*What’s the Big Idea?

Thoughts on The Big Picture from someone who has been buying and playing records for almost 60 years. I bought a copy of She Loves You on Swan in 1964 and still own it. The disc may be cracked but the picture sleeve is in pretty good shape.

Building a Good Sounding Record Collection – Hot Stampers Versus Collector Pressings

Record Collecting for Audiophiles – A Guide to the Fundamentals

I defy anyone who has not made a lifelong study of pressing variations to tell me which of the records pictured here should have audiophile sound quality.

There is not a chance in the world the owner knows either, and I suspect he does not care one way of the other. If this fellow describes himself as an audiophile, he is either mistaken or setting a very low bar for the term.

He is a record collector, plain and simple.

Anyone can amass a collection of records — one this big, ten times its size or one-tenth its size, the process is the same. You just buy whatever you like and organize them whichever way you find most suitable.

There is no limit to the kinds of records one might collect: originals, imports, audiophile pressings, picture discs, the TAS List – you name it, you can collect it.

There are literally millions of records for sale around the world on any given day. They’re not hard to find, and being so common, collecting them is easy. A single collection for sale as of this writing contains more than 3 million records. That works out to a thousand records each for three thousand collectors. Do you really have time to play more than a thousand records? That’s a different record every day for almost three years!

Some people see them as an investment. We do not. We think audiophile-oriented music lovers should pursue good sounding records for the purpose of playing them and enjoying them, understanding that the better their records sound, the more enjoyable they will be.

Collecting records primarily to build a record collection that can be sold at a profit in the future should be the last thing on anyone’s mind.

Most of the following was written in response to a customer who wanted to know how original our Hot Stamper pressings were since he preferred to collect first pressings — which were also worth more money should he decide to sell them at a later date. We asked:

Why would you want a first pressing if it didn’t sound as good? Or, if a later pressing sounded better, why would that make any difference in your desire to buy it? Isn’t the idea to get good sound?

If you buy records principally to collect original pressings, you will end up with one mediocre sounding collection of records, that I can tell you without fear of contradiction. (The formula goes like this: Average pressing, original or otherwise = average sound.)

On the other hand, if you want the best sounding pressings, we are the only record sellers on the planet who can consistently find them for you. This is precisely the service we offer, unique in the world as far as we know. Hence the name Better Records.

Anyone can sell originals. Only we can offer the discriminating audiophile records with the best sound.

Others could of course, but none of them have ever bothered to try, so the practical effect is the same.

Finding the best sound is far more difficult and far more rewarding for both the seller and the buyer, as any of our customers will tell you.

Hot Stampers – The Opposite of Collectible

The collector game cannot really be played with Hot Stampers. If anything they are just the opposite of a collectible, due to the fact they have practically no established or verifiable value. Their value is purely subjective; they exist only to provide listening pleasure for their owner. No other concerns have any real bearing on their worth.

I can understand why a record collector would be confused by this notion of subjective and limited value. Collecting records is mostly about buying, selling and owning various kinds of records. It’s not primarily about playing music; this seems to be a less important aspect of collecting. (I’ve known record collectors who didn’t even own a turntable!)

So all those funny numbers in the dead wax and on the label and the spine of the cover are just numbers, man. They don’t mean anything to me and they shouldn’t mean anything to you — that is, if you care about the sound of your music. If you want to collect a record because it has one set of numbers in the dead wax or the label or on the cover rather than another set of numbers, that’s your business. I guess that’s what most record collectors do. I, for one, want no part of it. I just want good sounding records. They can have any numbers they want.

Get Good Sound, Then Good Records

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After You’ve Played 100 Copies of the Album, What’s Left to Learn?

bloodchildMore of the Music of Blood, Sweat and Tears

Reviews and Commentaries for Child Is Father to the Man

This commentary is at least ten years old. We can’t say that a red label reissue like the one discussed below would do as well under the improved shootout conditions in our new studio, but the possibility exists, which is the point of the story we are telling here.

A common misconception of many of those visiting the site for the first time is that we think we know it all.

Nothing could be further from the truth. We definitely do not know it all. We learn something new about records with practically every shootout.

Not This Title

Case in point: the record you do NOT see pictured above. (The record we recently learned something new about — this, after having played scores and scores of copies over the years — will remain a secret for the time being. At least until we find another one.)

In 2013 we played a red label Columbia reissue of a famous 60s rock record (again, not shown) that had the best side two we had ever heard. Up to that point no copy other than the 360 original had ever won a shootout, and we’ve done plenty. Lo and behold, here was a reissue that put them all to shame.

I’m still in shock from the experience to tell you the truth, but what a blast it was to hear it!

The recording, which I first played more than 40 years ago at the tender age of 16, was now bigger, less murky and more energetic than ever before. Had you asked me, I would have confidently told you not to waste your time with the second pressing, to stick to the 360s on that title, and I would have been wrong wrong wrong.

How Wrong?

But wait a minute. The 360 original will probably beat 49 out of 50 red label reissue copies on side two, and the best 360 original could not be beaten on side one by any other pressing. When you stop to think about it, we weren’t very wrong at all.

Let’s just say our understanding was incomplete.

This is why we prefer to offer actual physical records rather than just advice, although it’s clear for all to see that we happily do both, and, moreover, we certainly feel qualified — as qualified as anyone can be — to offer up our opinions, since our opinions are based on a great deal of experimental data.

Having big piles of cleaned records at one’s disposal is fundamentally important to this kind of operation. In our experience, shootouts using only a small number of pressings have relatively little value. They are best seen as a guide for the next, more comprehensive attempt to find out what might be the truly killer pressings of any given album.

Sometimes we guess about the sound quality of pressings on Heavy Vinyl, usually when we just can’t be bothered to order up a copy and take the time to audition it. So many labels today produce such consistently second- and third-rate pressings, can you blame us for not wanting to hear where the latest one went wrong? 

Ultimately what makes our case is the quality of the records we sell. And I’m glad to report that we don’t get many complaints, even at these prices. ( Some of our customers seem to think they got their money’s worth, and who are we to argue with our own customers?)

How Do We Do It?

There are more than 2000 Hot Stamper reviews on this blog. Do you know how we learned so much about so many records?

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What’s the Average Record Worth?

More Letters from Customers and Critics Alike

More of the Music of Blood, Sweat and Tears

What follows is an excerpt from a very old letter (circa 2005) in which the writer attempted to make the case that spending lots of money on records is foolish when a dollar buys a perfectly good record at a thrift store and provides the listener with exactly the same music and decent enough sound.

We think this is silly and, with a few rough calculations, along with a heavy dose of self-promotion and not a little bullying, we set out to prove that the average record is practically worthless. Prepare to confront our exercise in sophistry.

(Yes, we are well aware that our reasoning is specious, but it’s no more specious than anybody else’s reasoning about records if I may say so.)

Jason, our letter writer, points out this fact:

Your records are a poor value in terms of investment. Until you convince the whole LP community that your HOT-STAMPER choices are the pinnacle of sound a buyer will never be able to re-sell B S & T for $300. Even if they swear it is the best sounding copy in the world.

We replied as follows:

If records are about money, then buying them at a thrift store for a buck apiece and getting something halfway decent makes perfect sense. As the Brits say, “that’s value for money.” If we sell you a Hot Stamper for, say, $500, can it really be five hundred times better?

The Math

I would argue that here the math is actually on our side. The average pressing is so close to worthless sonically that I would say that it isn’t even worth the one dollar Jason might pay for it in a thrift store. I might value it somewhere in the vicinity of a penny or two. Really? Yes indeed.

Assuming it’s a record I know well, I probably know just how wonderful the record can really sound, and what that wonderful sound does to communicate the most important thing of all: the musical value.

A copy that doesn’t do that — allow the music to come alive — has almost no value. It’s not zero, but it’s close to zero. Let’s assign it a nominal value. We’ll call it a penny.

What Have You Got to Lose?

You see, when I play a mediocre copy, I know what I’ve lost.

Jason can’t know that. All he knows is what he hears coming from his mediocre equipment as his mediocre LP is playing. To him it sounds fine. To me it sounds like hell. (Hell is in fact the place where they make you listen to bad sounding records all day.)

If I’ve actually done all the hard work I talk about on the site, I will find myself in the unique position of knowing what he’s missing, and he is in the (to me) unenviable and all-too-common position of only knowing what he’s getting. (It may be a little or it may be a lot, but it’s certainly nowhere near what I’m getting. I hope.)

Ignorance is bliss, and he is welcome to his. Being average is the lot of most of us, right? I’m average in most areas of life and make no bones about it. But I’m not average when it comes to this hobby. Because I enjoy it so much, I’ve worked very hard to become good at it.

Hard Work Pays Off

This is precisely what Jason has utterly failed to grasp: that all the hard work we encourage you to do really does pay off. The end result is a dramatic increase in your enjoyment and appreciation of the music you play. Here his obtuseness is at its pig-headed worst. He wants us to believe he gets more out of his records by hearing less? If I understand the formula correctly, it goes something like: Mediocre Pressing plus Mediocre Stereo equals Real Musical Satisfaction.

Uh, you want to run that by me again?

Another way to look at it would be: Cheap Mediocre Pressing played on Cheap Mediocre Stereo gives The Most Musical Satisfaction Per Dollar.

Now, that actually may be true. A five hundred dollar record may not be five hundred times more satisfying than a one dollar record. Ten or fifty or a hundred times more satisfying, but probably not five hundred.

So if you want to get one or two or five percent as much enjoyment out of your records as we do out of ours, you should take Jason’s advice.

If you want to get more than that, you should definitely try some of our Hot Stampers.

Further Reading

David Crosby – Can Chris Bellman Cut Records As Well As Artisan Did Back in the Day?

Robert Brook has a blog which he calls

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

Robert’s story begins:

Recently a friend and a frequent reader of my website suggested I review the 50th Anniversary Edition of David Crosby’s debut. He’d read my article from a while back in which I made comparisons between two different Hot Stamper copies of the record, and he knew I was a fan the album.

I’m sure he also knew, as any of my regular readers would, that I’m extremely skeptical of modern reissues. You can find many examples on this site of reissues I’ve written about that have failed miserably to impress me. But this friend was pretty insistent that this one, remastered by long time engineer Chris Bellman, was different. He also told me it was on par with original Monarch pressing of …My Name he also owned.

Bellman was responsible for cutting one of the few heavy vinyl reissues that my friend Tom Port has liked and recommended – a European pressing from 2020 of the Dire Straits record Brothers In Arms. Tom likes precious few “audiophile” reissues. He’s mentioned maybe 4 or 5 over the years as being worthy of any consideration. Given that, and the fact that my friend was so insistent, I figured why not give Bellman’s recut of . . .My Name a shot?

Click on the link to read the whole thing. I left some comments at the end you may enjoy reading. I hope to be able to address some of the other issues Robert brings up at a later date.

IF ONLY I COULD REMEMBER MY NAME: 50th Anniversary Edition

If you are interested in picking up an amazing Hot Stamper pressing of the album, we currently (as of 2/24) have some in stock. Click on this link to see what is available: If I Could Only Remember My Name.

On the website, we talk about just how much we love this album:

It’s the ultimate hippie folk rock Demo Disc – both sides are amazingly transparent, with huge amounts of bass, silky highs, in-the-room vocals and tons of Tubey Magic

Here it is, folks…a true rock Demo Disc! An outstanding copy such as this will show you why we’ve long considered it one of the top rock albums for both sound and music. You will not believe how Tubey Magical and three-dimensional this album can be when you have a pressing with this kind of sound. The harmonic complexity and extension on the acoustic guitars are absolutely stunning.

Harry Pearson put this record on his TAS list of super discs, not exactly a tough call it seems to us. Who can’t hear that this is an amazing sounding recording? (We do applaud his decision not to add the Classic pressing of this title to the list, the way he did with so many other Classic pressings that have no business on anything called a super disc list.)

When you drop the needle on this record, all barriers between you and the musicians are removed. You’ll feel as though you’re sitting at the studio console while Crosby and his no-doubt-stoned-out-of-their-minds Bay Area pals (mostly Jefferson Airplaners and Grateful Deads) are laying down this emotionally powerful, heartfelt music.

The overall sound is warm, sweet, rich, and full-bodied…that’s some real ANALOG Tubey Magic, baby! And the best part is, you don’t have to be high to hear it. You just need a good stereo and the right pressing.

I discovered the album in the 90s, probably from reading about it in The Absolute Sound. When I was in my thirties and buying records regularly, the album was essentially out of print. The (awful sounding) Super Saver came out in 1975 and probably was deleted before long due to a lack of demand.

Once I had heard the record, it quickly became a go-to test and demo disc, mostly for the song Traction in the Rain. The sound of the autoharp on that track is one of the most amazing things I have ever heard, on any album, ever. The exceptional resolution and harmonic coherency of the multiple electrostatic arrays I was using for the mids and highs were perfectly suited to that instrument, and that track.

I listened intently for the notes that got louder and softer as the instrument was strummed. The more different each note sounded, the more micro-dynamics I knew I must be reproducing. I tweaked and tested my system for months, even years with this track.

I didn’t know enough to buy other copies and compare them to mine. I just knew it was a great sounding record that I could blow people’s minds with in a demo.

I credit it with making me a more critical listener and also with helping me make progress in audio.

Over the last twenty years I can recall a number of tweaking sessions in which I tried to get If Only I Could Remember My Name to sound better, knowing that the better it sounded, the better all my other good records would sound.

The second, third and fourth tracks on side one are excellernt for this purpose, as is the second track on side two.

On big speakers at loud levels this album is a thrill.

Further Reading

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“Tom, what about the argument that the engineers had to make the records sound good on the equipment of the day?”

More Letters from Customers and Critics Alike

OK, what about it?

Let’s dig in.

One of our good customers had some questions about a commentary we wrote entitled a kinder, gentler approach to record reviewing.

Tom, what about the argument that the engineers had to make the records sound good on the equipment of the day? Now that we have better gear, these guys can make the record sound the way it was originally intended. I think Chad said this about Rudy Van Gelder at some point in the video.

For the benefit of the reader, the video in question can be found on youtube under the title “Michael Fremer, Chad Kassem, Geoff Edgers: A Journey Back to Vinyl.”

Edgers was invited, apparently under pretext as it turns out, to talk about his article, but instead he was pressed into defending me most of the time. Kassem and Fremer — two individuals whose talents, such as they are, could not be more ill-suited to the work they have chosen for themselves — beat up on Edgers for about two hours.

As an aside, Geoff is a good guy and he certainly didn’t deserve this kind of mistreatment. Fremer and Kassem won’t apologize to him — that’s not something they are known to do — so please allow me to apologize to Geoff on their behalf.

I’m sure he has trouble understanding to this day why he was forced into acting as a spokesman for Better Records. Regardless of how he feels about it, we thank him for his service to the cause. (To be clear, he didn’t exactly take my side, which is the right thing for a reporter to do. He wanted to know why our disagreements upset them so much.)

For those of you who like to watch bickering and sniping from a couple of thin-skinned egomaniacs who can’t stand the fact that someone doesn’t think the records they like — or in the case of Chad, produce and sell — are any good, have I got a video for you. If you want to undertand how seriously you should take these two guys, both at the top of their respective mountains, watch the video and make your own judgments.

Our letter writer continues:

Suppose, that the RL cut of Zeppelin 2 had never existed, because Ludwig knew better than to cut it that way, knowing that most stereos couldn’t play it? And then Chad released something that sounded like that. Or, the argument that albums were engineered for listening to on the AM radio.

I think these guys believe they are improving on the mastering, and giving it the sound it should have had all along.

Dear ab_ba,

Yes, you are correct, this is indeed their position. They think these newly remastered pressings are a big improvement over earlier editions, and on quieter vinyl to boot!

Allow me to quote Michael Fremer, a man who apparently cannot get enough of the new records, even though his shelves are stuffed.

With all of the reissues coming from questionable sources or proudly proclaiming their ‘digital-ness’ ala The Beatles Box, we’re fortunate to have labels like Analogue Productions, Mobile Fidelity, ORG, IMPEX, Rhino and the others cutting lacquers from analog tapes…

So, we are lucky to have these companies that are doing things correctly lavishing vinyl goodies on us all year long. Sometimes we wish they’d stop long enough for us to catch up, but then we come to our senses and say “more please!” even when the shelves are stuffed.

Fremer was discussing a Stevie Ray Vaughan box set that Analogue Productions had recently put out.

One of my customers made the mistake of believing all the rave reviews he read from Fremer and his ilk and ordered the set. He quickly learned that his $400 had bought him some of the worst sounding Heavy Vinyl he’d ever heard in his life.

Did Chad manage to improve upon the sound of the originals, like the ones we sell? According to this customer, he did not.

“So the results are in … after comparing to the White Hot Stamper versions of the same albums I can say… as a musical experience it’s incomprehensible. It just doesn’t rock, doesn’t uplift, and it’s veiled, so you lose the whole meaning of this music, the energy, soul, life.”

If these companies are “doing things correctly,” then perhaps you can explain to me why their records sound so bad.

Let’s get down to brass tacks. Which of these records do you think is an improvement over the best earlier pressings?

And that’s just a small sampling of the rock and pop. There are plenty of awful jazz and classical titles I could mention.

I would expect that even fans of modern mastering would be at pains to defend these mediocre-at-best and mostly-abominable releases on the merits. Outside of Mr. Fremer, who in his right mind thinks these are good records? And if they do, have they had their hearing checked lately?

I could go on about the sound of these pseudo-audiophile pressings — our Heavy Vinyl disasters section currently boasts 181 entries — but why beat a horse that’s been dead for more than two decades?

For those keeping score at home, the winners number 69 and the mediocrities number 62, for a grand total of 312.

Now, listen up all of you out there in audio land: if you personally have critically auditioned more than 300 Heavy Vinyl pressings, please raise your hand. (Not you, Mikey, you get paid to play these records in order to make sure everybody knows just how much better they are than the other copies you have randomly at hand.)

I’m talking about rank and file audiophiles. Who has played more Heavy Vinyl titles head to head with the best originals and vintage reissues than we have?

There can be no one, for the simple reason that the best originals and vintage reissues can only be found using these two methods: in small numbers by luck, and in large numbers by doing shootouts.

300 is a large number, and we seriously doubt there is anyone who has managed to 300 comprehensive shootouts for records in their own collection. The cost, in time and money, would be prohibitive unless you’re getting paid to do it.

We don’t get paid to review these modern pressings. We do it as a public service.

Our job is to find the records that beat the pants off them.

Cui Bono?

If you want to know how good the quality of modern records is, you don’t ask someone who gets paid to make them and you don’t ask someone who gets paid to review them.

You buy some and you play them. That’s how you go about determining if they are any good.

The “null hypothesis” is our friend here. If someone were to ask “Why are new records better than old ones?,” we would simply say that since there is no evidence to support the proposition that they actually are any better, the question does not need to be answered.

To take just one example, not one of them can hold a candle to this Mercury produced in 1958.

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This Is Why We Love Records from the 50s

More Classical and Orchestral Recordings

Hot Stamper Pressings of Mercury Classical Recordings Available Now

From time to time a record comes our way that sounds absolutely amazing, “I can’t believe it’s a record” amazing.

If it’s the kind of record that sounds like the best copy of Fiesta in Hi-fi from our most recent shootout, we might even let our enthusiasm for its superb fidelity get the better of us. That’s the effect a record as good as the copy we played can have. You just can’t stop yourself from saying one great thing after another about it.

Our over-the-top notes, like those you see below, attempt to convey what it’s like to experience the absolutely breathtaking sound we were hearing.

But where is the harm in that? These are notes that no one outside of the staff are ever expected to see. They are helpful to us in writing our commentary and pricing the specific copy we auditioned, but they are practically never quoted in the listings.

Fiesta in Hi-Fi is an example of one of those recordings that doubles as a thrill ride. They come along from time to time in order to show us the kind of sound that we’d almost forgotten was possible on a record.

Oh yes, with the rare properly-cleaned, properly-mastered, properly-pressed vintage vinyl LP, played back on top quality equipment in a heavily treated, dedicated soundroom, we can assure you it is very possible indeed. Allow us to make the case with the Shootout Winning original pressing you see below.

The notes read: 

So rich and big / Great space and detail / Everything sweet + clear + breathy / 3D too / Great dynamics / A touch hot but so fun / Deep bass.

You know what’s unusual about these notes?

They’re the kind of notes we have never written for any Heavy Vinyl reissue, even for the one that won our shootout not long ago.

They are the kind of notes that make it clear to us what a sham the modern Heavy Vinyl pressing tends to be, even those that are done right.

No modern record we’ve ever played has ever had anything even approaching this kind of Big As Life sound, and we doubt one ever will. Living presence? This is a record that backs up Mercury’s claim and then some.

Records like this vintage vinyl pressing are thrilling in a way that very, very few records ever are.

Surprisingly, many of the most thrilling records we’ve ever played came from the same decade this record came from: the 50s.

Once you hear sound like this, you are not likely to forget it.

It sets a standard that modern remastered records simply cannot meet.

Further Reading

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Focus Is the Hidden Driver of Excellence

Developing Critical Listening Skills

Every day Delanceyplace sends me email book excerpts, and the one that came today struck me as particularly relevant to the devilishly difficult audio hobby many of us have been engaged in for most of our adult lives. Some of their excerpts are seen below. (Bolding added by me.)

I myself wrote a commentary back in 2006 about the 10,000 hour rule, which I have linked below delanceyplace’s piece, along with other commentaries I think you might enjoy.

Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence by Daniel Goleman.

“The ‘10,000-hour rule’ — that this level of practice holds the secret to great success in any field — has become sacrosanct gospel, echoed on websites and recited as litany in high-performance workshops. The problem: it’s only half true.

“If you are a duffer at golf, say, and make the same mistakes every time you try a certain swing or putt, 10,000 hours of practicing that error will not improve your game. You’ll still be a duffer, albeit an older one.

“No less an expert than Anders Ericsson, the Florida State University psychologist whose research on expertise spawned the 10,000-hour rule of thumb, told me, “You don’t get benefits from mechanical repetition, but by adjusting your execution over and over to get closer to your goal” …

“Apart from sports like basketball or football that favor physical traits such as height and body size, says Ericsson, almost anyone can achieve the highest levels of performance with smart practice. …

“Ericsson argues that the secret of winning is ‘deliberate practice,’ where an expert coach takes you through well-designed training over months or years, and you give it your full concentration.

“Hours and hours of practice are necessary for great performance, but not sufficient. How experts in any domain pay attention while practicing makes a crucial difference. For instance, in his much-cited study of violinists — the one that showed the top tier had practiced more than 10,000 hours — Ericsson found the experts did so with full concentration on improving a particular aspect of their performance that a master teacher identified.

“Smart practice always includes a feedback loop that lets you recognize errors and correct them — which is why dancers use mirrors. Ideally that feedback comes from someone with an expert eye and so every world-class sports champion has a coach. If you practice without such feedback, you don’t get to the top ranks.

“The feedback matters and the concentration does, too — not just the hours. …

“Daydreaming defeats practice; those of us who browse TV while working out will never reach the top ranks. Paying full attention seems to boost the mind’s processing speed, strengthen synaptic connections, and expand or create neural networks for what we are practicing.

“At least at first. But as you master how to execute the new routine, repeated practice transfers control of that skill from the top-down system for intentional focus to bottom-up circuits that eventually make its execution effortless. At that point you don’t need to think about it — you can do the routine well enough on automatic.”

“And this is where amateurs and experts part ways. Amateurs are content at some point to let their efforts become bottom-up operations. After about fifty hours of training — whether in skiing or driving — people get to that ‘good-enough’ performance level, where they can go through the motions more or less effortlessly. They no longer feel the need for concentrated practice, but are content to coast on what they’ve learned. No matter how much more they practice in this bottom-up mode, their improvement will be negligible.

“The experts, in contrast, keep paying attention top-down, intentionally counteracting the brain’s urge to automatize routines. They concentrate actively on those moves they have yet to perfect, on correcting what’s not working in their game, and on refining their mental models of how to play the game, or focusing on the particulars of feedback from a seasoned coach. Those at the top never stop learning: if at any point they start coasting and stop such smart practice, too much of their game becomes bottom-up and their skills plateau.”

author: Daniel Goleman
title: Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence
publisher: Harper Collins Publishing
date: Copyright 2013 by Daniel Goleman
page(s): 163-165

A few thoughts prompted by Goleman’s piece:

Coaches? We Don’t Need No Stinking Coaches!

Audiophiles have rarely had anything remotely like a coach — an expert with decades of experience — to guide them.

They are, with few exceptions, self-taught, and that turns out to be a lot harder than it looks.

For the last few years I’ve been sharing some ideas and methods with Robert Brook as he’s gone about pursuing better audio, and I am happy to report that he has achieved what looks to me like tremendous success. He put in the work, stayed focus, and it paid off for him in a dramatic improvement in his enjoyment of recorded music.

He did so by approaching the various problems he’s encountered scientifically, methodically and carefully, along these three fronts:

Aaron B. has been doing good work and making progress along these lines as well.

Gaining Expertise

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It Ain’t Easy Being a One-Man Band

Improving Your Critical Listening Skills

I should know. I was a one-man band working 60 to 80 hours a week with very little help until about 2000. I had someone cleaning records and packing and shipping, but everything else was on me. It was a lot.

In order to evaluate the qualities of the titles I was selling back then, whether on Heavy Vinyl or thin, imported or domestic, original or reissue, the process was the same.

I would play the record, and I would listen for the qualities that were most important to me, qualities you might say were of a “make it or break it” nature.

I mostly wanted to know if the record in question was:

  • Tonally correct.
  • Big enough.
  • Clear enough.
  • Balanced from top to bottom.
  • Energetic.
  • Present in the midrange.
  • Not bass shy.
  • Not rolled off up top.
  • Not compressed.
  • And, finally, whether it would appeal to a wide audience

If I had other pressings of the same title to audition, which sometimes I did not, I would play those to see how they compared.

For some records this was not easy. Just to cite one example, for many of the Speakers Corners Decca classical pressings, I simply had no especially good pressings to play against them. I might have some Londons and some Stereo Treasurys I could throw on, but good sounding, brand new Heavy Vinyl pressings on quiet German vinyl for $35 each did not warrant a big shootout back in those days.

And of course the stereo I had back then (all tube, richer, darker and less revealing) set a low bar, one that was a great deal easier to get over than the ruthlessly revealing stereo we use now. (More on that subject here.)

I had someone cleaning records for me, sure, but to take the time to clean and play a pile of classical pressings was simply not a good use of my time. I would approve of the sound, something along the lines of “good” to “great,” and then write a short review for the next catalog I would put out.

Many of the records that passed our tests don’t sound all that good to me now. We clearly had a lot to learn.

And we had no other option but to understand records and audio at a higher level because the success of the business depended on it. There was just too much money on the line at the prices we needed to charge. We were forced to deliver a clearly superior product or the discipline of the market would come down on our heads and put an end to our crazy experiment in “Hot Stampers.”

Lack of Resources

When you operate as a one-man band, you simply do not have the resources to clean and play enough copies of a given album to make accurate judgments about their sound.

Everybody makes mistakes, but small sample sizes increase the frequency of mistakes by orders of magnitude, especially a sample size as small as one. More on that here.

No Resources Needed

The current crop of audiophile reviewers appears to be speaking to those who are already by and large satisfied with the Heavy Vinyl pressings being made today.

The reviews they do are easily carried out by those with an obvious  aversion to the serious, disciplined, intense work it would take to do them properly.

They get one of these new records in, they give it a spin and they tell everybody how great it is. The advertisers like it, their readers like it, the labels like it, and everybody is happy as a clam.

When troublemakers like us come along, we upset that one-hand-washes-the-other arrangement, and before long everybody gets real upset real fast. Nobody wants that. They want to keep selling Heavy Vinyl because that is what can be produced, in volume, at a reasonable cost, then advertised and distributed easily and, most importantly, priced affordably.

Win win win win win. So much winning!

If you want something better sounding, from us, it will most likely cost you a pretty penny. It will be every bit as good as we say it is , but it will not be cheap and it will rarely be collectible.

Collecting for the Sake of Collecting

It appears as though the vast majority of record loving audiophiles really like collecting records. If I had to guess, I would venture it’s at least 95% and probably more. The five per cent that do not fall into that category are unlikely to want to spend their life savings on our pricey, not-especially-collectible pressings. Our records have no resale value. All their value is tied up in their sound.

That leaves our potential pool of customers at less than one per cent of all the record-loving audiophiles who want better sound and can afford it. Subtract the number of them who don’t like me personally — seems like a lot! — and you have a fairly small cohort of customers from which to draw.

Thankfully, it is big enough to keep our business going and food on the table for the ten dedicated. music-loving men and women who supply the world with Hot Stamper pressings. Nobody is getting rich, even at these prices, but we’re making a living and providing a service which people really appreciate, or at least that’s what they tell us.

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Gilbert and Sullivan / Overtures – How Did They Do It?

More of the music of Gilbert (1836–1911) and Sullivan (1842–1900)

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Titles Available Now

The hall is HUGE: spacious and open as any you will hear, but not at the expense of richness or fullness. The orchestra is solid and full-bodied, yet the woodwinds and flutes soar above the other sections, so breathy and clear.

How did the Decca (recording) and RCA (mastering) engineers succeed so brilliantly where so many others have failed, failed and failed again, right up to this very day?

Who knows? It’s still a mystery that has yet to be explained, to my satisfaction anyway.

Essential Music – And No Singing

The music of Gilbert and Sullivan belongs in any serious classical collection. This is without a doubt the best way to get the most Gilbert and Sullivan music with the best sound. And no singing.

If for some reason you don’t have a good recording of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Overtures, you are really missing out. This is some of the most wonderful music ever composed. It’s the kind of music that will immediately put you in a good mood. Here the Overtures are played to perfection. For music and sound, this one is hard to fault.

As the liner notes say, “…immense charm, good-natured energy and the ‘rightness’ that announces the influence of a superb musical command”.

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It’s the Image, Stupid

Top Quality Audio Is Key to Finding Good Records 

There is a truism (a statement that is obviously true and says nothing new or interesting) that frequently pops up in the comments section commonly found on audiophile forums.

Working similarly to Godwin’s law, the longer an audiophile thread goes on, the more likely it is to be said. A quick recap of Godwin’s law:

“Godwin’s law, short for Godwin’s law (or rule) of Nazi analogies, is an Internet adage asserting: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”

The truism I’m talking about is commonly phrased, “It’s the music, stupid,” an echo of James Carville’s “It’s the economy, stupid,” from Bill Clinton’s campaign. (I prefer not to use the word “stupid” when discussing my fellow audiophiles’ comments, but the play on words does not work without it, so there it is.)

Who would be foolish enough to take up the other side of this “argument,” if we can call it that?

Allow me to have a go at it.

So, if I understand correctly, it’s all about the music, right? Not the sound?

What about other kinds of art? What is it about there?

Christopher Nolan shoots on IMAX film, which I believe in its current iteration is either 65 or 70mm.

If his movies are about a story and its characters, why not shoot them on 35mm? Or 16mm. Or Super 8? Or, gasp, digital?

Same story, same characters.  But it sure wouldn’t be the same experience.

And nobody has trouble understanding that. Here’s Nolan on 70 mm.

“[The] sharpness and the clarity and the depth of the image is unparalleled. The headline, for me, is by shooting on IMAX 70 mm film, you’re really letting the screen disappear. You’re getting a feeling of 3-D without the glasses. You’ve got a huge screen and you’re filling the peripheral vision of the audience. You are immersing them in the world of the film.“

But music is different for some reason? To paraphrase Joe Pesci, different how?

Music is nothing but sound, so without good sound, what do you really have?

When it comes to pop and jazz tunes, the broad outlines of a song can be understood even through very bad sound. I grew up listening to The Beatles on my transistor radio. Their music sounded amazing to me.

But is that true of symphonic music? Can you possibly understand The Rite of Spring by playing it through a computer speaker or iphone?

In no other aspect of life outside of music does anyone want to put up with the lowest possible quality.

Bad food, bad clothes, bad cars, bad TVs — none of these are acceptable, at least not to anyone I know.

But bad sounding music? MP3 sound? CD sound? Heavy Vinyl sound?

Not a problem! 99.999% of the music listeners of the world accept that level of quality every day. They don’t care about the quality of the sound and they think that those who do are fools who are conmpletely missing the point. We’ve all run into these people. Who can say that our way of listening is any better than their way?

It Can’t Be

The one place where it cannot just be about the music is on an audiophile thread. Audiophiles are lovers of sound, not lovers of music. (Lovers of music are, I’ve just learned, “melophiles.”)

The one place such a tiresome truism as “it’s about the music” has no business is where audiophiles are talking about the sound of recordings. The music has to be secondary to the quality of the sound. The sound of whatever is being described — a heavy vinyl pressing, an original LP, a CD, a cassette — is what is of interest to those of us who go to audiophile websites and forums.

The “value” of these places — a word we would never use in this context without scare quotes, as we do not find much value to be had there — is to be pointed in the direction of music, any music, as long as it has good sound.

What pressing sounds better than what other pressing? What mastering engineer did a better job on an album than some other mastering engineer?

Whether you like the music on Album X is of much less concern to me than what you say about its sound.

If, in your audiophile opinion, you prefer the sound of one pressing over another, that is something that might have some value to me. I’m always looking for higher quality sound.

I don’t care what you think of the music; that’s your business and none of mine. I’m perfectly capable of making my own judgments about the music I listen to, thank you very much. All I want to know is which version of the album conveys the music we are discussing better than others.

Except in some rare cases, the music is the same for all the pressings of it. How on earth can it be about the music if the music is always the same?

You can choose to watch Oppenheimer on your phone. You have the right to make that choice. If you do make that choice, can you talk about the experience of seeing the movie the same way that someone who saw it in an Imax theater is able to talk about the experience? Would you be in a position to comment on how powerful the image was, or how powerful the sound was? How either of them, or both, made you feel?

You can play records back on bookshelf speakers shoved up against a wall in a back bedroom, but should you really be talking about the experience of hearing the music in such compromised circumstances?

Sure, you heard the music, but some rather large percentage of the sound was not conveyed to you, so why would you want to discuss the pros and cons of sound that you barely heard?

As you will see in the commentary reproduced below, I want to hear recorded music sound like live music.

I don’t have much use for bad sounding music. If the music doesn’t sound good, then I probably don’t want to listen to it. (If I go to a live venue and the sound is bad, more often than not I just leave.)

Finding good music with good sound on vinyl is not a problem, because the record world is overflowing with thousands and thousands of great sounding pressings, many of which I have yet to discover.

I can easily find great sound for the music I already love, because a very large part of what makes my favorite music so emotionally satisfying to listen to is the fact that it is exceptionally well recorded. Emotionally satisfying and exceptionally well recorded are not independent of each other. They work together and reinforce each other.

If you find yourself on a forum, and you feel the need to remind the other posters there that “it’s about the music,” check to see if it’s a forum dedicated to audiophile sound, and if it is, consider saving your breath. Surely you have something more interesting to say.

The section below is reproduced from this post and talks about what I was aiming for in building my stereo system and room.

In Geoff Edgers’ Washington Post article about audiophiles, somebody asks “why would you want to go into a room and just play a record by yourself?”

I would answer the question with a question of my own: why would you go to a museum and just look at a painting by yourself?

You don’t need anybody around you to help you understand a painting.

You just look at the painting and that’s the experience of looking at a painting.

When I listen to a record, I want the experience of listening to the record. I don’t need anybody else around. I don’t need anybody talking to me. I just want to hear that record, and as Nathan said, I want it to take me from the beginning to the end. And at the end I should feel like I still want more.

For me, that’s what a good record and a good stereo is all about. That’s the reason some of us describe ourselves as audiophiles.

The shortest definition of an audiophile is a “lover of sound.” I love good sound and I’ve spent more than forty years building a stereo system that has what I think is very good sound. (What others think of it has never been of much concern, nor should it be.)

It’s in a dark room with no windows because music sounds better in a dark room with no windows. Keet the door closed, too.

There is one chair and it is located in the sweet spot in the room. (Yes, there can only be one sweet spot.)

I go in there to put myself in the living presence of the musicians who performed on whatever records I choose to play.

Music is loud and so I play the stereo at levels as close to live music as I can manage.

The system creates a soundfield that stretches from wall to wall and floor to ceiling. With the speakers pulled so far out into the room, they have often been known to disappear, leaving only three-dimensional imaging of great depth and precision (especially in the case of orchestral music).

By listening this way, I am able to completely immerse myself in the music I play, with no distractions of any kind.

This way of listening is more intense and powerful and transportive than any other I have known (outside of the live event of course).

That’s what I am trying to achieve with my system and the best records I can find to play on it: an experience that is so intense and powerful that I find myself completely transported out of the real world I exist in, and into the imaginary world created by the producers, engineers and musicians responsible for making the record.

If you want this kind of experience, you need more than good music. You need a good recording of that music, and, if you’re an analog sort of person with high standards, you need an exceptionally good pressing of that recording.

At the highest levels of sound quality, for us audiophiles it can’t just be about the music. You really do need all three.

Depending on your tastes and standards, good music can easily be found most everywhere. Good music with good sound, at least on vinyl, is much more rare, and good sounding music reproduced well is, in my experience, very rare indeed.

Some people are upset and put off by what they consider to be our “extreme” approach to records and audio. It bothers them that we constantly say that doing records and audio well is harder than it looks. To them it seems so easy.

Naturally, we believe there is ample evidence to support our views on the subject.

And, to paraphrase Jesus, the upset will always be with us.

Robert Brook has given this subject some thought as well: My system, what it’s built for, and why

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