Hot Stamper Pressings of Contemporary Jazz Albums Available Now
A recent Shootout Winning copy with the early stereo badge cover was described this way:
Stunning sound throughout this vintage Black Label Stereo Records pressing, with both sides earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them
Roy DuNann always seems to get the real sound out of the sessions he recorded – amazingly realistic drums in a big room; Tubey Magical guitar tone; deep, note-like bass, and on and on
4 1/2 stars: “The choice of material, the interplay between the three players, and the lead work all meld together beautifully on The Poll Winners, making it a classic guitar album in a small-group setting.”
Musically, all true. Sonically, not so much. The early D1/D2 stampers on the early Black Label might be passable on side one (1+), but side two was just a mess (NFG).
Side One
Track Two
- A bit bright and flat
Track One
- Very clear but lacking richness, weight and depth
- Thin, and bright up top
- 1+
Side Two
Track One
- Narrow stereo field
- Weird tape hiss
- Metallic top end
- Very recessed and weird
- Nope
A different Stereo Badge Cover copy sporting a Black Label won the shootout by the way. Go figure.
Shootout Takeaways
It should be obvious that the Black Label pressings are sonically all over the map — they can win a shootout, but they can also finish in last place. In short, they have the potential to be the best sounding pressings and also the potential to be the worst sounding pressings. We have a tag for that kind of record on the blog: best-worst. It happens more often than most audiophiles would think.
Note that side one had passable sound, but not the kind of sound you would associate with an original. More the kind of sound you expect to hear on a cheap reissue, an OJC perhaps. Brighter, thinner, lacking richness and depth.
Question #1
Aren’t early pressings supposed to be the ones that have the most richness and depth?
As a rule, yes, but rules don’t mean much in the world of records. Records don’t follow rules. Every record is unique. The only way to know what a record sounds like is to play it (and only on good equipment, as we discuss below).
Question #2
And don’t most audiophiles assume that both sides of a record will have pretty much the same sound?
Rarely do I read about one side sounding different from another in the audiophile reviews I see. That is contrary to our experience, and it should be contrary to yours and everybody else’s. This pressing is a good example of just how wrong that way of thinking is.
The Invisible Barrier Theory
Your ability to recognize that one side of a record more often than not will sound different from the other side is limited by an invisible barrier that exists between you, in your role as listener, and you in your role as judge of the sound.
This barrier goes by another name: “your stereo.“ There really can be no other explanation for it, assuming you have something in the range of normal hearing.
What the stereo is incapable of showing you limits what you can hear, no matter how much money, time and effort you may have dedicated to your system and how good you think it’s doing its job.
The answer is to get better sound. Then the differences between any two sides of the same record will become as obvious to you as they are to us.
Shootouts are the best way to highlight these sometimes subtle differences, and, as an added benefit, they are also the best way to train your ears to identify them. Once you cross that bridge, there is no going back. ALL your records will start to reveal their true selves, one side at a time.
One More Thing
We recently posted a lengthy commentary about conventional wisdom on the blog, in an attempt to make the case that, although the most common record collecting approaches are more often right than wrong, there is simply no way to know whether one of the conventional approaches or one of the unconventional approaches will work for any given title ou want to know about.
The first Poll Winners album is just the latest example of how the conventional wisdom — which in this case would posit that the early pressings will be the best sounding — can turn out to be so stupendously wrong.
Further Reading