Records by Label 2

Overtures in Hi-Fi / Wolff

More Imported Pressings on Decca and London

  • This vintage London Stereo pressing was doing practically everything right, with both sides earning KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades
  • It’s also fairly quiet at Mint Minus Minus, a grade that even our most well-cared-for vintage classical titles have trouble playing at
  • Both of these sides are big, clear, rich, dynamic, transparent and energetic, and will surely put to shame any pressing of the album you own
  • Although not long, every second is packed with color and energy, exactly what a good overture needs (And it even has a glockenspiel! How can you go wrong?)
  • Also notable is the choice of material, with a few of the more obscure overtures really brought to life here, such as the opening piece by Adam on side one: “Si j’etais roi”

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The Rolling Stones – Aftermath

More of the Music of The Rolling Stones


  • Killer Tubey Magical 60s British sound throughout this vintage UK Decca pressing, with both sides earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • “Lady Jane,” “Under My Thumb” and “Mother’s Little Helper” are three of the best sounding tracks – all are lively and solid here on this amazing side one
  • 5 stars: “… the group began incorporating the influences of psychedelia and Dylan into their material with classics like ‘Paint It Black,’ an eerily insistent number one hit graced by some of the best use of sitar (played by Brian Jones) on a rock record. Other classics included the jazzy ‘Under My Thumb,’ where Jones added exotic accents with his vibes, and the delicate Elizabethan ballad ‘Lady Jane,’ where dulcimer can be heard…”

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James Taylor – Sweet Baby James

More of the Music of James Taylor

  • An early Green Label pressing with seriously good sound for this inarguable JT Masterpiece, earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them on both sides
  • All that lovely echo is a dead giveaway that side one of this pressing has resolution far beyond that of the others you may have heard (and of course the Rhino Heavy Vinyl), and side two is not far behind in all those areas
  • Richness and body and Tubey Magic are every bit as important – when those big choruses kick in, you want the sound of all those singers to be as big as life without the strain that accompanies their voices on so many copies
  • Finding early pressings without marks or groove damage is no mean feat these days, but here’s one to prove it can be done
  • Top 100 and 5 stars: “Sweet Baby James launched not only Taylor’s career as a pop superstar but also the entire singer/songwriter movement of the early 70s that included Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Jackson Browne, Cat Stevens, and others…”
  • If you’re a James Taylor fan — and what audiophile wouldn’t be? — this title is clearly one of the best albums released in 1970 and a true Must Own for the singer-songwriter-loving audiophile

Vocal reproduction is key to the better sounding copies of Sweet Baby James, as it is on so many singer-songwriter albums from the era.

To find a copy where Taylor’s vocals are front and center — which is exactly where they should be — but still rich, sweet, tonally correct and Tubey Magical is no mean feat. Only the better copies manage to pull it off.

Out of the dozen or more Green Label early pressings we play every year, relatively few have the full complement of Midrange Magic we know the best copies can have. As a rule of thumb, the hotter the stamper, the better the vocal reproduction on that copy.

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Billie Holiday – Lady In Satin

More Pop and Jazz Vocal Albums

  • A vintage Columbia Red Label pressing with STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades from top to bottom
  • Dramatically richer, fuller and more Tubey Magical than practically all other copies we played, with breathy vocals and rosiny, fairly smooth strings
  • There may be amazingly good sounding original pressings, but we’ve never run into one and we have our doubts about the existence of such a magical LP – where could they all be hiding?
  • “I’m a Fool to Want You” on this very copy may just send chills racing up and down your spine
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Lady Day herself said that this session was her personal favorite.”
  • If you’re a fan of Lady Day, this Columbia recording from 1958 surely belongs in your collection.

On the better copies both the sound and music are absolutely breathtaking. They reproduce clearly what, to our minds, are the three most important elements in the recording — strings, rhythm, and vocal — and, more importantly, the are reproduced properly balanced with one another.

The monos, as you might expect, balance the three elements well enough, but the problem with mono is that the vocals and instruments are jammed together in the center of the soundfield, layered atop one another. Real clarity, the kind that live music has in abundance, is difficult if not impossible under the circumstances. Only the stereo pressings provide the space that each of the elements need in order to be heard.

Naturally, the vocals have to be the main focus on a Billie Holiday record. They should be rich and tubey, yet clear, breathy and transparent. To qualify as a Hot Stamper, the pressings we offer must be highly resolving. You will hear everything, surrounded by the natural space of the legendary Columbia 30th Street Studio in which the recording was made.

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Saxophone Colossus on OJC

Hot Stamper Pressings of Jazz Recordings Featuring the Saxophone Available Now

The copies of the 80s OJC we’ve played over the years have been thin, hard, tizzy up top and devoid of Tubey Magic. 

I think I used to like it a long time ago, in the same way I used to like a lot of questionable pressings a long time ago, back when I had a darker and less revealing system. It’s limitations covered up for the weaknesses of this OJC and plenty of others.

By the way, our Shootout Winning Gold Label Mono pressing went for big bucks, 1000 of them in fact. A clean original goes for many times that, which is one reason you have never seen such a record on our site. How much would we have to charge for a Hot Stamper pressing of an album we paid many thousands of dollars for? Far more than our customers would be willing to pay us, that’s for sure.

How About the DCC?

If you don’t want to pay the big bucks we charge for good pressings of this music, try the DCC pressing from 1995.

The DCC Heavy Vinyl pressing is probably a nice record. I haven’t played one in many years, but I remember liking it back in the day. The 2011 OJC pressing is made from the same metalwork as the DCC vinyl. Maybe that one sounds good. I doubt we will ever find out as we have been done with these kinds of records for a very long time.

However, on a decidedly contrarian note, I would be surprised if the DCC Gold CD isn’t even better sounding than their vinyl pressing.

They usually are.

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Pearl Jam – Vitalogy

More Rock and Pop

  • Vitalogy appears on the site for only the second time ever, here with incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound throughout this original Epic pressing, just shy of our Shootout Winner – remarkably quiet vinyl too
  • Both of these sides are tonally balanced from top to bottom, with more vocal presence and rock and roll energy than practically any other copy we played in our shootout
  • This is not a hard title to find on vinyl, but it is hard to find without pressing defects, which caused us to return a high percentage of the copies we bought, even some sealed ones!
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Thanks to its stripped-down, lean production, Vitalogy stands as Pearl Jam’s most original and uncompromising album.”

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The Bloated Cello Sound Some Find Appealing

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Claude Debussy Available Now

UPDATE 2026

We made a crack about the Starker Mercury recordings below which we gernerally no longer agree with, although I am sure there are some pressings which have bloated sound. Those are the ones that don’t win shootouts.

On this pressing we were a bit surprised at how natural the cello sounded — more like the real instrument and less like the typical recording of it. 

Normally when recording the cello, the microphones are placed fairly close to the instrument. This often results in what’s known as the “proximity effect,” which simply describes a boost in the lower frequencies relative to the more linear response of the microphone when placed at a distance.

The famous Starker cello recordings on Mercury — you know the ones, the originals and even the reissues sell for hundreds and hundreds of dollars — suffer from this effect, which audiophiles seem to prefer. (The Mercury heavy vinyl reissues, at least the ones I’ve played, were ridiculously fat and bloated in the bottom.)

Audiophiles did not seem to mind much, judging by the apparently strong sales and the rave reviews I read. Bass shy systems, and that means most of the systems owned by audiophiles, probably benefited from the bass boost.

Systems with lots of large woofers — at least in our case — would of course make the sound of these pressings positively unbearable. That indeed was our experience.

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“I now know how the Beatles ACTUALLY sound, and cannot bear to listen to any substandard versions.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now

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

I just received the Super Hot Stamper copy of the Beatles Oldies and would like to thank you for selecting a very nice copy that is in the surprisingly good condition. On the first listen, the outstanding tracks are “She Loves You” (super sweet, crystal clear vocals), “Day Tripper” (incredibly soft, yet energetic sound), “Eleanor Rigby” (powerful voice and strings), “I Feel Fine” (crisp, powerful drums), and “A Hard Day’s Night” (oooh, those vocals and those chiming guitars bursting out of the speakers!)

The only somewhat disappointing track is “Help.” Hard sounding, even harsh, with boosted highs and insufficient bass.

Alex followed up in more depth with this:

Just wanted to send you compliments on picking a very good pressing of the The Beatles “A Collection of Beatles Oldies” (Super Hot Stamper). I am a massive Beatles fan and have a number of various copies of their LPs in my collection. I received your hot stamper yesterday, and spent some time doing side-by-side shootouts comparing the tracks on your hot stamper to the same tracks on my other LPs.

I’ll just quickly comment on “Ticket To Ride” (one of my all time favourite Beatles songs): I compared the hot stamper pressing with my original UK pressing of the LP “Help.” After playing “Ticket To Ride” (last track on side one of “Help”, I said to myself “hey, no way this track could ever sound better than it already does. The sound is big as a house, loads of energy, the guitars are cutting, shimmering. and leaping out the right speaker, Lennon’s voice is searing, Ringo’s drums are rocking!”

Then I played the hot stamper version. Wow! What a stunning difference. It’s as if someone pulled cotton wool out of my ears. Such presence, such clarity, such musicality. The sweetness, the razor sharp imaging and precision in the soundstage. I mean, I’m speechless.

I then dutifully went on to play “Ticket To Ride”, comparing the hot stamper with my Japanese pressing of “Help”, my Capitol pressing, etc. Of course, all those other pressings fared much worse than my original UK pressing.

I am kind of in disbelief now. How’s such a stunning difference even possible, given that they’re pretty much coming from the same (or similar) master tape. My 1965 UK pressing [1] was obviously cut from the fresh master tape, and yet it sounds muddled and blaring compared to the 1966 [2] pressing of the hot stamper.

Another interesting thing to note is that, prior to hearing the hot stamper, I honestly thought that the UK version on the “Help” LP sounded fantastic.

This experience sounds and feels like witchcraft. It took me a while to follow Robert’s advice [Robert Brook the man behind The Broken Record] and get to listen to a hot stamper, but here we are.

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Bob Dylan – Blood on the Tracks

More of the Music of Bob Dylan

  • Boasting two solid Double Plus (A++) sides, you’ll have a hard time finding a copy that sounds remotely as good as this vintage pressing
  • Why this title is so often pressed on bad vinyl is hard to fathom, but it is a fact nevertheless, which is why you see so few copies make it to the site and even fewer on quiet vinyl
  • For tonally-correct, un-hyped acoustic guitars and vocals, the sound of this album is tough to beat in Dylan’s catalog
  • Note that some tracks are clearly better sounding than others throughout the album, and those are the tracks we tend to listen to in our shootouts
  • The better copies are rich, warm, tubey and full-bodied – in other words, they are exactly what’s good about the vintage analog pressings we offer to the discriminating audiophiles who appreciate the difference
  • Problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs, but once you hear just how superb sounding this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting ticks and pops and just be swept away by the music
  • 5 stars: “…it’s an affecting, unbearably poignant record, not because it’s a glimpse into his soul, but because the songs are remarkably clear-eyed and sentimental, lovely and melancholy at once. Dylan made albums more influential than this, but he never made one better.”

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Delibes / Coppelia – A Superb Mono Pressing from 1957

Hot Stamper Pressings of Music Conducted by Ansermet Available Now

UPDATE 2026

This is a very old commentary so take it for what it’s worth. We no longer buy mono pressings of orchestral recordings from the golden age. The best stereo pressings are just so much better.

The stereo set (CSA 2201) came out in 1958. We appreciate the sound quality that stereo makes possible after having heard the mono.

However, there is nothing wrong with the recording, which was made for both stereo and mono in 1957.

In fact, 1957 just happens to be a wonderful year for analog recordings, as evidenced by this amazing group of albums, all recorded or released in that year.

DEMO QUALITY SOUND for this early London Mono pressing. 

Side one of this record sounds incredible! The sound is absolutely top notch. Check out the brass — it has the solid weight of the real thing.

This is the kind of record that the mono cartridge owners of the world worship. And for good reason. But you don’t need to have a mono cartridge to hear how good — in fact, how much BETTER — this copy sounds than the stereo pressing.

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