*Developing More Skepticism

Skeptical thinking is key to finding higher quality pressings.

Hot Stampers Simply Do Not Exist for Some Audiophiles

Please Consider Taking Some of Our Hard-Earned Audio Advice

It is an unfortunate fact that, at least for some audiophiles, Hot Stampers simply do not exist.

They may be lovers of sound, the dictionary definition of an audiophile, but their systems are not revealing and accurate enough to allow them to hear how good a properly-mastered, properly-pressed, properly-cleaned vintage (or maybe not so vintage) pressing can sound relative to whatever other version of the music they may have — Heavy Vinyl, cassette, CD, etc.

They simply do not possess a system (power, equipment, room, tweaks) of the quality required to play them at their best. 

Others won’t have developed the rudimentary listening skills needed to recognize the superior sound of a Hot Stamper pressing when it’s playing on their turntable.

Speculation? Opinion? Not really. Not when the evidence is this overwhelming. Let’s look at some of the facts.

A great many analog-oriented audiophiles are quite happy with the sound of Heavy Vinyl LPs, the kind that we regularly trash around here.

Those pressings set a decidedly low standard for sound quality, to our ears anyway, so if the typical audiophile is happy with them, what does that tell you about the quality of his audio chain and the nature of his critical listening skills?

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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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Why Do the Later Stampers of this Shaded Dog Sound So Much Better than the Earlier Ones?

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Recordings Available Now

For RCA classical and orchestral recordings, the earliest pressings on the Shaded Dog label, in stereo, tend to be the best sounding, right? 

Maybe. It’s an open question, at least it is for us when we consider how many exceptions to the rule we’ve run into over the 30+ years we’ve been buying and selling them.

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 “we don’t know,” but we’ve definitely never tallied them up and have no plans to do so. It sounds to me like a lot of work.

However, in our experience, and contrary to the conventional wisdom, sometimes the higher-numbered pressings are better sounding than the lower-numbered pressings. This is true of the stampers for the Shaded Dog pressings below.

Keep in mind that the stamper numbers you see belong to a different album.

The questions that audiophiles who collect shaded dog pressings should be asking themselves right about now are:

  • Why is 17s/20s consistently better sounding than any copy with any other stampers?
  • Why is the 16s pressing worse sounding than even the worst 17s pressing when they are both Indianapolis pressings only one digit apart?
  • Why does the 20s side two potentially win the shootout with a 3+ grade, but more often only earn a grade of 2.5+ or 2+?
  • And the hardest to stomach of them all are those second-rate 10s stampers. How on earth can they come in last in a shootout against all the copies with higher numbers?

It turns out that the old rule of thumb that the lower-numbered stampers will sound better than the higher-numbered ones is not nearly as reliable as some folks would like it to be.

If it were more reliable, we could all just buy the lowest-numbered stamper copies we could find and know that we had the best available pressing. Then, if we were lucky enough to encounter an even lower-numbered stamper copy, we could buy that one and know that we now had an even better sounding pressing, all without having to play the old “best” one against the new “best” one.

It’s so convenient and logical this way, why would anyone want to bother with a different illogical, inconvenient and obviously counterintuitive method when the other one has so much going for it?

There is only one problem with the idea of collecting the earliest shaded dog pressings in order to secure the best sounding pressings — the fact that the evidence to support such an approach is so spotty. Yes, early stampers win lots of shootouts. No, early stampers do not win all the shootouts, or even a majority of them, judging by a rough calculation using the data from the many hundreds of stamper sheets we’ve created over the years.

Predictions Are Futile

The unfortunate reality we run into 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.

Although it’s true that there are many pressings in which one set of stampers always wins, the odds are that any particular pressing with those stampers will do well but won’t win, and it sometimes happen that some pressings with those stampers won’t do well at all.

This is why we have to do shootouts, and why you have to do them too, if finding the highest quality pressings is important to you.

Fortunately for readers of this blog, our methods are explained in detail, free of charge.

We’ve also written quite a few commentaries to help audiophiles improve the way they think about records.

I implore everyone who wants to make progress in this hobby to learn from the mistakes we’ve made. There are 146 “we were wrong” listings on the site as of this writing, and we learned something from every damn one of them, painful and costly as those experiences may have been.

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We Don’t Know — And We’ve Learned Over the Years Not to Pretend To

More on the Subject of Pretentious Knowledge

In our twenty-year-old review for the Speakers Corner pressing of the Tsar Saltan we made the following claim, a claim which we obviously had no evidence to back up.

But… when I hear this kind of sound only one word comes to mind, a terrible word, a word that makes us recoil in shock and horror. That word is DUB. This reissue is made from copy tapes, not masters.

It was foolish of us to declare any such thing, especially with such certainty. How on earth could we possibly know what tapes were used to master the record, in Germany of all places? The very idea is absurd. We call people out for saying things they have no evidence to support all the time. Running into this review today, I have to call myself out for such nonsense. What I should have said was the following:

This reissue sounds to us as though it has been made from copy tapes.

Just to be clear, I think I am perfectly justified in saying that it sounds like a copy tape was used to master the record, but I am not at all justified in saying that a copy tape was actually used to master the record.

Nor do I have any business talking about about the sound of a master tape I’ve never heard.

I can certainly talk about the sound of the best London pressings. Those I have played. I’ve critically listened to batches of them over the course of many years. They may be expensve but they are not hard to find. We’ve sold dozens of them as Hot Stamper pressings and played plenty of others with sound not good enough or surfaces not quiet enough to offer to our customers.

Whatever approach Decca may have used in the mastering, with whatever tape they may have used to make the records that we’ve auditioned, is information that would be nice to have. But it’s really none of my business, since it doesn’t alter the sound of the pressings we auditioned.

More importantly, it’s none of Better Records’ business.

Our business is about one thing and one thing only: records that sound better than other pressings.

Discussions of master tapes and what they should sound like or what they do sound like is not part of our remit. Nor should it be. At bottom it is nothing but speculation, and it is rarely if ever supported by anything resembling evidence.

We are firmly on record as opposing that sort of thing.

We’ve Been Saying This for Twenty Years

After our dubious claim to knowing that the record was mastered from a copy tape, we went on to say:

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What Lessons Can We Take from this Columbia Shootout?

Hot Stamper Pressings of Vintage Columbia Albums Available Now

Recently we conducted a shootout for one of our favorite Columbia recordings, one that we had auditioned many times before and 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 plenty of stamper information on this blog, including some of the worst ones we’ve had the misfortune to run into, but rarely do we feel the need to give out the really good ones. After decades of doing this kind of work, the time and effort that has gone into finding them is beyond calculation.

When we do give out the best stampers, as is the case here (3BA baby!), we make a point of keeping the title under wraps.

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 original White Print 360 label pressings are going to be the best sounding for any title that was made starting with that label in the early-60s.

(The Black Print 360 mono is an example of the mono labels being a bit behind the times as far as I can tell.)

Note that we did not bother to put any of the 70s Red Label Columbia pressings in the shootout. We’ve been down that road with this title before, and we have yet to hear one worth the vinyl wasted on it.

Columbia, like most labels, seems to have made very little effort with the sound quality of their reissues. Perhaps it was the result of all the bad transistor equipment in the studios by the time the 70s rolled around, but that would be speculation on my part, as well as something that would be very hard to find evidence for one way or the other.

We did find one Monk record that sounded better on the Red Label reissue, and readers of this blog should easily be able to find out which one it is by reading our many reviews for Monk’s recorded output.

We have two new lists for those who would like to know which Columbia labels win shootouts — one for 6-Eye winners and one for 360 Label winners.

What interests me in these findings is the following:

  • Both of our shootout winning copies had the same stampers. Can that really be a coincidence?
  • The shootout winner for side one is 3BA.
  • Two copies with stampers very similar to that one, 3AB, did noticeably worse, 2+ and 1.5+.
  • And the worst of the White Print 360 Label pressings barely earned a Hot Stamper grade at all.
  • They are on the same original label as the other copies, but for some reason they don’t sound as good. Why is that?

If an audiophile collector were to go to Discogs, find a nice clean copy on the early label and buy it, he might find that he know owns a top quality sounding copy, a pretty good sounding copy, or a not-nearly-as-good sounding copy as he’d hoped for, depending on his luck.

And what would he know about the quality of the recording? About that thing that audiophiles and record collectors seem to reference so often, “the master tape,” as if they have any way of knowing about the sound of a tape they have never come into contact with.

Just Assume

If he had a killer 3BA, wouldn’t he just assume that for some reason the recording must be amazing and consider himself lucky to find such a wonderful record to play.

Why one set of stampers sounds so much better than another set, or the same or a similar set on a different pressing, is a mystery, and it’s one that we confidently predict will never be solved.

Does anyone have a practical way to get around the reality that allows one set of stampers to sound great and the same or a similar set of stampers to sound no better than very good, if that?

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.

We just play lots and lots of copies of the albums to find out how they sound.

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Labels, Patterns and Reasoning in a Circle

Hot Stamper Pressings of Orchestral Music Available Now

This commentary was written more than ten years ago. It seems to be holding up just fine though, especially considering just how bad some of the Heavy Vinyl pressings we’ve played recently sounded.

RFR1/ 2.  This pressing has DEMONSTRATION QUALITY SOUND.

Here is the sound that Mercury is famous for: immediate, dynamic and spacious. This record lives up to the Mercury claim: You immediately feel as though you are in the Living Presence of the orchestra.

This is precisely the kind of record that Speakers Corner would not have a clue how to master. I’d stake my reputation on it, for what that’s worth.

As you may know, I am a critic of the new [now long in the tooth] Speakers Corner Mercury series, and I can tell you without ever hearing their version of this recording that there is NO CHANCE IN THE WORLD they will ever cut a record that sounds like this.

It’s alive in a way that none of their pressings would even begin to suggest.

If you don’t believe me, please buy this record and play it for yourself. If you don’t agree, I will refund your money and pay the domestic shipping back.

This record also gives the lie to those who think that Vendor pressings are inferior. This is a Vendor and I would be surprised if there’s a better sounding copy than this one. I’ve certainly never heard one.

People who like to read labels and find some sort of pattern or connection between the label and the sound of the record are living in a world of their own making.

A world that exists solely in their heads.

The stamper numbers are the only thing that can possibly mean anything on a record, and even those are subject to so much variation from pressing to pressing that they become little more than a vague, general guide.

This LP is a good example of a record that a certain kind of record collector might pass up, hoping to find a better sounding non-Vendor pressing.

Of course, the circular reasoning that would result is that such a collector would buy the non-Vendor pressing, possibly with the exact same stamper numbers, hear how good it sounded, and congratulate himself on the fact that the non-Vendor pressings always sound so much better.

All without ever having done a comparison. A good way to never be wrong.

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Advice for Testing So-Called “Hot Stampers”

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

UPDATE 2025

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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Acoustic Sounds Was Selling This Ridiculously Bad “TAS List” Record Back in the Day

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Cat Stevens Available Now

This commentary was written circa 2001. 

I remember 15 years ago when Acoustic Sounds was selling the then in-print 25th Anniversary Island pressing (with 7U stampers as I recall) for $15, claiming that it was a TAS List record. If you’ve ever heard the pressing, you know it has no business going anywhere near a Super Disc List. It’s mediocre at best and has virtually none of the magic of the good originals.

NEWSFLASH: Just looked it up on Discogs, a site that did not exist when I wrote this commentary. My memory is apparently better than I thought it was. The 25th Anniversary Island Life Collection pressing came out in 1986.

    • Matrix / Runout (Runout side A, variant 1): ILPM 9154 A-1 ILPM•9154•A1
    • Matrix / Runout (Runout side B, variant 1): ILPM 9154 B-7U-1-1-3
    • Matrix / Runout (Runout side A, variant 2): ILPM 9154 A-8U-1- G10
    • Matrix / Runout (Runout side B, variant 2): ILPM 9154 B-7U-1-

By the way, I am not aware of any of these pressings from the 80s being especially good sounding. I remember playing some of them but I don’t remember liking any of them. They were cheap reissues that satisfied those looking for import vinyl, not audiophile quality sound.

I refused to sell it back in those days, for no other reason than the fact that it’s far from a Better Sounding Record. I don’t like misrepresenting records and I don’t like ripping off my customers. It’s bad for business.

That pressing was a fraud and I was having none of it.

Chad probably didn’t even know the difference.

When you don’t know much about records, you can say all sorts of things and not get called out for them. Audiophiles are a credulous bunch and always have been. They still believe the same nonsense that I foolishly fell for back in the 80s. (And I admit that even as late as 2006 I was still a fan of certain Heavy Vinyl pressings.)

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Cognitive Dissonance Defined

More Basic Concepts and Realities Explained 

Wikipedia’s entry for cognitive dissonance:

Cognitive dissonance is a psychological term describing the uncomfortable tension that may result from having two conflicting thoughts (cognition) at the same time or engaging in behavior that conflicts with one’s beliefs. In simple terms, it can be the filtering of information that conflicts with what one already believes, in an effort to ignore that information and reinforce one’s beliefs. In detailed terms, it is the perception of incompatibility between two cognitions, where “cognition” is defined as any element of knowledge, including attitude, emotion, belief, or behavior.

The theory of cognitive dissonance states that contradicting cognitions serve as a driving force that compels the mind to acquire or invent new thoughts or beliefs, or to modify existing beliefs, so as to reduce the amount of dissonance (conflict) between cognitions. Experiments have attempted to quantify this hypothetical drive. Some of these have examined how beliefs often change to match behavior when beliefs and behavior are in conflict.

In popular usage, it can be associated with the tendency for people to resist information that they don’t want to think about, because if they did it would create cognitive dissonance, and perhaps require them to act in ways that depart from their comfortable habits. They usually have at least partial awareness of the information, without having moved to full acceptance of it, and are thus in a state of denial about it.

This guy was comfortable with his penchant for Mobile Fidelity pressings, a sad story if ever I’ve heard one, but one we can all learn from. (And I have to admit I was every bit as clueless myself back in the my nascent audiophile days.)

Empiricism

Some approaches to this audio hobby tend to produce better results than others. When your thinking about audio and records does not comport with reality, you are much less likely to achieve the improvements you seek.

Without a good stereo, it is hard to find better records. Without better records, it is hard to improve your stereo.

You need both, and thinking about them the right way, using the results of carefully run experiments — not feelings, opinions, theories, received wisdom or dogma — is surely the best way to acquire better sound.

An empirically-based approach to audio will surely result in notable improvements to the quality of your playback.

This will in turn make the job of recognizing high quality pressings — the ones you find for yourself, or the ones we find for you — much, much easier.

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Are You an Audiophile Soldier or an Audiophile Scout?

More Entries from Tom’s Audiophile Notebook

The guy you see pictured to the left has spent much of the last forty years wandering around used record stores looking for better records. Before that he wandered around stores selling new records because he didn’t know how much better used records could be.

Here are some of the things he’s learned since he started collecting at the age of ten a mere sixty years ago. (First purchase: She Loves You on 45, still in the collection, although it cracked long ago and is no longer playable.) 

Click on the picture to make it easier to read.

As you may have read on the site elsewhere, the three most important words in the world of audio are compared to what?

No matter how good a particular copy of a record may sound to you, when you clean and play enough of them you will almost always find one that’s better, and often surprisingly better.

You must keep testing all the reissues you can find, and you must keep testing all the originals you can find.

Shootouts are the only way to find these kinds of very special records. That’s why you must do them.

Nothing else works. If you’re not doing shootouts (or buying the winners of shootouts from us), you simply don’t have top quality copies in your collection, except in the rare instances in which you just got lucky.

In the world of records luck can only take you so far. The rest of the journey requires effort.

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