Month: December 2025

John Coltrane – Coltrane (aka Soultrane and Traneing In)

More of the Music of John Coltrane

  • This wonderful compilation double album (only the second copy to hit the site in close to three years) boasts incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) MONO sound on all FOUR sides, just shy of our Shootout Winner – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • These two discs comprise two complete albums, John Coltrane with The Red Garland Trio (aka Traneing In), and Soultrane, both released in 1958
  • Yes, there was a time when two top Coltrane titles boasting the highest quality mastering available could be had at a bargain price, and, if you know anything about records, you know that that time has long since passed
  • Tubier, more transparent, more dynamic, with plenty of that “jumpin’ out of the speakers” quality that only The Real Thing (an old record) ever has – thanks RVG!
  • 4 stars: “The absence of any unessential instrumentalists encourages a decidedly concerted focus from Coltrane, who plays with equal measures of confidence and freedom.”
  • 1958 just happens to be one of the truly great years for analog recordings, as evidenced by this amazing group of albums, all recorded or released that year.

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The Dvorak Violin Concerto – Was Sound This Good Still Possible in 1980?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Dvorak Available Now

You’ll find amazing Hot Stamper sound on this exceptionally quiet Philips recording of the Dvorak Violin Concerto.

As well as a SUPERB performance from Salvatore Accardo, one that is certainly competitive with the best we have heard.

Yes, it was still possible to record classical music properly in 1980, though not many labels managed to pull it off.

(Londons from this era are especially opaque and airless. We find them as irritating and frustrating as most of the Heavy Vinyl releases being foisted on the audiophile public today.)

The orchestral passages are rich and sweet, the violin present, its harmonic colors gloriously intact. This is still ANALOG, with the better copies displaying much of the Tubey Magic of ’50s and ’60s vinyl without as much compressor distortion (the Achilles’ heel of so many of the great recordings from the Golden Era).

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Earned Wisdom Versus Borrowed Wisdom

Record Experiments Taught Us Practically Everything We Know

Shane Parrish writes:

Borrowed wisdom breaks under pressure because you haven’t earned it.

You’re trusting someone else’s compression without knowing what created it.

Earned wisdom, on the other hand, holds up because it’s rooted in your actual experience.

You know when it works, why it works, when to ignore it and when to bend it because you created the compression.

It’s amazing how far you can get in this hobby if you’re obsessive enough and driven enough. (See links below for more on these two drivers of success.)

To achieve real success you must be willing to devote huge amounts of time, money and effort to the pursuit of better home audio.

You will really go far if you’re willing to let your ears, not your brain, inform your understanding and appreciation of the sound of the various pressings you play.

If we thought like most audiophiles — that money buys good sound and original pressings are usually the best — we would currently be very unlikely to have a business selling a million dollars or more worth of Hot Stampers every year.

(For those new to the idea, here are the short versions of what they are and how you go about acquiring them.)

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Kevin Gray Sacrifices Another Blue Note to the Lo-Fi Crowd

Hot Stamper Pressings of Blue Note Recordings Available Now

We did a shootout for Cornbread in 2023 and again in 2025. For our latest one, we were fortunate to be able to include both the Tone Poets pressing that came out in 2019 as well as the 75th Anniversary Blue Note pressing from 2014.

Here is the way we described a Hot Stamper that ended up being the best sounding pressing we played on one of its sides, and coming in second on the other side.

  • The sound is everything that’s good about Rudy Van Gelder‘s recordings – it’s present, spacious, full-bodied, Tubey Magical, dynamic and, most importantly, alive in that way that modern pressings never are
  • Exceptionally spacious and three-dimensional, as well as relaxed and full-bodied – this pressing was a big step up over nearly all other copies we played

After hearing a copy of the album that sounded as good as that one, the Tone Poets pressing would have had to be at least a bit of a letdown, right?

To be fair, all it really has to be is good sounding. For $30, the price of the average copy that sells on Discogs, can you really expect great?

I don’t know what any of the purchasers of these Tone Poets records — of this or any other title — are expecting for their thirty bucks, but I can tell you what they are getting. We took notes while their remastered pressing played, and here’s what we heard.

Side One

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Borodin / Symphonies Nos. 2 & 3 / Ansermet

More of the Music of Alexander Borodin

  • An early London Stereo pressing of these two symphonic masterworks with very good Hot Stamper sound on both sides
  • It’s also fairly quiet at Mint Minus Minus, a grade that even our most well-cared-for vintage classical titles have trouble playing at
  • We guarantee there is more richness, fullness, and performance energy on this copy than others you’ve heard, and that’s especially true if you own whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing is currently on the market, made from who-knows-what tapes
  • These originals are selling for hundreds of dollars on ebay these days, so don’t expect many early London pressings to make it to the site

We’ve long considered the album one of the greatest of all the Decca / London recordings.

Big, rich and dynamic, this is the sound of LIVE MUSIC, and it can be yours, to enjoy for years to come — if you’ve got the stereo to play it and the time to listen to it.

The powerful lower strings and brass are gorgeous. Ansermet and the Suisse Romande get that sound better than any performers I know. You will see my raves on record after record of theirs produced during this era. No doubt the world renowned Victoria Hall they recorded in is key. One can assume Decca engineers use similar techniques for their recordings regardless of the artists involved. The only real variable should be the hall.

Ansermet’s recordings with the Suisse Romande exhibit a richness in the lower registers that is unique in my experience. His Pictures At Exhibition has phenomenally powerful brass, the best I’ve ever heard. The same is true for his Night On Bald Mountain. Neither performance does much for me — they’re both too slow — but the sound is out of this world. Like it is here.

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Electric Light Orchestra – Face The Music

More of the Music of the Electric Light Orchestra

  • Incredible sound throughout this vintage UK pressing, with both sides earning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades, just shy of our Shootout Winner – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • This copy has real depth to the soundfield, full-bodied, present vocals, plenty of bottom end weight, and lovely analog warmth
  • You probably know most of these songs, even if you don’t recognize the titles (“Waterfall,” “One Summer Dream”)
  • 4 stars: “The soulful ‘Evil Woman’ was one of the most respectable chart hits of its era, and one of the best songs that Lynne ever wrote (reportedly in 30 minutes), while ‘Strange Magic’ showed off his writing in a more ethereal vein.”
  • If you’re a fan of the band, and what audiophile wouldn’t be?, this classic from 1975 belongs in your collection

Nobody seems to have noticed — at least I can find no evidence for anyone noticing, using a Google search — that the song “Fire on High,” which opens side one of this album, is directly lifted from the opening song on Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, “Funeral for a Friend.”

Jeff Lynne owes a lot of his sound to The Bee Gees as well as The Beatles, another thing about his music that nobody seems to notice.

But that takes nothing away from the fact that he is a consummate craftsman of catchy pop songs, the kind that get stuck in your head and make your day brighter than it would otherwise have been.

There are many fine examples of these kinds of songs on this very album. The first three (out of four) tracks on side one are all very strong: “Fire On High,” “Waterfall” and “Evil Woman.” On side two all the songs after “Poker” are very strong: “Strange Magic,” “Down Home Town,” and “One Summer Dream.”

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Letter of the Week – “I looked at the speakers in wonderment, goosebumps down my legs”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Peter Gabriel Available Now

Our good customer Michel wrote to tell us how much he liked the White Hot Peter Gabriel (3) Hot Stamper pressing we just sent him. (I have edited some of the text but mostly it came to me this way.)

Hi Tom,

Knowledge is everything and good ears don’t lie!

Side 2 of Peter Gabriel 3 is the side that I really like. I have had many pressings and many 12″ 45s made in the UK and a few 12″ 33s from the US.

Over the years I kept searching for good sound, but I never got there apparently. I simply stopped listening to the music. Maybe a Biko 12″ once in a while, but the LP never cut it. Not even the supercool packaging of the Classic along with the fancy clarity handmade super vinyl profile II. Now that’s a mouthful!

So in comes the 3+ side 2 that I just received. I played side two first.

It was all over.

I looked at the speakers in wonderment, goosebumps down my legs.

I was looking right into the music.

The separation was through the roof, everything in its proper proportion.

The naturalness of it all was astounding. The highs crystal clear, the mids all there, the bass punchy and tight.

The whole thing demanding to be turned up to maximum volume.

I play it over and over again, smiling all the way. This is the shit!

So then I put the Classic on. [Cue the sound of a needle sliding across a record.]

I could not keep turning it up, as the sound got worse on the top end. Their version, don’t know if it was BG, is whacked out.

Things are not in proper proportion in the soundfield. Too much and not enough kind of thing.

Why do they have to f*ck with the tape so much, as if they know better?

Michel

Michel,

Judging by the enthusiasm of your letter, I could not be happier to learn of the joy our Hot Stamper pressing of the album has brought you.

Good ears don’t lie, as you say, and we take that to mean that you’re hearing what we heard when we played side two of your copy, the side that won the shootout. We agree — it is a thrill to hear a record sound that good.

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On this Jazz, Transparency Is Key

Hot Stamper Pressing of the Music of Ry Cooder Available Now

The best copies realistically convey the live in the studio quality of the sound. This is a tight ensemble working at the top of their game, no surprise there — Ry surrounds himself with nothing but the best.

But the better copies have such amazingly transparent sound you can’t help feeling as though you really are in the presence of live human beings. You really get the sense of actual fingers plucking those guitar strings. You hear mouths blowing air through horns and woodwinds.

These are sounds that most recordings pretend to capture, and like hypnotist’s subjects, we go along for the ride. This recording has the potential to actually bring forth that living, breathing musician sound, no imagination required.

As is sometimes the case, there is one and only one set of stampers that consistently wins our shootouts for this album.  Click on this link to see other titles with one set of stamper numbers that always come out on top

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Wes Montgomery – Road Song

More of the Music of Wes Montgomery

  • Wes Montgomery’s final album returns to the site after a nearly four year hiatus, here with INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from first note to last
  • Rudy Van Gelder in 1968 is pretty hard to beat for the kind of full-bodied, musical, warm and smooth sound that he managed to capture on tape, and this pressing shows off his talents better than any other one we played in our shootout
  • “These songs are short, sweet, and supported by classical-tinged string and woodwind arrangements. This is not heavy jazz in any sense. Wes sounds to be just relaxing and having fun with it…”

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Eric Clapton – 461 Ocean Boulevard

More of the Music of Eric Clapton

  • With two STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides or close to them, this vintage UK import could not be beat – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Big and full-bodied with exceptionally breathy vocals, strong rhythmic energy and virtually none of the smear that plagues so many copies
  • If you’re a Clapton fan, and what audiophile wouldn’t be?, this return to form released in 1974 is clearly a must own, a title it shares with two of his other top albums: Unplugged and Just One Night
  • As good as the best domestic pressings can be, these British LPs simply capture a good deal more of the Midrange Magic of the master tape than they do
  • 4 1/2 stars: “…the pop concessions on the album don’t detract from the rootsy origins of the material, whether it’s Johnny Otis’ ‘Willie and the Hand Jive,’ the traditional blues ‘Motherless Children,’ Bob Marley’s ‘I Shot the Sheriff,’ or Clapton’s emotional original ‘Let It Grow.'”
  • If you’re a Clapton fan, and what audiophile wouldn’t be?, this return to form released in 1974 is clearly a Must Own, a title it shares with two of his other top albums: Unplugged and Just One Night.
  • His debut album is a longtime personal favorite, but I’m not quite sure it would make the cut for our core rock collection

Tom Dowd recorded this album at Criteria in Miami, the same studio in which Layla was recorded. I’d say the sound here is substantially better than what you typically get on that album, keeping in mind the sonic variations from track to track on Layla, which can be fairly dramatic.

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