More of the Music of Fleetwood Mac
Reviews and Commentaries for Rumours
One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:
Hey Tom,
I’m on my fourth Hot Stamper now, and I’m having a wonderful experience overall. I wanted to touch base regarding a Super Hot Stamper (Quiet Vinyl) of Rumours. The sound is overall a delight, and although I have yet to do a head-to-head shootout with my 45rpm “audiophile” copy, I can sense I will prefer the copy I bought from you overall.
However, I really crave absolutely silent vinyl for this album, especially for The Chain. When the band comes to a halt, and there’s nothing but silence, it’s perfect. The particular copy I bought is pretty quiet when the music is playing, but the surface noise during quiet/silent passages is a bit of a disappointment for me. This leads me to believe that if a White Hot Stamper of Rumors popped up on your site, I would definitely want to buy it, in the hopes that the vinyl would be even quieter throughout. Do you think a White-Hot copy of Rumors is on the horizon?
I believe your policy is that I’ve got 30 days to return this one for money back, and then 12 months to exchange it, with some reduction. Knowing me, I’m going to want to get a white hot copy next time I see one listed, and I’d really love to do it sooner rather than later. (I say this assuming that one of the things that would separate a super hot from a white hot would be the level of background noise.)
Thank you
Aaron
Aaron,
Some thoughts:
Firstly, the surface noise grades and the sonic grades are not related as a rule. Some records sound great and are noisy, some records sound great and are quiet, and nobody knows which are which until they get cleaned and played.
My advice would be to return the record so that we can eventually get you one you will be happy with. We do the shootout once or twice a year, so we should be able to find you a better sounding copy. A quieter copy is another matter. We could do a shootout for 8-10 copies and find none that were any quieter than the one we sold you. We know what to listen for now, the quiet parts of The Chain. But that does not mean that out of the copies we play in any given year a copy with Super Hot grades would be quieter than the copy we sent you.
To get you a quieter one is a matter of luck, it might take three or four shootouts to get that lucky.
But if you want to keep the copy we sent you and basically “rent” it until we can find you a quieter one in a year or two, that is one of your options. We are good either way, Rumours sells very quickly, lots of folks waiting for a nice copy to show up on the site.
I wrote this about your 45 copy:
Strict Quality Control? We Put That Proposition to the Test
You can find many more Letters and Commentaries for Rumours here.
Let us know what works best for you and we will make it right.
Best, TP
Hi Tom,
Aaron,
We will get you a copy of Rumours if we can find one that is quieter, I will have Fred keep an eye out for one.
As for MoFi Kind of Blue, I would love to send you a copy of the album that shows you just how wacky their pressing is.
This guy hit it right on the head:
The MoFi Kind of Blue “It sounds f*cking atrocious.”
Anyway, hope to find you some good records and please stop buying the garbage than these modern labels spew out, you will regret having to sell them all once you recognize just how bad they really are!
Best, TP
FURTHER READING
Basic Concepts and Realities Explained
Record Collecting for Audiophiles – A Guide to the Fundamentals
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Important Lessons We Learned from Record Experiments