spacious-sound

Saint-Saens / Chabrier / Danse Macabre / Espana and More

More of the music of Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921)

More of the music of Emmanual Chabrier (1841-1894)

  • Both sides here are BIGGER and RICHER than any other we played – they’re super clean and clear, tonally correct from top to bottom, and have all of the weight of the orchestra down low (not to mention some of the loveliest orchestral music reproduction we’ve ever heard)
  • If you want a classical record to TEST your system and DEMO your system, you will have a hard time finding a better pressing than this very copy!
  • This Demo Disc Quality recording should be part of any serious Orchestral Music Collection. Others that belong in that category can be found here.
  • There are about 150 orchestral recordings we’ve awarded the honor of offering the Best Performances with the Highest Quality Sound, and this record certainly deserve a place on that list.

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Beethoven and Richter – Our Favorite Performance on Vinyl

More of the music of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

  • A stunning copy of this wonderful concerto performance that boasts a Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side one, and reasonably quiet vinyl for a Shaded Dog from 1961
  • This pressing has the real Living Stereo magic in spades, but unlike most of the RCA concerto recordings, Richter, the brilliant soloist featured here, is not overly spotlighted, hence the much more natural “concert hall” sound
  • The piano is part of the orchestra, and properly sized, allowing the contributions of the other musicians in the orchestra to be heard more clearly, laid out as they are so elegantly across a huge and deep Boston Symphony Hall stage

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Kenny Burrell – Weaver of Dreams

More Kenny Burrell

More Recordings on Vintage Columbia Vinyl

  • With two excellent Double Plus (A++) or BETTER sides, this original 6-Eye Stereo pressing of Burrell’s 1961 vocal release will be very hard to beat
  • Exceptionally spacious and three-dimensional, as well as relaxed and full-bodied – this pressing was a big step up over most of the other copies we played
  • ANALOG at its Tubey Magical finest – you’ll never play a CD (or any other digitally sourced material) that sounds as good as this record as long as you live
  • If you have the Classic Records pressing from 1995, you were probably as unimpressed by the sound of it as we were, but not to worry, our Hot Stamper pressing murders that Heavy Vinyl wannabe
  • These are the Top Titles from 1961 we’ve reviewed to date. From an audiophile perspective, depending on your taste in music, most should be worthy of a place in your collection
  • Here is the complete list of titles from 1961 that we’ve reviewed (which overlaps quite a bit with the group above). Just about any of these, depending on how much you like the artist(s) or music, are worth seeking out

This original 6-Eye Stereo 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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Marty Robbins – Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs on 360 Stereo

More Marty Robbins

More Country and Country Rock

  • You’ll find excellent Double Plus (A++) sound on both sides of this 360 Stereo pressing – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • This copy is remarkably clear and open, superior to most others in that regard, with smooth and rich vocals to boot
  • Transparency and Tubey Magic are critical to the sound of the arrangements, and you will find both in abundance on these sides
  • Is the original 6-Eye stereo or early 360 stereo the only way to go on this record? Based upon what we learned in our recent shootout, the first one we’ve done since 2018, the answer is yes
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The single most influential album of Western songs in post-World War II American music. The longevity of the album’s appeal is a result of Marty Robbins’ love of the repertory at hand and the mix of his youthful dynamism and prodigious talent…”

Two excellent sides, with the kind of ’50’s Tubey Magical Analog Sound that’s been lost to the world of recorded music for decades — decades, I tell you! Nobody can manage to get a recording to sound like this anymore and it seems clear to us that no one can remaster a recording like this nowadays, if our direct experience with hundreds of such albums counts as evidence.

Albums such as this live and die by the quality of their vocal reproduction. On this record, Mr. Marty Robbins himself will appear to be standing right in your listening room, along with the other other musicians on the sessions of course.

Each of the huge studios the music was recorded in are captured faithfully here. The height, width and depth of the staging are extraordinary. We are not big soundstage guys here at Better Records, but we can’t deny the appeal of the three-dimensional space to be found on a recording as good as this.

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Dvorak / Symphony No. 9 – The Best on Record

More of the music of Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904)

More Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Antonin Dvorak

  • This big, lively, and dynamic UK Decca pressing boasts superb Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • The sound of the hall the Vienna Phil recorded in is huge, so wide and deep, spacious and open – the perspective is above all natural
  • Tons of energy, loads of rich detail and texture, superb transparency and excellent clarity – this pressing is the very definition of Orchestral Demo Disc Sound
  • “It is a great symphony and must take its place among the finest works in the form produced since the death of Beethoven.” – The New York Times
  •  When you hear how good this record sounds, you may have a hard time believing that it’s a budget reissue from 1970. Even more extraordinary, the right copies are the ones that win shootouts
  • There are about 150 orchestral recordings we’ve awarded the honor of offering the Best Performances with the Highest Quality Sound, and Kertesz’s with the Vienna Phil. certainly deserves a place on that list.

Presenting yet another remarkable Demo Disc from the Golden Age of Vacuum Tube Recording Technology, in this case 1961, with the added benefit of mastering courtesy of the more modern equipment of the ’70s, in this case 1970. (We are of course here referring to the good modern equipment of 50+ years ago, not the bad modern mastering equipment of today.)

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Liszt / Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 / Kondrashin / Richter

More of the music of Franz Liszt (1811-1886)

More Classical and Orchestral Recordings

  • A vintage Philips import pressing of these Classical Masterpieces that boasts excellent Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last, pressed on vinyl that’s about as quiet as we can find it
  • The finest Liszt 1st and 2nd Piano Concertos we know of for their performances, and unquestionably for sonics (when the sonics are this good!)
  • The better pressings of this title are more like live music than any classical recording you own (outside of one of our Hot Stamper pressings, of course; those can be every bit as good) or your money back
  • So big, rich and transparent we guarantee you have never heard a better piano concerto recording

*NOTE: Unlike Concerto No. 1, The Second Piano Concerto opens very quietly, so there will likely never be a vintage pressing of the album that will get that opening to play like a CD. Expect to hear some random ticks, a small price to pay to hear this wonderful performance on top quality analog.

Richter and Kondrashin deliver the finest Liszt 1st & 2nd Piano Concertos I know of, musically, sonically and in every other way. Richter’s performance here is alternately energetic and lyrical, precisely as the work demands. The recording itself is explosively dynamic. The brass is unbelievably full, rich and powerful. You won’t find a better recording of this music anywhere, and this pressing just cannot be beat.

Big and rich (always a problem with piano recordings: you want to hear the percussive qualities of the instrument, but few copies can pull it off without sounding thin). We love the BIG, FAT, Tubey Magical sound of this recording! The piano is solid and powerful — like a real piano.

Huge amounts of hall space, weight and energy, this is DEMO DISC QUALITY SOUND by any standard. (more…)

Frank Sinatra – Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim

More Frank Sinatra

More Antonio Carlos Jobim

  • Boasting superb sound from start to finish, this vintage stereo pressing of Sinatra and Jobim’s sublime collaboration will be very hard to beat
  • The presence and three-dimensional space of the recording have the power to transport the Chairman of the Board and his Brazilian buddy right into your listening room
  • This is a magical album from start to finish, one of a handful of a Must Own Sinatra releases, and my personal favorite of all his recordings
  • 4 1/2 stars: “After a few plays, the album begins to slowly work its way underneath a listener’s skin, and it emerges as one of his most rewarding albums of the ’60s.”
  • We’ve recently compiled a list of records we think every audiophile should get to know better, along the lines of “the 1001 records you need to hear before you die,” with less of an accent on morbidity and more on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. This is a good example of a record audiophiles should make an effort to get to know better

This is, in our opinion, one of the two best sounding Sinatra album on Reprise (the other being September of My Years from 1965). The recording is so rich, sweet, and Tubey Magical, you would think it was prime Capitol period Sinatra — but it’s not, obviously; it just sounds that way.

If you like romantic music, you will be hard-pressed to find a better album than this one. The song “Quiet Nights Of Quiet Stars” perfectly encapsulates the mood of this album. My favorite track here is “Dindi.” Sinatra is the king of lost loves, and the song “Dindi” offers him another opportunity for regret. Nobody does it better than Frank. It’s a cliche to say he wears his heart on his sleeve, but the man made a career out of it. If the cliche fits…

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Roxy Music – Avalon

More Bryan Ferry

More Roxy Music

  • Boasting top quality sound throughout, this UK pressing is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other Avalon you’ve heard – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Copies that are exceptionally transparent, with three-dimensional depth and a wide soundstage, present this music the way it was meant to be heard
  • Credit Rhett Davies with creating the sonic space to allow the singers, instruments and subtle studio effects to be balanced and integrated from front to back, side to side and top to bottom
  • The sound may be a bit too heavily processed for some, but we find that on the best copies that sound really works for this music, some of the best ever produced by the band
  • 5 stars: “Ferry was never this romantic or seductive, either with Roxy or as a solo artist, and Avalon shimmers with elegance in both its music and its lyrics.”

Records like Avalon get people (often known as audiophiles) to spend wads and wads of money in pursuit of expensive analog equipment good enough to bring this wonderful music to life in their very own listening rooms.

The album rewards a stereo with many of the qualities that audiophiles prize most highly when selecting equipment — spaciousness, transparency, clarity, detail, depth, soundstaging, speed, high frequency extension and the like.

The mix is as dense as any we know. Only the best copies have the ability to show you everything that’s on the tape. Credit must go to the amazingly talented Rhett Davies for creating the space to put so many instruments and sounds in.

We would add to that list presence and energy, along with warmth, fullness, and lack of smear on the transients. Whomp and rock and roll power do not seem to play much part in separating the best from the rest, although it’s nice when the bottom end is big and solid.

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Strauss / Schubert – Dances of Old Vienna / Boskovsky

More of the music of Johann Strauss (1804-1849)

More Classical and Orchestral Recordings

  • An original UK Decca pressing of this wonderful sounding record boasting STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades from first note to last
  • Tonally correct from top to bottom and full of Tubey Magic, it’s unbelievably spacious and three-dimensional, with depth to rival any recording you may own
  • The violin (played by Boskovsky himself) is immediate, real and lively here – there is a transparency and ease to the sound that is not often heard in recordings from any era, making this a very special record indeed
  • Gordon Parry and James Lock handled the engineering duties for Decca and their work here is hard to fault

Wow, what a find! This is a WONDERFUL sounding record with vintage Decca/London sound. There is not a trace of hyped-up sound to be found on this record.

So spacious! This is a fairly small ensemble, not a huge orchestra, playing in a lively hall, exactly the kind of hall in which this music was meant to be heard. The reason everything on this disc sounds right is that the venue, the sound and the music are authentic to these works in practically every detail.

This vintage UK import 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.

If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.

What The Best Sides Of Dances of Old Vienna Have To Offer Is Not Hard To Hear

  • The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
  • The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in 1968
  • Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
  • Natural tonality in the midrange — with all the instruments having the correct timbre
  • Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space

No doubt there’s more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.

What We’re Listening For On Dances of Old Vienna

  • Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
  • The Big Sound comes next — wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
  • Then transient information — fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.
  • Next: transparency — the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.
  • Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.

Size and Space

One of the qualities that we don’t talk about on the site nearly enough is the SIZE of the record’s presentation. Some copies of the album just sound small — they don’t extend all the way to the outside edges of the speakers, and they don’t seem to take up all the space from the floor to the ceiling. In addition, the sound can often be recessed, with a lack of presence and immediacy in the center.

Other copies — my notes for these copies often read “BIG and BOLD” — create a huge soundfield, with the music positively jumping out of the speakers. They’re not brighter, they’re not more aggressive, they’re not hyped-up in any way, they’re just bigger and clearer.

And most of the time those very special pressings are just plain more involving. When you hear a copy that does all that — a copy like this one — it’s an entirely different listening experience.

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Barbra Streisand / Je M’Appelle Barbra – ’60s 360 Vs. ’70s Red Label

More of the Music of Barbra Streisand

More Titles that Potentially Sound Their Best on the Right Reissue Pressing

For Barbra Streisand’s early albums, the original pressings on the 360 label just have to be better, right? 

Not in this case. It’s just another rule of thumb, one that will sometimes lead you astray if what you are trying to find are not just good sounding pressings of albums, but the best sounding pressings of albums.

Same with reissue versus original. Nice rule of thumb but only if you have enough copies of the title to know that you’re not just assuming the original is better. You actually have the data — gathered from the other LPs you have played — to back it up.

The best of the 360 pressings in our shootout did well, just not as well.

A classic case of Compared to What? Who knew the recording would sound better on the Red Label Columbia reissue pressing from the ’70s? Certainly not us, not until we had done the shootout.

This is why we do shootouts, and why you must do them too, if owning the highest quality pressings is important to you.

Our good later label pressings had all the richness and Tubey Magic of the 360s — one really couldn’t tell which pressing was on the turntable by the sound — but had a bit more space, clarity and freedom from artificiality.

Watch your levels because she really gets loud on some of this material. The best copies, such as this side one, hold up. The lesser copies get congested, shrill and crude at their loudest, and of course get marked down dramatically when that happens.

Side two as very rich and smooth, yet clear and breathy – this is the right sound for ol’ Babs. The first track has tons of Tubey Magical reverb – check it out! (more…)