Hot Stamper Pressings of Classic Rock Albums Available Now
This Capitol Records Limited Edition 180 gram LP from the series that Robert Ludwig mastered is the worst sounding version of the album I have ever heard, bar none. It was cut with the azimuth off, which smears all the high frequency transients.
How anybody could put up with that crappy sounding LP is beyond me, but I have never read a single word complaining about the sound.
Granted, the MoFi has a bit more going on up top, but the blurry bass and lack of presence fail to bring the music to life the way a properly-mastered, properly-pressed copy will.
Below you will find our reviews and commentaries for the hundreds of Heavy Vinyl pressings we’ve played over the years.
We confess that even as recently as the early 2000s we were still impressed with the better Heavy Vinyl pressings. If we’d never made the progress we’ve worked so hard to make over the course of the last twenty or more years, perhaps we would find more merit in the Heavy Vinyl reissues so many audiophiles are impressed by these days.
We’ll never know of course; that’s a bell that can be unrung. We did the work, we can’t undo it, and the system that resulted from it is merciless in revealing the truth — that these newer pressings are second-rate at best and much more often than not third-rate and even worse.
Some audiophile records sound so bad, I was pissed off enough to create a special list for them.
Setting higher standards — no, being able to set higher standards — in our minds is a clear mark of progress. Judging by the hundreds of letters we’ve received, especially the ones comparing our records to their Heavy Vinyl and Half-Speed mastered counterparts, we know that our customers see — and hear — things the same way.