A customer recently contacted us after making his first purchase and being disappointed with the White Hot Stamper pressing we had sent him.
Hi,
Wondered who I can talk to about this record that I purchased. I’ve listened to it numerous times and it just does not have that sound stage I was expecting.
I am not looking for a refund. In fact, I refuse a refund. However, I would appreciate the opportunity to speak to someone about the factors that make this a “White Hot Pressing.”
I’m sure you need to understand what amplifier, speakers, setting, etc. I am using. Without Going into the details, I have a McIntosh amplifier and Focal 936 speakers. I know how much of a difference equipment makes in the sound of a record.
I love to hear amazing records, some of which I have in original pressings I purchased when they were released and can truly feel it when there is something special about the record. This one does not seem to have it to me, but I am interested in finding and purchasing one from you that gives that amazing feeling.
Please let me know if there is someone I can speak to about finding that record.
Thank you,
Sanjay
I replied with an overwhelming amount of information (and opinions!) designed to help Sanjay understand more about records, as follows:
Sanjay,
Tom here. Let me see if I can help.
The first thing I would need to know is what version of the album do you have that you think sounds better, or, if not better, comparable?
[He had no other pressing, not surprising as our White Hot copies are almost impossible to beat.]
Assuming you don’t have a better copy — we would be very surprised if you did — we would say that it’s likely there are two factors at play:
White Hot does not mean amazing Demo Disc sound. It means the best sound we can find for this recording, relative to the others we play. In other words, the best there is within the limitations of the recording.
We can’t fix the recording, we can only find you the best available pressing. If you were expecting more, something along the lines of Dark Side of the Moon, then I understand your disappointment.
For the band’s first album, we wrote:
It’s unlikely you will be demonstrating your system with this record, but you may find yourself enjoying the hell out of it for what it is — an early example of Roots Rock that still holds up today.
For Green River we wrote:
Green River isn’t ever going to be a knockout demo disc, but a copy like this allows you to enjoy the music as it was recorded. Most copies are so dull, grainy and lifeless that someone would have to wake you at the end of a side!
We have a section for great sounding recordings, it’s this one:
https://www.better-records.com/product.aspx?pf_id=top100
There are no CCR records in this section and never will be.
The second point I would make is that some records are much more difficult to reproduce than others, and require the right equipment to do them justice. In the listing for your record, under one of the tabs, you can find all of this.
The story of our recent shootouts is what real Progress in Audio is all about.
Many copies were gritty, some were congested in the louder sections, some never got big, some were thin and lacking the lovely analog richness of the best — we heard plenty of copies whose faults were obvious when played against two top sides such as these. The best copies no longer to seem to have the problems we used to hear all the time.
Of course the reason I hadn’t heard the congestion and grittiness in the recording is that two things changed. One, we found better copies of the record to play — probably, can’t say for sure, but let’s assume we did, and, Two, we’ve made lots of improvements to the stereo since the last time we did the shootout.
You have to get around to doing regular shootouts for any given record in order to find out how far you’ve come, or if you’ve come any distance at all. Fortunately for us the improvements, regardless of what they might be or when they might have occurred, were incontrovertible. The album was now playing at a much, much higher level.
It’s yet more evidence supporting the possibility, indeed the importance, of taking full advantage of the Revolutions in Audio of the last ten or twenty years.
Who’s to Blame?
It’s natural to blame sonic shortcomings on the recording; everyone does it, including us.
But in this case We Was Wrong. The congestion and distortion we’d gotten used to are no longer a problem on the best copies. We’ve worked diligently on every aspect of record cleaning and reproduction, and now there’s no doubt that we can get these vintage Creedence records to play at a much higher level than we could before.
This is why we keep experimenting, keep tweaking and keep searching for the best sounding pressings, and why we encourage you to do the same.
A word of caution: Unless your system is firing on all cylinders, even our hottest Hot Stamper copies — the Super Hot and White Hot pressings with the biggest, most dynamic, clearest, and least distorted sound — can have problems . Your system should be thoroughly warmed up, your electricity should be clean and cooking, you’ve got to be using the right room treatments, and we also highly recommend using a demagnetizer such as the Walker Talisman on the record, your cables (power, interconnect and speaker) as well as the individual drivers of your speakers.
This is a record that’s going to demand a lot from the listener, and we want to make sure that you feel you’re up to the challenge. If you don’t mind putting in a little hard work, here’s a record that will reward your time and effort many times over, and probably teach you a thing or two about tweaking your gear in the process (especially your VTA adjustment, just to pick an obvious area most audiophiles neglect).
High-Ranking
This recording ranks high on our Difficulty of Reproduction Scale. Do not attempt to play it using any but the best equipment.
It took a long time to get to the point where we could clean the record properly, twenty years or so, and about the same amount of time to get the stereo to the level it needed to be, involving, you guessed it, many of the Revolutionary Changes in Audio we tout so obsessively. It’s not easy to find a pressing with the low end whomp factor, midrange energy and overall dynamic power that this music needs, and it takes one helluva stereo to play one too.
If you have the kind of big system that a record like this demands, when you drop the needle on the best of our Hot Stamper pressings, you are going to hear some amazing sound .
{He sent me a picture of the speaker he uses, the Focal 936. It has 3 6.5 inch woofers.]
I would not want to play a CCR record with the speaker you have. It is doubtful it can move enough air to get the weight of the music right.
We discuss our system and why a CCR record would sound right on our big speakers here:
https://www.better-records.com/product.aspx?pf_id=stereo
On my blog I have a section for:
RECORDS THAT SOUND BEST ON BIG SPEAKERS AT LOUD LEVELS
with 300+ entries at this point, including all the CCR albums.
This is a lot to digest, but after 40 years of audio experience and record collecting, I have learned a few things, and the above information is my attempt to help others with what I have learned:
https://www.better-records.com/product.aspx?pf_id=expert
Please take the time to read all the information I have sent, as well as as much of the following as you can, probably best spread out over the course of a few weeks:
https://www.better-records.com/dept.aspx?dept_id=14-006-016
If you would like specific recommendations about records you are interested in that we think would sound good on your stereo, we are happy to point you in the right direction.
Best, TP
