Mastering Mysteries

Now That You Know the D2 Stampers Have the Best Sound, What’s Your Next Move?

Hot Stamper Pressings of Contemporary Jazz Albums Available Now

Recently we conducted a shootout for yet another superb Contemporary recording, one that we had auditioned a couple of times before, and one for which we had a good understanding of both the music and the quality of the sound. We’ve played vintage Contemporary pressings by the hundreds at this point. Rarely are we surprised by how good the right stampers and labels can sound.

It’s not the record you see pictured, however. For now, the title of this album will have to remain a mystery, along with a great many others we’ve been discussing on the blog recently.

The cost of discovering the right stampers for famous and often expensive records is often high, can take decades, and is fundamentally at the heart of how we make our money. We are in the business of finding potentially amazing sounding pressings. Often they have stampers we know to be good, and sometimes they have stampers we discover are even better.

We clean them up, play them, and offer to our customers those that, for whatever reasons no one has yet figured out — including us — are far better sounding than any others.

You’ll notice that the early Black Label pressings did the best in our shootout, followed by the later Green Label pressings, followed by the Yellow Label pressings with the earlier cover at 2+, which are in turn followed by the Yellow Label pressings in the later cover.

Depending on which D2 you’re playing, the sound could be absolutely amazing, or perhaps excellent, or, as in the case of the 1.5+ copies, merely good, not great.

Lessons Learned

Knowing the right stampers are D2 for this title does not allow us to predict which pressings will win a shootout. We actually have to sit down and play all the copies to come up with the hierarchy we laid out above.

However, knowing that the Black Label originals with D2 stampers are the copies most likely to win shootouts is very helpful information.

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Seems as Though the Shaded Dogs Pressed in Indianapolis Actually Do Sound Better

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Recordings Available Now

As painful as it may be for us to admit it, sometimes the conventional wisdom turns out to be right!

For RCA classical and orchestral recordings, collectors have long held that the earliest pressings on the Shaded Dog label, in stereo, pressed in Indianapolis, tend to be the best sounding. That qualifier “tend” may not be necessary — plenty of audiophiles think they simply are better sounding, no question about it.

Maybe. If we tallied all the copies we’ve played and created a very large spreadsheet using the data, perhaps we could give you a better answer than “maybe,” but we’ve definitely never tallied them up and have no plans to do so. It sounds like a lot of work.

We are not revealing what record had these stampers and earned these grades for the simple reason that we rarely if ever give out the specific information that identifies the best sounding pressing of any album.

As I’m sure you can understand, we want you to buy the copy with the Hottest Stampers from us, not find one on your own! We’re happy to be somwhat helpful, but naturally we find it necessary to draw the line somewhere, and giving out “the shootout winning stampers” are where we choose to draw it.

You can be sure, based on our most recent shootout for this mystery RCA title, that in future we will focus our efforts on the Indianapolis pressings and avoid the Richmond pressings unless they are cheap and minty.

When the conventional wisdom turns out to be correct, in other words, when it comports with reality, at least for the seven copies of this album that we played, we are happy to temporarily put aside our skepticism and learn from what this title is trying to tell us.

Why? Because the experimental evidence supports it.

The reality is that most of the time we are not able to predict which stampers will win a shootout before we actually sit down to play all our copies.

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Today’s Rock Record Mystery – How Can Stampers 3, 4 & 6 Beat 1 & 2?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Tom Petty Available Now

The earliest stampers for this mysterious Tom Petty album — not the one you see pictured — were some of the worst sounding in our shootout.

Most audiophiles, when given a choice between earlier stampers and later stampers, all other things being equal, would take the early ones, right?

As a matter of fact, so would we. Most of the stamper sheets we put up on this blog show the early numbers beating the later numbers.

As a rule of thumb it’s not a bad one, but unless you actually do a shootout, how would you know that your SS1/SS2 copy isn’t the best?

How could you possibly know that the SS4/SS3 murdered it?

The promo cover might be helpful, but lots of promo pressings don’t win shootouts, or even do all that well in them.

Like so many realities of the world of records, these are all mysteries, ones that are very unlikely to be solved.

The winners of the next shootout could have the exact same stampers as the record that did the worst in this one. It happens!

One of the best reasons mysteries such as this have little chance of being solved is that no one with any real expertise, using methodologies that are reliable and reproducible in any serious way, is taking on this kind of work — other than us.

We actually like testing records, and over the many years we have been in business we’ve refined* a method for doing it that is as reliable and reproducible as any method can be in the world of audio: the record shootout.

*As far as I know, my friend Robert Pincus was the one who invented the record shootout. He would evaluate each side of a record independently against other copies of the same album, taking notes that described the strengths and weaknesses he heard on each copy he played.

He assumed nothing, and neither do we. Our rigorous controls, blinded experiments and use of the scientific method to arrive at reproducible results are simply advances on his original approach.

(One of the most important differences between his shootouts and ours is that we have someone whose only job is to play the records, and another person to do the listening and take the notes. When the listener has no idea what pressing is being played, there is little chance of the kinds of psychological biases that are the scourge of the record shootout.)

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Is This Really Robert Ludwig’s Doing? I Thought He Was One of the Good Guys

Hot Stamper Pressings of Rock and Pop Albums Available Now

Below is the complete shootout stamper sheet for a rock record whose name we do not plan to reveal at this time.

We could reveal it, since knowing the “right” stamper numbers appears to be of no help at all — the best stampers and the worst stampers are exactly  the same stampers! (Nothing new there.)

RL stands for Robert Ludwig and MD stands for Masterdisk.  As you can see, Robert Ludwig cut all seven of the pressings that made it to the shootout.

One of them actually won. “Robert Ludwig’s stuff cannot be beat!” might be the post on whatever audiophile forum you frequent. (If it’s Hoffman’s forum, it would more likely read “Robert Ludwig’s stuff cannot be beat except by Steve Hoffman!”)

Another pressings with those same markings came in next to last, with such mediocre-at-best sound that it would not qualify as a Hot Stamper at all. (1.5+ on both sides or better is the minimum grade for any record we sell.)

Robert Ludwig really screwed up the mastering of this title, another forum member might post.

Can they both be wrong? Of course they can. When has any information posted on a forum been reliable or free from error?

If you were to tell me you have the Robert Ludwig-mastered original pressing for this record and it sounds amazing, I would be inclined to agree with you that that is very possible. If, on the other hand, you were to tell me you have the Robert Ludwig-mastered original pressing for this record and it sounds terrible, I would say I happen to know firsthand that that’s possible too.

The most likely sound for any copy you might have is “good, not great,” because only two copies earned grades of 2+ or better on both sides. Two out of seven. (Which is disappointing because it hurts our bottom line when so few copies in a shootout will end up selling for much more than we invested in them in money and labor.)

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Why are the First Pressings of this Title the Worst Sounding?

Hot Stamper Pressings of Recordings by Decca Available Now

The record you see pictured is not the record we are discussing in this posting. The stamper numbers you see below belong to a different album.

We’ve lately been giving out much more stamper information than we used to, but for now we are keeping this title close to the vest.

We happen to know the best stampers for this album, but somehow a copy with the “bad” stampers ended up in our shootout. It did about as badly as they usually do.

Of course, the person sitting in the listening chair had no idea that a copy with the worst stampers was playing. The jackets and labels of this pressing are identical to the copies with the good stampers.

He simply heard what the recording actually sounds like when it’s mastered badly and registered his complaints.

Side One

  • Dull and crude. Old school.
  • 1+

Side Two

  • So metallic and crude and lo-fi. Nasty!
  • NFG

Apparently Mr. D, real name: Jack Law, did a piss-poor job mastering this album. Another engineer would come along sooner or later and master the record right, so right that it became one of our favorite Demo Discs for sound and performance.

How did this pig’s ear eventually manage to become a silk purse?

Simple. It was always a great recording, it just needed to be mastered right, and whoever got the job to remaster it knocked it out of the park the first time through.

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Is CTFR-1 Dark and Congested, or Flat and Bright?

Hot Stamper Pressings of Mercury Classical Records Available Now

For Mercury classical and orchestral recordings, the original RFR-1 pressings on the plum label are the way to go, right? 

In some cases, yes. The first pressings of Mercury albums often win our shootouts.

And for both sides of a copy to win a shootout, like our gold promo seen in the stamper sheet below, everything about the pressing must be right. We call records that win their shootout, earning 3+ grades on both sides, Top Shelf pressings. They are rare and special enough to have a section of their own on the site (which, as of this writing, has all of 19 records in it.)

What we find to be interesting about this specific shootout, however, is that we had two later pressings, both with the same stampers, and they sounded markedly different from each other. (Note that the stamper numbers you see below belong to a different album than the one shown above.)

If a collector were to tell you that that the CTFR pressings tend to be dark and congested, and you owned one with the exact same stampers, CTFR-1, you might be inclined to agree with this person.

But if you were the owner of the copy we played that was flat and bright, again, with CTFR-1 in the dead wax of both sides, you would think this person was 1.) Out of his mind, or, 2.) Deaf as a post, or, 3.) The owner of some very inaccurate playback equipment.

He could be all three, but in this case, an unusual one to be sure, his copy of the album doesn’t tell you anything about the sound of your copy of the album. They could match, or they could be completely different. Some records are like that. Not all that many, but definitely some.

Sample Sizes and One Man Bands

Those of us who play a variety of pressings of the same album know how easy it is to draw mistaken conclusions about records. CTFR-1 on this title is the perfect example of a record whose stampers don’t tell you much about its sound. (Even RFR-1 on side one of one copy was no better than “good,” quite a long ways from the best.)

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How Is It that the Earliest Pressings from the Tube Era Often Lack the Sound of Tubes?

Hot Stamper Pressings of Music on Island Records Available Now

Please note that the album you see pictured on the left is not the one we are discussing here.

It has been our experience going back many years that the earliest pressings for many records on the Island label are not very good.

To be fair, this one — again, not Mr. Fantasy — is not a bad sounding pressing.

With grades of 1.5+ on both sides, it fits comfortably in our section for good, not great sounding LPs. But the right reissues are a big step up in class sonically. They’re the ones that win shootouts, not these Pink Label LPs.

It’s big and clear but dry and spitty and badly needs tubes — or the sound of tubes — in the cutting chain.

That’s not supposed to happen, the early pressings are supposed to be the most Tubey Magical ones, with the reissues being less Tubey Magical — but in the world of records, when has that rule of thumb ever counted for anything?

Been There, Done That

We’ve run into so many sonically-flawed Pink Label Islands by now that hearing one sound lackluster if not actually awful doesn’t phase us in the least. Some of the other Pink Labels that never win shootouts can be found here.

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Buy Promos, Don’t Buy Promos — Honestly, Just Make Up Your Mind

Hot Stamper Pressings of Vintage Columbia Albums Available Now

Recently we conducted a shootout for a Columbia recording of jazz fusion music, one that we had auditioned a couple of times before and one for which we knew the music and the general quality of the sound well.

It’s not the record you see pictured. For now we’re keeping the title a mystery, consistent with the idea that we give out lots of bad stampers on this blog, sometimes really bad stampers, but almost never do we give out the good ones.

All the copies we had in our shootout were pressed domestically, and all were mastered by the legendary Robert Ludwig. No Nice Price junk, no imports, none of that crap. We might have made those mistakes in previous shootouts, but having done this shootout a number of times now, we know what works and what doesn’t.

When we do give out the best stampers, as in the case here, we tend to keep the title a mystery. We are not the least bit interested in putting ourselves out of business.

The discussion for today revolves around the idea held by a great many audiophiles that the promo pressings are going to be the best sounding pressings of almost any album they might happen to run across.

And, to be fair, in the case of this mysterious album, they’re potentially right.

Our best sounding copy was a promo pressing.

What interests me in these findings is that the other promo copy, the one you see at the bottom of the shootout sheet, earned 1.5+ on both sides. It came in last in the shootout, earning good, not great Hot Stamper grades.

If an audiophile collector were to go to Discogs, find the promo pressings, write down their stampers, and then check them against the copies he owned or might want to buy, he could either find himself with a top quality copy, or a far-from-as-good copy, depending on his luck.

Why one set of stampers sounds so much better than another set, or the same or similar set on a different pressing, is a mystery.

Does anyone have a practical way to get around the unfortunate reality that allows one set of stampers to sound great and the same or a similar set of stampers to sound not much better than decent?

Well, we can’t say there is a practical way, but we do know of an impractical one. We’ve been practicing and refining that one for more than twenty years.

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On this Wonderful Sounding London, Is Ted Burkett’s 2G Stamper the Way to Go?

Hot Stamper Pressings of Recordings by Decca Available Now

Before we go any further, let me say that the record you see pictured is not the record whose shootout and stampers we are about to discuss.

Yes, that’s right, the stamper numbers you see below belong to a different album.

We’ve lately been giving out much more stamper information than we used to, but for now we are keeping this title close to the vest.

What can we learn about the best sounding pressings of this vintage Decca recording, mastered by Mr. E and Mr. G, both outstanding mastering engineers?

It seems that Mr. G cut the better sounding pressing, our shootout winner as a matter of fact, but I can’t say whether the pressing that won was an original, since there were two differently-mastered Blueback pressings in the shootout, and one of them came in tied for last.

It was actually beaten by two copies of the Whiteback reissue. Those seem to be made from the same stampers as the winning pressing, but are those stampers the earliest or did they come later? Who knows?

Mr E. cut a version of the record that was quite a bit less impressive than most of the others, earning grades of 1.5 on side one and 2+ on side two.

Side one was dry and flat, side two rich but hard. We hear a lot of records with these shortcomings. If you play lots of classical music on vintage vinyl, you should be hearing them too.

And Your Point Is?

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Hungarian Rhapsodies 1, 4, 5 & 6 – Wait a Minute

Hot Stamper Pressings of Orchestral Spectaculars Available Now

1963 was a phenomenal year for audiophile quality recordings, but this is not one of the better records produced that year. Far from it.

The sound of our vintage Mercury here, SR 90371, was awful. The overall sound was crude and the strings were shrill.

It has been our experience that many Mercury recordings suffer from these shortcomings.

But wait a minute.

Dorati recorded Hungarian Rhapsodies 2 and 3 with the London Symphony for Mercury, and those can sound amazing when you get hold of a good one.

How did they get this one so wrong?

We don’t know, and we doubt anyone else does either.

Like so many realities of the world of records, it’s a mystery, one that is very unlikely to be solved.

One of the best reasons mysteries such as this have little chance of being solved is that no one with any real expertise, using methodologies that are reliable and reproducible in any serious way, is taking on this kind of work — besides us.

We actually like testing records, and we refined* a method for doing it that is as reliable and reproducible as any method can be in the world of audio: the record shootout.

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