More Hot Stamper Pressings We Only Offer on Import Vinyl Available Now
Porky cut the original British pressings of this Squeeze album, one of countless personal favorites of yours truly. They are records (and cassettes and CDs) I have played hundreds of times and still listen to regularly to this very day, in this case more than forty years after I purchased my first copy. (Good albums age well.)
I would have picked the record out of the bin at my local Tower Records, probably based on the radio play Tempted was getting.
That copy undoubtedly would have been domestic and made from a sub-generation tape, although I’m quite sure I could not have recognized what constituted dubby sound back then. In 1981, what I understood about the importance of different record pressings would have fit comfortably in a thimble.
I had my MoFi’s, and although I hate to admit it, that’s about as far as I had gotten in my quest for superior sounding pressings. You could add Nautilus and a few other Half-Speeds to the list of what pressing I thought were impressive, leaving plenty of room in that thimble unfilled.
Thankfully those bad old days are gone, and the music can now, finally, live and breath on the best of these imports from the UK. Of course they are the only ones we buy these days for our shootouts. The others are what are known around these parts as “mistakes.”
Sometimes the imported pressings are mastered by Porky and sometimes they are not. The ones that are not tend to have a lot of problems, as you can see from our stamper sheet below.
When Porky is not on side one, that side will tend to be hard, lean and bright. Side two of that copy had decent sound, earning a minimal Hot Stamper grade of 1.5+.
When Porky is not on either side, side one will probably be thin, dry and weak, and side two will probably be hard, boxy and lack weight.
We run into lots of records with these problems. You can find reviews for them all over this blog. The worst of the vintage pressings we’ve played end up here. (There are literally hundreds waiting to be listed.)
They’re the ones we don’t sell. (Keep in mind that no copy that earns less than 1.5+ on both sides qualifies as a Hot Stamper pressing. At 1+/1.5+, this best of these two did not make the cut.)
1.5+ is four grades down from the top copy.
That’s a steep dropoff as far as we’re concerned. 1.5+ only hints at how good a recording East Side Story can be on the best Porky-mastered pressings.
Incidentally, some records that’ve earned 1.5+ on both sides are on Heavy Vinyl. Some copies of the best of the modern pressings have sometimes, if rarely, been known to qualify as Hot Stamper pressings, and one shocked the hell out of us not that long ago by actually winning a shootout. Wouldn’t you like to know which one!
For those who might be interested, there’s more on our grading scale here.
We’ve Played ‘Em
We’ve auditioned countless pressings in the 38 years we’ve been in business — buying, cleaning and playing them by the thousands.
This is how we find the best sounding vinyl pressings ever made, through trial and error. (Live and learn puts a more positive spin on it.) It may be expensive and time consuming, but there is simply no other method for finding better records that works. If you know of one, please write me!
We are not the least bit interested in records that are “known” to sound the best.
Known by whom? Which audiophiles — hobbyists or professionals, take your pick — can be trusted to know what they are talking about when it comes to the sound of records?
I have never met one, outside of those of us who work for Better Records. I remain skeptical of the existence of such a creature. The audiophile experts and reviewers I’ve encountered on the web seem hopelessly lost to me.
We’re looking for records that actually do sound the best.
If you’re an audiophile with an ear for top quality sound on vintage vinyl, we’d be happy to send you the Hot Stamper pressing guaranteed to beat anything and everything you’ve heard, especially if you have any pressing marketed as suitable for an audiophile. Those, with few exceptions, are rarely better than mediocre.
And if we can’t beat whatever LP you own or have heard, you get your money back. What could be easier?
Further Reading