turn-up-your-volume-test

Being able to play some records at good loud levels is key to properly evaluating their sound.

It is far and away the toughest test we know of.

If you want to hear the difference between a Hot Stamper pressing and any other pressing, play the two of them good and loud and see which one sounds right.

The better sounding pressing will almost always be the Hot Stamper.

The Turn Up Your Volume Test – Almost Cut My Hair

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Crosby, Stills, Nash and (Sometimes) Young

The only time Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young actually sound like a real rock and roll band is on the track Almost Cut My Hair.

According to Stephen Barncard, one of the engineers on Deja Vu, the track was actually recorded live in the studio.

Boy, it sure sounds like it. The amount of energy the band generates on this one song threatens to exceed the energy of the entire first album put together. (Not really. The energy on 49 Bye-Byes, the last track on side two and my favorite on the album is off the charts and shows just how powerful there brand of Hippie Folk Rock could be given the right material. I defy anyone to name two albums from the period released back to back that are better. They have their equals, don’t get me wrong, but the idea of there being a pair of “betters” is a hard one to entertain once the pot smoke clears.)

The reason this song presents such a tough test is that it has to be mastered properly in order to make you want to turn it up, not just louder, but as loud as your stereo will play.

This song is not to be used as background music whilst sipping wine and smoking cigars.

It positively cries out to be played at serious volume levels on monstrously large speakers. Nothing else will do justice to the power of the band’s one and only live performance captured on the album.

Listen to Neil in the left channel wailing away like a man possessed. Imagine what his grunged-out guitar would sound like blasting out of a stack of Marshall amps the size of a house.

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Energy Is Key to the Best Copies of JT

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of James Taylor Available Now

The good copies really rock on songs like I Was Only Telling A Lie, yet have lovely transparent, delicate sound on the ballads Another Grey Morning or There We Are.

Just turn up the volume and play the opening to Honey Don’t Leave L.A. — this is James Taylor and his super-tight studio band at the peak of their powers. Russ Kunkel hits the drum twice, then clicks his sticks together so quickly you can hardly notice it, then goes back to the drums for the rest of the intro. On a superb copy like this one, the subtleties of his performance are clearly on display.

Until copies like this one came along, we had never even noticed that stick trick. Now it’s the high point of the whole intro.

Sound and Music

As audiophiles, we all know that sound and music are inseparable. In our shootout, after dropping the needle on a dozen or so copies, all originals by the way, we know when the music is working its magic and when it’s not.

As with any pop album, there are always some songs that sound better than others, but when you find yourself marvelling at how well-written and well-produced a song is, you know that the sound is doing what it’s supposed to do. It’s communicating the musical values of the material.

The most important of all these musical values is energy, and boy do the best copies of JT have it going on.

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Our 2016 Shootout Winner Just Sounded More Like Live Music

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Paul McCartney Available Now

Back in 2016 we had this to say about a copy of the album we had just played:

This copy will put you front and center for the single greatest Paul McCartney recorded concert of all time.

In the final round of shootouts on both sides, this copy showed itself as clearly superior in terms of transparency and three-dimensionality, as well as having the most rock solid bottom end. To sum it up, my notes read “so real,” which is exactly what makes this copy THE one to have. This is Paul and his mates LIVE in your listening room like you have never heard them before.

This copy gave us the feeling that we were right there in the audience for the taping of this amazing performance. It made other copies sound like records — good records, but records nonetheless. This one has the IMMEDIACY of a live show, one which just happened to be fronted by one of the greatest performers in the history of popular music, Sir Paul McCartney.

We shootout this album about once a year, which means that many changes will have occurred to the stereo in the meantime. One of the qualities that we noticed this time around was how much like live music this album can be when the pressings have one specific quality — tons of bass.

Live music, especially live music heard in a club, tends to have plenty of bass. It’s the sonic quality that’s by far the most difficult to recreate in the home.

When a record manages to capture that kind of “live” low end energy, it really helps make the connection between the sound of live music and the sound coming out of your speakers.

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Finding the Rare Pressing of Heavy Weather with An Extended Top End

Hot Stamper Pressings of Jazz Rock Fusion Albums Available Now

It has been our experience that the copies with high frequency extension and the clarity, space and percussive energy that results from it are almost always the best sounding.

You may have read elsewhere on the site that what separates many of the best Columbia LPs from their competition is an open, extended top end.

For some reason, Columbia, more than most labels, had a habit of making slightly dull records. Dull does not work for this album. 

When the highs on the record are right, it all comes together. Unfortunately, most copies don’t have those highs. There’s more to it than that of course: some copies lack bass, some are a bit grainy and gritty sounding — the normal problems associated with vinyl records are all here to one degree or another.

But when you have good highs you are about 80 to 85% of the way toward a Hot Stamper. Complete the picture with bass, dynamics, etc. (and a big speaker system) and there’s a good chance the sound will blow your mind.

Heavy Weather is a classic case of yet another in the long list of recordings that really comes alive when you turn up your volume.

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Letter of the Week – “Santana’s guitar is scorching on this record!”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Santana Available Now

Our good customer, Dan, wrote to tell us he was positively astounded by our Hot Stamper pressing of Abraxas. We told Dan to listen to this record as loud as his ears could take it. Take it from the man himself: “As you suggested, I played this album as loud as my ears could tolerate and the result was astounding.”

Hey Tom,

Today I was blown away by yet another Hot Stamper I bought from your store: Santana’s Abraxas. Now, I have always been in awe of the musicianship of the band’s first three albums, but it was not until I heard the grooves in this Hot Stamper that I realized they are geniuses. Santana’s guitar is scorching on this record! Those leads just burst out of the musical soundscape that’s behind him. But it never sounded like that in the hundreds of times I’ve heard it. Sure, his leads always stood out, but they didn’t leap out.

As you suggested, I played this album as loud as my ears could tolerate and the result was astounding. Though my stereo is still short of being able to reproduce a live concert (for now!), it felt pretty damn close to that experience with this record! Mike Shrieve’s drums positively exploded with power after that organ intro on “Hope You’re Feeling Better”. There’s no denying it, playing this music at a polite volume would be a sin, and one I happily did not commit. This record is just poppin’ all over the place with dynamics, and the only way to hear everything is to set the dial to 11.

On a similar topic, I recently purchased the Mofi pressing of Santana’s first album and later stumbled upon your commentary on it. It is indeed good, but no nowhere near alive. My hot stamper of “Abraxas” gives me an excellent reference point for the Santana sound, and I can see just how much is missing now from Mofi’s pressing of their debut.

Anyhow, just wanted to say thank you again a keep up the great work at Better Records!

Dan

Dan, I’m glad to see you hadn’t wasted your money on the awful MoFi pressing of Abraxas, which, as I pointed out in my blog, is so bad (compressed to death, whomp factor = zero) we refused to carry it.

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Listening in Depth to Songs for Beginners

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Graham Nash Available Now

Presenting another entry in our extensive listening in depth series with advice on what to listen for as you critically evaluate your copy of Song for Beginners.

(Here are some other albums currently on our site with similar track by track breakdowns.)

This is one helluva well recorded album. Most of the credit must go to the team of recording engineers, led here by the esteemed Bill Halverson, the man behind all of the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young albums. Nash was clearly influenced by his work with his gifted bandmates, proving with this album that he can hold his own with the best of the best.

Some songs (We Can Change The World, Be Yourself) are grandly scaled productions with the kind of studio polish that would make Supertramp envious. For me, a big speaker guy with a penchant for giving the old volume knob an extra click or two, it just doesn’t get any better.

Others (Sleep Song, Wounded Bird) are quiet and intimate. Their subtlely is highlighted by the big productions surrounding them. This is that rare album in which every aspect of the production, from the arrangements to the final mix, serves to bring out the best qualities in the songs, regardless of scale.

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Takin’ Off – A Cisco Record We Used to Like

Hot Stamper Pressings of Blue Note Albums Available Now

UPDATE 2026

This is a very old review and it is doubtful we would be remotely as enthusiastic now as we were in 2006 when the Cisco pressing came out. Please take everything you read below with a big grain of salt (if such a thing can exist).

The sound is very good, with correct tonal balance and plenty of life. I was WAY TOO HARD on this album when it first came in. It’s playing right now and really swinging!

I just learned the secret to getting this one to sound right, and I am happy to share it with you. TURN IT UP! When you get some volume going, the musicians really come to life on this album. It may sound crazy, but you need to play this one as loud as you would play your average rock record.

Billy Higgins whacks the hell out of his snare on the second track on side one. He really goes to town on that thing. Imagine you are sitting twenty feet from him in a jazz club; it would be plenty loud, right? Now find the equivalent volume setting on your preamp, drop the needle and get ready to FEEL the music, the way you would feel it if you were in that club. 

Robert Pincus and Kevin Gray did a great job on this one. I put it right up there with the very best jazz records on Heavy Vinyl being made today. The first track is a tiny bit lean for my taste, but things get better after that.

Of course, how many copies do you really see of an album like this that aren’t beat to death, or minty but hundreds of dollars? Mighty few in our experience, so this has to be seen as a welcome addition to any audiophile’s jazz collection.

What to Listen For on Breakfast in America

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Supertramp Available Now

What follows is some advice on what to listen for.

If you are interested in digging deeper, our listening in depth commentaries have extensive track breakdowns for some of the better-known albums for which we’ve done multiple shootouts.

What to listen for, you ask?

Number One

Too many instruments and voices jammed into too little space in the upper midrange. When the tonality is shifted-up, even slightly, or there is too much compression, there will be too many elements — voices, guitars, drums — vying for space in the upper part of the midrange, causing congestion and a loss of clarity.

With the more solid sounding copies, the lower mids are full and rich; above them, the next “level up” so to speak, there’s plenty of space in which to fit all the instruments and voices comfortably, not piling them one on top of another as is often the case. Consequently, the upper midrange area does not get overloaded and overwhelmed with musical information.

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Folks, This Is Why We Love Vintage Analog

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Emerson, Lake and Palmer Available Now

This is ANALOG at its Tubey Magical finest. You ain’t never gonna play a CD that sounds like this as long as you live. I don’t mean to rain on anyone’s parade, but digital media are evidently incapable of reproducing this kind of sound. There are nice sounding CDs in the world but there aren’t any that sound like this, not in my experience anyway.

If you are thinking that someday a better digital system is going to come along in order to save you the trouble and expense of having to find and acquire these expensive original pressings, think again.

This is the kind of record that shows you what’s wrong with your BEST sounding CDs. (Best not to talk about the average one in your collection, or mine. The less said the better.)

This is the kind of record that somebody might hear in a stereo store and realize that the digital road he’s been going down for so many years is nothing but a sonic dead end.

The organ captured here by Eddie Offord (of Yes engineering fame — we’re his biggest fans) and then transferred so well onto our Hot Stamper pressings (that’s partly what makes them Hot Stampers, right?) will rattle the foundation of your house. This music really needs that kind of megawatt reproduction to make sense.

It’s big bombastic Prog Rock that wants desperately to rock your world.

At moderate levels it just sounds overblown and silly.

At loud levels it actually will rock your world.

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Listening in Depth to Emerson, Lake & Palmer

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Emerson, Lake and Palmer Available Now

If you’ve got the system to play this one loud enough, with the low end weight and energy it requires, you are in for a treat with Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s debut.

The organ that opens side two will rattle the foundation of your house if you’re not careful. This music really needs that kind of megawatt reproduction to make sense. This is bombastic prog that wants desperately to rock your world. At moderate levels it just sounds overblown and silly. At loud levels, it actually will rock your world.

To play this record right, you should have, at a minimum:

  • Big dynamic speakers, and they should be pulled out well into the room to create a three-dimensional presentation, in this case of a live rock concert. If the speakers are too big for the room, or stuck in the corners, you haven’t got a chance with a recording as powerful as this one.
  • A large room. (Our new studio has a 12 foot ceiling, a big help with a blockbuster recording such as this one.)
  • Strong walls with no windows, and, if possible, a concrete floor to keep the bass from leaving the room.
  • Seating for a single listener far from any boundary, especially the back wall (a common problem with small-ish rooms).
  • Extensive room treatments to deal with the loud levels this music requires.
  • Enough amplifier power driving speakers with big enough woofers to move all the air in the listening room with authority.
  • And, finally, high quality electricity, a heavily tweaked front end and all the rest of the audio stuff we discuss endlessly on this blog.

Without all of these things, it’s hard for us to imagine anyone could hear this record sound the way the artists and engineers wanted it to. Playing a record like this in a small room at moderate levels practically guarantees that the listener will not be able to hear what makes the best copies of this album so special.

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