Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Dire Straits Available Now
UPDATE 2026
This review for Dire Straits’ first album was written in 2011. We had just discovered that a pressing of the album was clearly superior to every other pressing we had ever played. We were pretty excited about it and wanted to share the news about our breakthrough.
A substantial amount of the time, breakthroughs come about due to the conventional wisdom being wrong — and us not knowing it until an experiment proved it wrong. The needle is the only thing that can give us an answer we can trust, certainly not the pundits or the self-described experts.
What makes them experts? We have no idea and they never say. They just seem to “know” things, but they never tell us how they know them.
We do. We can’t shut up about all the stuff we know!
No concept is more fundamental to collecting the best sounding pressings than to be able to test records to find out if the received wisdom you are using as a guide is right, wrong or something in-between.
At the bottom of the listing for the album you can see a number of links to other records that share the same qualities as the first Dire Straits release does.
Note that it says “Reissue=Best.” This is because the killer copy we discovered in 2007 was indeed a reissue, and in 2011 we found an even better sounding copy, also a reissue, or perhaps we were somehow able to reproduce it better. Probably a bit of both.
The Hot Stamper pressings of this album we offer to the discerning audiophile are posted in the following categories. If you are looking for other records like the first Dire Straits album, click on any of the links below.
- Alive Rock, Pop, Etc.,
- Demo Discs – Rock, etc.,
- Demo Discs for Energy,
- Demo Discs for Tubey Magic,
- Masterpieces of Rock & Pop,
- Must Own Rock-Pop Titles,
- Reissue=Best,
- Rhett Davies, Engineer,
- Top 100 Rock/Pop
Our 2011 Review
The best side one we’ve ever heard, so freakishly impressive that we awarded it the rare A++++ (Four Plus) grade! On top of that, side two earned an A++ grade and the vinyl plays unusually quietly — solid Mint Minus throughout.
We award the Four Plus A++++ grade so rarely that we don’t have a graphic for it in our system to use in the grading scale.
We no longer give Four Pluses out as a matter of policy, but that doesn’t mean we don’t come across records that deserve them from time to time.
This is probably the best Dire Straits album (certainly our favorite) and definitely their best sounding album; on a copy like this one it has the power to BLOW YOUR MIND. Water Of Love, Down To The Waterline and Six Blade Knife are all stunning on this pressing.
The sound is huge — big, rich, present, spacious and three-dimensional. It’s got the immediacy and energy needed to really bring the music out of your speakers and put it wall-to-wall in your listening room.
Side two is also very strong — open, spacious and three-dimensional with real weight down low. Side one was a pretty big step up (with a grade like A++++ it had better be!) but at A++ you’ll have a hard time finding a side two that’s any better than this.
We have a ridiculously difficult time finding copies of this album that come even close to this. You have got to hear the sound on this one to believe it; it’s present, lively, super transparent and natural with real weight to the bottom end. I’m pretty sure you’re going to take your old pressing and toss it out the window once you hear what a serious copy can do!
You may have seen our album locator for Rhett Davies. He’s one of our favorite recording engineers, the man behind Taking Tiger Mountain, 801 Live and Avalon to name just a few of his most famous recordings, all favorites of ours of course.
His Masterpiece Discovered
Well, we just have to say that until something better comes along, this is his Masterpiece. It has to be one of the best sounding rock records ever made, with Tubey Magical mids, prodigious bass, transparency to beat the band, and freedom from hi-fi-ishness and distortion like few rock recordings you have ever heard.
The man may be famous for some fairly artificial sounding recordings — Eno’s, Roxy Music’s and The Talking Heads’ albums come to mind — but it’s obvious to us now, if it wasn’t before, that those are entirely artistic choices, not engineering shortcomings. Rhett Davies, by virtue of the existence of this pressing alone, has proven that he belongs in the company of the greatest engineers of all time, right up there with the likes of Bill Porter, Ken Scott, Stephen Barncard, Geoff Emerick, Glyn Johns and others too numerous to mention.
We Want To Rock
What separates the best Brits from the merely good ones? In a word, ENERGY. The best copies make this band sound like they are on fire, ready to go head to head with the world, fiercely proud of the new sound they’ve created. The not-so-good copies make Dire Straits sound the way Dire Straits usually does — laid back and well under control, perhaps even a bit bored with the whole affair. The best copies show you a band that wants to rock with the best of them, and does.
Demo Disc Sound
Water Of Love and Sultans of Swing on a Hot Stamper copy have the kind of Demo Disc sound that will have your audiophile friends drooling and turning green with envy. We can’t all afford $100,000 turntables, but when you have a record that sounds this good, you don’t need one! This record makes it sound like you have 100k in your rig, whether you do or not.