Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now
The records being marketed to audiophiles these days may have second- and third-rate sound, but at least they now have good music. That’s progress, right?
It is progress, because this RCA direct to disc recording is the kind of crap that used to qualify as an “audiophile record” when I was starting out in the mid-70s. These records were displayed on the walls of all the hi-fi stores I used to frequent back in the day.
They cost a lot more than regular records did too. Many were pressed in Japan, and I vaguely recall that the retail prices were in the range of $15 to $18. That’s $77 to $92 in today’s money. Can you imagine paying that for a record with such poor sound and music?
The Beatles Medley is particularly misguided. These guys have no idea what to do with the music of The Beatles.
A record such as this clearly belongs in our audiophile hall of shame, which is a general catchall section for the many bad sounding records that have been marketed to audiophiles over the last fifty years. We’ve played and reviewed more than 300 to date, which of course is but a mere fraction of the many thousands of questionable pressings that have been produced since the 70s. There has always been a mid-fi collector market, and no shortage of enterprising types to take advantage of it.
It turns out that many of the most shameful offenders for sound are more recent releases that have only come our way in the last few years. Here are some of their stories.
I was the kind of audio fool that would buy a record like this and expect it to have good music or good sound. Of course it had neither. Practically none of these kinds of records ever did. As clueless as I was, even back in the day,I eventually figured that out and stopped buying them.
But then Mobile Fidelity came along with Crime of the Century and I flipped out over the spectacular sound I thought it had. (Turns out that what it really had going for it was the smile curve my system needed to sound right to me at the time.)
You can read more about many of the things I (now we) got wrong under the heading: live and learn.
Further Reading
- More on record collecting for audiophiles – 45 RPM pressings
- More on record collecting for audiophiles – audiophile pressings
- More on record collecting for audiophiles – direct to disc recordings