Month: June 2021

After The Gold Rush – Why So Expensive?

More of the Music of Neil Young

We built our reputation on finding Demo Disc Quality pressings like this. Who else can offer you a copy of After the Gold Rush that delivers this kind of Tubey Magical Analog sound?

The reason a record like this needs to sell for the kind of serious bread we charge is that there just aren’t that many clean copies that have survived; there aren’t that many copies with the right stampers; and there aren’t that many copies that were pressed just right, the way this one was.

I’ve been picking up originals of this record for 20 years. Nowadays we pick up every clean original copy that we see. People loved this album and played it to death. Who can blame them; it’s Young’s masterpiece. It’s actually a better album than Harvest, and Harvest is an awfully good album.

Most original copies of this album leave a lot to be desired. Some are clean but lack Tubey Magic and warmth. Others are thick, dull, and compressed sounding. And almost all of them are pressed on dubious vinyl or have been treated poorly.

Subtracting all the problematical copies, you’re left with only a handful of real contenders, copies that are good enough to go into a shootout with the potential to win it. If you would like to spend a couple of years finding, cleaning, and playing original pressings of After The Gold Rush, the chances are very good that you would eventually come across one like this.

Anyone can do it. But do you want to? Would you rather spend your free time searching for an amazing copy of Neil Young’s masterpiece or enjoying it?.

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The Electric Flag / A Long Time Comin’

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The first White Hot copy to ever hit the site and it has KILLER Triple Plus (A+++) sound on both sides. The all-star lineup here features Michael Bloomfield, Buddy Miles, Richie Havens and many more. It’s raunchy and bluesy, somewhat reminiscent of Super Session, but without Al Kooper.    (more…)

Shostakovich / Symphony No. 5 – A Recommended Cisco LP

More of the music of Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)

More music written or performed by Leonard Bernstein

Sonic Grade: B

Years ago we wrote the following:

This Cisco 180 gram LP has EXCELLENT SOUND. Without a doubt this pressing is a HUGE improvement over the majority of shrill originals. Robert Pincus, Mr. Record himself, loaned me his best original Columbia pressing for the shootout. Not surprisingly it sounded every bit as hard, shrill and aggressive as others I have heard. Sounds lovely in the quiet passages, but you better cover your ears in the tuttis.

That’s why you see so few Columbia classical LPs on our site; the sound is usually terrible, and almost always in the same way: boosted upper midrange/ lower highs.

These records no doubt sounded great on the consoles of the day, with speakers aimed at your knees, but on modern hi-fi rigs they are positively deadly.

The aforementioned Mr. Record was also kind enough to provide us with an acetate of the very same recording, one which was cut a bit too loud and couldn’t be used. It sounded very much like our test pressing — warm, rich, and natural, with not a hint of phony sound from top to bottom. It was, however, a bit more textured, spacious and resolving of detail, exactly what you would expect. That said, the finished record has more than enough of all the best qualities we look for in a classical LP, especially that rare quality of Right On The Money Tonality. The string tone is superb. Not many modern remasterings can make that claim. Very few in fact.

This wonderful music belongs in any serious collection. Now that the sound matches the performance, it can be yours, on quiet vinyl no less.

This one gets a Top Recommendation from Better Records as one of the few heavy vinyl pressings that can actually beat some if not most of the originals.

We can’t be sure we would still agree with any of this but I’m guessing the Cisco pressing is still a good sounding record at the price. (more…)

Argybargy Is Quintessential Squeeze

squeeargyb_2016_1466782719Hot Stamper Pressings of Personal Favorites Available Now

If you think you might enjoy the mashup of Pub Rock and New Wave that this group unleashed on the pop music scene of the ’70s and ’80s I could not recommend any album of theirs more highly than Argybargy.

Squeeze’s prime period with Jools Holland on keyboards encompasses four albums, any of which is worth owning. The band really gets going with their second album, Cool for Cats (1979), pulls it all together and takes it to another level for their breakthrough third, Argybargy (1980), and produces two more of high quality, East Side Story (1981, produced mostly by Elvis Costello) and the darker but equally brilliant Sweets from a Stranger (1982).

I’m a huge fan of all four, as well as two from their later days, the amazing-to-this-day Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti (1985) and the weaker but enjoyable Babylon and On (1987). I play all of them on a regular basis.

If you’re a fan of Elvis Costello, Graham Parker, Nick Lowe, Joe Jackson and probably quite a few other lesser-knowns from this era, Squeeze is the band for you. I put them right up there with Elvis Costello and Peter Gabriel in the pantheon of British Pop Music of the era.

The Sound

There’s plenty of Tubey Magical richness and smoothness on the best British pressings, qualities the domestic pressings are sorely lacking. If you want to hear this music right, on vinyl it’s British or nothing, and with one of our Hot Stamper pressings it’s British and everything — everything that’s good about this recording is captured on this on the copies we offer.

What to Listen For 

Extension up top was hard to come by on most pressings. When you hear those lovely highs you can hear how much they add to the sound.

The overall sound is rich and tubey, not dry, thin or modern. Clarity and space are nice but not if they come at the expense of the smooth, rich, natural sound of tubes (whether there are tubes in the chain or not).

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David Bowie – Space Oddity

More David Bowie

More Art Rock Records

  • An outstanding copy of Bowie’s sophomore release with solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER from start to finish
  • The sound here is huge, full-bodied, punchy and relatively smooth throughout, with real space and ambience around the vocals and instruments
  • “Abandoning both the mod and Anthony Newley fascinations that marked his earlier recordings, Bowie delves into a lightly psychedelic folk-rock, exemplified by the album’s soaring title track. . .”

One of the reasons the song “Space Oddity” sounds so amazing is that it was produced by none other than Gus Dudgeon, the man behind all the best Elton John records. It has Paul Buckmaster doing the string arrangements as well. His work on Elton’s self-titled album is awe-inspiring; we know of none better. (more…)

Styx – Equinox

More Styx

  • A stunning sounding copy of the band’s first A&M release – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • This superb original pressing is huge and rich, with prodigious amounts of bass, like no other copy you’ve heard
  • “”Equinox” would prove to be the last album from the original lineup of Styx. This would also be the band’s first album for major label A&M and probably the album where the band really developed their signature sound, a mix of progressive rock, straight ahead pop, and arena style rock. “Equinox” is a must own album for Styx fans and remains one of the band’s best works.” Amazon Reviewer

Who likes their Wall of Sound small and closed-in? Certainly not Big Speaker guys like us. By all accounts this band wanted their records to sound good, or at least as good as their contemporaries. There’s no shortage of production polish here and on the best pressings the sound adds a lot to the music. (more…)

The Hollies – Hollies Sing Dylan

More of The Hollies

Super rare original Yellow and Black Parlophone Label Hollies LP in very good condition. 

Typical Hollies sound: a bit too much upper midrange. But that’s the way they wanted you to hear it. I doubt if you can find a better sounding version of this album than this copy.

The Ramsey Lewis Trio – Down To Earth

More Ramsey Lewis

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Piano

  • Down To Earth finally makes it to the site with STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from start to finish
  • A truly superb recording with huge, spacious, dynamic, lively sound – Tubey Magical richness is a big plus too
  • As soon as the needle hit the groove on a copy we had picked up locally we knew the sound was top notch – the excellent music was a plus as well (!)
  • 4 stars: “Their concise interpretations (only two songs are longer than 3:15) feature swinging solos by Lewis and respect for the melodies. The music is quite accessible while still being jazz oriented. Worth picking up.”

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Jazz Giant – Is the OJC Really 100x Worse?

Hot Stamper Pressings of Contemporary Jazz Albums Available Now

UPDATE 2026

This commentary is from many years ago. The OJC’s can be decent on this title, but some of them, the one we played and discuss here, can be awful.

The OJC versions of Contemporary Records are typically thin and somewhat opaque, as well as tizzy up top, the kind of sound one often hears on CDs (and that CD lovers for some reason never seem to notice, or bothered by, who can say?).

Some OJC pressings, however, can be excellent — when you are lucky enough to chance upon the right copy.

The pressings that were mastered and put out by Contemporary in the mid-70s (until they were bought by Fantasy) are almost always superior to the OJCs, but these rules of thumb break down so badly and so often that the only workable approach is just to play as many different copies of the album as you can get your hands on and simply let them sort themselves out sonically.

This of course is exactly how we conduct our shootouts. We make a lot of mistakes, but when all is said and done, we rarely fail to come up with the goods, the goods being phenomenal sounding pressings of important music, pressings that are dramatically superior to any others.

Although we’ve liked the OJC of Jazz Giant in the past, last time around the OJC versions were quite a bit thinner, smaller and less energetic than our real Contemporary stereo pressings. They were a big step down from our killer Shootout Winner.

The notes for that copy read “100x better” if that tells you anything (!)

A clear case of live and learn.

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Peter Gabriel’s So – An Overview

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Peter Gabriel Available Now

We wrote this about a killer copy that came our way years ago:

Here is a copy of So with the big and bold Peter Gabriel sound we love.

If you want your art rock to actually rock as well as be arty, this is the copy for you.

It’s not a perfect recording by any means, but when it sounds this good you can just forget its shortcomings and marvel at how consistently good the material and the production are.

No Mean Feat

It’s exceptionally hard to find good sounding copies of this album. With a digital recording such as this, the margin for mastering error is very slim. Most copies just aren’t worth the vinyl they’re pressed on. More often than not they will sound harsh, gritty, grainy, edgy, and thin.

We did a shootout many years ago that taught us a few things. The most surprising finding? The Brit copy I had in my own collection sucked — how about that! As a rule, I like the Brit pressings best for PG, but that rule got broken after playing all these domestic copies, some of which really sound good, clearly better than the Brits we had on hand.

Are rules made to be broken?

Yes they are.

This is a digital recording, and most of the time it is BRIGHT, SPITTY and GRAINY the way digital recordings tend to be, which plays right into the prejudices of most audiophiles for the “100% analog” approach they favor.

After hearing a bad copy, what audiophile wouldn’t conclude that all copies will have these bad qualities?

After all, it’s digital. It can’t be fixed simply by putting it on vinyl.

Ah, but that’s where logic breaks down. Proper mastering can ameliorate many if not most of a recording’s shortcomings. When we say Hot Stampers, we are talking about high-quality mastering doing exactly that.

Mass Produced Plastic Problems

But of course the mastering is only one part of the puzzle. I have multiple copies with the same stampers. Some of them are terrible, some of them are wonderful — you just can’t rely on the numbers to guide you with a piece of mass-produced plastic like this. You have no choice but to play the record to know what it sounds like. (And that’s a good thing. Keeps you honest. There’s no “cheating” when you have nothing to go by but the sound.)

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