*Developing More Skepticism

Skeptical thinking is key to finding higher quality pressings.

Hot Stampers May or May Not Cause Cognitive Dissonance

Acquiring Better Sounding Records – Hot Stampers Versus Collectible Vinyl

Hot Stampers don’t always cause cognitive dissonance because some people never developed much in the way of critical listening skills. There are also other reasons, some of which we discuss below.

Without knowing what to listen for on a record, what are you left with? What aural information can you rely on?  None it seems.

If that is the case, all you can really go by are what your heroes — the mastering engineers who make audiophile recors — tell you. And these days you have so many great ones to choose from!

In the letter below I discuss with my good customer Aaron how to help his friend Jack come to a better understanding of the differences between various pressings of records, vintage LPs like the ones we sell, and the ones that have been remastered on Heavy Vinyl, like the one he already owns.

Head to head comparisons are the best way — practically the only way — to determine what a particular LP sounds like relative to another pressing. Basically, we want to know what the various strengths and weaknesses are for each of the pressings we are playing against each other.

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On Heroes, It Took Us Ages to Break the Sound Barrier

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of David Bowie Available Now

Because the conventional wisdom turned out to be so wrong.

Our intuition that the British originals of Heroes would sound the best was incorrect.

The experiments we carried out falsified that prediction.

In our world, intuitions have a bad track record, but more than a few audiophiles — many of whom are addicted to sharing their “record knowledge” on audiophile forums and youtube channels — seem unaware of the shortcomings of this approach.

Taking a page from one of the greatest minds of the 20th century, we’ve opted to use a more scientific approach in order to discover the record pressings that have by far the best soundi, and we encourage you to do likewise. 

We pioneered the evidence-based approach to finding the best sounding pressings, and, like all good scientists, we shared it with everyone. Some in the audiophile community have taken it to heart, but most have chosen to put their faith in reviewers, forum posters, common sense and logic.

None of these produce consistently good results, but those who use these methods are loathe to question them and only rarely if ever learn the error of their ways.

Once a decision has been made and a specific pressing acquired — you could call it door number three I suppose — cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias immediately kick in to justify the result, and soon enough the game is over. The prize has been won. It’s as good as it gets. Whatever faults it may have must lie in the recording, not the pressing.

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Advice for Testing So-Called “Hot Stampers”

What Are Hot Stamper Pressings and How Can I Find My Own?

UPDATE 2026

You might find the comments at the end of this one interesting.

Contemplating trying a money-back-guaranteed Hot Stamper pressing? Our good customer ab_ba has some advice on one of the best ways to go about it. He writes:

Pick out a Hot Stamper on the better-records site. (Choose something you know well, that you already have a few copies of. Pick a Super Hot Stamper, so it’s not absurdly expensive.)

First, see how it compares to your other copies. If it’s not as good, send it back, full refund, no questions asked.

Next, look at the matrix number on the Hot Stamper, and buy three copies on discogs in NM or VG+ condition with the same matrix. Or, go hunt around your local shop for same.

Then, once you get them, clean them to the best of your ability and then do another shootout. Just do it quick – you’ve got 29 days.

If you prefer one to your Hot Stamper, send back the Hot Stamper. No questions asked, and thank Tom for the matrix number.

I’ve done this a couple of times, and every time, I’ve kept the Hot Stamper. Wasted my time and money is all I did. That, and convinced myself Tom’s records are worth what he charges, in that I can’t get records that sound that good for less money.

Dear ab_ba,

Good advice, let’s hope some audiophiles take it. They might just find the world of better sound that’s waiting for them the way you did.

And if not, then they get their money back, no harm, no foul.

Thanks for writing,

TP

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Neil Young and the Limits of Expert Advice

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Neil Young Available Now

Richard Feynman gave a series of lectures concerning the workings of the scientific method. Here is an excerpt from one of them that I would like you to keep in mind as you read the discussion that follows. [Bolding added by me.]

Now I’m going to discuss how we would look for a new law. In general, we look for a new law by the following process. First, we guess it (audience laughter), no, don’t laugh, that’s the truth. Then we compute the consequences of the guess, to see what, if this is right, if this law we guess is right, to see what it would imply and then we compare the computation results to nature or we say compare to experiment or experience, compare it directly with observations to see if it works.

If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science.

It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are who made the guess, or what his name is … If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.

Back in 2015, a mastering engineer by the name of Phil Brown contacted me in reference to a Hot Stamper pressing of Neil Young’s  Zuma he had seen in our mailer. (Apologies in advance for not giving out the stamper numbers; we tend to frown on that sort of thing around here.) He wrote:

  Hey Tom,   

I see it’s a featured disc in the newsletter. I’m curious what the matrix numbers are since I mastered it.

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Caribou Is Usually Noisy and Sounds Bad, But Why?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Elton John Available Now

There’s a good reason you’ve practically never seen this album for sale on our site. In fact there are quite a number of good reasons.

The first one is bad vinyl — most DJM pressings of Caribou are just too noisy to sell. They can look perfectly mint and play noisy as hell; it’s not abuse, it’s bad vinyl.

Empty Sky is the same way; out and out bad vinyl, full of noise, grit and grain.

The second problem is bad sound. Whether it’s bad mastering or bad vinyl incapable of holding onto good mastering, no one can say. Since so many copies were pressed of this monster Number One album (topping the charts on both sides of the Atlantic):

  • Perhaps they pressed a few too many after the stampers were worn out.
  • Or pulled too many stampers off the mother.
  • Or made too many stampers from the father.
  • Or used crap vinyl right from the start.

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Symphonie Fantastique – Three Mastering Options

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Berlioz Available Now

UPDATE 2026

Years ago we played a reissue of the title you see pictured which prompted us to make some observations and ask some questions about the approach the mastering engineer might have taken.

And this one comes complete with the bonus 7″ entitled “Berlioz Takes a Trip,” in which Bernstein explores the work “with musical illustrations by the New York Philharmonic.”

Clocking in at around 45 minutes, Symphonie Fantastique is a difficult work to fit onto a single LP,  which means that the mastering engineer has three options when cutting the record:

  1. Compress the dynamics,
  2. Lower the level, or
  3. Filter the deep bass.

On this side two it seems that none of those approaches were taken by the engineer who cut this record in the early 80s — there’s plenty of bass, as well as powerful dynamics, and the levels seem fine.

How he do it? Who knows? Like so much in the world of records, it’s a mystery.

What’s Your Theory Then?

Side one, however, is bass shy. Did the engineer filter out the lower frequencies, or is it just a case of pressing variation being the culprit. Who can say?

If we had many more copies with these same stampers for side one, all with less bass, we might be able to draw a conclusion about that, one that might be highly probable but of course not dispositive, black swans being a regular part of our experience.

The very next copy we might find with those stampers could have plenty of bass.

Then we would be forced to say that our highly probable theory had been falsified conclusively.

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Dopey Record Theories – Putting Bad Ideas to the Test

Hot Stamper Pressing of the Music of Joni Mitchell Available Now

The discussion below was prompted by a stunning White Hot Stamper 2-pack that had just gone up on the site in 2018.

I implored the eventual purchaser to note that side two of record one has Joni sounding thin, hard and veiled. If you look at the stampers you can see it’s obviously cut by the same guy (no names please!), and we’re pretty sure both sides were stamped out at the same time of the day since it’s impossible to do it any other way.

What accounts for the amazing sound of one side and the mediocre sound of its reverse?

If your theory cannot account for these huge differences in sound, your theory is fatally flawed. 

Can anything be more ridiculous than the ad hoc, evidence-free theories of some audiophile record collectors desperately searching for a reason to explain why records — even the two sides of the same record — sound so different from one another?

The old adage “the proof of the pudding is in the eating” couldn’t be more apt. If you want to know if a pudding tastes good, a list of its ingredients, the temperature it was cooked at, and the name of the person stirring it on the stove is surely of limited value. To know the taste one need only take a bite.

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Let Us Help You Back Up Your Claims

How to Become a Better Listener

UPDATE 2026

We wrote this commentary a couple of years back and now, having played some of the Tone Poets pressings we thought would have bad sound, have updated it with all the latest information on that sorry label.

Credibility is at the heart of our many disagreements with the online audiophile community, so we felt we needed to offer a way for audiophiles to do a better job of giving some context to their opinions.

When we run experiments that include modern remastered Heavy Vinyl records, comparing them to the vintage vinyl pressings we have on hand for our shootouts, the one thing we can say about them is that they are almost certain to be inferior. (Well, almost, but not quite.)

Some are a great deal worse than others, to be sure, but they are all inferior to one degree or another.

On another blog we were taken to task — by those who felt their systems were more than adequate to judge the sound quality of the real Blue Notes compared to the new releases — for predicting that Joe Harley’s Tone Poets releases, once we finally got around to playing them, would be just as awful as all the other records he has had a hand in producing

For the thirty years since these Heavy Vinyl pressings have come along, it has seemed to us that all the evidence pointed in the same direction — namely that audiophile systems are rarely capable of showing their owners the strengths and weaknesses of the records they play.

We discussed that very issue here in some depth. Curiously, the audiophile systems of reviewers has seemed to fail them every bit as badly.

If you, speaking as an audiophile, want to make the case for the superior quality of the records put out on the Tone Poets label, we are happy to entertain the possibility. Having played Heavy Vinyl pressings by the hundreds over the past three decades, the chances of their records having sound we would find acceptable are vanishingly small, but we can’t say the chances are zero.

Repeating the tiresome truism (aren’t they all?) that because reviews are subjective, your review is as credible as any other, simply will not do.

When we wrote the above we had yet to play a Tone Poets reissue in one of our shootouts. (We’d dropped the needle on a couple, but to get deep into the sound we really needed to do a shootout with a good-sized pile of cleaned Blue Note pressings, with special emphasis on those mastered by RVG. They’re the ones that most often win shootouts.)

We actively started to search out real Blue Note pressings, on various labels from various eras, for a couple of titles. After about two years we were able to do the shootouts and report our findings.

UPDATE 2026

We have now played a couple of the Tone Poets releases, for two of the very best sounding Blue Note recordings we’ve had the pleasure to play: Dexter Gordon’s One Flight Up and Lee Morgan’s Cornbread.

To read our reviews, click on the respective links for either or both of them: One Flight Up and Cornbread.

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Turning Skeptics into Believers, One Hot Stamper at a Time

More on the Subject of Hot Stamper Pricing

About 15 20 years ago we received a letter from a fellow on our email list who found our prices for vinyl curious, as he considered vinyl a bygone technology. (You may have noticed that it has since made quite a comeback.)

Bygone technology? Can’t say I agree with that assessment. It sure would be nice to demonstrate for him how much better records sound than the supposedly superior technologies that have — for most people, perhaps even for this gentleman — replaced them.

Wait, there is a way!

A Hot Stamper, 100% Guaranteed to Satisfy or Your Money Back. One click is all it takes. Which is pretty much what I said in my reply to his letter below.

Tom,

I receive your HTML email regularly. Along with the curious prices of your offerings, I occasionally wonder about the opinions expressed in your e-missives. A Roman senator once said that all mortal things are ‘only perfect in death.’ Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust aside: vinyl (of which I own a considerable library) is merely a bygone technology at this point in time. The opinions expressed on your website rarely credit the writer. Whose words are these? And why should I accept the opinions of someone who only stands to profit from their fanaticism?

Cheers, 
Bruce R. 

Bruce, most of us write the commentary, there are five of us fanatics here. (Six if you count our record cleaning person, but I’m not sure how fanatical she is, so let’s go with five.)

UPDATE 2019

There are ten of us now, a number that has remained constant for about the last ten years. That’s how many people it takes to do the work we do.

If you don’t have a staff of your own, you can still make plenty of progress by doing your own shootouts, one title at a time. It won’t be easy, but you will learn more from doing them than you could from all the audiophile reviews ever written, including the ones on this blog.

Please keep in mind one very important thing: it matters not a whit what we say about a record, it only matters what you hear on your stereo when you play it. If for any reason you are not happy, we give you all your money back.

(Some number of times a year this actually happens and we really do pay up. If we didn’t your credit card provider would make us refund your money anyway, but that’s hardly the point. It’s our written policy; there’s no fine print — that’s not how we run our business — so we pay. The same record, sold to the very next customer, has never in the history of Better Records ever been returned. Hey, we can find you good records, but we sure can’t fix your stereo for you, know what I mean?)

There’s a great deal of commentary on the site about how easy it is to verify the truth of what we say about pressing variations, and the nice thing about it is that you can actually run the tests using records you already own. A good start is to play side one of any record against side two, and of course the best test if to play two different copies of the same record against each other. If your stereo is even halfway decent, the differences should be noticeable, if not pronounced.

You don’t have to take our word for it. Unlike audio reviewers, we actually have something to back up our claims: the record we send you. If you find us to be in error, you get your money back, no two ways about it. This is what makes us unique and successful in the record business — we actually can send you the record that’s as good as we say it is. Would love to have you try one. Like we say, you have nothing to lose.

Hey, I’m a skeptic myself and proud of it. But I know good sound when I hear it. I’ve found it’s best to let my ears guide me in this hobby. If some piece of expensive audio gear sounds good, then it sounds good, whether I like the price or not. I may not be able to afford it — hell, I can’t afford the records I sell either — but that has nothing to do with the fact that it sounds good. Most expensive audio gear doesn’t sound good, but some of it does, and there is no point denying it.

Same goes for our records. They sound amazing. Like you, I wish they were cheaper, but that doesn’t change the fact that they really do sound amazing. If you would let us prove it to you, we would love to be given the opportunity to do so. Even though it happens all the time, we can’t really take credit for turning skeptics into believers. The records do that for us.

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Getting Fooled, or Fooling Yourself?

Basic Concepts Every Audiophile Should Understand

This excerpt is from a longer commentary we wrote in 2022 about the digital step (the horror!) Mobile Fidelity was secretly using to make their so-called One Step pressings.

What follows is one way to look at what happened and who it happened to.

This gentleman you see pictured, a certain Mike Esposito, made a foolish mistake.

He bought into the hype of the Modern Audiophile Remastered Record hook, line and sinker.

Rather than being skeptical, he wanted to believe what they told him.

He did not use his own ears to make judgments, he let others — reviewers, fellow audiophiles, the label itself — tell him what was pure and good.

Now he has learned that he was misinformed by those in whom he placed his trust. Even worse, he was lied to by the label he… is worshipped to strong a word?

He was also misinformed by the audiophile reviewers who should have known something was wrong. Not being able to recognize the shortcomings in the sound of these pressings was entirely predictable, since these reviewers never developed listening skills much better than those of Mr Esposito. (For more on just how out of his depth the man was, click here.)

His world has been turned upside down. But that’s not technically true — it was always upside down.

We know of practically no evidence to support the proposition that this label knows how to make good sounding records.  We wondered how they were still in business and have no expectation of ever getting any answer more helpful than “shut up.” (If you actually have evidence to support any claim you wish to make, we can help you do that.)

Finding good records and being able to reproduce them properly is hard. Perhaps now Mr Esposito is coming to appreciate just how little he knew about either.

UPDATE 2025

Based on the fact that he charges $1.99 per month — I kid you not — to advise his clients which are the best sounding pressings of the albums he auditions, it’s doubtful that he has learned anything from his experience of being fooled by Mobile Fidelity, along with all the other audiophile reviewers who apparently are as easily duped as he is. (Is there any job in the world requiring less in the way of qualifications than “audiophile record reviewer”?)

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