What’s It Like to Play a White Hot Stamper Pressing?
We’re happy to let our good customer Bill tell us all about his recent listening session with a couple of his fellow analog audio enthusiasts.
When it comes to the five amazingly well-recorded titles you see pictured, it’s clearly a very special experience, one he was lucky to be able to share with his friends, and what could be better than that?
Fred,
Several weeks ago, I hosted a Hot Stamper/heavy vinyl comparison for a couple of my friends. Both of my friends have spent most of their lives in the high-end music industry.
We started with Deja Vu. One of my friends had brought the 50th Anniversary deluxe edition, and warned me that it was amazing, and would be impossible to top. One of his clients had recommended it to him and raved about it. We played the first track of that edition, Carry On, and then played the same track on the Hot Stamper.
A few seconds into the Hot Stamper, when the harmonies kicked in, my friend’s mouth dropped. He managed to whisper “Glorious.” It was a revelation. And then we enjoyed several other songs on the album. It’s just great music, wonderfully recorded. As a result of this comparison, a few days later my friend bought a Super Hot Stamper of Deja Vu from you.
Next up was The Eagles debut album. This was not a straight-up comparison of albums, because I only had one copy of the album, and that was the Super Hot Stamper. But one of my friends had brought the DCC Greatest Hits album, which is widely recognized as being the best version of that album. [Not by us!]
We compared Witchy Woman on the two albums. And the contrast was even greater than the Carry On comparison. Everything was better on the Hot Stamper. The vocal, dynamic range, space, punch, energy, detail…it was just a night and day difference. Witchy Woman has become my favorite demo song.
The last of the comparisons was a White Hot Stamper RL Led Zeppelin 2 with the Classic Records version. We decided to focus on Bring it On Home and Moby Dick. You just couldn’t listen to the Classic at the same volume as the RL. It was painfully bright at loud volume. The RL was a joy to listen to.
And that harmonica on Bring it On Home—wow. It was in the room. And the drums on Moby Dick were as close to “live” as you could probably get. Gut-punchingly wonderful. So of course we listened to several more tracks just for enjoyment.
Wanting to hear more “blow your mind” rock, we listened to a White Hot Stamper of Who’s Next. We didn’t compare it to anything, we just listened. And were transported.
Finally, one of my friends said we had to call it a night, because he was jet lagged, felt a cold coming on, and was exhausted. As he got up to leave, he stopped and said “But wait. You said you just got a WH Stamper of Tapestry. Can I listen to that for a second? I’m wondering how it compares to the MoFi.”
So we listened to the first track. I then lifted the needle because I didn’t want to impose on my exhausted friend, and he said “Don’t stop now.” So we listened to several more tracks. We just didn’t want to stop listening! And a few days later he bought a Super Hot Stamper of Tapestry from you. The Mofi just didn’t cut it anymore.
The comparisons were fun, but the real joy was just experiencing the music. And in this sample, the Hot Stampers provided the best experience.
All the best,
Bill
Bill,
What a great letter! Thanks so much for taking the time to write to us.
Wish I could have been there. It sounds like you and your friends had a great time playing some favorite albums. They’re certainly favorites of mine. Four are in our Top 100. All five are Must Own classics.
The White Hot Stamper pressings we offer are not just our pride and joy, the cream of the crop, by far the best sounding pressings we can find.
They’re the reason we have a business to be in.
They put the lie to practically every claim made for the modern remastered record. You played a few. They sounded every bit as awful to you as they did to us.
But that’s precisely the point. Played up against an actually well-mastered, well-pressed, properly-cleaned, properly-reproduced vintage vinyl LP, their flaws are exposed in the clearest possible way. They become impossible to ignore, or excuse. Nobody had trouble hearing the difference. How could they have?
That’s what you played for your guests. They heard with their own ears what a fraud these new pressings are. They might have been initially impressed with a remastered Deja Vu or Zep II, but one listen to the pressings you played them and it was all over. Regardless of what they thought of them before that night, they will never be able to enjoy the Heavy Vinyl pressings of those albums again. You have done them a great service, and you did it without saying a word.
And that’s exactly what we do for anyone who wants to play one of our records head to head with whatever pressing he or she may like. We say knock yourself out. Play it on whatever system you have, and listen for whatever you like to listen for. We’re good with however you choose to play.
And if we lose that battle — not likely with the five titles you played your friends, but it does happen from time to time — we give that person their money back and wish them all the best. Their judgment is the only one that matters. We have no say whatsoever. The record must do what the customer wants it to so or back it comes.
We don’t have a problem with records coming back, for one simple reason. We check them out, make sure they sound right to us, and soon enough they are relisted on the site. Eventually they sell and off they go to someone else’s house, never to be seen or heard from again.
Our track record in this area is as close to 100% as is humanly possible. In fact, there is only one record I know of that has ever come back twice. We played it upon its return and thought it sounded fine both times. The third time was the charm. Not that it matters, but it was a shootout winning pressing of Dylan’s John Wesley Harding album. This happened about ten years ago. Why some customers had trouble getting it to sound right remains a mystery to this day.
Further Reading