Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Ambrosia Available Now

One of our good customers wrote to tell us about a very Hot Stamper pressing he purchased recently:

Hey Tom,   

Question:

Does Tom Port have any clue as to what the hell he’s doing or selling to the public?

That is my question.

Hello Tom,

I’m the idiot who spent $399 on your White Hot Stamper of Ambrosia’s first album a few weeks ago. I did an A/B listening test with an A++/A++ copy I bought from you a few years ago. Your website waxes lyrical about the exceptional qualities of this recording; I always thought it was very, very good but not quite the recording you make it out to be!

To perform my listing test, I listened to my A++/A++ side one first. Then listened to the newly purchased A+++/A+++ next. The results? I almost had to call 911 because my jaw hit the floor! THIS was the recording you had written about in the records descriptive comments. This pressing is so holographic I swear I could have stepped into the recording.

Dare I say this is a better recording than Dark Side of the Moon; and yes, I can make such a claim, I purchased an A++/A+++ – A++/A+++ copy from you guys a few years ago. This is what I refer to as Master Tape sound quality. A Holy Grail for audiophiles.

It’s pressings like this that pose the questions: Why can’t all records sound this good and why can’t all recording engineers be as great as Alan Parsons?

So, back to my original question. Does Tom Port know what the hell he is doing or selling to the public?

Yes Tom, I’d say absolutely, 100% you know what you are doing and I’m the happiest idiot on this Earth. Keep up the great work, Tom, and thank you and your staff for the incredible service you provide.

Todd N.

Dear Todd,

Thanks for your letter. I’m positively blushing!

Seriously, the right vintage pressing — on the right stereo — can take the enjoyment of music to a level far beyond that of anything being experienced by the audiophile of today, at least those who are stuck in a rut due to their misguided devotion to the modern Heavy Vinyl reissue.

Sometimes the difference between our Super Hot (A++) pressings and our Triple Plus (A+++) shootout winners does indeed feel like the night and day difference you heard. When everything is better, in every way, that’s the copy that will win our shootout and earn our top grade. You heard it for yourself.

On some records it’s not as dramatic. On this one it apparently was that dramatic, and your jaw hitting the floor is the way I’ve felt for twenty years after hearing a record sound so much better than I ever thought possible. Perhaps we should have given it Four Pluses. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Click here to read more about Ambrosia’s phenomenally good sounding debut album (assuming you have the right pressing of course. That’s where we come in.

The blog you are on now as well as our web site are both devoted to very special records such as these.

In my opinion, this is also a record that should be more popular with audiophiles. If you have not heard this classic, you owe it yourself to check it out. It is the very definition of the kind of big production rock albums I have been enamored with since I first fell in love with this band’s debut back in the mid-Seventies. That was about fifty years ago and I still play the album regularly for enjoyment. I have never tired of the music in all that time and I don’t think I ever will.

I’m sure you have plenty of records you feel the same way about in your collection. This is one of mine.

It is the very definition of a big speaker album. The better pressings have the kind of energy in their grooves that are sure to have most audiophile systems begging for mercy.

This is the audio challenge that awaits you. If you don’t have a system designed to play records with this kind of sonic firepower, don’t expect to hear them the way the band, Alan Parsons, Doug Sax and everybody else involved in the production wanted you to.

This album wants to rock your world, and that’s exactly what our best Hot Stamper pressings are especially good at doing.

Ambrosia is one of the most influential and important artists/bands in my growth as a music lover and audiophile, joining the ranks of Roxy Music, 10cc, Steely Dan, Yes, Bowie, Supertramp, Eno, Talking Heads, Jethro Tull, Elton John, The Beatles, Crosby, Stills and Nash, The Cars, Led Zeppelin, Cat Stevens and countless others, musicians and bands who were clearly dedicated to making higher quality recordings, the kinds of recordings that would only truly come alive in the homes of those with the most advanced audio equipment.

My system was forced to evolve in order to reproduce the scores of challenging recordings issued by these groups in the 60s and 70s.

It’s clear that these albums informed not only my taste in music but the actual stereo I play that music on. It’s what progress in audio is all about. I’ve had large scale dynamic speakers for close to five decades, precisely in order to play demanding recordings such as these, the music I fell in love with all those years ago.

Naturally it’s also part of our extensive listening in depth series. Any record we get obsessed with we tend to play hundreds and hundreds of times and make notes of what to listen for on specific tracks.