Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

A classic case of live and learn. In 2006 I finally woke up to how ridiculously bad these Japanese pressings I was selling back in the 90s actually were.

It’s what real progress in audio is all about, in this case about ten years’ worth. Those are ten years that really shook my world, and by 2007 we had discovered much better cleaning technologies and given up on Heavy Vinyl and audiophile bullshit pressings such as these, whew!

Our story from 2006:

I used to sell the German Import reissues of the Zep catalog in the 90s. At the time I thought they we’re pretty good, but then the Japanese AMJY Series came out and I thought they were clearly better.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. I now realize those Japanese pressings are bright as bright can be. Now, not-too-surprisingly, the German pressings sound more or less right (on some of their titles).

They tend to be tonally correct, which is more than you can say for most Zep pressings, especially some of the Classics [linked here], which have the same brightness issue (as well as many other problems).

UPDATE 2024

Only one of the German-pressed Zeppelin records is good enough to win shootouts, the only title of theirs on German vinyl that we buy these days. Of course we tried them all, at no small expense I might add, because there were a great many pressings cut by many different engineers over the course of decades that were pressed in Germany, and the only way we could judge them was to buy them and have them shipped over. In the end only one had the big, bold, dynamic sound we were after.

It’s also one in which the right stampers have been winning our shootouts for more than a decade,

I must have had some seriously dark old school sound if my system could hide the faults of these way-too-bright Japanese pressings.

I admit it: my old tube system from the 90s was tonally darker and dramatically less revealing than the playback we have today.

When I read about audiophiles who still revere this kind of crap, including the much-in-demand Half-Speed and Heavy Vinyl pressings produced by everybody and his uncle nowadays, I try to remind myself that at one time my stereo was as bad as theirs must be, and I thought it was the shit too.

There is only one solution to this problem, a solution that would have kept me from misjudging the quality of the Japanese Analog Series I foolishly advocated 25 years ago.

In order to recognize and collect good records, the first thing you need to do is try to get good sound.

Without a good stereo in a good room, you will most likely end up with a collection of fool’s gold and never have a clue as to how much of the sound of analog you are missing.