Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Linda Ronstadt Available Now
UPDATE 2026
This review was most likely written when the record came out, circa 2008 I’m guessing. The intro is of course new for 2026.
You’re looking at one of the worst sounding audiophile releases in recent memory, a remastering disaster that has no reason to exist other than to satisfy the needs of the mid-fi collector market for numbered, limited editions on premium vinyl, perhaps so that they can be sold at a later date for a profit (discogs average price today: $62.50.)
Like this guy, this guy and far too many others, they are making money hand over fist at the expense of audiophiles who have yet to get very far — anywhere, really — in audio. (I know whereof I speak. I was one of those guys and you couldn’t tell me anything back then.)
We go to great pains to lay out the problems with these records in detail, but what good does reading about their problems do if the systems playing these records iare not only hiding their flaws, but making up for some of their weaknesses. The junk pressings these collectors are buying practically guarantee they will never manage to put together a system that can show them what is really on their records.
Regardless of what kind of equipment they own, if this crap is sounding good to them, which it seems to be based on the comments section I make the mistake of reading on Discogs from time to time, nothing we say can possibly interfere with them buying more of it.
Back to Linda in 2008
Talk about dead as a doornail sound — folks, if you own this pressing, take it from us, you don’t know what you’re missing.
Buy the next domestic copy you spot at your local record store for five bucks and find out. No way it can sound as bad as this so-called “audiophile” record.
Shawn Britton was the hack who mastered this piece of junk. He has a habit of making bad sounding records if these others are anything to go by.
Mofi records from this era suffer from the same overly rich, overly smooth sound that many of the Heavy Vinyl records being made these days do. We cannot abide that sound and want nothing to do with it.
Around the time of the MoFi release of the album in 2008, we made the decision to stop carrhing their records. I don’t know why we ever carried any of these later MoFi pressings in the first place. They are consistently awful sounding.
UPDATE 2026
Actually, that’s not true. I DO know why, and embarrassing as it may be to admit it, honesty requires that I come clean about the MoFi record that had me fooled long after I should have known better (to quote a famous UK band).
The most common problem with some of Linda Ronstadt’s records from the 70s is grainy, upper-midrangy sound. The average copy of Heart Like a Wheel, the album that followed this one, is pure transistory grain on most copies, making it practically unlistenable.
The average copy of Don’t Cry Now, though not quite as bad as HLAW, shares many of its shortcomings. The smooth copies that still have plenty of presence, life, energy and top end extension are the ones that really get this music sounding RIGHT.
Further Reading
- More on the subject of Half-Speed mastering
Record collecting advice for audiophiles from A to Z - When you’re just getting started in audio, it all looks so easy
If you are still buying these remastered pressings, making the same mistakes that I was making before I knew better, take the advice of some of our customers and stop throwing your money away on Heavy Vinyl and Half-Speed mastered LPs.
At the very least let us send you a Hot Stamper pressing — of any album you choose — that can show you what is lacking on your copy of the album.
And if for some reason you disagree with us that our record sounds better than yours, we will happily give you all your money back and wish you the very best.