Label Advice

Some of the titles listed here have better sound on labels that many record collectors would probably not assume would be the best.

Other titles have inferior sound based on the labels we’ve identified in these listings.

Keep in mind that all the practical advice you see here is based solely on the numerous experiments we’ve run and the data we’ve collected from them.

White Dogs or Shaded Dogs on the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2?

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Titles Available Now

UPDATE 2024

The review you see below is quite old. We no longer agree with the statement we made back then that the White Dog pressings are better sounding than the Shaded Dogs.

In our recent shootout, the first one I can remember since 2005 — that was 20 years ago! — the White Dogs did not do nearly as well as the Shaded Dogs we played.

This White Dog pressing is the best sounding copy I’ve ever heard, much better than the earlier pressings. The piano doesn’t break up like it does on those, especially in the second movement.

Finally the piano sounds right – solid and with the correct overtones. It goes without saying that this is an exceptionally good performance as well.

One of the best of the Cliburn recordings which, as you may know, are rarely any good, the worst of them being LSC 2252 and the best of them being, probably, LSC 2507.

Seems we got some of this one wrong. Live and learn is our motto, with mea culpa running a close second.

It’s possible that our mistaken judgment about the superiority of the White Dog pressings in 2005 was mostly the result of sample sizes that were much too small. However, I was operating as a one man band back when I was doing all the classical shootouts, so my chances of getting the wrong answer were fairly high, a reality I have documented on this blog in some detail.

I also was not able to clean the records under comparison very well, a problem that has been solved — and then some — by a great many improvements in techniques, machinery and fluids over the last twenty years.

What we could do back then and what we can do now, after twenty years of constant improvement, are as different as night and day, a subject we write about quite a bit under the heading of audio progress.

I’ve also made a habit of admitting my mistakes in the hopes that other audiophile reviewers would consider following suit. To my knowledge this has yet to happen, but hope springs eternal!

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Out To Lunch on Liberty UA – “The Worst. So Metallic.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of Blue Note Albums Available Now

In our review for the White Hot Stamper shootout winner of Out to Lunch we played in 2023, we wrote:

Out To Lunch is finally back on the site after a four year hiatus, here with INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound throughout this early pressing.

Dolphy’s debut for Blue Note is an absolute knockout musically, and the quality of the sound on this pressing was everything we could have hoped for.

Both of these sides are amazingly transparent, with stunning immediacy and exceptional clarity – thanks, RVG!

Bobby Hutcherson murders on the vibes on this album – hearing his stellar, groundbreaking work played back on a Top Shelf (3+/3+) copy through a high-end stereo is nothing less than a thrill.

Turn this one up good and loud and revel in the glory that is Out To Lunch, the man’s Masterpiece, and a Must Own jazz album from 1964.

However, if you made the mistake of buying a Black and Blue Liberty UA label pressing, the one that came out in 1970, what you heard bears absolutely no resemblance to the glorious sound we describe above.

Black & light blue label with Blue Note 70’s logo in a square on left, Liberty UA. Inc., Los Angeles, California text on bottom. Runout is etched apart from “VAN GELDER” and “STEREO” that is stamped.

Yes, it may have been mastered by RVG himself, but it sure doesn’t sound much like the better pressings of the album we played in our shootout.

You might think that if Rudy recorded it, he should have known how to master it, so why pay the big bucks for the originals when the man himself was still cutting Blue Note pressings as late as 1970.

Seems like a good rule of thumb to follow, but in this case, it turns out to be a badly mistaken one.

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Stick with the Tri-Tone Stereo Originals on Swing Along with Me

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Frank Sinatra Available Now

When advising our fellow audiophiles about how to find the best sounding pressings, we tend to favor discussions about records in which the original is not the best over records in which the right reissue is not the best. (And there are practically discussions for when the modern reissue is the best. Just one so far!)

The same would be true for English bands whose records sound better when they are made in any country other than England, bands whose recordings you may think you know well, such as Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath.

You might say our record collecting philosophy revolves aroung the contrarian idea that rules were made to be broken.

But let’s face it, most record collecting rules hold up most of the time. That’s how they got to be rules.

In the case of Sinatra’s Swing Along with Me album from 1961, the second label reissues which came along later in the 60s are not merely a shadow of the originals. They’re nothing like the originals.

Side one was so gritty and hot (bright) that we couldn’t even be bothered to play side two. Trust me, you do not want to play a vintage Sinatra record that is gritty and hot.

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These Pink Label Pressings Can Sound Good, But Great? Not a Chance

Hot Stamper Pressings of Music on Island Records Available Now

Below you will see the bottom part of the stamper sheet for a shootout we did recently.

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

It very well could have been been a Jethro Tull album, but all we can say for sure is that it was definitely an album on Island, which just happens to be one of our favorite labels, for sound and music.

The earliest pressings for many records on the Island label are not very good. This one — again, not for This Was, for some other record — 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 from the 70s 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 in the cutting chain.

Do the record collectors who prize the Pink Label pressings above all others notice these things?

Do the audiophiles who play them?

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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What to Do When Early Warner Bros. Pressings Have Bad Sound

More Label Advice for Audiophiles

There are a lot of Green Label Warner Bros. records from the 60s and 70s that sound dark, murky, recessed and so on.

The shortcomings we list below are hardly exhaustive but they should help you make a good start. Click on any link to see the pressings we have identified with that specific problem.

But the later label LPs are rarely any better and more often than not much, much worse. When you play most of them, it’s obvious that their mastering engineers have gone overboard in cleaning up the murk, leaving a sound that is lean, flat and modern — in other words, unmusical, inappropriate and more often than not disastrous.

But don’t get us wrong, there are plenty of good ones. On this blog we’ve taken the time to identify the Green Label Warner Bros. records with the potential to win shootouts. (Potential is the key word in that sentence.)

Finding the right balance of fullness and clarity may not be easy, but for most Warner Bros. albums it can be done. It’s what we get paid to do, and there’s no reason you can’t do the same thing at home as long as you make sure to follow our approach.

That Old Record Sound

The world is full of old records that just sound like old records. We’ve suffered through them by the tens of thousands.

The average record we play tends to suffer from some of these faults. It might be:

Our website, as well as this blog, are devoted to helping audiophiles find pressings that don’t sound anything like the millions of run-of-the-mill LPs that were stamped out over the last seven decades with no concern for sound quality.

Even a million dollar stereo can’t make the average record sound good, and the more accurate and revealing the system, the more limited and lifeless — relatively speaking of course — the average record will show itself to be.

Average records don’t sound like our amazingly good shootout winning copies, but they look just like them, and that’s what makes finding them so difficult. For classical and orchestral music, the effort required must be seen as the work of a lifetime.

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How Would You Ever Know This Was a Good Recording with these Crap Pressings to Play?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beach Boys Available Now

You sure wouldn’t know this was a good recording by playing the crappy reissues Capitol put out on the Yellow Label in 1975.
We found that they tend to suffer from these sonic shortcomings:
They are either dark and recessed, and/or murky and smeary.

There are good Rainbow Label pressings and bad ones. We of course only sell the good ones.

Here is how we described our most recent White Hot shootout winner.
  • With two STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides or close to them, this early Capitol pressing could not be beat.
  • This copy gets the midrange right, and since that is where The Beach Boys’ voices are, that puts it ahead of everything else we heard.
  • What’s shocking to those of us who have played The Beach Boys records by the bucketful is how rich and open the best pressings of this album are.
  • You will have an awfully hard time finding another Beach Boys album that sounds as good as this one, and you may just find that it simply can’t be done.

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What to Listen For on Birds of Fire

Hot Stamper Pressings of Jazz-Rock Fusion Albums Available Now

Birds of Fire as a recording is not about depth or soundstage or ambience.

It’s about immediacy, plain and simple.

All the lead instruments positively jump out of the speakers — if you are lucky enough to be playing the right pressing.

This is precisely what we want our best Hot Stampers to do. In most cases, the better they do it, the higher their grade will be.

The main problem with this record is a lack of midrange presence. If the keyboards, drums and guitars are not front and center, your copy does not have the presence it should. On the best copies the musicians are right in the room with you. We know this for a fact because we heard the copies that could present them that way, and we heard it more than once.

Which of course gets to the reason shootouts are the only real way to learn about records.

The best copies will show you qualities in the sound you had no way of knowing were there. Without the freakishly good pressings you run into by chance in a shootout you have no way to know how high is up. On this record up is very high indeed.

A True Demo Disc

Birds of Fire is one of the top two or three Jazz/Rock Fusion Albums of All Time. In my experience, few recordings within this genre can begin to compete with the Dynamics and Energy of the best pressings of the album — if you have the Big Dynamic system for it.

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The First Two Roxy Music Albums Are the Band’s Best Sounding

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Roxy Music Available Now

For Your Pleasure is a Masterpiece of Art Rock, Glam Rock and Bent Rock all rolled into one. AMG calls Roxy Music the “most adventurous rock band of the early ’70s” and I’m inclined to agree with them.

Spacious, dynamic, present, with HUGE MEATY BASS and tons of energy, the sound is every bit as good as the music. (At least on the best copies it is. That’s precisely what Hot Stampers are all about.)

Strictly in terms of recording quality, For Your Pleasure is on the same plane as the other best sounding record the band ever made, their first.

Siren, Avalon and Country Life are all musically sublime, but the first album and Pleasure are the only two with the kind of dynamic, energetic, POWERFUL sound that Roxy’s other records simply cannot show us (with the exception of Country Life, was is powerful but a bit too aggressive).

The super-tubey keyboards that anchor practically every song on the first two albums are only found there. If you want to know what Tubey Magic sounds like in 1972-73, play one of our better Hot Stamper Roxy albums. Roxy and their engineers and producers manage to capture a keyboard sound on their first two albums that few bands in the history of the world can lay claim to.

I love the band’s later albums, but none of them sound like these two. The closest one can get is Stranded, their third, but it’s still a bit of a step down.

Chris Thomas and John Punter

With all the latest technological advances in playback, I can tell you that these records sound a whole lot better than I ever thought they could.

For Your Pleasure is an amazing recording. Chris Thomas produced side one; he produced the rest of their albums (and engineered The Beatles and Badfinger and mixed Dark Side of the Moon and on and on).

The album has many of his trademark qualities: an enormous, 3-dimensional soundstage; tons of bass; tremendous dynamics; and energy to rival anything around.

John Punter‘s engineering is superb in all respects — virtually faultless.

Big Rock Records with Big Rock Sound

Both of these albums are the very definition of big speaker albums. The better pressings have the kind of ENERGY in their grooves that are sure to have most audiophile systems begging for mercy.

This is The Audio Challenge that awaits you. If you don’t have a system designed to play records with this kind of SONIC POWER, don’t expect to hear them the way the band and those involved in their productions wanted you to.

This album wants to rock your world, and that’s exactly what our Hot Stamper pressings are especially good at doing.

Roxy Music is one of the most influential and important artists/bands in my growth as a music lover and audiophile, joining the ranks of Steely Dan, 10cc, Ambrosia, Yes, Bowie, Supertramp, Eno, Talking Heads, Jethro Tull, Elton John, The Beatles, Crosby, Stills and Nash, The Cars, Led Zeppelin, Cat Stevens and countless others, musicians and bands who dedicated themselves to making the highest quality recordings they could, recordings that could only come alive in the homes of those with the most advanced audio equipment.

My system was forced to evolve in order to reproduce the scores of challenging recordings issued by these groups in the 70s.

It’s clear that these albums informed not only my taste in music, but the actual stereo I play that music on. It’s what progress in audio is all about. I created the system I have in order to play demanding recordings such as these, the music I fell in love with all those years ago.

Want to find your own killer copies?

Consider taking our moderately helpful advice concerning the pressings that have been winning our Hot Stamper shootouts for years. For Your Pleasure and the first album only really come alive:

Of course it needs to be played loud. What Roxy Music album doesn’t?

Furthermore, the better copies sound their best:

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Hot Stamper Sharing Can’t Get Off the Ground, How Come?

Basic Concepts and Record Realities Explained 

The above link takes you to our blog. Normally such a link would take you to our in-stock Hot Stamper pressings on the site for the band in question, but we rarely have any Traffic albums to sell these days, which is the case as of this writing.

Finding just the right Traffic pressings, with audiophile-quality vinyl no less, requires effort and resources that we just haven’t been committing to lately. We hope to do better in 2025.

In 2014 somebody on the Hoffman forum tried to get a Hot Stamper thread going under this heading: cheap Hot Stampers revealed.

The thread:

“If you have a “hot stamper” record – one that smokes and takes no prisoners, I mean a BADASS pressing, show it here with matrix info, label or other identifying features so we can all hunt with a bit of a head-start.

“I know these records are out there, just looking for a place to show off their analog glory.

“Here is a recent find that fits the bill and then some:

“Traffic: Best Of Traffic UK.

“Matrix # ILPS 9112 A-1/B-1”

OK, let’s talk about this Island reissue. We know the record well. If it sounds the way the copies we played over the years have sounded, we would say it can be good, not great, and if it qualified for Hot Stamper status, it might — might — earn a plus and a half at best. (1.5+.)

We don’t even bother to pick them up at any price these days, if that tells you anything.

He got very little support in his endeavor. The thread closed after a while with practically nothing in it.

Could it be that the folks on the Hoffman forum have a poor grasp of the amount of effort, time and money it takes to find Hot Stampers?

And, having committed to neither the effort, the time nor the money, find that they have nothing of any value to contribute to such a list?  

Yes, that could be. That definitely could be. Thank god it doesn’t keep them from criticizing those of us who, working in concert with a staff of ten or so, have devoted ourselves to the task and found them by the thousands.

By the way, we know that Traffic title very well. The Pink Label original is by far the best pressing in our experience. No copy we have ever heard on the label promoted by this poster would qualify as much more than a bargain Hot Stamper in comparison to the Pink Label and Pink Rim label pressings that we sell, although of course, not having heard his copy, we can’t say it’s not fabulous. 

It’s just not very likely to be fabulous. 

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Talk About Getting the Sound Wrong – What Was Decca Thinking?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Rolling Stones Available Now

Even though we know that the UK Decca pressings have not done well in our shootouts for more years than I care to remember, if we see one for cheap locally you know we’re going to buy it and get it another chance at the brass ring no matter how many times it’s failed in the past.

As you can see from our shootout notes, the Decca import has once again let us down.

It’s bright, with no warmth or weight. It’s not musical like the London pressings with the right stampers are.

If a certain kind of audiophile were to play this record, the kind of audiophile who might be given to simplistic conclusions based on insufficiently small sets of data — which, in our experience, pretty much covers the entire audiophile record collector community, including, if not especially, the so-called expert reviewers — the conclusion such a person might reach is that Beggars Banquet is just not very well recorded.

If Decca pressings don’t sound good, what on earth would?

Or, to put it another way, if Decca, the label that the Stones recorded this album for, can’t figure out how to make Beggars sound its best, why would we assume that any other company could?

We would, naturally, assume that Decca did the best they could with the tape and the mediocre quality of the sound you hear — 1+/1.5+ is pretty much our definition of mediocre — is all there is.

The Option that Is Almost Always Wrong

Worse — if a new Heavy Vinyl pressing of the album came out with even halfway-decent sound, then it would prove beyond a doubt that some modern mastering engineer had finally figured out how to get Beggars to sound right.

But of course it would prove no such thing.

If all you have to guide you is conventional collector wisdom, then the one thing you can be sure of is that the Decca pressing from the UK should have better sound than any other, especially any record made in the states.

But it doesn’t. It’s possible I suppose – we haven’t played every pressing ever made – but it sure is unlikely based on the evidence presented to our ears over the course of the last twenty to thirty years or so.

If you would like to hear Beggars Banquet sound right, and have the hundreds of dollars we charge for a copy that is guaranteed to sound right or your money back, click on the link. It’s rare that we have one in stock, but you never know.

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