Month: April 2022

Debussy / Images Pour Orchestre – Argenta

More of the music of Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

More Orchestral Spectaculars

  • Outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound throughout this London Stereo pressing
  • Both the Ansermet on London and the Munch on RCA are better recordings, but both sell for quite a bit more money than this Stereo Treasury, so if can’t see spending the kind of bread they command, here is a much more affordable alternative that is guaranteed to satisfy
  • These sides are open, airy and sweet, with a lovely extended top end and spaciousness for days
  • You’d be hard-pressed to find a copy that’s this well balanced, yet big and lively, with such wonderful clarity in the mids and highs
  • It’s also fairly quiet at Mint Minus Minus, and for recordings of Debussy, that is quiet indeed

Argenta is the man for this music; he brings out the folky quality in the work. We much prefer Argenta’s performance to Reiner’s on LSC 2222, which was one of the early releases from Classic Records as well; poorly remastered, of course, and best avoided. The Classic may be on Harry’s TAS list — sad but true — but that certainly has no bearing on the fact that it’s not a very good record. This STS LP will show you exactly what’s missing from that Heavy Vinyl pressing.

Brilliantly performed by the L’Orchestre de La Suisse Romande under the direction of Ataulfo Argenta.

The famously huge hall The Suisse Romande recorded in immeasurably contributes to the wonderful sound to be found here and on their other recordings. The Classic of LSC 2222 with Reiner, on the other hand, is all but unlistenable on a high-resolution system. The opacity, transient smear and loss of harmonic information drives us up a wall. Who can stand that sound? All the way back in 1994, long before we had anything like the system we do now, we were disparaging the “Classic Records Sound” in our catalogs. With each passing year — nearly 30 and counting — we like it less.

(more…)

The Steve Miller Band – Brave New World

More Steve Miller Band

More Psych Rock

  • This outstanding pressing boasts solid Double Plus (A++) sound from top to bottom – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • We guarantee you have never heard Space Cowboy and Brave New World sound remotely as good as they do here
  • Engineered by the one and only Glyn Johns – until we heard this specific pressing we had no idea the album could sound as good as this one does
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Brave New World was more fully realized, and rocked harder, than the Steve Miller Band’s first two albums.”

(more…)

Which One’s Pink? And What Do All Those Numbers Mean?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Pink Floyd Available Now

This commentary was written at the dawn of the Hot Stamper revolution, circa 2006 I believe. We felt it necessary to explain why we did not give out the stamper information for the pressings we were offering.

UPDATE 2024

We’re so fascinated by the unpredictable nature of the stamper information we often discover in our daily Hot Stamper shootouts that we thought it would be a good idea to create a section on the blog just to draw attention to it. You can find it under the heading of Record Mysteries. Please to enjoy.

Our Letter from 2006

An erstwhile customer wrote to us a while back asking a question about Dark Side of the Moon: “What is the FULL stamper matrix for this record… all the way around the dead wax?”

I replied that we never give out stamper numbers for the records we sell. The only way to find out the stampers for our records is to buy them.

He then countered with this bit of information:

Well, ok. I don’t understand the logic, but it’s your show.

Floyd stampers are probably the most uniquely well documented stampers on [a site that no longer exists] that they’re pretty much common knowledge. If I understand your logic, a first pressing may not be a “Hot Stamper” while a 3rd, 4th or 5th might be. Just a function of the stars aligning when that record is pressed. So what’s the diff?

I would think this would be pretty obvious. If we say pressing X is the best, this is information that you cannot get anywhere else, certainly not on the site you linked to. The day that such a site tells you which stampers sound the best is the day that such a site can have any value to those who are not collecting for the sake of collecting, but actually want to find pressings with the best sound to play. 

The information on that site has absolutely no value to me, or to any of my Hot Stamper customers, of that I can assure you. [It no longer exists by the way. Why should it?]

If you told me what the stampers were and it was a first pressing and /or issue, it would enhance the marketability of that particular record and I would be more inclined to buy it…not that I would sell it, but just knowing it was a first press would have more value to me.

Why would you want a first pressing if it didn’t sound as good? Or, if a later pressing sounded better, why would that make any difference in your desire to buy it? Isn’t the idea to get good sound?

If you buy records principally to collect original pressings, you will end up with some awful sounding records, that I can tell you without fear of contradiction.

On the other hand, if you want the best sounding pressings, we are the only record sellers on the planet who can consistently find them for you. This is precisely the service we are able to offer, unique in the world as far as we know. 

Anyone can sell originals. Only we can sell the best sound.

Others could of course, but none of them have ever bothered to try, so the result is the same. Finding the best sound is far more difficult and far more rewarding to both the seller and the buyer, as any of our customers will tell you.

I guess the only problem for the “collector” who cares about sound as well as rarity is that your “Hot Stampers” aren’t “certified” in any way. That is, if I went to re-sell a Hot Stamper I bought from you, no one else would know it to be different from any other pressing of the same record. Ever thought about coding your records so that individual record had some kind of verifiable marking that it was a certain level of “hot stamper”???

We do have a customer who makes us fill out hot stamper certificates, but they are really of little value for resell in the real world.

Records aren’t to sell, they are to play and enjoy.

Btw, I collect for sound first, but “collectability / rarity” is up there too. My stone mint MFSL Muddy Waters Folk Singer #0005 / 5000 might fetch a couple more bucks on ebay than number 4999 say, right? I know, 4999 might sound better, but hey, a lot of people don’t have the equipment to tell the difference.

[This is where I got a little fed up and a little testy, or maybe I should say testier than usual.]

Since that is an AWFUL sounding pressing, I hope your equipment is able to tell you what is wrong with its sound. Mobile Fidelity is one of the worst labels in the history of the world; surely you don’t buy their lousy sounding records to play them? Collect them all you want, it’s your money, but who in his right mind thinks they sound any good? There are tons of commentaries on the site detailing their deficiencies. Please take the time to read them.

The fastest way to improve your record collection is to get rid of all your audiophile pressings, since only one out of every ten or twenty is even passable. If your stereo isn’t showing you how wrong the sound of those records is, it’s time to make some serious changes.

Best, 
TP

(more…)

Albeniz / Falla / Spain / Reiner

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Recordings Available Now

Spain has been an audiophile favorite for a very long time.

Everybody should know it by now, what with both Chesky and Classic Records having remastered it in the 90s, dismally of course, as neither of these companies have ever demonstrated that the slightest sense how lackluster, if not downright awful, the result of their efforts turned out.

No doubt Analogue Productions will see fit to ruin the recording the way they ruined Scheherazade.

This has never been one of the best Living Stereo titles in our experience.

The highest grade I would give it would probably be a B.

“Our experience” is the key phrase in the above sentence. I can’t say there aren’t amazing sounding pressings of the album, it’s simply the case that we have never played one.

If I saw one for cheap I would of course pick it up, but in the modern world of records, that is very unlikely indeed.

(more…)

Albert King – King of the Blues Guitar

More Albert King

More Soul, Blues, and R&B

  • An original Atlantic copy with outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER on both sides
  • Forget whatever dead-as-a-doornail Heavy Vinyl pressing they’re making these days – the Tubey Magic, size and electric energy of this vintage pressing simply cannot be beat
  • Marks in the vinyl are the nature of the beast with these early pressings – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • “These 17 tunes come from King’s most fertile period, his 1966-68 tenure at Memphis’s Stax Records…. King’s ripe and mellow vocals are a perfect match for the soul-drenched music while his dramatic string bends leap out.” — Marc Greilsamer

(more…)

Does It Seem to You That This Guy Knows Anything About Records? Any Records?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

I had posted one of his videos here under the heading “Does it seem like this guy knows anything about Dark Side of the Moon?”

That was too generous. Apparently he does not know anything about records period. Any records. Records with any titles.

That would include records with the title Led Zeppelin II, the subject of today’s commentary.

This video has to be The. Dumbest. Video. Ever.

(more…)

Tom Port Discusses Robert Brook’s Recent Shootout for Abraxas

More of the Music of Santana

Robert Brook has a blog which he calls

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

If you are new to the audio game, and even if you aren’t, we think you will find much of value there. (If you already think you know it all, his blog will be of little use, but of course neither will mine. You already know it all!)

This link will take you to a comparison Robert Brook carried out between some pressings of Abraxas: his own and a Hot Stamper pressing he borrowed from a friend.

I wrote to him about a few issues I had with his commentary.

Dear Robert,

Of course we love it when one of our records gives you the experience you had.

But there are some fine points to keep in mind so that we present our approach as correctly as possible with no hype.

I would not say you can’t hack a hot stamper.

I would say it is very hard.

You could say something like: “Tom says his superior cleaning techniques make it hard to compete with him. If you have a copy with the same stampers as his, his will sound better most of the time simply because the right cleaning noticeably improves the sound’

Which means that you need a different stamper to beat mine, the stamper of the record that won our shootout, not the one that came in at 2+!

Anyone can do it is our motto.

It’s hard is also our motto. (We have a lot of mottos.)

We only beat your other copies on one side, so imagine if the copy you heard did not have that one great side? That is something to think about!

And all the work you’ve done on your stereo is a key part of hearing Santana, a story we tell often ourselves.

Working on the stereo and working on the collection go hand in hand, you lived it and you know it is the only way it can work.

And now records that you thought were just fine, your copies, are unlistenable. This also is key to my experience.

You recommend doing more shootouts. I would add to your comments that you plan on buying more copies of Abraxas even though you already have some. Buy them when you see them.

And if, after a while, you haven’t found the one that does it, you can buy one from me that will do it.

Your point about the WHS and NWHS is a good one. Hard to beat. Not impossible, but so difficult as to make the effort hardly worth it.

We have no magical powers. We just have a staff of ten and forty years of experience. We can be wrong, but it does not happen very often, and if it does you get your money back.

We’ve written quite a bit about Abraxas, and you can find plenty of our Reviews and Commentaries for the album on this very blog.

(more…)

Barbra Streisand – Stoney End

More Barbra Streisand

More Vintage Columbia Pressings

  • Superb Double Plus (A++) sound or very close to it throughout this original Columbia pressing
  • Amazingly Big, Lively and Tubey Magical, courtesy of the production chops of none other than Richard Perry
  • 4 1/2 stars: “…redefined Streisand as an effective pop/rock singer [and] was so far removed from what Streisand’s fans and her detractors thought her capable of that it stands as one of her major triumphs.”

(more…)

Spending More Time With The Beatles

beatlwitht_x20

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now

To find the Hottest Stampers it helps to have piles and piles of minty British pressings. And lots of time on your hands. And lots of help. Fortunately, with a staff of ten and nothing else to do all day, we have all three.

This is a tough album to get to sound right, as long-time readers of our site surely know, but on a good copy it can sound wonderful. This one really delivers, with plenty of presence and energy as well as natural, balanced tonality.

So, What’s Out There?

We’ve heard copies that were smeared, murky, muddy, grainy, or all of the above. Almost all of them had no real magic in the midrange. And of course, we heard tons of copies with the kind of gritty vocals that you’ll find all over the average Parlophone Beatles pressing.

Early or Late Pressing?

So many Parlophone copies would have you think With The Beatles is a gritty, edgy, crude recording — especially if you made the mistake of buying an early pressing.

The early pressings are consistently grittier, edgier and more crude than the later pressings we played.

(more…)

This Lousy Gershwin Set Is on the TAS List?

More of the Music of George Gershwin

A Hall of Shame 3 Record set that had us asking: Why would anyone want to own these awful records? Isn’t the music of George Gershwin better than this?

TAS List or no TAS List, the performances of the works listed below are much too slow to be taken seriously.

This is one of those records that make you wonder what the hell some audiophile reviewers, including Harry Pearson himself, must have been smoking back in the day.

I get that The TAS Super Disc List is about sound, not music, but the sound is not that great here either, and the bargain vinyl is the typical gritty, grainy, noisy crap that VOX records tend to be made with.

(more…)