Pink Floyd Hot Stamper Pressings Available Now
In a reply to some questions Robert Brook asked about Revolver and Sticky Fingers — see here and here — I made mention of the advice, found on Hoffman’s forum and other sites, that is commonly offered regarding the superiority of specific pressings of albums these posters purport to know well.
This often-arcane advice includes labels, pressing plants, stamper numbers, specific mastering credits, etc. The practice is so common that audiophiles “in the know” are now expected to share their findings with other members for the benefit of all.
That’s the background for my comment below. I was explaining where I stood with respect to the recommendations I often read, in my typically undiplomatic language:
We do not respect the opinions of those who have little understanding of records and their pressing variations. The faulty conclusions they invariably arrrive at lack evidentiary support because they don’t know how to do what we do and can’t be bothered to learn.
Regardless of what these folks believe, by now we’ve heard dozens and dozens of amazing originals [referring to Sticky Fingers]. This made us extremely skeptical that any other mastering house could compete with the right original’s sound. It was just too good.
Yes, we were skeptical, and it has turned out, at least so far, that we were right to be skeptical. Nothing has come close to the best early domestic pressings of Sticky Fingers, the ones that win shootouts and that we have long known to be the best pressings of the album.
But sometimes we are skeptical and we turn out to be wrong.
Specifically we were wrong about some albums by Pink Floyd (but not the title you see pictured). I wrote:
We’re not always correct about these things. We were dead wrong about a couple of famous Pink Floyd albums from the “wrong” country that we’d heard good things about.
They have been winning shootouts for many years now.
Our judgments concerning the best sounding pressings for any given title must be seen in the light of any information arrived at scientifically: it’s considered provisionally true. (We may not be the smartest guys in the room, but we’re sure as hell smart enough to know that much.)
I felt it was important to point all this out. The impression I did not want to leave in the reader’s mind is that we know all the answers.
We don’t, and we would never pretend to.
If somehow we did know it all, there would not be a hundred entries in our live and learn section.
We regularly learn from our mistakes and we hope you do too.
Best Parts, One and Two
The best part of this job is discovering even better pressings of favorite albums than the ones we thought were the best. Yes, we love it when we are proven wrong.
The other best part of the job is discovering great recordings of wonderful music that most people have never heard of, some of which can be found here.
For those of you interested in classical and orchestral discoveries, we call them “sleeper” pressings, go here.
Further Reading
- What exactly are Hot Stamper pressings?
- Doing your own shootouts – these are the basics
- More on the subject of mistaken audiophile thinking
