by TBR Contributor ab_ba
I’ve been in love with music and with sound for as long as I can remember. I can recall being overwhelmed by Houses of the Holy on my babysitter’s 8-track player when I was 7. I listened with excitement to “Rock With You” on my mom’s car radio as she drove me to the skating rink. I sat raptly with my ear pressed to the speaker grille while “Stardust” spun on my dad’s turntable. I basked in the way the bass on “Just The Two Of Us” squeezed my heart, too young to name that feeling, but later I understanding what it was – love.
Now I’m a professor of bioengineering. I’ve made a career out of being curious, open-minded, empirical, and rigorous. I love to tinker. Music is my greatest escape, and also the safest way for me to indulge my preference for perfection. If listening to music could somehow involve an oscilloscope and a microscope, count me in! I also know enough about cognitive psychology and perceptual psychology to understand what I’m hearing, why I respond to sound the way I do, and how we can come to care so passionately about things that we become uninterested in evidence that might imperil our beliefs.
We are currently living in an anti-science, anti-objective time. Our newfound interconnectedness seems instead to have driven us into tribalism and crudeness. It was a strange coincidence that on the day my dream stereo was coming together, the very guy who provided the approach that worked so well for me, Tom Port, was being slammed hard by people who seem otherwise sincerely engaged in finding great music and great sound, and in sharing it with others.
Ires had been raised, it seemed, by a Washington Post article that really celebrated the vinyl resurgence, leading off with its most controversial character – Tom Port. The juxtaposition between what Tom has taught me and how he is perceived by others in the vinyl industry is just too stark for me to resist relating my own experiences with rebuilding my analog system and the vinyl collection that goes with it. I’m also grateful that my friend Robert Brook sensed my desire to communicate what he’s helped me to learn, and invited me to share it here.
As a kid, we had record players in our rooms and cassette Walkmans in our backpacks. I switched over to CDs completely when I headed off to college and couldn’t lug my record player with me. I thought I was leaving nothing behind, except for some pops and skips. Later on, I fell in love with the iPod, and with the ability to have a massive music library in my pocket. I bought better and better headphones, ending up with Focal Utopias.
But, when I heard vinyl again around 2010, I was thunderstruck. I listened to Rumors on Vivd speakers driven by Luxman mono-blocks and fed by a VPI turntable. This was in the listening room of Todd The Vinyl Junkie, and in an instant it changed my understanding of what’s possible in music reproduction, launching me on a quest that’s brought me to my current system.
In 2018, at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, I was sitting in the PS Audio room when their engineer was switching between digital and vinyl. Both sounded fantastic, but the vinyl was fuller, sweeter, and just more relaxing to listen to. Michael Fremer came in for a demo, bringing with him multiple pressings of the several albums that, as I recall, included Sonny Rollins’ Way Out West. Those of us listening could easily hear how different the same recording sounded on different versions, and it was then I learned firsthand how much pressings and mastering matter.
During the pandemic, I became close with a guy in our extended pod who had never stopped being into vinyl, sitting out the “digital revolution”. He has a Linn system he’d assembled in the 90s that sounded clearly better than my McIntosh/B&W/Rogue set up. It sounded more natural, fuller, more relaxed. It occurred to me then for the first time that vintage gear might hold some promise for a better sounding system.
In the meantime, I was struggling to get vinyl to sound great on my system. At the time I just assumed I needed more expensive records and better-quality gear to make that happen. I bought a lot of Mobile Fidelity One Steps, including a used One Step of Santana’s Abraxas. Back then, records such as these made my stereo sound great! The sound stage extended way past the edges of my speakers. The details shimmered. The amount of bass that seemed to come out of my tiny speakers was like an auditory illusion. Hey if you want to make your stereo sound great, buy some MoFis! And if that’s the sound you’re going after, drop me a line – I’ve got plenty I can sell you.
My system now includes the following: Soundsmith Sussurro cartridge mounted on Clearaudio Tracer tonearm, mounted in turn on a Clearaudio Performance DC turntable and sitting on a Townshend seismic isolation platter. This feeds into an EAR 324 phono stage, and from there to a Sansui AU-7500 amp (via a World’s Best Cable interconnect), which drives the Legacy Signature 3’s with generic speaker wire customized the way Robert instructed, based on Tom Port’s recommendation. Perched atop the Legacys are Townshend super-tweeters. My power cables are generic, and except for the cartridge, I bought everything used or otherwise discounted. The total cost to build this system was a little over $10,000 and was built almost to a “T” according to Tom Port’s and Robert’s recommendations.
This stereo replaces a fairly standard audiophile setup – McIntosh amp, Bowers & Wilkins 805 speakers, tube preamp from Rogue, all connected with cables from Cardas and Transparent, each of which improved the sound appreciably when I bought them. I happily listened to music on that system for several years, yet all the while knowing there were flaws with it and plenty of room to grow.
The direction in which to improve my system always seemed to me to be new gear, and in particular, bigger speakers and more powerful amps that would required increasingly higher expenditures. The route that Tom and Robert were suggesting was so counter-intuitive to everything I had been reading – they told me that some cheaper, older gear could actually sound better than the latest and greatest. As it turned out, they were right, and I’m so glad I listened.
You don’t necessarily need exactly what I got to get the results I did. But the paradigm that Tom and Robert advised is a sound one. Get yourself a pair of high-sensitivity full-range speakers, preferably vintage speakers from before the dominance of digital. Look for something designed by someone whose ears were attuned to vinyl. Power your speakers with a low-powered vintage amp. Get rid of your tubes (preamp and amp). Ignore all that stuff about how tube distortion is more pretty than solid state. You’re listening nowhere near distortion, even on transients, and even with a 25 WPC amp so long as your speakers are sensitive enough. Build a high-sensitivity / low-powered system and you will like the way your music sounds a whole lot more.
If I’m right, then you can sell your old gear and buy some vintage records with the proceeds, and learn to clean them well. And if you can find somebody you trust to play-grade them for you before you buy them, somebody with a very good ear and a good system, then you’ll probably find their service is worth its cost. You’ll be able to afford it now, because now you’re not pouring money out on the upgrade treadmill, cables that wow, and lots of recent reissues of classic records that may sound good but somehow, fail to delight you.
Tom Port’s my play-tester. I can vouch for him. I’ve purchased 17 of his “Better Records” so far. I’ve kept 12 and returned 5. The 12 I’ve kept are among the very best records in my collection. I put on one of those 12 nearly half the time I put on a record. The other 5 sounded great to me, but with each I felt it wasn’t quite worth the price it cost. I’ve also used Tom’s recommendations to purchase many other records, on Discogs and in shops. I’ve discovered a lot of great albums that way, and I’ve found some labels that I really like. Pablo, OJC, and ABC records for instance, I’ve found to be reliably excellent-sounding.
On my new stereo, my modern pressings and reissues sound better than they did on my old stereo. But what’s improved more, FAR more, is the sound of my vintage vinyl. Not just my Hot Stampers, but many of my other vintage records as well. Here is a sampling of the titles where I’ve been able to make a direct comparison between an early (like, pre-CD-era) pressing and a recent (vinyl resurgence) pressing: Led Zeppelin 2, Willie Nelson’s Stardust, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, E. Fitzgerald’s Clap Hands Here Comes Charlie, Carmen, played by Ruggerio Ricci, Santana Abraxas, Carole King’s Tapestry, Blood, Sweat, and Tears, and Mingus Ah Um.
I experience a little dollop of relief every time I pass up a $20 copy of Aja or Abraxas, or a Dark Side of the Moon that looks pristine. I have Hot Stampers of each of those titles, and I’m now content in the knowledge that I’m not going to find better-sounding copies of those records out in the wild. I’ve got a copy of Stardust that puts Willie in the room. I’ve got a Led Zeppelin 2 with dynamics and clarity that will make you weep. My Hot Stamper copy of Mingus Ah Um, a run of the mill Columbia red label pressing, puts my clean original to shame. It also cost me barely more. My Hot Stampers may have less resale value than the rest of my collection, but I don’t care, I’d never sell them anyway.
And here is what I want you to know: new pressings can sound great, but old records can sound considerably better. And if you put together the right combination of modern and vintage gear in your system, the differences between vintage pressings and modern ones are going to be much more apparent. Most importantly, you will find yourself enjoying your music more. This is what I’ve learned, thanks to Tom and Robert, and I wish I had known it a lot sooner. But, this information is hard to find (apart from here, and on Tom’s blog, ontherecord.com), and hard to believe, until you try it for yourself. There is an industry set up to tell you something else. But what they are offering is not the only way to get good sound, and with some fresh thinking about your gear, it isn’t even the best way.
I’ve got a lot of gratitude for Tom Port, but also for Chad Kassem and Michael Fremer – two guys who helped me get back into vinyl, Without those two, I never would have worked my way up to Tom Port and what he’s providing. I am deeply appreciative of Michael Fremer for keeping a candle burning for vinyl through the dark days of digital, and of Mr. Kassem too, for his labor of love in making pressings that most of us can afford of records that would otherwise be unobtainable. I want to see his business continue to thrive, and I’ve certainly done my fair share of supporting him.
But when I hear reviewers say that Chad’s records improve on the originals, I can’t help but think that it’s simply not true. Maybe they sound better than some vintage pressings, but they don’t sound better than all of them. Which brings me back to what made me want to write all this down in the first place. It brought me so much sadness to hear these two other vinyl heavyweights attack Tom Port the other day on YouTube. Because while I may feel gratitude to Fremer and Chad, most of all, it is Tom Port who has shown me the potential that truly lies in vinyl – and not anywhere else.
Even while slamming him on YouTube, the panelists could all agree on the fundamentals of his business model – the host has a play-grading seller he trusts, and he knows the value of buying play-graded records. Fremer knows very well that different pressings differ widely in sound. And Chad keeps originals on hand to compare his reissues against, and we are all better served by his products because he does it that way.
I’ve bought plenty of modern reissues of classic jazz and rock albums. I’ve found many of them satisfying, and they sound better than they ever did before on my reconfigured stereo. The complete lack of surface noise on many of these records is quite a remarkable thing. The loving re-creation of classic jazz titles, too expensive for most of us to buy used in good shape, is a true gift to all of us from Chad and others. I’m glad that companies like Acoustic Sounds exist, and I am happy to still buy records from them.
The problem, as I see it, is when these records are being bought on the assumption this is the best that record can sound. Think about it. What if you wanted a classic album in an all-analog pressing, from a fresh master tape, done by skilled engineer, often working in coordination with the musicians? That’s exactly what you’re buying much of the time when you get a vintage record.
Of course, the trick is to find one that hasn’t been damaged by playing, and that was pressed well in the first place. This is why it’s so important to buy them cleaned and play-tested, or at least to buy your records from somebody who accepts returns. I know there have been advances in the plating, cutting, and pressing technologies, but it’s worth wondering (and asking) whether your heavy vinyl involved a digital step.
My Hot Stampers are tools. They teach me what’s right, and what’s wrong, with my stereo. They show me where there’s still room to grow. I bought a White Hot Stamper of Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie on which Ella’s voice was sibilant! Now, vocal sibilance had always been an issue on my stereo. Eva Cassidy, Louis Armstrong and a few others sound persistently spitty on the S’s. When I heard a White Hot Stamper doing that too, I was pretty sure the problem was in my system, not on the record.
Nevertheless, I returned it. I didn’t love the way it was sounding, and I knew I wouldn’t play it much. Tom took it back without objection, but he encouraged me to do some work on my system and then buy another copy of that record. Sure enough, a while later, when I was ready to work on my system for real, I ordered another WHS of Clap Hands. This one also had sibilance. I sent it to Robert, and he confirmed that it wasn’t sibilant on his system. That’s when Robert shared some true wisdom with me – sibilance is not necessarily a flaw in your system. It could be a shortcoming in the resolving ability of your gear. I was inspired by this to pursue a truly resolving system, and Robert’s insight has turned out to be spot-on.
I still have plenty of sibilant records, including some rather valuable heavy vinyl reissues. My Acoustic Sounds copy of Ella and Louis is a frustrating listen for an album that I know can sound sublime. But I can’t help but think that dialing in equipment to make sibilance go away on a heavy vinyl record could lead to a less resolving stereo. Meanwhile dialing in my system to fix sibilance on a Hot Stamper has helped me build a more resolving stereo. We build our systems around the records we want to play, and if you are going after a system that makes heavy vinyl sound great, you could very well be building a system that is inherently limited in the sound it can provide you.
If you have a modern system designed by engineers with a stack of heavy vinyl on hand, are you quite sure that your records sound better than Tidal streaming? Are you certain your heavy vinyl didn’t involve a digital step? And if your records don’t sound better than streaming Tidal, or just a little better, then why exactly are you bothering? There are plenty of good reasons to love records, but for me, the very best reason is the way they sound. If that’s what you care the most about too, then your best bet is to buy play-tested vintage records and play them on a stereo with the right mix of modern and vintage components. And if you need help, I’d suggest reaching out to Robert and / or Tom for advice. They’re both really responsive, and they both really want to help you discover better sound.