Month: July 2025

Our Stereo Just Loves Certain Records – Why Do You Suppose That Is?

Basic Audio Advice — The Fundamentals of Good Sound

The highest quality vintage pressings are truly amazing if you can play them right. That’s a big if.

In fact, it may just be the biggest if in all of audio.

Be that as it may. What do we love about vintage pressings like the Ted Heath’s Swings in High Stereo album you see pictured?

The timbre of the instruments is hi-fi in the best sense of the word.

The unique sound of every instrument is being reproduced with remarkable fidelity on this old record.

That’s what we mean by “hi-fi,” not the kind of audiophile phony BS sound that passes for hi-fidelity on some records.

Older audiophile records, typically those made by Mobile Fidelity in the 70s and 80s, suffered from a common group of problems on practically every record they released:

A boosted top, a bloated bottom, and a sucked-out midrange.

Nowadays that phony sound is no longer in vogue. A new, but equally phony sound has taken its place.

What seems to be in vogue these days, judging by the Heavy Vinyl reissue pressings we’ve played over the last few years, is a very different sound, with a very different suite of shortcomings.

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Jimi Hendrix – The Jimi Hendrix Concerts

More of the Music of Jimi Hendrix

  • This 2-LP set of previously unreleased performances boasts very good Hot Stamper sound or BETTER on all FOUR sides
  • It’s richer, fuller and with more presence than the average copy, and that’s especially true for whatever godawful Heavy Vinyl pressing is currently being foisted on an unsuspecting record buying public
  • 4 stars: “With top-notch performances, consistently inspired solos, and excellent sound, this is probably the best introduction to Hendrix’s live recordings.”

This live album, taken from concerts recorded from 1968 to 1970, is wonderful sounding on the best tracks. If you’re in the market for live Hendrix on a Hot Stamper, you’ll be hard-pressed to do any better.

The bass on this recording is huge, which is exactly what this kind of music needs most. At the levels we were playing this album, it really came to life. That’s the true test of a good live rock record — the louder you play it the better it sounds!

Stephen Cook writes “With top-notch performances, consistently inspired solos, and excellent sound, this is probably the best introduction to Hendrix’s live recordings.” We agree on all three points completely — but only when you hear it on the right pressing.”

Sonically, this recording has the key elements that a good live album needs: correct tonality, powerful dynamics, and Rock and Roll ENERGY.

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John Lennon – Rock ‘N’ Roll (UK)

More of the Music of John Lennon

  • You’ll find superb Double Plus (A++) grades throughout this early UK Apple pressing – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • These sides are rich, full-bodied, present and spacious with plenty of extension on both ends
  • Lennon’s voice sounds just right with lots of texture and startling immediacy – you’re going to have a hard time finding better sounding versions of these songs anywhere else
  • 4 stars: “Rock ‘n’ Roll, in fact, stands as a peak in his post-Imagine catalog: an album that catches him with nothing to prove and no need to try… Today, Rock ‘n’ Roll sounds fresher than the rock & roll that inspired it in the first place. Imagine that.”

We recently finished a shootout for this fun album, and few other copies we played sounded remotely as good as this one. It’s got exactly the kind of sound we’d want for these old Rock & Roll classics — super lively, clean and clear, tonally correct, and natural. Most copies are edgy and gritty, but this one is smooth, sweet and very enjoyable.

Lennon’s voice sounds just right with lots of texture and startling immediacy. You’re going to have a hard time finding better sounding versions of these songs anywhere else — excepting, of course, “Be-Bop-A-Lula,” which can sound amazing on McCartney Unplugged.

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French Overtures with Ansermet Had One Awfully Good Sounding Side in 2009

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Jacques Offenbach Available Now

Reviewed back in 2009 in our pre-shootout days.

This Minty London Blueback LP has a WONDERFUL Tubey Magical Super Hot Stamper side one.

I have never heard this music sound better. Of course Ansermet is exactly the right conductor for these light and colorful orchestral pieces; the performances are uniformly superb.

But as audiophiles we want to make sure the sound is what it should be, and here side one does not disappoint. The string tone is perfection. I defy anyone to find a Heavy Vinyl reissue with string tone even remotely as good. In my experience there is simply no such record.

With vintage classical records there are always trade-offs of course. Here the loudest passages suffer from some mild compressor distortion, so common on these early pressings. A small price to pay for sound this lovely I say.

The Zampa overture by Herold is probably the best sound on the album — it’s gorgeous!

Side two is not quite as good. We rated it A Plus, with real weight and energy but a bit too much compression and distorton in the loud passages to be completely satisfying.

UPDATE 2025

Nowadays we would never list a record for sale as a Hot Stamper pressing with a grade of 1+ on either side.

And, more importantly, the grades we awarded these two sides were just estimates.

We did not put this copy in a shootout with a batch of similar pressings.

We played the record, liked what we heard on side one, liked what we heard on side two a bit less, and offered it to our customers with the description of the strengths and weaknesses you read about.

We could not have begun to conduct a shootout for this early London. Back in those days we simply could not find enough copies of such a rare title to make such a thing happen.

As for the compressor distortion on side one that we heard, it’s entirely possible that with better cleaning and better playback that the distortion we thought we heard would disappear. Blaming the record is rarely the ideal approach for making progress in audio.

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Paul McCartney / Wild Life

More of the Music of Paul McCartney

  • This INCREDIBLE Apple UK import copy (the first to hit the site in many years) has Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or very close to it on both sides
  • Both of these sides are big and rich, with tons of bottom end weight and three-dimensional space, the kind of sound that most other pressings only hint at
  • It had been a long time since we last shot out this title, but after spending the day listening to copies like this we found ourselves LOVING IT!
  • Forget the dubby domestic pressings and whatever crappy Heavy Vinyl record they’re making these days – the UK LPs are the only way to fly on Wild Life

Let’s face it: finding good sounding McCartney records with the exception of the first album is pretty darn tough. From Ram on it’s slim pickings, even on import. Most of those later albums sound like cassettes; they’re as dead as the proverbial doornail. They bore us to tears. Wild Life stood up and showed us that there’s more good sound to be found after McCartney’s debut.

If you want the ultimate nexus of music and sound for McCartney, a Hot Stamper of the first album is the way to go. That said, this album is MUCH BETTER sounding than we ever suspected, and it’s much better music than we were led to believe by the critics. If you aren’t happy with it we will give you your money back.

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The One True Test for Records

More Entries from Tom’s Audiophile Notebook

There is only one true test for records: Which ones do you want to play?

Collect those and sell off all the others.

Acquiring better sounding pressings and getting rid of those that are no longer satisfying will result in a collection that is a joy to own, a collection that will provide a great deal more satisfaction than one made up primarily of collectible records.

To me there is nothing more thrilling in audio than hearing a favorite, familiar recording sound better than I ever thought it could. If that’s the kind of thrill you are looking for, I recommend you visit the site as often as you can. Something of interest is sure to pop up.

It can’t be downloaded. It can only be found — as far as I know — on an old vinyl record.

Like many of our customers who’ve had their standards raised by our Hot Stamper pressings, you may be so exhausted and disappointed by the mediocrities being churned out these days by one Heavy Vinyl grifter after another that you finally make the pledge to swear off bad records for good. Only you can free yourself of the chains that are holding you back.

Once those chains are broken, a world of possibilities will open up, populated by vintage vinyl pressings that exist by the millions all over the world, waiting to show you just how sublime and immersive and enjoyable music can sound in your very own home.

Here is a good way to get started.

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Listening in Depth to Aja

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Steely Dan Available Now

Generally, what you try to get on side one is a copy with ambience, because most copies are flat, lifeless and dry as a bone.

You want a copy with good punchy bass — many are lean, and the first two tracks simply don’t work at all without good bass. And then you want a copy that has a natural top end, where the cymbals ring sweetly and Wayne Shorter’s saxophone isn’t hard or honky or dull, which it often is on the bad domestic copies.

The truly amazing side twos — and they are pretty darn rare — have an extended top end and breathy vocals on the first track, Peg, a track that is dull on nine out of ten copies. (The ridiculously bright MoFi actually kind of works on Peg because of the fact that the mix is somewhat lacking in top end. This is faint praise though: MoFi managed to fix that problem and ruin practically everything else on the album.)

If you play Peg against the tracks that follow it on side two, most of the time the highs come back. On the best of the best, the highs are there all the way through.

Side One

Black Cow

Fagen’s voice on the first line will always sound grainy – it’s that way on the CD and every LP I have ever played, which means it’s on the tape that way. It will quickly pass, and the rest of the vocals will sound amazing if you have a Hot Stamper Copy.

This song is as BIG and BOLD sounding as any pop song I know. This is Demo Disc material if you have the system to do it justice.

And don’t you just love the way it starts on the upbeat? Now that’s the way to kick off an album!

Aja

Got a big speaker? Lots of power? You will need both to play this song right. Note how the percussion comes through the dense mix, without being abrasive in any way. That’s a sure sign that you have a copy with the transparency and resolution you need to bring out the track’s best qualities. The mix needs that percussion; it’s there for a reason. You, dear audiophile, need an LP that lets that percussion be heard. Many are called; few are chosen.

Deacon Blues

It’s the rare copy that gets the top end for the first two tracks right and still has enough presence and top end for this song, which will tend to sound dull even if the first two tracks don’t. The truly killer pressings get all three tracks to sound amazing, no mean feat.

Side Two

For some reason, side two is almost always cut at a lower level than side one. Pump up the volume a db or two in order to get the full Aja effect for the songs on this side.

UPDATE 2022

The commentary about Peg you see below was written many years ago, and I no longer agree with the claim it makes.

The MoFi is so bad in so many ways that whatever it fixes on the top end, it destroys everywhere else.

It’s one of the greatest audio disasters of the 80s, along with the equally awful Cisco pressing, which qualifies as one of the great audio disasters of the modern Heavy Vinyl era.

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Advice on Cleaning Your Favorite Records

The Prelude Record Cleaning System Is Now Available

One of our customers wrote to us about cleaning his collection not long ago:

I plan to clean all 300-400 records I really care about. I mean they’ve never been cleaned.

Do you think that’s a waste in any way? I imagine any record will sound better throughly cleaned with the Prelude system. They have never been cleaned.

Maybe half these records were only pressed at one plant when they first came out, one run. They weren’t re-released until the world caught up 20 years later.

Andrew

Dear Andrew,

My general view is that it requires an enormous commitment to clean that many records.

Here is what I would consider a more realistic approach:

You have 300-400 records you want to clean. Every time you play one of these records, put it in an area on your record shelf that is strictly for records you have just played.

When you get to ten of those records, sit down and clean them. If you are using our approach, this will take between two and three hours.

For one reason or another, some of the records you own will simply never be played again. Unless they are going to get played, why clean them?

Clean the ones you know you will want to play because you’ve just played them!

If you have 1000 records, 900 or more are unlikely to get played in any given year. Maybe they won’t get played for another five years. As we said above. some may never get played again.

And yet you want to take the time to clean them now? Doing three an hour? How far to you think you will get with that project?

If you are like everyone I know who has talked about doing such a thing, you will not get far. It’s a lot of work.

Tastes change and evolve. That’s a good thing, not a bad one.

And when you find a new record you love after just having played it and can hardly wait to hear it again, make sure it gets put at the front of the queue to be cleaned. At some point you will have ten in the queue, and you can then set up a block of time to clean your ten great records.

Over the coming weeks you will look forward to playing them again, if for no other reason than to hear how much better they sound now.

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Which Album by The Who Has the Best Sound?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Who Available Now

We think Tommy has the best Who sound.

I don’t know of another Who album with such consistently good sound — song to song, not copy to copy of course. Just about every song on here can sound wonderful on the right UK pressing.

If you’re lucky enough to get hold of a killer copy, you’re going to be blown away by the Tubey Magical guitars, the rock-solid bottom end, the jumpin’-out-of-the-speakers presence and dynamics, and the silky vocals and top end.

Usually the best we can give you for The Who is big and rockin’ (Who’s Next, Live at Leeds), but on Tommy, we can give you 60s analog magic you will rarely find in the decades to follow.

Killer Acoustic Guitars

Acoustic guitar reproduction is key to this recording, and on the best copies the harmonic coherency, the richness, the body and the simply phenomenal amounts of Tubey Magic can be heard in every strum.

What do high grades give you for this album? Silky, sweet vocals; huge weight to the bottom end; “you are there” immediacy; BIG drums, off the charts rock and roll energy, and shocking clarity and transparency.

No other Who album in our experience has all these things in such abundance.

The Tubey Magic Top Ten

You don’t need tube equipment to hear the prodigious amount of Tubey Magic that exists on this recording. For those of you who’ve experienced top quality analog pressings of Meddle or Dark Side of the Moon, or practically any jazz album on Contemporary, whether played through tubes or transistors, that’s the luscious sound of Tubey Magic, and it is all over Tommy.

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Ladysmith Black Mambazo – Shaka Zulu

More Recordings by Roy Halee

  • An original copy of this Grammy-winning record from 1987 with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on both sides
  • On these wonderful a cappella vocal performances, we were specifically listening for richness, sweetness, warmth and intimacy, and the best sides were the ones that gave us all those qualities in the most abundance
  • Roy Halee engineered, and based on the sound of this copy, he was still capable of making a much more natural sounding record than his work on Graceland would leave you to believe
  • 4 1/2 stars: “In the wake of their participation on his Graceland album, Paul Simon produced this Ladysmith album, their most accessible work for Western ears, which is pristinely recorded and sung partially in English.”

This incredible pressing will show you just how good this Grammy-winning record was supposed to sound, but for some reason (or reasons) never did, a story that anyone on this site is all too familiar with.

The better sides show you what Roy Halee was hearing on the tape when he was mixing the album. It may not be perfect, but it’s a whole lot better than the vast majority of records made in 1987; that I can tell you with confidence.

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