The Better Records Difference


Simply put, we are committed to finding the best sounding LPs ever made.

These of course have their strongest appeal among audiophiles: those who place a premium on higher fidelity pressings. We believe that our selection of the best sounding vinyl pressings available anywhere gives us a unique standing in the world of record dealers. We cater to that small group of music lovers who really want the best sound, for whom good isn't good enough, and for them, we feel we are the only sellers who can truly satisfy that need.

"But", you say, "there are plenty of audiophile record dealers in the world. What makes you so different?"

Good question. There is certainly no shortage of "audiophile" record dealers these days. Most would identify themselves as audiophile record dealers because they sell records loosely defined as "audiophile records", which more often than not simply refers to a record that has been pressed on heavy vinyl. Heavy vinyl doesn't guarantee that the record will sound good, and the proof of that statement is easily demonstrated. Simply pick a handful of these so-called audiophile pressings at random and play them. You will notice that they vary widely in fidelity, from very poor to very good and every grade between. What should we call the ones that have very poor sound? Are they really audiophile records?

An audiophile record that doesn't sound good is an oxymoron. For those of us who can tell the difference, it seems the world is positively flooded with oxymorons these days.

The simple experiment described above leads to only one conclusion: Heavy vinyl is a poor indicator of better sound. Given that this is the case, might there be a specific method or approach to the making of the record which actually does lead to real audiophile quality sound? Half-Speed mastering, perhaps?

Sadly, no. You will find the site riddled with criticism of this mastering approach. Most companies long ago gave up using this method, and for good reason. It doesn't work. The specific shortcomings of this process can be found in the commentary for the huge number of listings for records that sound substantially better than their half-speed mastered counterparts, some of which can be found here.

Audiophile record dealers typically concentrate on mostly two kinds of records: Heavy Vinyl and Half Speeds, perhaps with some Japanese pressings thrown in for good measure (and they're even worse sounding than the first two).

So, if audiophile record dealers are not selling especially good sounding records, what makes them different from other record dealers? That is the real question, isn't it?

 Different record dealers cater to different segments of the record buying public. Some dealers specialize in collectible jazz -- Blue Notes and such . Some in rare and desirable classical recordings from the Golden Age of stereo and before -- Living Stereo, Living Presence, etc.. Still others in Prog Rock, Blues, Psych... There are dealers for every category of record you have ever heard of and then some.

 The kinds of records these dealers sell would be widely recognized as belonging to that category of records by anyone who collects them. A record is either from the Golden Age of Living Stereo or it's not. There are always gray areas, records that fall on the border, but for the most part there is general agreement about what qualifies as a real Living Stereo record and what does not; a real Blue Note, a real Psych LP, and so on.

 But what is a real audiophile record? I submit that the term has lost all meaning, and probably never had any, truth be told. No matter how bad a record sounds, if it's pressed on a certain kind of vinyl, or mastered a certain way, or the master tapes were used in its making, it apparently qualifies as an audiophile record. This to me is absolute nonsense. A bad sounding record cannot be an audiophile record if that descriptor has any real meaning. Since so many of them do sound bad, I'm afraid we must conclude that the term "audiophile record" has lost its value, if it ever really had any to begin with. Like "healthy" or "natural", it means whatever the user wants it to mean.

 There is of course a much better way of determining which are the better sounding pressings and which are not. Unfortunately, this method, called "playing the record", is not widely practiced in the industry. It's fallen from favor over the years, especially among the large audiophile record dealers, who choose to devote scant time and effort into playing the records they offer. They are much too busy selling electronics and turntables, which are positioned front and center in their catalogs and comprise the bulk of their offerings these days. Which of course makes perfect business sense -- these high dollar items are far more profitable than records.

 In our opinion they have simply abandoned their mission of bringing better sounding recordings to the audiophile public and are now headed down another path: selling anything and everything that the word audiophile can possibly be affixed to. They have become audiophile Walmarts. Quality is no longer the issue; selection is. (This is of course a smart move on their part, since they were never really very adept at telling a good record from a bad one. There is plenty of commentary and evidence spread all over the site to that effect. You can't miss it.)

 Which leaves the field wide open for a company like ours to come along and offer the serious record lover, the audiophile in search of higher fidelity, records which actually deliver the goods -- LPs with truly premium sound, commensurate with their often admittedly premium price.

 How do we do it? A little background is in order. I started this business about twenty years ago selling what I thought were the best sounding records money could buy. That's right, you guessed it: audiophile records. Half-speeds, direct to disc recordings, Japanese pressings -- all the stuff that sounds like sh*t to me now. At some point I started selling plain old domestic and import pressings that I thought were generally quite a bit better sounding than the audiophile records of the past, and these records had the added advantage of actually containing music that one would want to listen to. I'm glad to say I at least had the sense to never buy in to the Athena, Chesky, Reference, etc. recordings. I knew they were junk from the moment I first heard them.

 As time went on the 180 gram pressing became dominant. Most of them were terrible, of course, but we took great pride in evaluating and reviewing them, selling only the ones that sounded good. (For the most part, anyway. We sell lots of bad sounding records. I make it a point to never say anything nice about them. If someone wants a bad sounding MOFI, or a Patricia Barber record, or in this case, both, I figure that's his business. )

 About this time, say ten years ago, I was also finding Hot Stamper pressings, although I hadn't coined the term then. These were amazing sounding copies that blew the doors off any pressing I had ever heard, audiophile or otherwise. They were few and far between but they sure were magical. Then, sometime around five to seven years ago, I started making dramatic and consistent improvements to my stereo. I was dealing with electrical quality, vibration control, electromagnetic radiation effects, room effects -- conducting experiment after experiment, hundreds of hours worth, in pursuit of better sound. I also bought or had custom made better sounding equipment at the same time. I started using the Disc Doctor cleaning fluids. All of these things worked together to make the sound of records better than I ever imagined it could be.

 Better equipment makes you appreciate the correctness of better recordings. Better recordings help you select, combine and tweak your equipment to sound its best. And all of it together allows you to become a more critical listener.

As I've said many times over the years, playing the same record on the same stereo teaches you nothing. Change is what teaches. Change the stereo. Change the setup. Play a different pressing of the record. This is the only way to learn. In the last year alone I've been through four cartridges. Each one of them taught me something. They all had their strengths and weaknesses. But you can't know what those strengths and weaknesses are unless you have something to compare them to.

It may be a lot of work but there is no alternative. This is it, folks. All the bad stereos out there are evidence that it's not easy to get good sound. It takes work. The kind of work most audiophiles just don't want to do. And who can blame them? It can be very time consuming, not to mention frustrating. It's more fun to just listen, right? But who can listen to a bad stereo? (Most audiophiles, it turns out, but don't get me started.)

 This is a hands-on hobby. It only rewards one thing: effort. The effort you make to find the right equipment, to get it working right, to search for and evaluate and get to know the best pressings, to discover the music that brings the most satisfaction... Almost none of these things can be found in magazines. Very little of it can be taught. We may learn from each other but only if we have already laid the groundwork with our own effort and knowledge. If you don't know what's wrong with the sound of the average Classic Record, you won't learn it by talking to me. You have to hear it for yourself. You have to develop your critical listening skills through your own painstaking effort or you will never know why those records are so wrong. If you can't appreciate what's wrong with bad records such as those, then you probably can't appreciate what's right with good records, and what's the point then? Buy anything -- it's all good. And the cheaper the better. If McDonalds taste just fine, why waste money going to a fancy restaurant? Food is food, right?

 Having been through lots of equipment and tons of tweaks, I now have a stereo, odd though it may be, that allows me to make very fine distinctions among pressings. The big shootout I did on the MMTrecently (9/05) would not have even been possible a year ago. The stereo wasn't capable of telling me what I needed to know. More work had to be done. Once the stereo could resolve the information, I started hearing it, and listening for it, and honing in on exactly what it was that was happening in the recording, all in a way I never could before. And what allowed me to do that? Plain old hard work. Except that when it comes to working on the stereo, it's actually fun, it's a thrill in fact -- assuming you end up making progress. And if you don't, there's always another day.

Experience is a great teacher. In the audio world it's practically the only teacher. Being in the record business and playing records all day, every day, has taught me a lot, much more than I could ever have learned if I had a real job. And that expertise is what sets us apart from all the other record dealers who mostly don't play their records. Which is pretty much all other record dealers.

Let's face it, our approach, from a business point of view, is a ridiculously inefficient one. First we have to pay for the labor to have the records cleaned. We then have to take the time to play the records, sometimes over and over, and compare them to other pressings -- very time consuming. We then write reviews explaining why one record sounds better than another, what it is we listened for and what it is we heard. More time and effort. Clearly this is a ridiculously bad business model, entailing huge amounts of additional work that may or may not pay off. (Less than 20% of the records we clean and play make it to the site. We just never get around to putting them up. There's always more listening or comparing to be done, and most records fall short of the mark. It's true: the perfect really is the enemy of the good.)

 But I know that no two records sound the same. I know it for a fact. I also know that you can't tell a good record by looking at it. Or weighing it. Or reading about it. So if you really want to sell the best records, you just have to play them. It's as simple as that.

I think our return rate is about one percent. One percent of the records I said sounded good didn't sound that way to the customer and came back. In one of those cases, I played the record again and RAISED the price it sounded so good! Be that as it may, let's just say people seem to appreciate the quality of the records we have been selling of late. Our sale of used rock records -- which make up many of the Hot Stampers you see on the site -- has more than doubled in the last year. This to me is a sign that people -- probably baby boomers like me -- want the music they love with the best sound possible. Not audiophile bullshit music. Real music, the kind you play when no one is around. Because you LOVE it.

 Our job is to find you the best sounding vinyl pressings of the music you most want to hear. From Deja Vu to Kind of Blue -- and don't forget The Best of Bread. So stick around. There are tons of great records coming to the site. They're not cheap, but at dccblowout/ Better Records at least you get what you pay for. We played them, and we know how good they sound. And we're glad you seem to agree.