Robert August 9, 2020 Acquisitions & Recommendations, Analog Setup, Classical Records, Commentary, Records, Tips For Better Sounding Records, Vinyl Pressings

Finding the DEMO DISC in Your Collection: A New Champion is CROWNED!

I must admit that in the age of Trump I feel pretty uncomfortable using the word “crowned” in just about any context, but in this case there simply is no other word that suits. A year or so ago I published a post on the value and importance of analog audiophiles finding the best sounding records – the demo discs, in their collection. In that post I advocated for this as a way to hone critical listening skills and to experience the thrill of finding great sounding records that we may not have even known we had.

Searching your collection this way is also a great way to practice tweaking your turntable set up. After making some PRETTY BIG changes to my system recently with a different pair of speakers and a cable upgrade I’ve gone through yet another major round of tonearm tweaking.

I find myself more in awe than ever at how much CONTROL we analogue audiophiles have, potentially, over how our system sounds. Before this speaker upgrade I would have told you I had my TT pretty well set. Not so, it turned out. And the tonearm adjustments I’ve made since making those system changes have literally been the difference between pretty good and FANTASTIC sound.

Anyway, getting back to the coronation. I’ve been dipping my toe into classical music of late, and as I hear more good pressings of great classical performances, I’m finding that the right music with the right performance on the right pressing can deliver some of the most exciting music I’ve ever heard. A great classical record can offer an audiophile listening experience that easily rivals any I’ve had with even the very best rock and jazz records.

Recently I purchased a copy of Bizet’s The Carmen Ballet performed by the Bolshoi Theater Orchestra, conducted by Gennady Rozhdestvensky. After reading about the record on The Skeptical Audiophile and getting a quick preview of the piece on my laptop, I knew it was music I would enjoy the heck out of. So I ordered a copy, crossed my fingers and hoped for a decent copy to arrive.

Well, arrive it did and it was certainly decent, and then some. And then some more! After some fine tuning of the arm height, I can now safely say this is hands down the best sounding record in my collection. And the music and performance is absolutely wonderful. Wow! What a way to showcase my system.

It was one of my finest moments in this hobby by far, one where it all came together – speed, weight, accuracy, tonality, musicality, transparency. I was looking for the problems and try as I might, I just couldn’t find them. For the length of side one I failed to hear anything but incredible music incredibly well recorded and extremely well reproduced.

At this point you might be asking if this has anything to do with you and your records and your system anymore. My hope is that you’ll draft off my enthusiasm here and, after tweaking your turntable, start cleaning and playing the records in your collection.

I also hope you’ll get to a place with your analog system that allows you to start finding the hidden gems that showcase everything your system is capable of, and that rewards everything you’ve put into that system. That’s the reason we audiophiles do what we do, IMO, and it’s what makes all the nuttiness of this hobby ultimately worthwhile.

Please share!

5 Comments

Add yours

Steve says:

April 2, 2023 at 11:34 am

You recommend a lot of records on your site, but quite never make the exact pressings identifiable by a label picture or a concrete comment in your text. Is this your intention and if so, what sense do you think your postings make for readers? Or do you want to make a Tom Port like business out of it?

No offense, but this jumped on me.

Reply
- Robert says:
  
  April 4, 2023 at 4:21 pm
  
  My recommending records is not done for the purpose of my readers going out and buying the exact pressing I wrote about, adding it to their collection, and the checking off that box on their want list.
  
  Rather, the focus of most of what I write about is to encourage other audiophiles to take a path similar to the one I’ve taken. Buy 2 or 3 copies of a title. Borrow copies from friends. Shoot them out. See if any stand out. Find out if your stereo is good at playing that record. If it isn’t, consider what changes you could make so it would be better at playing that record and others like it.
  Then do more shootouts, more system improvements. Keep pressing forward. It won’t be long before you find some amazing records, likely ones you already own (thus the demo disk in your collection post). Then buy other copies of that record, see if you can beat it! This is what I love to do and what I am advocating for.
  
  If at some point you realize you’re not getting anywhere with a particular title, see if Better Records has a copy for sale and, if they do, consider buying it. I’ve done that a lot, and I’ve learned a lot doing it.
  
  I hope this clarifies what I’m doing here on The Broken Record Steve. Thank you for the comment!
  
  Reply
BETTER ELECTRICITY: Small Changes Yield Some VERY BIG RESULTS! | The Broken Record says:

August 22, 2023 at 8:13 pm

[…] used my Talisman on it and I’d confirmed that it was sounding right with my current favorite test record, I walked out into the hallway from my listening room and unplugged the washing machine. Then I […]

Reply
Tom Port says:

August 24, 2023 at 10:00 pm

Robert, the mistake I think Steve is making is that he wants you to tell him “the answer, ” as if there were one.

There is “an answer,” for the moment, for the system you have today, for the copies you’ve played against the one you currently like best.

If I were to pick ten albums at random and research what the consensus among audiophiles is for the best sounding pressings of each, I would get a lot of different answers and most of them would be well off the mark.

The best place to find wrong answers would surely be Steve Hoffman’s forum, just because so many of those who post there strongly believe in their expertise in doing this kind of work.

Other sites would be full of bad advice too.

Trusting the views of any self-appointed expert with opinions about records strikes me as unwise.

Robert, you know better than to pretend to have cleaned and played dozens of copies of this album, the number of pressings one would have to have played in order to be sure of some of the best and some of the worst.

You know how hard this information is to come by. You found a top quality copy. Is it the best pressing? The one? I doubt you would want to say that.

Others, apparently, just want an answer, any answer, and they don’t seem too concerned with how this answer was arrived at.

Bertrand Russell saw how this desire for answers is destructive to the society at large. “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people are so full of doubts.”

TP

Reply
The TRIPLANAR MK VII is at the PINNACLE OF PERFORMANCE | The Broken Record says:

September 9, 2023 at 10:07 pm

[…] For a long time now I’ve wanted to write a review of the Triplanar tonearm, but I just couldn’t come up with a good way to do it. Ideally, I would compare my Triplanar MK VII with another tonearm, preferably at a similar price point, and each would take a turn mounted on my Merrill-Williams REAL 101.2 turntable running my Dynavector 17dx cartridge and playing my best test records. […]

Reply

DON’T MISS A BEAT