*Moderately Helpful Title-Specific Advice

The Who – Our First Big Shootout Took Place Way Back in 2008

More of the Music of The Who

More of the Most Tubey Magical Rock Recordings of All Time

Our notes from 2008. Much has changed since then!

This British Track Black Label pressing DEMOLISHED our expectations for this album. I don’t think I’ve ever heard The Who sound this good.

Three out of four sides rate our top grade of A+++, and side three ain’t far behind at A++. What do such high grades give you for this album? Tubey magical guitars, silky vocals with lots of texture, unbelievable weight to the bottom end, “you are there” immediacy, BIG drums sound, OFF THE CHARTS rock and roll energy, and shocking clarity and transparency.

This is only the second $1000 Hot Stamper we’ve ever listed on the site. We know there’s always a rise in trash talk on the vinyl message boards when we throw this kind of record on the site, but we can’t worry about that silly business. Our job is to find you guys the best of the best, and here’s a record that we’re very proud to put at the very top of our top shelf.

Story Of The Shootout

We’ve never been able to pull off a full Tommy shootout until now. We had played enough copies to figure out that the Track originals are really the only way to go, but who can find even one clean copy these days, let alone enough to do a shootout?

[This is before Discogs got up and running. You can buy Tommy all day long up there, and Ebay too. You may end up with lots of noisy copies, but at least you can find them.]

This is where you come in, loyal customer. The prices we charge on records like this allow us to spare little expense when it comes to acquiring important LPs. So when we saw a $200 Original British pressing on the wall at a Amoeba recently, we were able to splurge on it.

How did it turn out? Well, by the time I invested the labor in it to clean it and evaluate it, we definitely won’t be making a dime on that one. (Of course, keep in mind that it inspired us to finally move on this shootout, so in that sense it was well worth it.)

It’s a nice copy, but a hefty price tag and a prime spot on the wall can’t tell you a thing about how a record sounds. Keep that in mind the next time you see an expensive record at your local store or on Ebay that has you hot and bothered. We may charge a lot for our Hot Stampers, but at least when you buy one you are GUARANTEED good sound.

I don’t know of another Who album with such consistently good sound — song to song, not copy to copy, of course. Just about every song on here can sound wonderful on the right pressing. If you’re lucky enough to get a Hot Stamper copy, you’re going to be blown away by the tubey magical guitars, the rock-solid bottom end, the jumpin’-out-of-the-speakers sound, and the silky quality to the vocals and the top end. Usually, the best we can give you for The Who is “crude, but correct”, but on Tommy, the late 60s analog magic is here!

We Finally Broke Through in 2008

Before 2008 we still had a lot to learn. We needed to do more research and development, which of course we are doing regularly with Classic Rock records, our bread and butter and the heart of our business. We do them as often as is practical, considering how difficult it is to find copies with audiophile playing surfaces.

In 2008 we finally made the breakthrough we had worked so hard to achieve.

Want to find your own top quality copy?

Consider taking our moderately helpful advice concerning the pressings that tend to win our shootouts.

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Cream / Disraeli Gears – Live and Learn

More of the Music of Cream

More of the Music of Eric Clapton

A classic case of Live and Learn

Our shootout quite a while ago for Cream’s classic second album provided proof positive that We Was Wrong when we said:

No reissue we’ve ever played sounded especially good and none likely ever will.

Ah, but some do! We would love to tell you exactly what to look for so that you can go find one yourself, but that’s bad for business as I’m sure you will agree.

We also have to admit to being wrong about this:

If you’re expecting Sunshine of Your Love to rock on record like you remember it rockin’ on the radio back in the day, forget it. When you heard that song your brain added the bass and dynamics that are missing from the record. Either that or you did it through the loudness control on your old receiver. There’s maybe five db of dynamic range on that song and there can never be more than that.

We discovered that there are copies with dynamic vocals on that track.

The vocals are practically the only thing that do get loud, and they only get loud on some of the copies we played.

Likewise, on some copies the drums have much more body and punch than than they do on most.

So, when it comes to bass and dynamics, yes, some copies have some, maybe even more than you remember.

Heavy compression created the sound you heard on the radio, added to the compression that is already baked into the mix and whatever amount was added in mastering.

We Admit It

Yes, as is clear from the above, we was wrong. It’s not the first time and it sure won’t be the last. We happily admit to our mistakes because we know that all this audio stuff and especially the search for Hot Stampers is a matter of trial and error. We do the trials; that’s how we avoid the kinds of errors most audiophiles and audiophile record dealers make when it comes to finding the best sounding records. Of course, being human we can’t help but make our share of mistakes. The difference is that we learn from them. We report the facts to the best of our ability every time out. Every record gets a chance to show us what it’s made of, regardless of where it was made, who made it or why they made it. (Like anybody cares.)

If we used to like it and now we don’t, that’s what you will read in our commentary. Our obligation is to only one person: you, the listener. (Even better: you, the customer. Buy something already!)

On every shootout we do now, if the notes are more than six months old we toss them out. They mean nothing. Things have changed, radically, and that’s the way it should be. With each passing year you should be hearing more of everything in your favorite LPs. That’s the thrill of this hobby — those silly old records just keep getting better! (I wish someone could figure out how to make digital get better. They’ve had twenty five years and it still leaves me cold. You too I’m guessing.)

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Richard & Linda Thompson – What to Listen For

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Richard (and Linda) Thompson

More Records with Specific Advice on What to Listen For

The biggest problems with this record would be obvious to even the casual listener: gritty, spitty vocals; lack of richness; lack of bass; no real space or transparency, etc. etc.

When we came across this killer copy in our most recent shootout, we knew we had something special as it had very few of the problems above. 

The Carthage pressings did not do nearly as well in our shootout as the best imports, no surprise there as the early UK Island records were mastered by one of our favorite engineers.

Avoid the original domestic Island pressings mastered by Kendun. They come in last in our shootouts.

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The Yes Album – What a Recording!

Hot Stamper Pressings of The Yes Album Available Now

A Demo Discs for Big Speakers that Play at Loud Levels

At its best, this album is a Big Speaker Prog-Rock opus with tremendous power and dynamic range, but it takes a special pressing to really bring the album to life. 

These guys — and by that I mean this particular iteration of the band, the actual players that were involved in the making of this album — came together for the first time and created the sound of Yes on this very album, rather aptly titled when you think about it.

With the amazing Eddie Offord at the board, as well as the best batch of songs ever to appear on a single Yes album, they produced both their sonic and musical masterpiece — good news for audiophiles with Big Speakers!

Drop the needle on a top copy and you will find yourself on a Yes journey the likes of which you have never known.

And that’s what I’m in this audiophile game for.

The Heavy Vinyl crowd can have their dead-as-a-doornail, wake-me-when-it’s-over pressings that are cheap to buy and play quietly enough.

I couldn’t sit through one with a gun to my head.

This is some of the best High-Production-Value rock music of the ’70s. The amount of effort that went into the recording of this album is comparable to that expended by the engineers and producers of bands like Supertramp, ELP, The Who, Jethro Tull, Ambrosia, Pink Floyd and far too many others to list.

It seems that no effort or cost was spared in making the home listening experience as compelling as the recording technology of the day permitted.

Big Production Tubey Magical British Prog Rock just doesn’t get much better than The Yes Album.

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Roxy Music – Import Vinyl? Not So Fast

More of the Music of Bryan Ferry

More of the Music of Roxy Music

Siren is one of our favorite Roxy albums, right up there with the first album and well ahead of the commercially appealing Avalon. After reading a rave review in Rolling Stone of the album back in 1975, I took the plunge, bought a copy at my local Tower Records and instantly fell in love with it.

As is my wont, I then proceeded to work my way through their earlier catalog, which was quite an adventure. It takes scores of plays to understand where the band is coming from on the early albums and what it is they’re trying to do. Now I listen to each of the first five releases on a regular basis.

Somehow they never seem to get old, even after more than forty years.

Of all the Roxy albums (with the exception of Avalon) this is probably the best way “in” to the band’s music. The earlier albums are more raucous, the later ones more rhythmically driven — Siren catches them at their peak, with, as other reviewers have noted, all good songs and no bad ones.

Imports? Not So Fast

The British and German copies of Siren are clearly made from dub tapes and sound smeary, small and lifeless.

To be fair, Siren has never impressed us as an exceptionally good sounding recording. Like other middle period Roxy, records such as Country Life and Manifesto (the albums just before and after), it simply does not have Demo Disc analog sound the way Avalon, Stranded or the Self-Titled albums do (the latter two clearly being the best sounding in their catalog).

One would be tempted to assume that the import pressings of Siren would be better sounding, the way the imports of the first four Roxy albums are clearly better sounding. (There has never been a domestic Hot Stamper pressing of any of those titles and, since we never buy them or play them, there probably never will be.)

But in the case of Siren it’s the imports that are made from dubs. It may be a British band, recorded in British studios with a British producer, but the British pressed LPs are clearly made from sub-generation tapes, whereas the domestic copies sound like they’re made from the real masters.

Go Figure. And another thing: when it comes to records, never assume.

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Badfinger – Porky Not So Prime Cut

More of the Music of Badfinger

Reviews and Commentaries for Badfinger

British Band, British Pressing… Right?

Nope. It’s just another Record Misunderstanding.

We had an original British pressing in our shootout, unbeknownst to me as it was playing of course. And guess where it finished: dead last. The most thick, congested, crude, distorted, compressed sound of ALL the copies we played. We love the work of Porky, Pecko, et al. in general, but once again this is a case where a British Band recorded in England sounds best on domestic vinyl. (McCartney’s first album on Apple is the same way.)

Just saw this today (11/29/2021)

On November 18, 2019, a fellow on Discogs who goes by the name of Dodgerman had this to say referencing the original UK pressing of Straight Up, SAPCOR 19:

So Happy, to have a first UK press, of this lost gem. Porky/Pecko

Like many record collectors, he is happy to have a mediocre-at-best, dubby-sounding original pressing, poorly mastered by a famous mastering engineer, George Peckham, a man we know from extensive experience to be responsible for cutting some of the best sounding records we’ve ever played. He is one of the greats.

Is Dodgerman an audiophile? He could be! Many audiophiles employ this kind of mistaken audiophile thinking, believing that a British band’s albums must sound their best on British vinyl for some reason, possibly a cosmic one.

Those of us who actually play lots of records and listen to them critically know that that is simply not true and never has been.

How did we come by that information?

By conducting carefully controlled experiments to find out.

We don’t guess. We don’t assume.

We just play lots and lots of records and find out which ones sound better and which ones sound worse.

To be fair, we have played exactly one copy of the album with Porky/Pecko stampers. Did we get a bad one and the gentleman quoted above got a good one? Nobody knows, because nobody can know with a great deal more evidence to make the case one way or the other. Would we buy another Porky pressing? If we found one for cheap, sure. But that is not very likely to happen. Those kinds of records are not cheap these days.

If you have a great sounding UK copy, we would love to hear it. Until then we remain skeptical.

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Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers – Spitty and Gritty? Too Lean and Clean?

More of the Music of Tom Petty

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Tom Petty

Notes from an early shootout. Scroll down to the bottom for our advice on what to look for when buying a copy of the album.

Big and punchy with great energy, this copy really rocks.

And rockin’ is what this album is all about — this is fun, high-energy music, but it takes a Hot Stamper copy like this to bring it life.

This is the classic first album, with two of their best songs: Breakdown and American Girl. It’s straight ahead rock and roll, with sonics to match.

The sound is a little spitty and transistory as a rule. But when you find a copy with Hot Stampers, the elements start to work together, and the good far outweighs the bad. If somebody tried to EQ this album differently, they’d probably end up taking away some of the Raw Rock Energy.

(By the way, American Girl never sounds all that great. That song needs more whomp! No copy had quite what we were looking on that song, but the Hot Stamper copies were at very least lively, musical, and not overly transistory.)

Breakdown is KILLER!

I mentioned above that Breakdown is one of the best songs on the album; fortunately, it’s also probably the best sounding song. On this great side one, it’s rich and full-bodied with real energy and presence. The overall sound is open and transparent, with more depth to the soundfield than we heard elsewhere. We were surprised how much these guys could sound like Steely Dan — just listen to the intro!

On many copies we played, Petty’s vocals were a bit lean for our tastes, and the guitars were a bit too clean — both of those elements really robbed the music of its power. Here, the voice is fuller, and you can really hear the meaty texture to the electric guitar; you can tell these guys were really rockin’ out! We didn’t hear sound this lively on any other side one we played, which made this our shootout champion at A+++.

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Electric Light Orchestra / On the Third Day – The British Imports Are Made from Dubs

More of the Music of The Electric Light Orchestra

More of Our Favorite Art Rock Records

Sonic Grade: F

It’s obvious, or should be, that the Brit vinyl is made from sub-generation copy tapes. The imports sound like someone threw a blanket over your speakers. We know this because we had a bunch of them cleaned up for our shootout many years ago and they all sucked.

We tend to buy Electric Light Orchestra records on import vinyl; those are the ones that often sound the best. Many of the domestic pressings sound as though they were mastered from dub tapes.

But On The Third Day is proof that this is not always the case, just as Siren proves that the best Roxy Music albums are not always British.

This record sounds best this way:

For those who might be interested in finding their own Hot Stamper pressings, we here provide

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The Doors – Bernie Leaned Out the Vocals on This One

More of the Music of The Doors

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of The Doors

Sonic Grade: D (at best)

A few years back we played the 180 gram reissue of Morrison Hotel that came out in 2009. Initially we thought it pretty good, but the longer it played, the more leaned-out and unpleasant it sounded.

Just listen to the vocals — they’re all wrong.

Jim Morrison has one of the richest and most distinctive baritone voices in the history of rock. When he doesn’t sound like the guy I’ve been listening to for more than forty years, something ain’t right.

And what ain’t right — not to put too fine a point on it — is the sound of that record.

Here are a few commentaries you may care to read about Bernie Grundman‘s work as a mastering engineer in the modern era. We much prefer the work he did back in the old days.

Moderately Helpful Title Specific Advice

The best Hot Stamper copies are always the earlier Big Red E label copies. There’s substantially more Tubey Magic on these pressings.

The typical Early Butterfly Label copy lacks the weight that the older cuttings had, often in spades. The best of these Butterfly Label copies can be passable, but they are not remotely competitive with the right originals.

Listening in Depth to the White Album

Hot Stamper Pressings of The White Album Available Now

Reviews and Commentaries for The White Album

More Albums with Key Tracks for Critical Listening

It’s exceedingly difficult to find audiophile quality sound on The White Album. The Beatles were breaking apart, often recording independently of each other, with their own favorite engineers as enablers, and George Martin nowhere to be found most of the time. They were also experimenting more and more with sound itself, which resulted in wonderful songs and interesting effects. However, these new approaches and added complexity often result in a loss of sonic “purity.”

Let’s face it, most audiophiles like simplicity: A female vocal, a solo guitar — these things are easy to reproduce and often result in pleasing sound, the kind of sound that doesn’t take a lot of expensive equipment or much effort to reproduce.

Dense mixes with wacky EQ are hard to reproduce (our famous Difficulty of Reproduction Scale comes into play here), and the White Album is full of that sound, taking a break for songs like Blackbird and Julia.

Some of the Tubey Magic that you hear on Pepper is gone for good. (Play With a Little Help from My Friends on a seriously good Hot Stamper pressing to see what has been lost forever. Lovely Rita would probably work just as well, too.)

TRACK LISTING

Side One

Looks at the lineup for side one. Is there a rock album on the planet with a better batch of songs?

Having done shootouts for the White Album by the score, we can also say with some certainty that side one is the most difficult side to find White Hot stamper sound for. It’s somewhat rare to find a side one that earns our top Triple Plus (A+++) sonic grade, even when all the other sides do. (Actually what happens more often than not is that we take the best second discs and mate them with the best first discs to make the grades consistent for the whole album. But don’t tell anybody.) (more…)