Welcome to the debut of The Broken Record on Youtube. The goal of this and all future videos will be to help analog audiophiles find and clean the best sounding records on the planet, and bring them fully to life on playback.
My primary interest as an analog audiophile centers on hearing the performance on a record with uncanny presence and realism. Hearing a record this way allows us to suspend our disbelief to a degree that is, frankly, startling.
I would argue that this experience is, in fact, the endgame in analog audio. When we hear a performance come to life on our stereo and fool ourselves that “we are there” for the performance, we have achieved something rare and special in audio.
As I’ve broadened my reach in this wacky world of high end audio, I’ve become increasingly convinced that not a lot of audiophiles have heard a record played the way I have. The records that most audiophiles play these days, not to mention the gear they tend to play them with, are largely incapable of delivering the kind of listening experience I’m describing.
The vision I had when I started The Broken Record was very different than the one I have for it now. Originally I imagined filling this site with recommended versions and stamper numbers that like-minded analog audiophile collectors would use to find copies of their favorite titles. I sure had a lot to learn!
Now, nearly 7 years later, I find myself with a completely different stereo and a very different approach to this hobby. Along the way, I’ve learned a ton, thanks to a substantial time investment, a lot of hard work, and the advice of Tom Port, who has generously and sure-handedley guided me every step of the way.
When I was punting ideas for adding video content to this site, and perhaps even launching a full-fledged Youtube channel, Tom suggested showing a vinyl shootout done in a way similar to those his staff does at Better Records. We discussed possible titles and eventually landed on Revolver. Then with Tom’s assistance, Better Records generously loaned me 5 copies to augment the three I had.
All 5 loaner copies had been cleaned and graded by Better Records, but I had no idea which copy or copies had received the highest grades. For all I knew, none of them qualified as a “Hot Stamper,” or if for that matter, all of them did, however unlikely that might be.
I’ve done quite a few “shootouts” before this one, but never with more than 4 copies of a record. Let me tell you, it was tough! And as much as I love playing records and comparing copies, I have to admit, I’m not sure I look forward to my next 8 copy shootout. If I wasn’t convinced before that the staff at Better Records work their butts off to make the very special records they sell available to us analog audiophiles, I definitely am now.
Seeing as this was my first outing doing a “real shootout,” I made some mistakes. Tom and I will soon discuss what I got right and wrong on my next video, so stay tuned.
In the meantime, if you have 20 minutes to spare, take a look at the video above where I document what Tom has called “the first youtube-acceptable Record Shootout video in the history of mankind.”
Feel free to leave me a comment or two, although try to keep in mind that just pointing a camera at oneself and starting to talk is harder than it might seem, particularly for someone like me who’s not a natural performer.
Hopefully I can improve on that going forward!