Month: June 2020

John Lennon – Plastic Ono Band

More John Lennon

More of The Beatles

  • Incredible sound for this early UK pressing with both sides earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades, an excellent way to hear these amazing songs
  • Working Man’s Hero, Love, Mother — these are immortal Lennon tracks, all with stunning sound on these White Hot sides
  • 5 stars: “It’s an unflinching document of bare-bones despair and pain, but for all its nihilism, it is ultimately life-affirming; it is unique not only in Lennon’s catalog, but in all of popular music. Few albums are ever as harrowing, difficult, and rewarding as John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band.”

Incredible sound for this John Lennon classic! I would be hard pressed to tell you whether this or Imagine is his best sounding recording, because on the very best copies they can both be killer. Our first White Hot copy only made it to the site in 2016 — it took us a long time to find the right pressings of this album, and then years more to get enough in stock to do a major shootout. As you can imagine, clean early UK pressings of Lennon’s albums are hard to come by and pricey when you find them. (more…)

The Alan Parsons Project / Eye In The Sky – Our Shootout Winner from 2011

Albums Engineered by Alan Parsons

TWO TOP-NOTCH A+++ SIDES and QUIET VINYL on this Arista two-pack pressing, the first Alan Parsons Project White Hot Stamper to hit the site! Alan Parsons is the engineering guru behind Dark Side Of The Moon, Year Of The Cat and Ambrosia’s debut, among many others, so suffice it to say the man knows a thing or two about audiophile-quality recording techniques. That talent is on full display here, with two sides that give you the kind of sound you want for this music — big and lively with excellent presence and real weight to the bottom.   (more…)

Lightnin’ Hopkins – Volume II

xxxxx

  • With two seriously good Double Plus (A++) sides, this was one of the better copies we played in our recent shootout  
  • A shockingly well-recorded album – we had no idea an old Everest reissue could sound like this (since most of them are just awful)
  • Real down home blues with killer sound featuring Lightnin’ backed by drums and horns – this one is a lot of fun
  • For some strange reason unknown to us, the musician depicted on the front cover here isn’t Lightnin’ Hopkins, but T-Bone Walker!

(more…)

Traveling Wilburys – Vol. 3

  • Insanely good sound throughout with both sides earning nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades; the first copy to ever hit the site!  
  • Both of these sides had some of the best sound in our recent shootout — big, full-bodied and present with a massive bottom end and huge amounts of energy
  • Exceptionally quiet vinyl throughout — Mint Minus to Mint Minus Minus
  • “…this record is loaded with charm. Dylan’s ”If You Belonged to Me” is stronger than anything on his last record, and ”You Took My Breath Away” is a first-rate ballad.”

(more…)

Alice Cooper / School’s Out – Our Shootout Winner from 2014

More of the Music of Alice Cooper

Hot Stamper 2-Packs Available Now

This White Hot / Super Hot 2-pack is going to rock your world! School’s Out on this A+++ side has never sounded better.

Yet another impossible-to-find record in clean condition with good sound has made it to the site, and those of you who are fans should scoop it up because it takes us about five years to find enough copies to do this shootout. 

We had poor luck with the second and third label copies on this AC title. It seems — unlike so many records we play — that the originals are the only way to go on School’s Out.

Side One – Record One

A+++. It rocks! Never aggressive or edgy, it’s big, it’s jumpin’, and it’s full of 1972 Tubey Magic. What’s not to like?

Side Two – Record Two

A++, big, clear and energetic – close to side one but not quite.

Notice how “real” the drum kit sounds on track two. The drums as a whole are punchy and solid throughout.

(more…)

Savoy Brown – Getting To The Point – Awesome Bell Sound Pressing

I am not usually a fan of Bell Sound cuttings but this one seems hard to fault. I would be surprised if the British import pressings are any better; this sounds like the real master tape to me. The original Parrot vinyl is going to be hard to find any quieter. 

Some sides of some copies were leaner and drier than we would have liked and we marked them down accordingly. The big, rich, Tubey Magical sound of Classic British Rock is critical to the success of this music, and our Hot Stamper pressings are guaranteed to deliver plenty of that sound.

Side One

Jumpin’ out of the speakers, side one of this copy was nearly White Hot. Lively clear and present — it works for this side!

Side Two

This side is full, rich and tubey, a bit too much in some ways, but this is still the right sound for this music. It’s dynamic and if you turn it up it will really come to life! (That’s of course what we did.) (more…)

Richard & Linda Thompson / Shoot Out The Lights – The Best Sounding Record of the Decade?

More of the Music of Richard Thompson

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Richard (and Linda) Thompson

Without a doubt this is the best record Richard and Linda Thompson ever made together, possibly the best record Thompson was ever involved with, but it also holds one other important distinction, one of great interest to us audiophiles: it’s the BEST SOUNDING record he (they) ever made as well.

As I was playing the finalists for side two (at ear-splitting levels I might add) an odd thought crossed my mind. Where had I heard this kind of monstrous, punchy bass and these soaring, perfectly distorted guitars, so big and so powerful, before? There was something about the sound – the awesome energy, the freedom from compression or spatial restraint of any kind – that was strangely familiar from another shootout.

After a minute’s deliberation the answer came to me: I was remembering the feeling I got from the White Hot Stamper of Led Zeppelin II we played not long ago.

Yes, that’s the album that it most closely resembles. As outlandish as it may seem, the rock power of Shoot Out the Lights has much more in common with the rock power of Zep II than any other record I can think of.

To be sure, the vast majority of people, including the vast majority of audiophiles, have never heard a top quality RL Zep II played at extremely loud levels on a big speaker system in a dedicated room. Nor in all probability will they ever have the chance.

But I sure have, quite a few in fact. If anyone knows that sound I do. I’ve dedicated the past forty years of my efforts in audio to reproducing records with the Big Rock Sound like Zep II. There’s really none bigger in my opinion. (more…)

Nat King Cole Sings / George Shearing Plays

More of the Music of Nat “King” Cole

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Nat “King” Cole

The reissue pressings rarely sounded right to us.

In addition, the mono copies were uniformly awful — small, congested and gritty.

Our Hot Stamper pressings — even the lowest-graded copies we offer –are sure to give you fuller vocals, more transparency, more weight to the piano and, of course, the tubey warmth of vintage analog.

(more…)

Starship – Knee Deep in the Hoopla

  • The debut for the band Starship finally arrives on the site with two Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides and quiet vinyl 
  • We guarantee you’ve never heard this Top Ten hit album from 1985 sound remotely as good as it does here
  • If you want to hear the Tubey Magic, size and energy of the album, a vintage pressing like this one is the only way to do it in our experience
  • Not a hit with the critics, but it does contain two of this band’s biggest singles, both of which rocketed all the way to Number One: “We Built This City” and “Sara”

(more…)

Talking Heads / Remain In Light – Our Shootout Winner from 2008

More Talking Heads

HOT STAMPERS DISCOVERED AT LAST! We’ve been trying to find a great sounding copy of this album forever, and this is the week we finally succeeded. It takes an exceptional pressing to get all the elements correct — the funky bottom end; the processed, multi-tracked vocals; the Brian Eno production weirdness and so on.

This is a brilliant album but a typically problematic record. Most copies get some things right but fail miserably in other areas. There are smeary copies that can’t deliver the punchy bottom you need, grainy copies that make the vocals painful to listen to, and plenty of copies that are just too dark or flat sounding for anyone to enjoy. Note that the first track on both sides will sound the worst. The sound gets better, though, as you get further into the album. (more…)