UPDATE 2026
This commentary about axioms is being reworked. Stay tuned for further developments.
However, you are free to enjoy it for the time-capsule insights from 2021 you will find here. We still agree with practically all of what we wrote, so no worries there.
It’s clear to us now that axiom is not at all the right word to use in describing what it is that we believe to be true about records and audio.
An axiom is often described as one of these three things:
1. A statement accepted as true as the basis for argument or inference.
2. An established rule or principle or a self-evident truth.
3. A maxim widely accepted on its intrinsic merit.
We stumbled upon the term Core Insight not long ago and realized it would be a much better fit for what we think we know.
A version of Core Insights as they apply to Hot Stampers would go something like this:
- A core insight is a fundamental understanding that helps identify better approaches to finding solutions.
- Core insights in our case come from testing thousands of record pressings to assess their sonic characteristics.
- Testing is the main way we acquire useful data about the records we sell.
- The data is then used to guide future strategies for finding even better sounding records.
- The underlying patterns or truths about the records we played are revealed through this process.
- Continuing research helps us understand the records we test at the deepest levels.
- This understanding allows us to refine our core insights and create new ones.
- The use of core insights insures that our experiments will continue to become both more revealing and accurate.
So Axioms are out and Core Insights are in!
Our Commentary from 2019
In an old commentary we wrote for Carole King’s Tapestry album, we took shots at both the CBS Half-Speed mastered audiophile pressing and the Classic Heavy Vinyl audiophile pressing, noting that both fell far short of the standard set by the Hot Stamper copies we had come across years ago
This finding (and scores of others just like it) prompted us to promulgate the first two axioms of audiophile record collecting.
Better Records Record Collecting Axiom Number One
The better your stereo gets, the fewer Heavy Vinyl and Half-Speed mastered pressings you will choose to play, or own for that matter.
This assumes a fact not in evidence: that audiophiles get rid of their bad sounding records.
It has been my experience that the reverse is actually more often the case. Most audiophiles seem to like to hang on to their audiophile pressings, even the bad sounding ones. Why they do this I cannot for the life of me understand.
To me a bad sounding audiophile record is a record not worth playing. It should either be given away or sold, with any proceeds from the sale applied to the purchase of good records — you know, like the ones found on this site.
Click here to read Better Records’ record collecting axiom number two.
We Get Letters
Quite a number of our customers have written us about our Hot Stamper pressings of Tapestry, and their letters can be found here.