Hot Stamper Pressings of Soul, Blues, R&B, etc. Available Now
The biggest problems we found in our shootout were:
Some edge to the horn sound (the kind of “detail” that some audiophiles might prefer but that to our ears would be a source of listener fatigue in the long run).
Stuck in the speakers low-resolution sound, by far the most typical, wherein the ambience and spaciousness of the studio are noticeably compromised.
And lack of bass, which either takes the rhythmic quality out of the music, the drive so to speak, or makes the horns sound thin, which is a not a sound we tend to like, on this album or any other, although most of the audiophiles that I’ve met seem not to mind it all that much.
The Wrong Kind of Clarity
Much of what passes for clarity in some systems is just a lack of lower mids and thin bass response — woofers too small, not enough of them, the same old story. There are many commentaries on the site concerning this very issue and I recommend you check a few out when you have the time.
Music like this needs full-bodied sound to do what it’s trying to do; you need to be able to move lots of air in your listening room to bring this music to life. You can be sure this band full of horn players was moving huge amounts of air in the studio. Would have loved to be there!
We love this funky music and have long been delighted with how wonderful the best pressings can sound. This may be Tower of Power’s best; certainly it’s one of their most consistent and well-recorded.
When you hear it on a Hot Stamper like this, there is little in the recording to criticize. The brass is textured with just the right amount of bite (but not to the point of sounding gritty). In addition, the soundstage is wide and three-dimensional, with the kind of transparency that allows you to hear into the music all the way to the back wall of the studio (assuming your system resolves that kind of information).
The most obvious effect is that all the horns are separated out from one another, not all smeared together, with plenty of space around the drums, guitars and vocals as well. The sound is freely flowing from the speakers, not stuck inside them.
The Sheffield Record — So Dry
Some of you no doubt know that there is a Direct to Disc on Sheffield by this band. I can tell you without question that this particular LP is clearly better sounding than that one, which tends to be annoyingly dry. This band’s recordings as a rule tend to be on the dry side, with little in the way of studio echo or ambience. The Sheffield is even more dryly recorded than their other albums, at least on the copies that I have played.