Month: September 2026

A Night at the Opera Is a DCC Disaster

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Queen Available Now

Sonic Grade: F

The DCC pressing of Night at the Opera is a disaster, one of the worst releases that Kevin Gray and Steve Hoffman ever worked on together.

Murky, opaque and compressed: yes, we can agree it has never been an especially good sounding record on anything but the most difficult to find UK pressings [and we know exactly which ones those are now, which only makes this record sound even worse in comparison], but does it deserve this kind of mastering disrespect?

Isn’t the idea to try and FIX what is wrong, rather than to make it worse?

At collector prices no less.

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Baby You’re a Rich Man

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now

Below we discuss listening to Baby You’re a Rich Man from side two of the German Magical Mystery Tour album.

If you own a copy, play yours and listen for what we describe in this track by track breakdown.

For those of you interested in digging deeper into the sound of scores of other titles, our listening in depth commentaries have track breakdowns for some of the better-known albums we’ve done shootouts for.

Baby You’re A Rich Man

This track is Demo Disc Quality on the best Hot Stamper pressings. As I was playing this song for the shootout, the thought occurred to me that if I had one track to play to someone to demonstrate what a thrill it is to have a big, expensive stereo, it would be hard to pick a better song than Baby You’re A Rich Man.

The only other one that occurs to me off the top of my head is Sergio Mendes’ For What It’s Worth off Stillness, a record we never have in stock by the way.

The sound is wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling and big as life. You can’t get that sound with screens and you can’t get it with smaller speakers and their smaller drivers.

Once you’ve heard that sound it’s hard to get too excited about any other.

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Pink Floyd – Meddle

More of the Music of Pink Floyd

  • You’ll find incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound throughout this British copy of this shockingly well recorded album, just shy of our Shootout Winner – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Here is the Tubey Magic, presence, size and space we guarantee you have never heard on Meddle no matter what pressing you may own
  • A Top 100 audiophile demonstration quality recording on a par with Dark Side of the Moon, which is really saying something
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Pink Floyd were nothing if not masters of texture, and Meddle is one of their greatest excursions into little details, pointing the way to the measured brilliance of Dark Side of the Moon and the entire Roger Waters era.”
  • This killer reissue puts to shame the originals we’ve auditioned, and the reissues we offer on the site are guaranteed to do the same
  • If you’re a Pink Floyd fan, and what audiophile wouldn’t be?, this title from 1971 is clearly one of their best

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America – Self-Titled

More of the Music of America

  • Boasting a KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side one mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side two, this early Green Label pressing could not be beat – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • This was the only copy in our shootout to earn a 3+ grade on any side that did not have a sizable number of marks that played, which is disappointing considering how hard it is to find top quality sound on this title!
  • One of our favorite Hippie Folk Rock albums – the instruments and voices are so well recorded they will seem to be floating right in front of you
  • The Tubey Magical acoustic guitars on this record are a true test of stereo reproduction – thanks, Ken Scott
  • 4 stars: “America’s debut album is a folk-pop classic, a stellar collection of memorable songs that would prove influential on such acts as the Eagles and Dan Fogelberg…”

This is clearly America’s best album. You’ll find the kind of immediacy, richness and harmonic texture that not many records (and even fewer CDs) are capable of reproducing. The version we are offering here has the song “A Horse With No Name.” Some copies without that song can sound very good as well, but with grades this good, this copy is going to be very hard to beat.

Interestingly, “A Horse With No Name” never sounds quite as good as the rest of the album. It was recorded in 1971, after the album had already been released, and subsequently added to newer pressings starting in 1972. Unlike the rest of the album, it was not engineered by Ken Scott at Trident, but by a different engineer at Morgan Studios. The engineer of that song took a different approach to that which Scott had taken, and we leave it to you to decide how well it worked out.

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“closed my eyes and wow – Neil was in my living room”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Neil Young Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about a Hot Stamper pressing of Zuma he purchased recently:

Tom,

I have purchased a few Hot Stampers in the past, and recently purchased my first Super Hot Stamper of Zuma.

The sound is amazing!

I’ve been patiently building my system around yours (still need an EAR 324), used the Talisman, cranked up the vintage Japanese low wattage receiver and VPI SDS, put the vinyl on the TT Weights carbon mat that is sitting on the original Aries with the Tri-Planar, which sits on the Aurios, closed my eyes and wow – vintage Neil was in my living room – see attached photo (I know the Focus are way too close to the wall – my space is extremely limited right now)!

Still do not understand why all those who like to complain about Better Records do not give it a shot given the 30 day return policy. They are missing out and will never know!

Ryan,

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