Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Elton John Available Now
This is an EXCELLENT sounding British DJM pressing of Elton’s Greatest Hits, with all the tubey magic that that implies. These are the real tapes, folks, pressed on that see-thru purple DJM vinyl.
The sound of course varies from track to track. ‘Your Song’ and ‘Saturday Night’ are GREAT here. The other tracks on side one are good but not like those two.
Side two has better sound overall than side one, with an OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD ‘Border Song.’
I love what Steve Hoffman did with this album, [unlikely we would find the sound of his reissue impressive now] but I haven’t played it in a long time and can’t say how it compares to this one.
Your Song
Daniel
Honky Cat
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting
Rocket Man (I Think It’s Going to Be a…)
Bennie and the Jets
Candle in the Wind
Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me
Border Song
Crocodile Rock
This is an Older Review.
Most of the older reviews you see are for records that did not go through the shootout process, the revolutionary approach to finding better sounding pressings we developed in the early 2000s and have since turned into a fine art.
We found the records you see in these older listings by cleaning and playing a pressing or two of the album, which we then described and priced based on how good the sound and surfaces were. (For out Hot Stamper listings, the Sonic Grades and Vinyl Playgrades are listed separately.)
We were often wrong back in those days, something we have no reason to hide. Audio equipment and record cleaning technologies have come a long way since those darker days, a subject we discuss here.
Currently, 99% (or more!) of the records we sell are cleaned, then auditioned under rigorously controlled conditions, up against a number of other pressings. We award them sonic grades, and then condition check them for surface noise.
As you may imagine, this approach requires a great deal of time, effort and skill, which is why we currently have a highly trained staff of about ten. No individual or business without the aid of such a committed group could possibly dig as deep into the sound of records as we have, and it is unlikely that anyone besides us could ever come along to do the kind of work we do.
The term “Hot Stampers” gets thrown around a lot these days, but to us it means only one thing: a record that has been through the shootout process and found to be of exceptionally high quality.
The result of our labor is the hundreds of titles seen here, every one of which is unique and guaranteed to be the best sounding copy of the album you have ever heard or you get your money back.
Further Reading
