Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Roxy Music Available Now
An erstwhile customer wrote this on Reddit (I think that’s where I found it) a few years ago:
Of course I did not get an answer to that question, and doubt I ever will.
All that would be needed is the name of one specific pressing, mastered by one specific person or company, and released on one specific label with a specific catalog number.
How is it possible that the fans of these Heavy Vinyl records cannot name one good one?
I know how it is possible. The reason no one can name any of the great records being made these days is that no such records are being made these days.
It is our strongly held belief, backed up by mountains of evidence, that there is simply no one alive today making records as good as the ones Bilbo and other mastering engineers have ben making starting all the way back in the 50s and continuing through the 80s and beyond.
This blog is a testament to that fact, as are the Hot Stamper pressings we offer at Better Records.
An Overview of Avalon
The best British original Super De Luxe pressings of Avalon are sweet and silky, big and lively, with the kind of sound that drives us audiophiles wild — which of course is the main reason this album was on Extra Heavy Rotation at most stereo stores back in the day.
It’s records like this that get people (otherwise known as audiophiles) to spend wads and wads of money in pursuit of expensive analog equipment good enough to bring this wonderful music to life.
This album rewards a stereo with the qualities that audiophiles prize most highly when selecting equipment — spaciousness, transparency, clarity, detail, depth, soundstaging, speed, high frequency extension, and the like. Those qualities are important but not enough for big speaker rock and roll guys like us here at Better Records, but on this record they are key to reproducing the best of what Avalon has to offer.
We would add to that list presence and energy, along with warmth, fullness and lack of smear on the transients. Whomp and rock and roll power do not seem to play much part in separating the best from the rest, although it’s nice when the bottom end is big and solid.
That said, the copies that are exceptionally open, clear and big are the ones that do a better job of presenting this music the way we think it was meant to be heard.
The mix is as dense as any we know. Only the best copies have the ability to show you everything that’s on the tape. Credit must go to the amazingly talented Rhett Davies for creating the space in which so many instruments and sounds can fit comfortably.
…the 7 Hot Stampers records i have bought from Better Records in the past, (albums I know well all my life, and that I have already had many versions, incl. OG’s 1st, and “audiophile” versions) are some of the best sounding records in my collection.
They have helped improve my listening skills enormously; not just “listening”, but 100% enjoy and appreciate the music. Seeking out for my “own” hot stampers now, is what really makes this hobby so interesting! (for example: Roxy Music Avalon, after buying and comparing 5 copies, incl. UK 1st Arun cut, I now have “my” best sounding one, and indeed it is a reissue (vintage, not modern “audiophile”)¨! Denis Blackham (BilBo) did a very good job on this one…
I replied:
Yes, the Bilbo cutting of Avalon can be very good, something we know from having played them by the dozens.
It has been many years, more than a decade I should think, since a Bilbo cutting won a shootout. Still, they can be very good, probably falling somewhere in the 1.5+ to 2+ range, but if you want to, you can certainly do a lot better, which is the kind of thing you learn when you have piles and piles of clean British pressings to play.
We stopped buying the Bilbo pressings many years ago, and they no longer show up in our stamper sheets these days. Why spend the money for them when something better is just as easy to find?
Nevertheless, Bilbo is a great mastering engineer and his work is worth seeking out, even though he did not knock Avalon out of the park.
On another note:
If modern engineers are so good at their jobs, as so many on this thread keep implying, where are the records they’ve made that can compete with Bilbo’s cuttings from the old days?
Please name them. I know of none, and I am hoping someone will take pity on a poor fool such as myself and help enlighten me.
Based on the vitriol I am reading, the consensus is that my benighted ravings are shameful and outlandish.
If anyone needs a clue, it’s pretty obvious I do.
Please help me understand what I have been missing for the last few decades, decades in which I was playing tens of thousands of records, listening to them critically and posting my thoughts about them in the
50006000 listings found on my blog. (If indeed I am wrong about all this, I’m sure wrong a lot!)