Hot Stamper Pressings of Recordings by Decca Available Now
The record you see pictured is not the record we will be discussing in this post.
The stamper numbers and grades you see below belong to a different album.
We’ve lately been giving out much more stamper information than we used to, in some cases including the actual stamper sheets compiled from the shootout — winners, losers, and everything in between — but for now we are keeping this title close to the vest.
This pressing was not as bad as many of the golden age classical titles we play. Although it has the potential to sound amazingly good on the early labels, the second label London pressings never seem to do much better than 1.5+, a barely passing Hot Stamper grade.
It’s small, stuck in the speakers, and had no real top end. We judge it to have middling sound quality.
1.5+ is four grades down from the top copy. That’s a steep dropoff as far as we’re concerned. 1.5+ only hints at how good a recording this London can be on the best early pressings.
To see more records that earned the 1.5+ grade, please click here. (Incidentally, some of them are even on Heavy Vinyl. The better modern pressings have sometimes, if rarely, been known to earn Hot Stamper grades, and one shocked the hell out of us by actually winning a shootout. Wouldn’t you like to know which one!)
For those who might be interested, there’s more on our grading scale here.
Here are reviews for some of the titles we’ve auditioned, broken down into the three major labels that account for most of the best classical and orchestral titles we’ve had the pleasure to play.
- London/Decca records with weak sound or performances
- Mercury records with weak sound or performances
- RCA records with weak sound or performances
We’ve auditioned countless pressings in the 37 years we’ve been in business — buying, cleaning and playing them by the thousands.
This is how we find the best sounding vinyl pressings ever made, through trial and error. It may be expensive and time consuming, but there is simply no other method for finding better records that works. If you know of one, please write me!
We are not the least bit interested in records that are “known” to sound the best.
Known by whom? Which audiophiles — hobbyists or professionals, take your pick — can be trusted to know what they are talking about when it comes to the sound of records?
I have never met one, outside of those of us who work for Better Records. I remain skeptical of the existence of such a creature. The audiophile experts and reviewers I’ve encountered on the web seem hopelessly lost to me.
[UPDATE: 2024]
Woops, I take that back. I have met one, a certain Mr. Robert Brook. He has been conducting his own shootouts for a few years now and has made his findings available on his blog, The Broken Record. This is information you can trust.
We’re looking for records that actually do sound the best.
If you’re an audiophile with an ear for top quality sound on vintage vinyl, we’d be happy to send you the Hot Stamper pressing guaranteed to beat anything and everything you’ve heard, especially if you have any pressing marketed as suitable for an audiophile. Those, with few exceptions, are rarely better than mediocre.
And if we can’t beat whatever LP you own or have heard, you get your money back. It’s as simple as that.
Further Reading