Hot Stamper Pressings of TAS List Super Disc Albums
Reviews and Commentaries for TAS Super Disc Recordings
This is a very old commentary. Lately every copy of this record that we have auditioned has left us wondering: what is the appeal?
Take this review with a large grain of salt and don’t spend a lot of money on this title unless you can easily return it.
We don’t think it sounds very good, and rather than continue to buy more copies, we are going to give up and write it off as a lost cause, TAS List or no TAS List.
This RCA Pink Label TAS List LP plays Mint Minus. Side one of this record sounds AMAZING, especially the Dvorak piece.
Here are the comments for the copy we recently sold on the site:
Superb string tone. This is one record that deserves to be on the TAS list, and you have to give Harry credit for going against the audiophile tide and recognizing a cheap, thin pink VIC! Side one sounds incredible. I do not ever recall hearing sound like this on this Victrola. It’s demonstration quality sound.
Classic Records remastered this record not long ago and ruined it.
This is what it’s supposed to sound like.
Includes
Smetana/ The Bartered Bride;
Dvorak/ Carnival Overture;
Mendelssohn/ Fingal’s Cave;
Weinberger/ Schwanda: Polka and Fugue and Salome; and
Strauss/ Dance of the Seven Veils.
This is an Older Classical/Orchestral Review
Most of the older reviews you see are for records that did not go through the shootout process, the revolutionary approach to finding better sounding pressings we started developing in the early 2000s and have since turned into a veritable science.
We found the records you see in these older listings by cleaning and playing a pressing or two of the album, which we then described and priced based on how good the sound and surfaces were. (For out Hot Stamper listings, the Sonic Grades and Vinyl Playgrades are listed separately.)
We were often wrong back in those days, something we have no reason to hide. Audio equipment and record cleaning technologies have come a long way since those darker days, a subject we discuss here.
Currently, 99% (or more!) of the records we sell are cleaned, then auditioned under rigorously controlled conditions, up against a number of other pressings. We award them sonic grades, and then condition check them for surface noise.
As you may imagine, this approach requires a great deal of time, effort and skill, which is why we currently have a highly trained staff of about ten. No individual or business without the aid of such a committed group could possibly dig as deep into the sound of records as we have, and it is unlikely that anyone besides us could ever come along to do the kind of work we do.
The term “Hot Stampers” gets thrown around a lot these days, but to us it means only one thing: a record that has been through the shootout process and found to be of exceptionally high quality.
The result of our labor is the hundreds of titles seen here, every one of which is unique and guaranteed to be the best sounding copy of the album you have ever heard or you get your money back.
What Exactly Are Hot Stamper Pressings?
Reviews and Commentaries for Other Recordings by Decca
Basic Concepts and Realities Explained