top-copy

These Shootout Winning pressings are backed up (in most cases) by the notes we took while playing them.

Our shootouts are always conducted blind, so these notes describe what we heard — only later did we discover which pressing it was that sounded so good.

Many times these very special pressings are not originals, or not pressings that audiophiles know about, or care about, or perhaps they’re not from the country the conventional wisdom says they should be from.

It’s precisely these kinds of records that make our day — they prove to us that the best sounding records in the world can only be discovered, never predicted.

On A Day at the Races, Which Side Lacked Space?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Queen Available Now

We described our 2025 White Hot Shootout Winner this way:

Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this incredible copy in our notes: “tubey and silky vox”…”very transparent and present”…”3D and sweet and tubey”…”big bass!” (side two)…”very full bodied and 3D.”

We shot out a number of other imports and the midrange presence, bass, and dynamics on this outstanding copy placed it well above almost all the other pressings we played.

As you can see from the notes, side one was killer in every respect, and the way we know that with a high degree of certainty is that we played a bunch of copies and nothing could touch it.

Side two was every bit as good in virtually every area, but in the final analysis we determined it fell a bit short in one. We discovered that fact when we came across a side two that was slightly better in one aspect of its sound than the side two you see described in the notes below.

When we played the two best copies back to back, something we do for each side as a final test in every shootout, side one of this copy came out on top, earning a grade of 3+. However, the side two of another pressing showed us there was even more space to be heard surrounding the music than we’d noticed the first time around.

With another copy earning a better grade for having even more space and ambience, we felt the right grade for this side two was 2.5+, Nearly White Hot.

Will the owner of this copy be able to tell?

That seems unlikely. It would be the rare listener indeed who would be able to detect anything missing on this amazingly good side two.

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Our Top Copy of Broken Barricades Was Amazing Sounding

Hot Stamper Pressings of Art Rock Albums Available Now

Our recent Shootout Winning early UK pressing was described this way:

Looking for some proggy music that falls somewhere between Jethro Tull and Supertramp, with sonic credentials to match the recordings of those two very well-recorded bands? Well, look no further.

This early UK press is full of the Tubey Magic and studio space that makes the band’s recordings the joy they are to play on a heavily-tweaked audiophile rig.

If you’re a Prog Rock or Art Rock fan, this is a classic from 1971 that belongs in your collection. This also just happens to be our pick for the best sounding recording by the band. Others of similar stature can be found here.

And here are the notes that back up everything we had to say about the copy that knocked us out.

We LOVED playing this album, both for the music and the sound. These guys don’t get the respect they deserve among audiophiles, but we’re doing our best to try to change that.

Side one kicks off with the hit track Simple Sister, and you won’t believe how hard it rocks. Some copies are overly clean — they have the kind of clarity you might hope to find, but lacked the richness and fullness that makes ’70s analog so involving. Those “clean” copies simply do not earn very high grades from us. We leave that sound to the Heavy Vinyl and CD crowd; they seem to like it.

Punter and Thomas

John Punter engineered and Chris Thomas produced. They have worked on many of our favorite — and best-sounding – albums by British artists.

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The Best Pressings of Brothers in Arms Are Not Hard to Recognize

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Dire Straits Available Now

We try to be upfront with our customers that the Hot Stamper pressings of Brothers in Arms on our site have many nice qualities, but some of the best qualities of analog recordings from the 50s, 60s and 70s are not among them.

It would be foolish to pretend otherwise. We want our customers to know what to expect when they buy a modern recording, and, having played copies of this album (as well as Love Over Gold) by the score, we are qualified to tell them what even the best pressings do not do as well as we might like. In a recent listing we introduced one of the best sounding pressings from our last shootout this way:

  • Tonally correct from start to finish, with a solid bottom and fairly natural vocals (for this particular recording of course), here is the sound they were going for in the studio
  • Drop the needle on “So Far Away” – it’s airy, open, and spacious, yet still rich and full-bodied
  • We admit that the sound may be too processed and lacking in Tubey Magic for some
  • When it comes to Tubey Magic, there simply is none — that’s not the sound Neil Dorfsman, the engineer who won the Grammy for this album, was going for
  • We find that the best properly-mastered, properly-pressed copies, when played at good loud levels on our system, give us sound that was wall to wall, floor to ceiling, glorious, powerful and exciting — just not Tubey Magical

The notes you see below catalog the qualities of our 2025 Shootout Winner.

Side One

Track One (So Far Away)

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This Is the Most Amazing Record the Dregs Ever Made

dixiedregsHot Stamper Pressings of Jazz Rock Fusion Albums Available Now

This is the band’s Masterpiece as well as a personal favorite of yours truly.

It’s also a clear case of one and done, at least when it comes to vinyl. (The live album, Bring ‘Em Back Alive, shown below, is only available on CD, but it comes highly recommended as well. I listen to it regularly.)

If you want to hear what happens when five virtuoso instrumentalists manage to combine their talent for Jazz, Rock, Classical and Country (thanks god there aren’t any vocals) into a potent mix that defies classification and breaks all the rules, this is the one. It reminds me of Ellington’s famous line that there are only two kinds of music: good music and bad music. This is the kind of music you may have trouble describing, but one thing’s for sure — it’s good. In fact it’s really good.

This is the most AMAZING album the Dregs ever recorded, and now this wild amalgamation of rock, jazz, country, prog and classical music has the kind of sound I always dreamed it could have. It’s rich and smooth like good ANALOG should be. It’s also got plenty of energy and rock and roll drive, which is precisely where the famous half-speed falls apart.

Few audiophiles know this music, and that’s a shame. This record is just a delight from beginning to end.

I’m apparently not the only one who noticed how good the album is. In 1980 Dregs of the Earth received a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.

The notes for our recent shootout winner are shown below:

More amazing finds like this one can be found here.

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Our Best Copy Lacked a Measure of Weight and Tubey Magic on Side Two

Hot Stamper Pressings of Recordings by Decca Available Now

Subtitled:

The Thrill of Hearing Massive Sound on an Orchestral Blockbuster of the First Order

We described our most recent shootout winning pressing this way:

This superb classical release (the first copy to hit the site in close to two and a half years) boasts big, bold, dynamic Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it throughout this early London pressing.

The notes rave about this copy: “huge and spacious, strong strings and brass, very rich, well-defined low end, sweet and rich and textured strings, gets massive and extends both up high and down low.”

Here you will find the huge hall, correct string tone, spacious, open sound that are hallmarks of all the best vintage orchestral pressings.

Listen to the plucked basses – clear, not smeary, with no sacrifice in richness. Take it from us, the guys that play classical recordings by the score, this is hard for a record to do.

Below you can find our actual shootout notes for that copy.

We discovered that side two was slightly lacking in some ways. We had a side two on another copy that was better than the 2.5+ side two you see here.

When we played the two best copies back to back, side one of this copy came out on top, earning a grade of 3+, but the side two of another copy showed us there was potentially even more weight and Tubey Magic to the recording than we had expected after hearing a number of copies by that point in the shootout.

As a consequence we felt it best to drop side two’s grade a half plus to 2.5+. Initially it was graded “at least 2+”, and the grade was then raised to 2.5+ after playing it head to head in the final round against the eventual shootout winner.

We marvelled at these specific qualities in the sound of side one.

Track Three

  • Huge and spacious
  • Strong strings and brass
  • Very rich
  • Well defined lows

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Breathy, Sweet and Lush – What’s Not to Like?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Tchaikovsky Available Now

Our notes for LSC 2565 read:

Love the sound of this LP, especially the flutes and strings. Breathy, sweet and lush.

It’s very difficult to get the sound right, though. Most copies are smeary, veiled or lacking weight and the loud brass gets pinched. Best copy was a big step up!

We described the Top Copy from our 2023 shootout this way:

Wonderful Living Stereo sound throughout this original Shaded Dog pressing.

Our White Hot Shootout Winner was simply amazing sounding — some of the best orchestral sound we have heard lately, especially audible in exceptionally breathy flutes and sweet strings.

It was a quite a step up in sound quality over even the closest contender, which just goes to show how hard it is to come across these very special pressings no matter how many Shaded Dogs you play.

Our favorite performance of the Tchaikovsky — when you hear it played by the BSO, guided by the baton of the supremely talented Charles Munch, you know you are hearing the work performed with the greatest skill and interpreted as authentically as is humanly possible.

Spacious, rich and smooth – only vintage analog seems capable of reproducing all three of these qualities without sacrificing resolution, staging, imaging or presence.

Another amazing recording from the 60s, brought to you by your vinyl-loving friends at Better Records.

  • The three-dimensional space and Tubey Magic are jaw-dropping on this copy.
  • An amazing Living Stereo all analog recording from 1962 – nothing else sounds like it.
  • When you’ve played as many Living Stereo titles as we have (250+ and counting), you’re bound to run into this kind of Demo Disc sound from time to time – it’s what makes record collecting fun.
  • It’s the kind of record we live for here at Better Records.

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Our Shootout Winner Had Sound that Was Really Jumping Out of the Speakers

Hot Stamper Pressings of Direct-to-Disc Recordings Available Now

Recently we put up a copy of this wonderful direct to disc recording with this description:

Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this incredible copy in our notes: “tubey and 3D and breathy”…”huge and lively”…”powerful orchestra”…”jumping out of the speakers”…”very rich and present.”

Great energy, but the sound is relaxed and Tubey sweet at the same time, never squawky, with plenty of extension on both ends – that’s analog for ya!

This is no sleepy over-the-hill Sheffield Direct-to-Disc (referring to the later Harry James titles, not the excellent first one) – these guys are the real deal and they play their hearts out on this album, recorded in a church with exemplary acoustics.

Note that side two did not have all the space, but was so punchy and 3-D that it was easy to award it a Nearly White Hot Stamper grade of 2.5+. The copy that beat it had all the same qualities and more space, sounding more like side one of this very pressing.

And here are the actual notes for the Shootout Winning copy we found.

We have no trouble hearing when a record is doing everything right, and when a record has one side that is a bit lacking, it’s the shootout that shows us in what area it is lacking.

In this case, our notes read:

  • Not all the space but so punchy and 3-D

Track one had sound that “jumped out of the speakers,” and if — like us — that’s the kind of sound you are looking for, our Hot Stamper pressings are where you can find it.

If you would like to test the pressings you own, here are a few that might make good tests for that quality. Also, many of our customers have commented about that quality in the Hot Stamper pressings we sent them, and you can read their letters here.

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The Who By Numbers – How Did We Know Side Two Was Slightly Veiled?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Who Available Now

Here is how we might typically describe one of our Shootout Winning copies:

Who By Numbers returns to the site for only the second time in over three years, here with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on both sides of this vintage Polydor import pressing – fairly quiet vinyl too.

Glyn Johns‘s magic is on display here, with open mics in a big studio space creating the 3D soundscapes we love.

Features two of their most iconic songs, “Slip Kid” and “Squeezebox,” and both sound incredible on this copy.

To back it all up, here are the notes for that very copy.

We started playing track three on side one, Squeeze Box, and returned to that track when we had two top copies to play against each other in the final round. Which one won? The one with “the most body and tubes.”

Note that side two of this copy was slightly veiled compared to the side two of the best copy we played, the one that would go on to earn 3+.

We don’t like veiled records — records where there is a curtain, no matter how transparent, in front of the musicians. Heavy Vinyl pressings are typically quite veiled and recessed in the midrange compared to their vintage vinyl counterparts, and that sound is simply not going to cut it with us. (Other folks may prefer a different sound it seems.)

Midrange presence is one of the most important qualities of any rock or pop recording we evaluate. You want Roger Daltry to be front and center, neither recessed nor behind a veil.

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Born Under a Bad Sign Is Amazing Sounding on the Right Pressing

Hot Stamper Pressings of Electric Blues Albums Available Now

We finally got a shootout going and found this killer copy.

Every copy we found with Hot Stampers in clean condition, a grand total of three original stereo copies, sold quickly, so for those of you who wanted to finally be able to hear the record in all is glory, sorry!

Here are the notes for our Shootout Winning copy. It sold for $899.

Side One

  • Big and tubey and 3-D
  • Jumping out
  • Very full vocals
  • Weighty and rich
  • Great energy

Side Two

  • Huge and tubey and spacious
  • So much room and detail
  • More of the same!

That’s the kind of sound your nine hundred bucks buys you.

Here is how we described it on the site:

  • Born Under A Bad Sign returns to the site for the first time in years, here with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades on both sides of this original Stax pressing – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • These are just a few of the the things we had to say about this amazing copy in our notes: “big and tubey and 3D”…”jumping out of the speakers”…”very full vox”…”weighty and rich”…”great energy”…”so much room and detail”
  • No other copy came close to this one, and we had a bunch, many of which earned grades of 1.5+ because, on this record, you really have to know what to look for in the dead wax
  • Incredibly dynamic, rich and full, with lots of texture to the guitars, this copy brought the music to life right in our listening room
  • Accept no substitutes – no reissue of the album can ever give you the energy, size and you-are-there presence that’s on this disc

More amazing finds similar to this one can be found here.

Craft Recordings remastered this Albert King title, and you should not be surprised to find that it sounds as awful as the other pressings put out by this ridiculous label, remastered pressings that we took the time to audition and review out of the goodness of our hearts, in the hopes of saving those of you out there in the land of audiophiles who might be tempted to buy some of their low- to mid-fi releases and could be scared away by our criticisms.

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Which Side of this Pressing Lacked Space, and How on Earth Did You Spot It?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Thelonious Monk Available Now

Our notes for a recent shootout winning copy read:

Monk’s Dream returns to the site for only the second time in over two years, here with INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them throughout this black print Stereo 360 pressing.

These are just a few of the things we had to say about this killer copy in our notes: “big and weighty”…”great size and detail and very full”…”breathy sax jumping out of the speakers”…”very big and full piano”

In our notes you can see that side one fell short in one area, space, but how would anyone know that who hadn’t played a copy with even more space than this one? That’s why we do shootouts and you must do them too.

Both of these sides are rich, spacious, big and Tubey Magical, with less smear on the piano, a problem that holds many copies back. The sound found on these early Columbia 360 Label Stereo pressings is absolutely the right one for Monk’s music.

As you can see from the notes we took for this copy, we are not making any of this up!

This is why we do shootouts. If you really want to be able to recognize subtle (and sometimes not so subtle!) differences between pressings, you must learn to do them too.

And make sure to take notes about what you are hearing, good and bad.

One side falling short of the full Three Pluses happens all the time.

One out of five records that has one shootout winning side will have a matching shootout-winning other side.

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