Top Artists – Led Zeppelin

Customers Rave about their Hot Stamper Pressings of Zep III

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

Below you will find some of the letters customers have sent us after playing one of our Hot Stamper reissue pressings of Led Zeppelin III.

We’ve written more about Led Zeppelin’s music and sold more of their albums than any other band apart from The Beatles.

All five of their first five albums are in our Top 100, and for good reason: they are amazingly well-recorded albums, but — and this is a big but — you can’t know how good these albums can sound without the right pressings.

Letter of the Week – “…fantastic and beyond expectation.”

Letter of the Week – “A great example of a record where proper mastering makes an ENORMOUS difference”

Letter of the Week – “While the loud parts rock in an unbelievable way, the quiet bits reveal the magic…”

Letter of the Week – “I now have twelve copies in total… eleven of them are useless.”

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What Are the Best Stampers for Led Zeppelin’s Albums?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

What are the best sounding stampers for Led Zeppelin’s albums?

As if we would tell you!

This is a reworked excerpt from a much longer piece entitled record collecting for audiophiles – the limits of expert advice

In it we discussed the various stampers for some of Led Zeppelin’s albums and what role they play in our Hot Stamper shootouts.

Please to enjoy.

There is no way to know whether a record is any good without playing it, early stamper, late stamper or any other stamper.

First pressings (A, 1A, A1) don’t always win shootouts.

If they did we would simply buy only first pressings with those early stampers and only sell copies with those early stampers, since they are the best.

But this ignores the inconvenient fact that a great many other things go into the production of a record that have nothing to do with how early the stamper is.

A single copy of an album with stampers numbered (or lettered) A, when compared to B, when compared to C, has no definitive meaning for stampers A, B, C, or any others, because of the tremendous variation in the sound of all the pressings with A,B,C and other stampers.

Example Number One

There is a hot stamper for a certain Zep album that always wins the shootouts, [redacted].

It beats the hell out of the early stampers, A and B. In fact, we don’t even go after A and B anymore because they are expensive and rarely sound good enough to recoup our investment of the time and money we would spend buying, cleaning and auditioning them in a shootout.

A and B can be good, but why pay top dollar for them when they have never been any better than “good?”

We’re looking for “great” so that we can charge a premium price for them. This accomplishes three things that are obviously of great importance to any business:

  1. It pleases the hell out of our customers.
  2. It covers our costs, and
  3. It lets us pay our staff good wages and bonuses for their hard work, skill and knowledge.

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Led Zeppelin on Prestigious Japanese Limited Edition Vinyl

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

A classic case of live and learn. In 2006 I finally woke up to how ridiculously bad these Japanese pressings I was selling back in the 90s actually were.

It’s what real progress in audio is all about, in this case about ten years’ worth. Those are ten years that really shook my world, and by 2007 we had discovered much better cleaning technologies and given up on Heavy Vinyl and audiophile bullshit pressings such as these, whew!

Our story from 2006:

I used to sell the German Import reissues of the Zep catalog in the 90s. At the time I thought they we’re pretty good, but then the Japanese AMJY Series came out and I thought they were clearly better.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. I now realize those Japanese pressings are bright as bright can be. Now, not-too-surprisingly, the German pressings sound more or less right (on some of their titles).

They tend to be tonally correct, which is more than you can say for most Zep pressings, especially some of the Classics [linked here], which have the same brightness issue (as well as many other problems).

UPDATE 2024

Only one of the German-pressed Zeppelin records is good enough to win shootouts, the only title of theirs on German vinyl that we buy these days. Of course we tried them all, at no small expense I might add, because there were a great many pressings cut by many different engineers over the course of decades that were pressed in Germany, and the only way we could judge them was to buy them and have them shipped over. In the end only one had the big, bold, dynamic sound we were after.

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Letter of the Week – “For me it is like the difference between 2-D and 3-D”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently (emphasis added):

Hey Tom, 

As a newcomer to your business, and to the entire concept of “Hot Stamper” records, I was naturally skeptical. Many of us have invested in a wide variety of vinyl that simple failed to live up to expectations. Initially I was going to order one and only one record from you, and test your bold promises. Instead, I ended up ordering a nice variety to truly put it to the test… investing a couple thousand dollars on faith. In short, I am now your customer for life.

As a point of reference, my system includes a pair of Wilson Audio Alexia powered by 2 monoblock McIntosh tube Amps and a Mc-tube preamp. Most importantly, a Brinkmann mag drive turntable with a Sumiko low output moving coil cartridge. So, not the world’s best system, but enough to discern what is to follow.

I ordered the following:
* Carole King Tapestry, ((White Hot Pressing)
* The Doobie Brothers, What Were Once Vices (White Hot Pressing)
* James Taylor, Sweet Baby James (White Hot Pressing)
* Paul McCartney, McCartney (Super Hot Pressing)
* Led Zeppelin, Houses of the Holy (Super Hot Pressing)
* Steely Dan, Countdown to Ecstasy (Super Hot Pressing)
* Donald Fagen, The Nightfly (White Hot Pressing)

I warmed up my amps with the tuner for an hour or so and then sat and listened to some of my other records and reacquainted myself with the music from my system. First up was “What Were Once Vices…”. It was immediately apparent that I was getting a range as wide, if not wider than anything I had ever heard from my stereo. Then when I got to the last song on side one, “Road Angel” the guitar and drum interplay in the instrumental jam completely blew me away. Midway through I took the volume from loud to louder, and it exposed nothing but pure, sweet rock and roll. Literally gave me goose bumps.

I then listened to “Countdown to Ecstasy” and in this instance I owe a clean original copy, so I put it to the test. Back to back. I did not have to go past “Bodhisattva” to know it was no contest. If I had to apply a percentage, something like 20% more music comes from the Hot Stamper, and this (like all of my orders) is one of my all time favorite albums.

I won’t go on and on, suffice to say that the experience repeated itself on all of the above.

Even the Fagen copy was WAY better than the 1982 MoFi copy I paid an arm and a leg for. I have always thought that record had a true analog quality, was surprised the first time I learned it was laid down on a digital track. The Hot Stamper even adds to this great sounding record.

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Led Zeppelin – Houses of the Holy

More of the Music of Led Zeppelin

  • With two outstanding Double Plus (A++) or BETTER sides, this copy is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other Houses of the Holy you’ve heard
  • Side two was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be shocked at how big and powerful the sound is
  • For this album, Mint Minus Minus is as QUIET as we can find them
  • Only the pressings mastered by Robert Ludwig have any hope of doing well in our shootouts, and those are the only ones we have ever offered, beginning all the way back in 2006
  • Wall to wall, floor to ceiling Led Zeppelin power – this copy delivers like you will not believe, or your money back
  • A Better Records Top 100 album (along with 4 other Zep titles), 5 stars in AMG and a true Zeppelin Must Own classic
  • The Tubey Magical acoustic guitars here should be a wake up call to everyone that any and all attempts to remaster this album are bound to fail – that sound is gone and it is never coming back
  • 5 stars: “Jimmy Page’s riffs rely on ringing, folky hooks as much as they do on thundering blues-rock, giving the album a lighter, more open atmosphere…”
  • If you’re a fan of the band, this title from 1973 is clearly one of their best, and inarguably one of their best sounding

This copy has the kind of BIG, BOLD ROCK SOUND that takes this music to places you’ve only dreamed it could go. The HUGE drums on this copy are going to blow your mind — and probably your neighbors’ minds as well.

And what would a Zep record be without bass? Not much, yet this is precisely the area where so many copies fail. Not so here. The bottom end is big and meaty with superb definition, allowing the record to ROCK, just the way the band wanted it to.

The vocals too are tonally correct. None of the phony upper-midrange boost that the Classic Records reissue suffers from is evident on this copy.

The louder Robert Plant screams, the better he sounds and the more I like it.

The Classic Records pressing makes me wince, and Jimmy Page’s remaster is not much better.

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Houses of the Holy on Classic Records Heavy Vinyl

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

We can describe the sound of this miserable Bernie Grundman remaster in two words: ridiculously bright.

Honestly, what more do you need to know? It’s almost as bad as the Zep II he cut, and that record is an abomination.

Is it the worst version of the album ever made? Hard to imagine it would have much competition.

(Oh but it does – this misbegotten series out of Japan will do nicely to illustrate how brighter is not necessarily better, it’s just brighter.)

Over the years we have done many Led Zeppelin shootouts, often including the Classic Heavy Vinyl pressings for comparison purposes. After all, these Classic LPs are what many — perhaps most — audiophiles consider superior to other pressings.

We sure don’t, but everybody else seems to. You will find very few critics of the Classic Zeps LPs outside of those who write for this blog, and even we used to recommend three of the Zep titles on Classic: Led Zeppelin I, IV and Presence.

Wrong on all counts.

We don’t actually like any of them now, although the first album is still by far the best of the bunch.

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Letter of the Week – “I still find the WHS to Hoffman 45 comparison a particularly insightful one.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Fleetwood Mac Available Now

Our good customer Aaron is somewhat obsessed with the White Hot Stamper Rumours he bought from us a while back. He finds testing it against the Hoffman 45 RPM version of the album his audiophile friends own instructive, about their systems, what they listen for, and lots more.

I’ve added some comments which I hope are helpful as well. We’ll let him take it from here.

Dear Tom,

I still find the WHS to Hoffman 45 comparison a particularly insightful one. I remember the bass being bloated and wonky on the Hoffman, and tight and impactful on the WHS on my system. I found it that way on [my friend’s] system too, but sometimes live rock music has unpleasant, over-emphasized bass. The kids like it that way I guess.

Aaron,

The proper comparison is not live rock music because a studio album is not really trying to recreate the sound of the band in concert.

On the best pressings the sound should be tonally balanced and correct, with no faults of any kind to draw your attention.

A Super Hot could sound that way. The White Hot would be 25% bigger and clearer and more punchy and resolving while still being balanced and tonally neutral.

Having auditioned and tested them by the hundreds, it has been our experience that Heavy Vinyl records never come to life the way the best vintage pressings do.

You need the right system to hear the difference, and the more right the system, the more you will hear how big the difference is.

I didn’t make any particular note of the position of the vocals, but one thing [my friend’s] system does really well is imaging, so I’m inclined to trust his impression from where he was sitting. It might be that what he was experiencing as accurate, breathtaking sound was described as “forward.” Seems like a reasonable term for that experience.

That could be a bad wire, bad electricity, glare from hi-fi-ish electronics, bad room treatments or no room treatments at all, bad speaker positioning — lots of things make vocals more forward in either a good way or a bad way. This story might be helpful in understanding some aspects of midrange presentation we wrestled with when setting up our new studio.

From where I sat, I could agree with [my friend] that the Hoffman put the snare more forward than the WHS does, but whether you like that or find it a distraction is a matter of taste.

Which is why this is not a good test record.

Where is the snare supposed to be? Who can say?

Good test records are the ones where the sound is clearly more wrong or more right as something in the playback changes, whether it’s a new piece of equipment, a tweak, or a different pressing of the same music.

If the snare is forward on a system, you play an orchestral record and point to the fact that the violins are hard and the brass is honky, or the piano sounds clanky or vague, and then you know you need to fix something because none of those instruments are supposed to sound that way.

But a snare on a rock record?

You didn’t mix the album. You don’t know! Worse, you can’t know.

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Jimmy Page Makes a Mess of His Masterpiece

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

In 2022 Geoff Edgers contacted me to find out what the story was with these so-called Hot Stampers we were selling, the ones that had so many audiophiles up in arms.

I told him our records will beat anything he can find to throw at them, so we arranged to meet at my studio and play anything he wanted to hear.

He brought with him three well known titles to play on our reference system in order to get my reaction to the sound of some of the Heavy Vinyl pressings that had found favor with reviewers and the audiophile community in general, including the 2014 remaster of Led Zeppelin II (excellent), the remaster of Brothers in Arms that Chris Bellman cut, released in 2021 (also excellent, review to come), and last and definitely least, the pricey Craft Recordings remaster by Bernie Grundman of Lush Life (astonishingly bad, review coming).

What shocked me about the sound of the Led Zeppelin II that Geoff brought over to play was how big, dynamic, present and alive it was. It sounded like a real record, not one of these remastered fakes.

At the time, it was simply not part of our experience to play a Heavy Vinyl pressing with those qualities.

We’d heard hundreds of them (and reviewed 330 on this blog as of 5/2025) that were small, flat, compressed, veiled and lifeless, but big, dynamic, present and alive were qualities we’d only experienced when playing the carefully-cleaned, properly-mastered, curated-for-sound-quality pressings we sell as Hot Stampers.

In fact, those are some of the very qualities that confer the status of Hot Stamper to a record during a shootout. That’s exactly what we’re listening for.

Houses of the Holy from the same series had a bad case of modern sound, lacking all the best qualities of the original Robert Ludwig-mastered pressings that we have come to adore. (Naturally those Ludwig masters are the only ones we would ever consider offering).

Now it’s time to talk about the first album, which I suspect will be the last of the Page remasters we will bother to play. It seems that II was a fluke.  Here is everything we didn’t like about it, which is pretty much everything.

Side One

Good Times Bad Times

    • Small, no real power

Babe I’m Gonna Leave You

    • Tonally fine
    • A very light sheen
    • Not extending high or low

Side Two

Your Time Is Gonna Come

    • Even smaller than side one
    • The organ is void of magic
    • No 3-D tubeyness or sweet glow
    • Dull/flat vocals
    • Small chorus, weak
    • Blah…
    • No…

Initial reports before we had done a shootout for the first Zep album, before we were able to include this Heavy Vinyl pressing, were that it was probably OK, not great, but not as hopeless as Houses.

Turns out it is every bit as hopeless. It may be tonally fine, but everything else is wrong, and wrong to the point that enjoying this version of the album on high quality equipment is simply not possible.

I have a couple copies of the CD (and the cassette) and they sound wonderful. If you own this awful record, buy the CD and find out for yourself if it isn’t better sounding. Hard to imagine it wouldn’t be.

Is it the worst version of the album ever made? Possibly, who can say? This album has been mastered and remastered for more than fifty years, and oftentimes well, as in the case of the Classic Records pressing from the 90s and some of the early domestic and UK pressings. There are plenty of options for those looking for a decent sounding pressing of Led Zeppelin 1.

This one should be avoided at any price. It’s a disgrace.

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Led Zeppelin / Self-Titled

More Led Zeppelin

  • A truly excellent import of Zep’s amazing debut with outstanding sound from first note to last
  • Arguably the biggest, clearest and most Tubey Magical Zeppelin album ever recorded, thanks to the engineering genius of Glyn Johns (and production genius of Jimmy Page, who paid for the whole thing out of his own pocket)
  • Just look at the track list – the lucky owner of this LP will be hearing those songs come to life like never before
  • The band’s first album is a permanent member of our Top 100 and a Big Speaker Demo Disc like you will not believe
  • 5 stars: “Taking the heavy, distorted electric blues of Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, and Cream to an extreme… But the key to the group’s attack was subtlety: it wasn’t just an onslaught of guitar noise, it was shaded and textured, filled with alternating dynamics and tempos.”

For the real Led Zep magic, you just can’t do much better than their debut — and here’s a copy that really shows you why. From the opening chords of “Good Times Bad Times” to the wild ending of “How Many More Times” (“times” start the album and end it, too, it seems) this copy will have you rockin’ out!

Both sides have the BIG ZEP SOUND. Right from the start we noticed how clean the cymbals sounded and how well-defined the bass was, after hearing way too many copies with smeared cymbals and blubbery bass.

When you have a tight, punchy copy like this one, “Good Times Bad Times” does what it is supposed to do — it really rock! With this much life, it’s lightyears ahead of the typically dull, dead, boring copy. The drum sound is perfection.

Drop the needle on “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” to hear how amazing Robert Plant’s voice sounds. It’s breathy and full-bodied with in-the-room presence. The overall sound is warm, rich, sweet, and very analog, with tons of energy. “Dazed and Confused” sounds just right — you’re gonna flip out over all the ambience!

“Communication Breakdown” sounds superb — the sound of Jimmy Page’s guitar during the solo is shockingly good.

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Letter of the Week – “…this copy blows the sonics of my old press away.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of David Bowie Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:

Hey Tom, 

I’ve been meaning to write to thank you for the magic you and your team create. I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but it is mindblowing to hear the music that comes from even just Hot and Supers. I still haven’t crossed the Rubicon into Whites. 

I have been lucky enough to have vintage pressings passed down to me from family. And while I started hearing the difference as soon as I started cleaning those old presses vs. new “remastered” ones, this small sample from your team is incredible!

Abbey at Hot is incredible! Frankly I admired the album, now it’s one of my favorites! I’m not even a huge Beatles guy, haha (Thanks for that!)

Purple Rain at Super knocked out the vintage and remastered copies that I own.

Zep I is terrific. (Weirdly on my system, “Good Times” is the least mindblowing, but “Dazed” and all of Side 2 is crazy!)

Perhaps the best sounding so far is “Ziggy,” like you said. I own a pristine vintage press passed down and this copy I got from you blows the sonics of my old press away.

Anyway, thanks again! (more…)