There is an active thread on Audiogon inviting members to list what they believe are the very best sounding vinyl records in their collection.
One of my customers made the case for some of his Hot Stamper pressings
and, as you can imagine, it was as well received as the proverbial turd in the punchbowl.
Please to enjoy!
Comments or questions? Please send them to tom@better-records.com
Further Reading
One of the jewels in the London catalog, with sweet, tonally correct sound and plenty of natural hall. Another good reason to love London records! Colorful, lively and fun music, played with verve and beautifully recorded.
Overtures, intermezzos and preludes — just the good stuff.
The album is made up of 10 shorter pieces. A real standout is the first band on side one.
We Love the Early Fleetwood Mac with Peter Green
This is the first iteration of the band from way back in the day, back when they were playing their unique brand of Blues Rock with Peter Green leading the band — about as far from Rumours as you can get.
If you like British Blues Rock I don’t think any other band can hold a candle to the Mac from this period. Clapton may have been considered a god but Green is the better guitar player; this album is proof of that.
The commentary below is a bit out of date. Now that we can clean and play every label’s pressings much better than before, some of this commentary is harsher than it needs be and should be taken with a grain of salt. That said, there are still an awful lot of badly mastered and badly pressed Verve LPs of excellent Verve recordings, which may be good for our business but is nevertheless frustrating when it comes time to do the shootouts for them.
Verve is probably the most poorly mastered label in the history of the world. No other record label that I know of was responsible for so many wonderful sounding recordings which so often turned into lousy sounding LPs. I could list them for days.
For years we would not pick up most Verve titles at anything but a dirt-cheap price, having been burned so many times before. We just couldn’t bring ourselves to play another badly-mastered, noisy LP. Who has the time?
The commentary below concerns a wonderful Wes Montgomery album on Verve. It tells a story that is all too common in our experience: how the typical Verve pressing is so awful it’s hard to believe we would make the mistake of continuing to buy them, seemingly throwing good money after bad.
But we did keep buying them, we hung in there, and from time to time — against all odds — we would stumble upon a wonderful sounding Verve LP. Some Verve pressings were so much better than we could have ever imagined — based on the dismal pressings we’d played before — we had no choice but to call them Hot Stampers. What else could they be? (more…)
More of the Music of Emmylou Harris
As is usually the case with Harris’ albums, the sound they’re going for here is clean and clear with plenty of detail.
Only a handful of copies really nail that sound, with most being either dull and recessed or pinched and edgy.
When you get one that manages to have a punchy low end, full mids AND the open, extended top end, the sound gets out of the way and you can really enjoy the MUSIC.
After all, isn’t that what this crazy hobby is about?
Side One
A+++, big, open and FULL. The vocals have plenty of space and texture, the bottom end is punchy and clear, and you can hear all the way to the back of the soundfield. The vocals are the real star of this album, and when they’re upfront and present without getting edgy or hard, you know you have a real winner. As Good As It Gets, White Hot Stamper material all the way.
Side Two
A+++, and every bit as good as side one! Again, it really nails that clear, transparent sound, with wonderful separation of parts. Emmylou is a master of country harmonies, and when all the voices stand apart clearly it’s much easier to appreciate her skill. Combine that clarity with a fuller, more natural tonality than anything hinted at on the typical pressing and you have another shootout-winning side.
This Minty Blue Note Liberty Label LP has EXCELLENT LIVE JAZZ SOUND. It’s very transparent, with plenty of deep bass. The piano sounds particularly nice — it has real WEIGHT to it. Both sides play quietly, Near Mint. I imagine you’d have quite a hard time finding a quieter, better sounding copy of this album. The music is wonderful as well — 4 stars in the AMG!
The selection of nine Three Sounds staples gives the group a chance to stretch out… they flourish. The music on Live at the Lighthouse is hotter than some of their studio recordings, pulsating with energy and good feelings, demonstrating that they had worked out any of the problems that hampered Vibrations. It’s their finest set since Black Orchid. — AMG (more…)
Hey Tom,
I found out from buying into these and older Mobile Fidelity’s… New pressed vinyls… The sound left me cold… Didn’t have the warmth or integrity of the intended sound we all grew up on… And how the engineers and producers wanted us to hear them…
Digital Masters used in new vinyls IMO strangle the sound at birth… They give a lifeless sound that is rather like a CD, flat in its presentation without natural warmth, timbre.. Wooden instruments don’t sound wooden, brass doesn’t sound like brass… piano, the hardest instrument to reproduce other than the full tonal range of the human voice, that doesn’t sound the same in digital…
The FANCY term applied as a Sales Gimmick…the Magic of REMASTERED…means Jack Shit in reality, when worked in the digital domain… from digital masters! Give me analog every time!
Have you noticed how the Music Industry has now begun to go Back to full Analog chain/recording again? The trend is beginning to happen with a number of new recordings specified by the artists or producers… They recognize the power of a better sound captured in the analog process…
For me, original 50s, 60s and 70s music is preferred on first or often better ED2 pressings and wax which was quieter by the mid 70s early 80s..
The MORE I buy and listen to the HOT STAMPERS, the more I value the work and dedication you guts provide! There is no ‘bullshit’ at work here! The concept you have is CLEARLY AND DEMONSTRABLY PROVEN to anyone with a pair of ears willing to listen!
Even better… you don’t even NEED a Top End $10-20,000 record deck/cartridge to FULLY appreciate it… a quality Hi-Fi set up will STILL give you that same difference!
Even with a Hot Stamper in a condition with a little surface noise, clicks etc… the Magical sound overpowers any minor age related faults of the disc to render a beguiling listening experience!
PRICELESS hearing favourite albums in a NEW and hugely better way with the Sound itself being the ONLY CONSIDERATION Compared to a Bog Standard pressing…
Often as you have seen in recent times, I have upgraded Fave albums with TOP 3 Star Best Hot STAMPERS you have when available… replacing cheaper ones I bought 7-8 years ago! (more…)
Unlike Frampton Comes Alive, recorded at different venues, Certified Live was recorded at one location, the Universal Amphitheatre, resulting in very little variation in the sound from track to track. The variation in the sound from side to side is the kind of variation we hear on virtually every pressing we play, since no two sides of a record ever really sound exactly the same.
We like our ’70s Rock Records to be rich and full; that’s what live Rock Concerts have always sounded like to us and we see no reason to revise our biases now. It’s what good analog does effortlessly and what even the best digital finds difficult to achieve.
A common problem with many of the sides we played was strain or congestion in the loudest passages. Another was sound that’s too “clean.”
It’s not hard to figure out what the best pressings do well that the average ones struggle with.
The Shootout Winning sides are simply bigger, fuller, more clear, more present, more transparent, more punchy, and have more space and energy than the other pressings we played. A couple of minutes in on any side and you know if it has The Big Sound or not. We’re happy to report these four sides are some of the biggest and liveliest we heard.
I’ve actually seen Dave Mason twice in the last five years or so; he tours relentlessly and always puts on a good show. Check him out if he comes to your town. Remarkably he plays these songs nowadays about as well as he ever did, which is very well indeed. (more…)
