Hot Stamper Pressings on Decca & London Available Now
Sonic Grade: F
More vinyl dreck from Speakers Corner.
Pure mud. What piano ever sounded like this?
Heavy Vinyl Disasters
Roy Orbison Sings Lonely and Blue on Classic Records Heavy Vinyl
More of the Music of Roy Orbison
Sonic Grade: F
A Hall of Shame pressing and another Classic Records LP debunked.
Can’t recommend this one. It’s too bright. The DCC LP of Orbison’s material is dramatically better [assuming you want a Heavy Vinyl pressing. I doubt I would care for the sound of it now but back in the day we recommended it].
I’ve had some discussions with some audiophiles who liked this album, and I’m frankly surprised that people find this kind of sound pleasing, but if you’re one of those people who likes bright records, this should do the trick!
The First Classic Record We Ever Played – Thus Spake Zarathustra
Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Titles Available Now
Way back in 1994, long before we had anything like the system we do now, we were finding fault with the “Classic Records Sound.”
With each passing year — 28 32 and counting — we like that sound less. Some Classic Records pressings may be on Harry’s TAS list — disgraceful but true — but that certainly has no bearing on whether or not they are very good records.
I had a chance to play LSC 1806 (pictured above) not long ago and I was dumbfounded at how bright, shrill and aggressive it was.
I still remember playing my first Classic Records title, their first release, which would probably have been in 1994. The deep bass of the organ at the start of Also Sprach Zarathustra, the horns and the tympani blasting out from a dead silent background, put a lump in my throat. Had they actually managed to remaster these old recordings so well that the vintage pressings I was selling for such high prices would soon be worthless? I really do remember having that thought race through my mind.
But then the strings came in, shrieking and as bright as the worst Angel or DG pressing I’d ever heard. It was as if somebody had turned the treble control up on my preamp two or three clicks, into ear-bleeding territory. All my equipment at the time was vintage and tube, and even though my system erred on the dark side tonally, the first Classic release was clearly off the charts too bright and transistory, with none of the lovely texture and sheen that RCA was famous for in the early days of Living Stereo.
I knew right then that my vintage record business was safe.
Speakers Corner Heavy Vinyl and the Loss of Transparency
Hot Stamper Pressings of Classical and Orchestral Music Available Now
We review yet another mediocre Speakers Corner Heavy Vinyl reissue.
We recently gave the Heavy Vinyl pressing from Speakers Corner, the same one that we had previously recommended back in the 90s, a sonic grade of C+.
UPDATE 2024
Recently in this case means about twenty years ago.
To our ears now it has many more shortcomings than it did back then, which we discuss below.
So often when we revisit the remastered pressings we used to like on Heavy Vinyl we come away dumbfounded — what on earth were we thinking? These are not the droids sounds we are looking for. Perhaps our minds were clouded at the time.
Below are some thoughts from a recent classical listing that we hope will shed some light on our longstanding aversion to the sound of modern remasterings.
What is lost in these newly remastered recordings? Lots of things, but the most obvious and bothersome is TRANSPARENCY.
Modern records are just so damn opaque.
We can’s stand that sound. It drives us crazy.
Folk Singer Is Yet Another Muddy MoFi
Hot Stamper Pressings of Soul, Blues, R&B, etc. Available Now
The MoFi is thick, fat and murky, with much less transparency than the Classic release (which is no award winner either).
The typical album MoFi remastered on Anadisq suffered from many or most of the long list of shortcomings you see below. If you want to avoid records with these faults, you would be well advised to stay away from any of the records we’ve linked to.
- More titles that are dark,
- More titles that are murky,
- More titles that are recessed,
- More titles that are compressed,
- More titles that are thick,
- More titles that are veiled, and
- More titles that are opaque.
Is this the worst sounding pressing of Folk Singer ever made?
That’s hard to say. But it is the worst sounding version of the album we’ve ever played, and that should be fair warning for any audiophile contemplating spending money on this kind of Heavy Vinyl trash.
Bizet-Shchedrin – Just Awful on Alto Heavy Vinyl
Hot Stamper Pressings of Percussion Recordings Available Now
Sonic Grade: F
Alto records did this title on 180 gram in 1996, and it was a COMPLETE DISASTER.
Those of you getting our catalogs in the 90s were warned not to buy it. I was lucky enough to own a very good original pressing of it at the time, which of course made it easy to recognize just how poorly the new pressing had been mastered.
At the time, no criticisms of the quality of the mastering were offered in the audiophile press however, none that I saw anyway.
And every major audiophile record dealer carried it. Funny how some things never change. (more…)
Midnight Blue on Classic Records (with Badly Mistaken Commentary about Original Blue Notes)
Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Kenny Burrell Available Now
Sonic Grade: D
Flat and lifeless. You would never understand why audiophiles rave about this recording by listening to the Classic Records pressing of it. That happens a lot with their remastered pressings. Why do audiophiles think so highly of them when they make records that sound the one this one does?
We played it up against our best, and as expected it was nothing to write home about. Since Rudy has remastered and ruined practically all the Blue Note CDs by now, you will have your work cut out for you if you want to find a good sounding version of Midnight Blue. This sure ain’t one.
Of course we would be more than happy to get you an amazing sounding copy — it’s what we do — but the price will be five to ten times (or more) what the Classic costs. In our opinion it’s money well spent, as you will see in our review below.
Since the Classic conveys very little of what the musicians were up to whilst recording the album, our advice is to cross it off your list of records of interest.
It’s thirty bucks down the drain.
From a recent Hot Stamper listing:
I’ve never heard an original Blue Note pressing with this kind of resolution, sharp leading edge transients, tight, articulate bass definition, and on and on.
Collectors routinely pay hundreds of dollars for original copies that don’t sound nearly as good as this one.
Which is fine by us. We’re not in that business. We’re not selling the right labels; we’re selling the right sound. There is a difference. Collecting original pressings is easy (albeit expensive). Collecting good sounding pressings is hard; in fact nothing in the record collecting world is harder. But if you actually like playing your records as opposed to just collecting them, then the best possible sound should be at the top of your list and the rarity of the label down at the bottom.
Speakers Corner Mucks Up a Classic Mercury, Part Two
More of the Music of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)
For some background, in 2005 we were still selling Heavy Vinyl. We were fans of DCC and Cisco and carried many of the Speakers Corner remasters.
But things were starting to look grim. With every improvement to our playback system, these modern reissues seem to be falling further and further behind.
In the late-’90s, Classic had released some Mercury titles which we’d auditioned and disliked immensely. In 2005 it was Speakers Corner’s turn to have at the Mercury catalog, and they went a different way, finding a “new sound” for the legendary recordings, completely unlike any vintage pressing we’d ever heard.
This was very upsetting. I felt the need to say something.
By 2007 it was clear that Heavy Vinyl was a lost cause and had no business being sold by any audiophile record dealer who cared about sound quality, most especially me. And that was the end of it. This Mercury was one of the records that helped me see the error of my ways.
Part 1 of this discussion of Speakers Corner’s Mercury Series can be found here.
A blog entry on the site from 2005 about the new Mercury reissue series that was coming out noted that:
I am expecting the new Rach 3rd (90283) later this week, and will report my findings as soon as I have a had a chance to evaluate it.
[A few weeks later I followed up with this:]
The news on 90283 is here. It came today. Are you ready? In one sentence:
The most opaque, dull and lifeless 180 gram reissue in the history of the world.
My blog entry from 2005 continues below, transcribed practically word for word.
I hope it’s becoming clear to people now that this series is an enormous fraud perpetrated against all right thinking (right listening?) audiophiles. I can’t imagine a worse sounding record. It makes the most opaque ’70s Phillips or London LP sound positively transparent next to this thick piece of crap. I pulled out my late label copy, far from the best sounding pressing I’ve ever heard, and it killed the new version. The trumpets sound like they’re playing from under a pile of blankets on this 180 gram LP. The sound is so bad it defies understanding.
And the sad thing, in some ways the saddest aspect of this very sad affair, is that I can safely predict right now, with absolutely no fear of being proved wrong, that every major record dealer will rave about it. Mark my words. Every one. Except me of course. But I’m not one of the majors. Thank god I don’t have to sell crap like this to make a living.
And every audiophile who reads a rave review in a dealer’s catalog or on a website should take it for precisely what it is: a naked grab for his money, nothing more, nothing less. It’s all about the money. It’s not about the sound. It’s not about the music. It’s just about money.
Fly Like An Eagle on Capitol Heavy Vinyl
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.
What Willie and Nat Can Teach Us about Heavy Vinyl
Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Willie Nelson Available Now
UPDATE 2024
This letter came to us many years ago. Updates have been added since then.
One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he had purchased:
Hello team,
I’ve been a little distracted here, I got married over the weekend! So, haven’t done as much listening over the past couple of weeks. However, I did have a chance to listen to Stardust and Love Is The Thing. They were both different than their Classic Records and Analogue Productions counterparts. Willie sounded a little smoother, more organic, and more integrated.
The strings on Love Is The Thing were very different, more pronounced and emotional, but Nat’s voice, and the sound overall, sounded a little strident, maybe “too” hot.
I’d like to send them both back to you, and if you have a chance to send back the discs I sent to you I’d very much appreciate it. All told, the two big sets of Better Records are really incredible, and only serve to make my want list grow. Here’s to you and the next set!
Doug,
We now have the update for those two titles.
I, along with the two other guys in our listening panels, sat down to play the Heavy Vinyl you sent us, and the long and short of it is that we were astonished that records that sound as bad as those two actually were approved for release.
Nat is wrong six ways from Sunday, and Willie is not so much wrong as just not very good.
Nat: “F,” one of the worst heavy vinyl disasters of all time, and Willie: “D” sound, more like a CD than a record. There are many pressings of this album that are not good, but this version is probably worse than most of them, hence the D grade.
The old Classic pressing is probably better, and it would earn about a C grade. [I honestly do not remember exactly what pressing Douglas sent us. All I remember is that it was on Heavy Vinyl.]
I suspect the CDs of both these pressings are much better sounding than this vinyl.
The DCC gold is definitely better by a long shot, and the plain old Willie CD is probably a step up as well.
A Further Update