge, solid-sounding piano, played with such verve and skill. The musical power on this side is stupendous. 

Side Two

Even better! No smear, with incredible clarity, and no sacrifice in weight or richness.

All of which adds up to a top quality piano recording in every way.

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Liszt, Ludwig, Grundman and Sax

Hot Stamper Pressings Engineered by Robert Ludwig Available Now

Liszt & Weber / Ballade No. 2, Mephisto Waltz / Bar-Illan

The Liszt side here actually has the best sound, earning a seriously good grade of A++ to A+++.

This is one of the few audiophile-label recordings I have ever played that actually sounds NATURAL and CORRECT. This is a very real sounding piano; there are not many recordings that can capture that instrument’s weight, but this one sure does.

Side One

A++ sound, very open and real. This is a big piano with a solid bottom end playing in a big room. A trace of smear on the transients keeps it from the full Three Plus grade.

Side Two

A++ to A+++, less smeary so we raised the grade a bit. The music is dark and somewhat “out there” but the sound is AMAZING. 

A top quality solo piano recording from an “audiophile” label? I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t heard it for myself.

That’s not really being fair, though. Some of us remember that Robert Ludwig cut another “audiophile” pressing, this one for Athena, and did a great job on it. (The other four records Athena released before they went out of business were awful, including the one mastered by Doug Sax.)

I suspect that if Ludwig hadn’t stopped cutting records years ago, we would not be complaining nearly as much as we do about the sound of the modern Heavy Vinyl pressings currently inundating the market.

Bernie and Doug really started letting the record lovers of the world down beginning as far back as the ’90s.

The muddy messes Doug Sax cut for Analogue Productions and the awful Living Stereo records Bernie cut for Classic Records were sad chapters in both men’s body of work. Here were two of the All Time Greats. Their fall was precipitous and painful for those of us who never gave up on analog. In those dark days they mastered one record after another so unlike the amazing sounding ones they had made in the ’70s and well into the ’80s.

We have nothing personal against either one of them, of course. We just haven’t liked the sound of very many of the records they’ve mastered for the last thirty years, and we have never been shy about saying so.

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Shostakovitch / Piano Concerto Nos. 1 and 2 – Another Amazing Piano Concerto Discovery

More of the Music of Dmitri Shostakovich

  • This stunning classical release finally makes its Hot Stamper debut here with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or very close to it throughout
  • Westminster is not a label that we typically associate with top quality sonics, but I knew from the moment I dropped the needle on an audition copy that the sound of this Hidden Gem could not be faulted
  • What made this the clear winner was not complicated – it’s solid and weighty like no other, with virtually no smear, situated in the biggest space, with the most energetic performances
  • Clear and transparent, with huge hall space extending wall to wall and floor to ceiling, this is a sound that the modern reissue, of any music, from any era, fails to reproduce utterly
  • A truly superb recording with huge, spacious, dynamic, lively sound – Tubey Magical richness is a big plus too
  • This to a top quality classical piano recording in every way

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Thelonious Monk – Straight, No Chaser


  • This early 360 Stereo Columbia pressing boasts stunning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on side one and an outstanding Double Plus (A++) side two – relatively quiet vinyl too
  • If you want to hear just how good Monk’s big, rich piano sounds, this copy can show you like nothing by Monk you’ve heard
  • Four Stars in Allmusic, with Teo Macero producing and top Columbia engineering to ensure audiophile standard sonics
  • “Thelonious Monk’s Straight, No Chaser is the pinnacle of his recordings for Columbia Records…” — TheAudioBeat.com

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Gershwin / Concerto In F & Rhapsody In Blue / Previn / Kostelanetz

More George Gershwin

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of George Gershwin

  • This Columbia Six Eye has Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound for the Rhapsody in Blue on side two – reasonably quiet vinyl too, especially for an early stereo LP
  • As would be expected, both sides are exceptionally rich and Tubey Magical, but the clarity, deep bass and powerful, dynamic sound of side two surprised the hell out of us – we’ve never heard the work reproduced with this kind of authority or fidelity
  • The first two movements of the Concerto in F found on side one earned a solid grade of Double Plus (A++) for their full brass and especially clear, solid, present piano, one with practically no trace of vintage analog tube smear
  • Performed with consummate skill and attention to detail – the results are magnificent!

Finally, the sound we’ve been searching for – rich, tubey and real, with nicely textured strings. The piano is solid, rich, high-rez and percussive — there is hardly any Old School smear or hardness to be heard, always important to the proper reproduction of any piano recording, whether the music is jazz, classical or rock. (We talk about smeary, hard pianos on many of our listings for those of you who take the time to read them.) (more…)

Franck / Piano Quintette & Brahms / Heifetz, Piatigorsky et al. – Reviewed in 2013

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

Superb Recordings with Jascha Heifetz Performing

This is one of the pressings we’ve discovered with Reversed Polarity.

A stellar reading of the Franck from this formidable group.

Side one of this Shaded Dog is excellent: rich, smooth and sweet.

The piano is exceptionally well-recorded, with real weight.

The Brahms is very good if you can reverse your polarity.    (more…)