Hot Stamper Pressings of Percussion Recordings Available Now
More Killer Demo Discs for Big Speakers that Play at Loud Levels
Robert Fine was one of the greatest audio engineers who ever lived. He is the man responsible for recording this audiophile gem for Command, as well as much of the Mercury catalog.
Unfortunately, we rarely have any Command records in stock, but we do make an effort to have a good selection of the most amazing sounding Mercury titles available in the form of Hot Stamper pressings.
If you have the system for it, it’s very possible you have never heard most of these instruments sound this real on any other recording. It’s as if you were standing right in the studio with them. Yes, it’s that crazy good.
Let Me Ask You This
Here’s a question no one seems to be asking:
Who is finding incredible Demo Discs like this Command from 1961 nowadays?
Harry Pearson used to.
Sid Marks reviewed plenty back in the day (reviews which I mostly disagreed with).
Jim Mitchell (now long-forgotten) wrote about them back in the ’80s.
Moon and Gray published a book full of the best sounding Deccas and Londons.
Anybody else?
Are the Audiophile Reviewers of today picking up the baton that the giants of the past have dropped at their feet?
I see little evidence of it. [1]
Not to worry. Better Records has taken on the job that no one else seems to want to do. For example, here are:
And that’s not all. Not only have we set a higher standard for audiophile-quality records with our vintage vinyl Hot Stamper pressings, but we’ve endeavored to provide a great many other benefits to the audiophile community as well.
One of the things we’ve made an effort to do on this blog is to point out the manifold shortcomings of the audiophile reviewers operating today, whether on websites or youtube.
It is our belief, backed up by mountains of evidence, that these individuals have been misinforming and misleading our fellow enthusiasts for years and should be called to account.
We also criticize the mastering engineers who are doing woefully shoddy work these days, criticism which some find objectionable.
We, however, see this as just another one of the many services we are uniquely qualified to offer the audiophile community, especially in light of the fact that no one else seems to want to do it.
We’ve heard with our own ears thousands of amazing sounding vintage pressings, plain old records which make a mockery of the vinyl pressed today. They are yet more proof that the purportedly-superior sound of remastered LPs is rarely if ever more than a sham.
Deceptive, or Something More?
Some of the records put out by these incompetent mastering labels have turned out to be something more than a sham. They are, allegedly at least, a fraud, complete with ongoing lawsuits. Never in my wildest dreams.
We regret that we waited until 2007 to wash our hands of these modern mediocrities, long after our stereo was good enough to make their shortcomings obvious beyond question.
Yes, we were late to the party, but the fact is there is no party being held to celebrate the demise of the badly mastered audiophile record.
Since no one else in the mainstream audiophile community will follow our lead, I guess we will have to limit the guest list to those who have acquired some of our wonderful Hot Stamper pressings, a somewhat smaller group but one that makes up for their lack of numbers with boatloads of enthusiasm. We wouldn’t have it any other way.
[1]
The TAS List, a list that, back in the 70s when I was starting out, comprised a great many excellent records that were not widely known, has been going downhill for a very long time. When Classic Records pressings of the great Living Stereo recordings started showing up there, we knew the standards of the old days were gone. (Although, to be fair, there were always plenty of questionable titles on the list.)
Now the list is populated by one Heavy Vinyl mediocrity after another, a sad state of affairs if you ask me.
There are probably more records on the current list that do not qualify as Super Discs than those that do, but I can’t say I am inclined to calculate the ratio.
And many of these albums contain music that is far too esoteric to be taken seriously. Harry always said the list was about sound, not music, so this criticism has never struck us as fair. We happily concede that many of the titles on the list have the potential for excellent sound. We just couldn’t care less. As long as the music holds no appeal for us, we have better things to do with our time, time which we spend discovering amazing sounding pressings of music that never goes out of style.
For our purposes, as purveyors of albums commanding prices well into the hundreds of dollars, we do not have the luxury of considering only the sound quality of the records we offer.
However, there is still one uniquely valuable service we can offer those who are still fans of The Absolute Sound Super Disc List.
We can join in the fun and offer the TAS-head a fairly good selection of Hot Stamper pressings of TAS List titles that actually have audiophile sound quality, all 100% guaranteed or your money back.
(more…)
