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Harry Nilsson – The Point!

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Hot Stamper Pressings of Pure Pop Albums Available Now

  • An original pressing (only the second copy to ever hit the site) with solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER from start to finish
  • Side one was very close in sound to our Shootout Winner – the overall grades for this copy are only one half plus lower than our $450 WHS presing that sold
  • Both of these sides are relatively rich, yet still clear and highly resolving – the boosted midrange, the biggest problem with the copies we played, is under much better control here than it was on most of what we played
  • Analog gets this music to sound right, although the long out of print DCC CD that Steve Hoffman mastered is excellent if you can find one
  • 4 stars: “Especially at this stage of his career, Harry Nilsson was uniquely suited for writing and recording children’s music, given his sweet melodicism and love of whimsy. The tale is fantastical enough to be of interest to children (and the moral is strong enough to reassure them and their parents), but the songs and music are so strong that the album continues to be a source of wonder, even as those children become adults.”

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Metallica – Master of Puppets

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  • This vintage Elektra pressing was doing just about everything right, earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • If you want to hear this music explode out of the speakers and come to life the way Metallica wanted you to experience it, this record will do the trick
  • 5 stars: “[T]he band’s greatest achievement, hailed as a masterpiece by critics far outside heavy metal’s core audience. It was also a substantial hit, reaching the Top 30 and selling three million copies despite absolutely nonexistent airplay. Instead of a radical reinvention, Master of Puppets is a refinement of past innovations.”

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Lincoln Mayorga – An Audiophile Record with Honest-to-Goodness Real Music

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  • An outstanding pressing with Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • This Limited Edition Sheffield Lab Direct Disc recording has some of the better sound we have ever heard for Volume III, clearly the best sounding title in the series
  • Both of these sides have energy and presence that just jumps right out of your speakers – this is but one of the qualities that separates the truly Hot Stampers from the pack
  • Many copies of this album tend to sound a bit thin and somewhat bright – on this copy, the sound is rich, full, and tonally correct from top to bottom
  • If you’re a Lincoln Mayorga fan, and what audiophile wouldn’t be?, this title from 1974 is clearly one of his best, both musically and sonically
  • The complete list of titles from 1974 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

What do Hot Stampers give you for this album? It’s very simple. Most copies of this album are slightly thin and slightly bright. They give the impression of being very clear and clean, but some of the louder brass passages start to get strained and blarey. This copy is rich and full. The sound is balanced from top to bottom. You can play it all the way through without fatigue.

Trumpets, trombones, tubas, tambourines, big bass drums — everything has the true tonality and the vibrancy of the real thing. The reason this record was such a big hit in its day is because the recording engineers were able to capture that sound better than anybody else around at the time.

That’s also the reason this is a Must Own record today — the sound holds up, and there are not many audiophile recordings you can say that about.

Just listen to the astoundingly powerful brass choir on Oh Lord, I’m On My Way. It just doesn’t get any better than that. If ever there was a Demo Disc, this is one. (more…)

ZZ Top – Tejas

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More Rock and Pop

  • Boasting two seriously good Double Plus (A++) sides, this vintage pressing was giving us the sound we were looking for on the band’s fifth studio album – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • This copy is full-bodied and natural, with a nicely extended top end, plenty of space around the instruments and vocals, and few of the problems that plagued many of the pressings we played
  • Turn it up to hear sound that is powerful and natural, with exciting presence, energy and weight down low
  • “On Tejas, ZZ Top countrified the bluesy posture of their previous albums, resulting in a slight detour between the madcap spirit of Fandango and the psychedelic strut of Deguello … ‘Arrested for Driving While Blind’ is one of ZZ’s classic anthems…”

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The Young Rascals – Self-Titled

More of The Young Rascals 

More Rock and Pop

  • The Young Rascals’ self-titled debut LP hits the site for the first time ever with STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades from start to finish
  • We chanced upon an amazing sounding stereo original about ten years ago, and only ten years later (!) we finally have enough clean copies to do a proper shootout
  • This shootout-winning bad boy was a long time coming, but we hope the lucky buyer will agree with us that it was worth the wait
  • We often say that the average copy of Album X is no great shakes — here’s a title where almost no copies sound any good and the average pressing is awful
  • Big, rich, energetic, with tons of Analog Tubey Magic, this Blue and Green Atlantic Stereo pressing has exactly the right sound for this music
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The Young Rascals is that rare example of a genuinely great album that got heard and played, and sold and sold. [It] couples a raw garage band sound with compelling white soul more successfully than just about any record since the Beatles’ Please Please Me.”

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Lincoln Mayorga – The Missing Linc (Volume II)

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  • This Sheffield Direct to Disc recording has INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it throughout – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Guaranteed to be dramatically richer, fuller and more Tubey Magical than any other copy you have heard, with especially punchy drums and rosiny-textured strings
  • The bass on side one extends all the way into WHOMP land for that big bass drum at the end of “Limehouse Blues” – what a sound!
  • The top end is also key to the better pressings – lots of string harmonics and bells and other high frequency stuff gets lost on most copies, but not this one, it’s all here
  • The Audiophile “Sgt. Pepper” of its day, a record that was so much better than anything else you’d ever heard it made you rethink the possibilities (and they did the same thing with Volume III two years later)
  • If you’re a Sheffield Labs fan, and what audiophile wouldn’t be?, this title from 1972 is clearly one of their best

This is definitely not your typical Sheffield pressing. Some of them are aggressive, many of them are dull and lack the spark of live music, some of them have wonky bass or are lacking in the lowest octave — they are prey to every fault that befalls other pressings.

Which shouldn’t be too surprising. Records are records. Pressing variations exist for every album ever made. If you haven’t noticed that yet, start playing multiple copies of the same album while listening carefully and critically.

If your stereo is any good at all, it should not take you long to notice how different one record sounds from another.

Just listen to the texture on the saxophone on “Limehouse Blues” — you can really hear the leading edge transients of the brass that are so important to the sound of those instruments. Track after track, the sound gets surprisingly more open and airy. The harpsichord has such great presence it jumps out of the speakers. Side Two had the best bass ever — extending all the way into WHOMP land.

I was selling audio equipment (Audio Research, Fulton speakers) back in the ’70s and this was a favorite demo disc in our store. The bass drum at the end of track two would shake the foundation with a big speaker like the Fulton J.

Every bit as amazing to me was the string quartet on side 2. You could actually hear the musicians breathing and turning the pages on their music stands, just as if you were actually in their “living presence.”

This is one of the albums that made me realize how good audio in the home could really be. In a way this was the Audiophile “Sgt. Pepper” of its day, a record that was so much better than anything else you’d ever heard it made you rethink the possibilities.

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Nora Jones – Come Away With Me

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More Pop and Jazz Vocal Recordings

  • A vintage import copy of Jones’s debut album boasting outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound throughout
  • The reproduction of Nora’s voice is exactly what you would expect from a Hot Stamper – she sounds rich, smooth, tonally correct and above all real
  • 4 stars: “There’s a touch of Rickie Lee Jones in Jones’ voice, a touch of Bonnie Raitt in the arrangements; her youth and her piano skills could lead one to call her an Alicia Keys for grown-ups.”
  • We have a section for records, like this one, that sound their best on imported vinyl, and it can be found here

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Chicago – 3

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More Rock and Pop

  • Boasting KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on sides one and four, and outstanding Double Plus (A++) grades on sides two and three, this copy of Chicago’s third album will be very hard to beat
  • The sound is lively, punchy, and powerful – with all due respect, it should MURDER whatever copies you may have
  • 4 stars: “Chicago’s third effort…is packed with a combination of extended jams as well as progressive and equally challenging pop songs. Their innovative sound was the result of augmenting the powerful rock & roll quartet with a three-piece brass section – the members of whom are all consummate soloists. Once again, the group couples that with material worthy of its formidable skills.”

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Botnick and Levine Knocked Equinox Out of the Park

More of the Music of Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66

Hot Stamper Pressings of Bossa Nova Records Available Now

The music is of course wonderful, but what separates Sergio from practically all of his ’60s contemporaries is the AMAZING SOUND of his recordings. Like their debut, this one was engineered by the team of Bruce Botnick and Larry Levine.

Botnick is of course the man behind the superb recordings of The Doors, Love and others too numerous to mention. 

Levine is no slouch either, having engineered one of the best sounding albums on the planet, Sergio Mendes’ Stillness.

Just play the group’s amazing versions of Watch What Happens, Night and Day, or Jobim’s Wave to hear the kind of Mendes Magic that makes us swoon. For audiophiles it just doesn’t get any better. (Well, almost. Stillness is still the Ultimate, on the level of a Dark Side of the Moon or Tea for the Tillerman, but Equinox is right up there with it.)

Only the best copies are sufficiently transparent to let the listener hear all the elements laid out clearly, with each occupying a real three-dimensional space within the soundfield. When you hear one of those copies, you have to give Botnick and Levine their due. These guys knew what they were doing like few that have come along since.

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Lincoln Mayorga and Distinguished Colleagues – Implore You to Turn Up Your Volume

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Reviews and Commentaries for Direct to Disc Recordings

S9 is hands down one of the best examples of a recording that only really comes to life when you Have Your Volume Up Good and Loud.

There’s not much ambience to be found in their somewhat dead sounding studio, and very little high frequency boost to any instrument in the mix, which means at moderate levels this record sounds flat and lifeless. (You could say it has that in common with most Heavy Vinyl pressings these days, assuming you wanted to take a cheap shot at those records, which, to be honest, I don’t mind doing. They suck; why pretend otherwise?)

But turn it up and man, the sound really starts jumpin’ out of the speakers, without becoming phony or hyped-up. In fact, it actually sounds more NATURAL and REAL at louder levels.  

A Quick and Easy Test

Play the record at normal levels and pick out any instrument — snare, toms, sax, bass — anything you like. Now turn it up a notch and see if the timbre of that instrument isn’t more correct. Add another click of volume and listen again.

I think you will see that with each increase in volume, assuming your system can handle it, the tonality of each and every instrument you hear continues to get better.

This record would sound right at something very close to, if not actual, LIVE levels. Of that I have no doubt. (more…)