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Stephen Stills / Manassas

More of the Music of Stephen Stills

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Stephen Stills

  • Manassas is back on the site for the first time in years, here with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on all FOUR sides of these vintage Atlantic pressings – fairly (and unusually) quiet vinyl too
  • The sound is big and rich and Tubey Magical, the vocals breathy and immediate
  • And you will not believe all the space and ambience – which of course are all qualities that Heavy Vinyl records have far too little of, and the main reason we have lost all respect for most of them
  • 4 1/2 stars: “A sprawling masterpiece, akin to the Beatles’ White Album, the Stones’ Exile on Main St., or Wilco’s Being There in its makeup, if not its sound.”

Most copies we played were a disaster: grungy, veiled, with no real top end, grainy, stuck in the speakers, with tubby bass — these and other problems were all too common. When a double album sounds like this it makes for a very long day.

What were we listening for exactly? An absence of all the bad qualities mentioned above would be the easiest answer. Once you find a copy without the nasty grit and the grain so many of them have, you quickly key into the lovely ambience that the better copies have, and then you start to notice the Tubey Magic, the richness and sweetness, the extension up top, the kind of transparency that lets you hear into the soundfield and pick out all the players — pretty much the same kinds of things you’re always looking for in a Hot Stamper pressing, except in this case you just had to be willing to look a lot harder.

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Crosby, Stills and Nash – Self-Titled

More of the Music of Crosby, Stills, Nash

  • A vintage copy of CS&N’s self-titled debut LP that was doing just about everything right, with both sides earning superb grades
  • The sound is big and rich, the vocals breathy and immediate, and you will not believe all the space and ambience
  • We love the album, but it is a cryin’ shame, as well as a fact, that few were mastered and pressed well, and that includes none of the originals in our experience
  • The reason you don’t see this title on the site more frequently is simply that it has become nearly impossible to find copies in audiophile playing condition with the right stampers
  • The right stampers for this album are at least ten times more rare than those for Zep II, but for some reason everybody thinks that record is rare!
  • We’ve discovered a hundred or more titles in which one stamper always wins, some of which we’ve identified, and no, we have no intention of giving out that information, sorry
  • The fact that only one specific later pressing ever wins our shootouts is proof that freeing your mind from unscientific thinking is the only way to find the highest quality pressings
  • 5 stars: “A definitive document of its era.”
  • This is a Must Own Hippie Folk Rock Masterpiece from 1969 that belongs in every right-thinking audiophile’s collection

Although millions of copies of this album were sold, so few were mastered and pressed well, and so many mastered seemingly with no regard to sound quality, that only a vanishingly small number of copies have ever made it to the site with Hot Stampers.

We consider this album a Masterpiece. It’s a recording that should be part of any serious Popular Music Collection.

Others that belong in that category can be found here.

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Buffalo Springfield – Again

More Country and Country Rock

  • Buffalo Springfield’s sophomore release is back on the site with INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) Tubey Magical Analog sound or close to it from from start to finish – unusually quiet vinyl for an ATCO original as well
  • Consistently brilliant songwriting and production: “Mr. Soul,” “A Child’s Claim To Fame,” “Expecting To Fly,” “Bluebird,” “Hung Upside Down,” “Rock & Roll Woman,” “Broken Arrow” and more!
  • A true Desert Island Disc – 5 stars: “…this record stands as their greatest triumph… its classic status cannot be denied.”
  • If you’re a fan of The Buffalo Springfield, this early pressing from 1967 surely belong in your collection
  • The complete list of titles from 1967 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.
  • 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,” but with less of an accent on morbidity and more on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. This band’s second and third albums are both good examples of records many audiophiles may not know well but should.

Listen to the vocal harmonies — you can separate out all the parts much more clearly on these Hot Stamper pressings. You can really hear precisely who’s in there and what part they are playing in the vocal arrangement. I can’t remember ever hearing it sound so clear. The best copies really let you hear into the music. (more…)

The Stills-Young Band – Long May You Run

More Stephen Stills

More Neil Young

  • An early Reprise pressing that boasts incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades throughout – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • Both of these sides are richer and smoother than practically all of what we played, with lovely studio space for the band to stretch out into
  • This copy is big and clear in a way so few are, which means it’s getting the sound right in the most important areas
  • The wonderfully present and breathy vocals are a clear indication that there is simply more information on these sides than almost all the others we played in our shootout
  • If you’re a fan of these two gentleman, this title from 1976 is surely of interest (more…)

Buffalo Springfield – Last Time Around

More Buffalo Springfield

  • Relaxed, rich and tubey, yet clear, this is the kind of sound you always wanted from The Buffalo Springfield but had no way to hear, until now
  • Some of the best songs the band ever wrote are right here: I Am A Child, Kind Woman and too many more to list
  • If Buffalo Springfield Again deserves a Five Star rating then Last Time Around does too – it’s equally brilliant, and a real Desert Island Disc for yours truly

These two sides are relaxed, rich and tubey, giving you exactly what you would expect from a Top Quality pressing — without the noise, veiling and distortion that you’re used to hearing on the copies you picked up locally, or the one you mistreated back in the day (didn’t we all?).

When you get hold of the right copy and know how to clean it right, you find that some of these pressings are a damn sight better than the most audiophiles think they are.

The kind of MIDRANGE MAGIC on this pressing let us hear into the music in a way we (and you too I’m guessing) never imagined was possible.

Most copies have no bass, no real top, and are compressed so badly they sound more like cardboard than vinyl. But not this copy. It breaks the mold, revealing to the world (well, our world anyway — the world at Better Records) that those badly recorded Buffalo Springfield records from the ’60s weren’t so badly recorded after all.

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