Parlophone/Apple – Letters, Reviews and Commentaries

Answers to Some of Your Hot Stamper Questions

More Straight Answers to Your Hot Stamper Questions

We discuss a number of subjects with our letter writer below, including what we think of The Beatles’ records in mono, our grading system, how we clean our records and various and sundry other aspects of the business we run. These are the kinds of questions we get regularly and are more than happy to answer.

Hey Tom, 

First off, I got to say, congratulations on a great concept. Also, congrats on having the balls to charge what these albums are worth.

Thanks. You hit the nail right on the head — we charge what the pressings are worth. They are often incredible sounding records of some of the greatest music ever recorded. We should know; we played them, something that no other record dealers on the face of the earth can say. To those of us who do the listening, as well as our Better Records customers, they are priceless.

Like any business, we charge what the market will bear, and it seems people are willing to pay a lot for these records, although less for some than they used to — some of our records now sell for half or even less than what we were getting two or three or five years ago.

That said, the top copies have held their prices pretty well over the years and have often gone up substantially. It’s the second tier and third tier titles and the Super Hots that have tended to fall in price. That’s where the real “bargains” are these days.

Like all of our Hot Stamper pressings, even the cheapest of them (starting at $25!) are guaranteed to be better sounding than any pressing you own or have ever heard, or your money back.

OK – I spent a fortune on my system. Including acoustic design, the best of everything – speakers, turntable, preamp, amps – you get it. The whole set up probably cost me over $600k.

Wow. I don’t have $600k in my system, but I do have about $600k worth of labor in it (!) You can read all about our stereo here.

I am a crazy fanatic – audio perfection is something that really moves me.

Me too. I wrote about it in a commentary that describes how I fell in love with a record that gave me the reason I needed to get deep into audio.

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Let It Be on Heavy Vinyl – The Gong Rings Once More

Hot Stamper Pressings of Let It Be Available Now

At the end of a shootout for Let It Be back in June of 2014, we decided to see how the 2012 Digitally Remastered Heavy Vinyl pressing would hold up against the 12 (yes, twelve!) British copies we had just critically auditioned.

Having evaluated the two best copies on side two, we felt we knew exactly what separated the killer copies (White Hot) from the next tier down (Super Hot). Armed with just how good the recording could sound fresh in our minds, we threw on the new pressing. We worked on the VTA adjustment for the thicker record for a couple of minutes to get the sound balanced and as resolving as possible, and after a few waves of the Talisman we were soon hearing the grungy guitar intro of I’ve Got a Feeling.

My scribbled first notes: not bad!

Sure, there’s only a fraction of the space and three-dimensionality of the real British pressings, but the bass seemed to be there, the energy seemed decent enough, the tonality was good if a bit smooth and dark. All in all not a bad Beatles record.

Then we played One After 909 and the sound just fell off a cliff. It was so lifeless and compressed! The parts of the song that get loud on the regular pressings never get loud on the new one. The live-in-the-studio Beatles’ rock energy had somehow disappeared.

We couldn’t take more than a minute or two of the song. It was just too frustrating and irritating. What the hell did they do to make this record sound this way? We had no idea.

Didn’t matter. It was game over. The gong from The Gong Show had rung. The record had to go.

We had played twelve British copies, all with stampers that we knew to be good on side two. Two or three of those copies did not merit a Hot Stamper sonic grade. Nothing new there, happens all the time.

Yet even the worst copy we played of the twelve had more jump factor, more life and more dynamic energy than the new Heavy Vinyl pressing.

Which means that there’s a very good chance that any copy you pick up on British vinyl will be better sounding — maybe not a 100% chance but easily a 90+% chance. Which makes buying the new Heavy Vinyl LP, not to mention playing it, pointless unless…

Unless you are more of a record collector than an audiophile or music lover. And if you are one of those guys, you are definitely on the wrong blog, unless…

Unless you are here to repent and swear off the error of your ways.

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Letter of the Week – “I have never heard such transparent, full-bodied sound on any previous copy.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of The White Album Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased a while back:

Well, I feel there is little I can say that could do justice to how this copy of the White Album sounds. It is simply mind-blowing! And it’s exactly the kind of sound reproduction that this Masterpiece deserves.

I’ve listened to quite a few pressings of this album before, but I have never heard such a transparent, full-bodied sound on any previous copy. And of course, the White Album is not exactly the most transparent recording to begin with.

Truly marvelous, and a privilege to be able to listen to the best sound of the best music there is!

You guys are real treasure hunters. Many thanks for the great service.

Bogdan P.

Bogdan,

Glad you liked our White Album. It’s amazing how good it sounds once you know which pressings are the good ones and which to avoid.

Hint: it’s the originals are to be avoided, but don’t tell that to the average record collecting audiophile. They will think you’ve lost your mind.

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“I was immersed. Thank you.”

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 of Revolver he purchased recently: 

Dear Sir,

You know when everything is just right? The record, the equipment, the space between your ears. The speakers disappear, the room, even yourself? And the only thing left is the music?

It doesn’t happen that often these days, but it did for me listening to side one of your UK Revolver. I was immersed. Thank you.

Dear Sir, 

Fantastic to hear, we love when that happens, to us and to anybody else of course. It’s the same high that gamblers get from winning big, and it keeps us audiophiles going until the next time it call comes together that way.

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Advice on Which Sgt. Peppers Pressings to Avoid

beatlessgtHot Stamper Pressings of Sgt. Peppers Available Now

UPDATE 2026

This letter came in many years ago, but the lessons to be learned from Chris’s failed approch to finding a good sounding copy of Sgt. Pepper are no doubt timeless.

Many audiophiles who start collecting records make exactly the same mistakes Chris made, and some percentage of those audiophiles, however small, actually learn from them. Sad to say, it seems that many do not.

In our own humble attempt to rectify the situation, we devote a great deal of time to discussing record collecting on this blog, seeing as how so many audiophiles suffer by going about it in all the wrong ways.

Chris, an erstwhile customer from long ago, sent us a letter describing his search for a good sounding Sgt. Pepper.

The first thing that comes to mind when reading his letter is that many record collecting rules were broken in going about the search the way he did.

But then I thought:

What rules?

Whose rules?

Where exactly does one find these rules?

If one wants to avoid breaking them they need to be written down someplace, don’t they? Wikipedia maybe?

Sadly, no, not at Wikipedia, or any place else for that matter — until now. As crazy as it sounds, we are going to try to lay down a few record collecting rules for record loving audiophiles, specifically to aid these individuals in their search for better sounding vinyl pressings. And by “these individuals” we mean you.

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Paul McCartney’s Must Own Masterpiece

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Paul McCartney Available Now

The best tracks on McCartney’s first album have the quality of LIVE MUSIC in a way that not one out of a hundred rock records do. It sounds like it’s recorded live in the studio, but of course that’s impossible, because Paul plays practically all the instruments himself.

It just goes to show how good a multi-track studio recording can sound when it’s done well.

The recording also has an unprocessed quality which we’ve always found attractive, with some songs sounding more like demos than finished takes, about as far from Abbey Road as it would be possible to get.

In our experience, the real McCartney Magic is only found on the best domestic Apple pressings. We’ve never heard an import that did much for us, and the later CBS issues are hardly worth the vinyl they’re pressed on.

This album, like Unplugged and Band on the Run (and not a whole lot else) is SUPERB from start to finish. At the end of side two you want MORE. I wish I could say that about the rest of his discography.

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The Yellow Submarine Songtrack Did Not Float My Boat

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now

Last year a customer wrote to tell me how much he liked the sound of his 2004 Japanese DMM pressing of the Yellow Submarine Songtrack.

After looking into the background of this album, we saw right from the start that it had three strikes against it.

First off, we rarely like Japanese pressings outside of those that were recorded in Japan, such as the direct to disc jazz and classical records we’ve done shootouts for. Other Japanese pressings we like were recorded in the states for the Japanese market: the jazz direct to discs on East Wind come to mind.

Secondly, we avoid DMM pressings whenever possible. They often add what seems to us like digital artifacts to the sound.

And lastly, we rarely like modern remixes, especially modern remixes that obviously use digital processes of various kinds. The remixed Abbey Road is a complete disaster. Nothing that comes out of Abbey Road these days should be expected to sound good. Their work is a disgrace.

So rather than buy the Japanese-pressed version of the album, we cheaped out and just bought a UK one for half the price.

We half-expected the worst and that’s pretty much what we found.

I used to sell this very version of the album back in 1999 when it came out. I thought it sounded just fine.

That was about twenty years ago. My all tube system was darker and dramatically less resolving than the one I have now.

Scores of improvements have been made since then to every aspect of analog reproduction, something we discuss endlessly on this blog.

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Help – Germans Versus Brits

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now

UPDATE 2026

We used to buy the German pressings of Beatles’ albums like Help, but eventually we discovered that they were simply not competitive with the better Brits.

The lousy Brits, the ones sitting in the bins of your local record store or the ones you find in most BC-13 Beatles box sets, sure, the better German pressings beat those, but at some point many years ago we chanced upon some amazing sounding British pressings.

They forced us to reckon with the reality that even the best German pressings were very unlikely to reach the audio heights that the better British pressings showed us were possible.

Our commentary from 2011 follows.

We’ve heard some excellent German pressings before, but this time [circa 2011] nothing could touch our best Brit copies. What the best British copies have is more of the Tubey Magic that can typically be heard on early pressings, due no doubt to the fact that they are mastered with tube equipment.

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Letter of the Week – “No one doubted your records after this listening session.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stamper pressings of Abbey Road and ELP’s debut he purchased a while back.

Hey Tom, 

Yesterday, I attended an audio event in Verona, NJ, where I had purchased my stereo.

I spent my time in the “analog” room. This room had the flagship equipment (Vandersteen 7 speakers, Aesthetix Jupiter series amps, pre-amps, phono stage, Clearaudio’s Goldfinger Statement cartridge, etc).

I listened for a while, hearing all the issues with almost every record they played. I then asked the store’s “turntable guru” to play some of the records I brought with me.

They thumbed through my boxes and asked me what the difference was between my two copies of Abbey Road. When I explained the superior side X on either copy, the audience found this concept amusing, based on their laughter. Any doubters would soon become believers.

They played Abbey Road‘s side 2 (3+ side, of course). While “Here Comes The Sun” was playing, Garth had his eyes closed. At the track’s conclusion, he exclaimed “Outstanding!,” and the record played on.

Next, we listened to ELP’s “Lucky Man.” Garth said it was the best he had ever heard.

I do not really know Garth, but I suspect he does not easily offer up such compliments in a room full of people. Others in the room, including the store’s turntable guru, were all very impressed. Several folks approached me, all pointing out parts of the music that blew them away.

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Straight Up Trash from Ron Furmanek on 2 LPs

More of the Music of Badfinger

This British 2 LP reissue from 1993 was (badly) digitally remastered by a Mr. Ron Furmanek. May his name live in infamy.

It contains alternate mixes of 6 songs at 45 RPM on the second record, with sound every bit as bad as the sound of the first record.

The whole Apple series of remastered releases — at least the ones we played — was awful sounding and should be avoided completely. These records are nothing but audiophile bullshit.

If you are a record collector and must have those alternate mixes, just buy the CD. The vinyl is terrible, the CD probably sounds every bit as bad, but at least the CD is cheap and plays all the songs straight through.

If you own this record, my guess is it is pristine.

If you played it at all, you played it once and put it away on a shelf where it probably sits to this very day. Good records get played and bad records get shelved. If you have lots of pristine records filed away, ask yourself: Why aren’t you playing them?

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