Top Artists – Steely Dan & Donald Fagen Solos

“Listening to my very first Hot Stamper purchase was by far the most significant event in my life as an audiophile.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of Singer-Songwriters Available Now

Note: rarely do we have any records by Carole King on the site, and we almost never have any copies of Tapestry, a record we know from experience that is very hard to find with top quality sound and almost impossible to find with quiet vinyl. We do the best we can, better than anyone else, but we would surely love to do better.

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased back in 2017 [the bolding of the text has been added by us.]

Hey Tom, 

Listening to my very first Hot Stamper purchase was by far the most significant event in my life as an audiophile. I discovered the Better Records website way back in 2007, but being a hardcore skeptic I didn’t purchase anything until almost two years later. Although I agreed with the premise that different pressings have varying degrees of sound quality, I simply could not believe that any record could sound so much better to justify the prices. Frankly, I thought that the buyers of these records were folks with more money than sense.

What finally drove me to purchase my first Hot Stamper was my attempt to find a decent copy of Carole King’s Tapestry album. I had decided to try the Better Records approach and gathered half a dozen copies, as well as the Classic heavy vinyl reissue that I had read good things about. Talk about an exercise in futility. Despite a thorough cleaning with Disc Doctor, no copy sounded significantly better than any of the others. However, Better Records just happened to have a 1+ copy of Tapestry on sale for $75 at the time, so I decided to take the plunge and buy it, even though I still thought the price was outrageous.

What followed next absolutely stunned and amazed me. Although I was prepared to shoot out the Hot Stamper against my own copies, I knew within the first minute of play that it would be totally unnecessary. The Hot Stamper sounded like a completely different recording. I cannot stress this enough.

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Upper Midrange on The Nightfly

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Donald Fagen Available Now

We just finished a big shootout for Donald Fagen’s first solo effort, released just two years after Gaucho and the end of Steely Dan and we gotta tell you, there are a lot of weak sounding copies out there. We should know — we played them. 

Robert Ludwig cut all the originals we played. Are you going to tell me that every copy with RL in the dead wax sounds the same as every other copy with those initials? The question answers itself.

What to Listen For

The upper mids on certain tracks of both sides have a tendency to be brighter than we would have liked.

Ruby Baby on side one can be that way, and the title track on side two has some of the wannabe hit single radio EQ that makes it less likely to please, so to speak.

Other records with a tendency to have boosted upper mids can be found here.

On a good copy the first track of each side should be all you need to hear.

Here are hundreds other titles with specific advice on what to listen for on some of the albums we’ve played in shootouts.

If you know how to do shootouts, you know how to find good sounding records.

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Letter of the Week – “I never thought I’d spend $600 on ‘it’s only a record.’ But it is worth every goosebump.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Steely Dan Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about a Hot Stamper pressing of Aja he purchased recently:

Hey Tom, 

You bastard! You did it again. GREAT pressing of AJA Steely Dan – promo album.

This is by far the best recording I’ve heard. I am a freak listener. Everything has to sound perfect, I hear everything.

I savor every note, every instrument, every vocal. The separation and presence of each sound is amazing.

Well done. I wish you continued success. I never thought I’d spend $600 and more on “it’s only a record.” But it is worth every goosebump.

Rocco

Rocco,

By far the best recording you’ve heard? That is high praise indeed!

So glad you liked the record as much as we did. We heard 600 bucks worth of sound and apparently so did you.

Goosebumps are indeed expensive, but you could spend $1,000 or $10,000 on Heavy Vinyl and not even get a single one, so, money well spent.

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Donald Gets Dynamic on Rikki

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Steely Dan Available Now

Pretzel Logic is one knockout of a recording.

Having done shootouts for every Steely Dan title, I can say that sonically this one has no equal in their canon. (Click on that link to see two hundred others.)

Which is really saying something, since Becker and Fagen are known to be audiophiles themselves and real sticklers for sound. No effort in the recording of this album was spared, that I can tell you without fear of contradiction.

They sweated the details on this one. The mix is perfection.

But you would never know it by playing the average pressing of this album, which is dull, compressed and dead as the proverbial doornail.

(We’ve played plenty of records — actually, specific pressings of records — that were dull, compressed, and dead as a doornail. We’ve made links for them by the hundreds here so that audiophiles who do not want records with these problems can more easily avoid them.)

It’s positively criminal the way this amazingly well-recorded music sounds on the typical LP pressing. Hint: avoid all imports and anything not on ABC.) How can you possibly be expected to appreciate the music when you can’t hear it right?

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Pretzel Logic – Our Four Plus Shootout Winner from 2011

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Steely Dan Available Now

This BEYOND White Hot side one (A++++) of Pretzel Logic has nothing less than master tape sound. [Whatever that is!] Our Four Plus ranking is rare enough, but in this case it has the added benefit of conferring upon this very pressing the status of the best sounding Steely Dan recording we have ever heard.

There is no better recording in the Steely Dan catalog, and I don’t think there’s a copy anywhere that’s any better than this on side one. (To see what we consider to be the single best sounding album from two hundred(!) other artists, please click here.)

UPDATE 2026

  • Note that only one side on this pressing was actually any good. Side two earned a sub-Hot Stamper grade of 1+. We no longer sell records with grades that low.
  • In 2011 we still had a lot to learn about Pretzel Logic, but this copy sure had us fired up at the time, and that’s a good thing, right?
  • Our lengthy commentary entitled outliers and out-of-this-world sound talks about how rare these kinds of pressings are and how we go about finding them.
  • We no longer give Four Pluses out as a matter of policy, but that doesn’t mean we don’t come across records that deserve them from time to time.
  • Nowadays we most often place them under the general heading of breakthrough pressings. These are records that, out of the blue, revealed to us sound of such high quality that it changes our undertanding of the recording itself.
  • We found ourselves asking “Who knew?” Perhaps a better question might have been “How high is up?”

This Beyond White Hot Pretzel Logic has got it all: tons of energy, mindblowing transparency, uncanny presence, and lots of deep bass. We feel Pretzel Logic is the band’s best sounding recording, and here’s a copy that will show you why.

There’s lots of room around the drums, texture to the bass, breath to the vocals, and weight to the bottom end. The clarity is unbelievable and the overall sound is HUGE! The piano sounds AMAZING and the top end is silky sweet. It’s more open and more alive than you could ever imagine.

We’ve been playing this record since it came out in 1973 and this is the first “Four Plus” A++++ grade we have ever awarded it. The sound is Demo Disc quality of the highest order.

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The Uncanny Feeling of Being in the Room While the Band Is Playing

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Steely Dan Available Now

Years ago we did a shootout and found a copy that we described this way:

No other copy gave us the feeling we got from this pressing — the indescribable illusion of being in the room while the band is playing. This is what we refer to as Master Tape Sound. Once you’ve experienced it you’re never the same. Read some of our testimonials. People really go crazy over this kind of sound. Records like this are few and far between, but when you find one, the effect it can have on you may make you go a little overboard too.

You might even feel the need to write us a letter. It’s the kind of experience that compels you to find some way to share it with the world. The problem there is that those reading your letter don’t have a copy with the kind of sound you have, and they therefore can’t experience the music the way you can. If they haven’t heard it for themselves, it’s all just talk, the kind of crap you can read on any internet forum about any piece-of-junk record ever made.

That’s why we love to hear from people who’ve actually played the very same record we did. We know why they’ve flipped out. We flipped out too.

When you drop the needle on a record this good, you feel like you just threaded up the master tape and hit play. You quickly become so totally IMMERSED in the musical experience that you soon forget you’re listening to a record. You’re hearing the music exactly the way the musicians intended it to sound. You can’t ask for more than that. Records like that get the Triple Plus.

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Listening in Depth to Pretzel Logic

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Steely Dan Available Now

It’s positively criminal how mediocre this amazingly well-recorded album sounds on the average pressing of it. How can you possibly be expected to appreciate the music of Pretzel Logic when it sounds like that?

The reason we audiophiles go through the trouble of owning and tweaking our temperamental equipment is that we know how hard it is to enjoy good music when it doesn’t sound right.

Bad sound is a barrier to deeper understanding and a more intense listening experience, which is why I spent 50 years building a stereo that could play a record like Pretzel Logic right, or at least as right as I could get it to sound. (Speaking of sound, acquiring this preamp only a few years after discovering the music of Steely Dan changed everything for me.)

I also credit Pretzel Logic, probably more than any other album of theirs, with helping me dramatically improve the quality of my playback.

Side One

Rikki Don’t Lose That Number

By far the biggest hit on this album and one of the biggest for the band, it’s also one of the clearest indicators of Hot Stamper Sound. The Horace Silver inspired intro is at its best when you can easily hear the acoustic guitar in the left channel doubling the piano. On most copies it’s blurry and dull, which causes it to get lost in the mix. Transparent copies pull it out in the open where it belongs.

That’s the first test, but the real test for this track is how well the (surprisingly) DYNAMIC chorus is handled. On a properly mastered and pressed copy, Fagen’s singing in the chorus is powerful and very present. He is RIGHT THERE, full of energy and drive, challenging the rest of the band to keep up with him. And they do! The best copies demonstrate what a lively group of musicians he has backing him on this track. (If you know anything about Steely Dan’s recordings, you know the guys in these sessions are the best of the best.)

Check out the big floor tom that gets smacked right before the first chorus. On the best copies the whomp factor is off the scale.

Shocking as it may seem, most copies of this album are DOA on this track. They’re severely compressed — they never come to life, they never get LOUD. The result? Fagen and the band sound bored. And that feeling is contagious.

Of course few audiophiles have any idea how dynamic this recording can be because they’ve never heard an especially good pressing played back on a big speaker system in a big room.

Only a handful of the copies we played had the truly powerful dynamics heard on the best copies. These are Pretzel Logics with far more life than I ever dreamed possible. Who knew?

As an aside, back in 1976 I had my fifty favorite albums professionally cleaned on a KMAL record cleaning machine at the stereo store I worked at. They would give you a custom record sleeve along with the cleaning, and sure enough I found my original Pretzel Logic with its KMAL sleeve. My copy was pretty good but no Hot Stamper. So, yes, it really did take us thirty years to find the best copy!

(I took the picture of the KMAL sleeve you see to the left partly because it provides a piece of factual evidence that I really didn’t have a clue about records in 1976. I was proud to be the owner of an original British pressing of Led Zeppelin II — which is absolutely the wrong pressing of the album if you are interested in good sound — but of course I had no way to know that back then.  (more…)

Steely Dan – Aja

More of the Music of Steely Dan

  • Incredible sound for Steely Dan’s magnificent Jazzy Pop breakthrough album, with both sides earning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • Punchy, full and smooth, with the kind of rhythmic energy that brings out the jazzy funk in the music
  • A Better Records rock and pop Top 100 album and a true Demo Disc on a pressing that sounds as good as this one does
  • If I were to make a list of my favorite rock and pop albums of 1977, this album would definitely be right at the top
  • Considering how dismal the releases by Cisco Music and Mobile Fidelity were, it seems that no one outside of Bernie Grundman has managed to get Aja sounding right on vinyl, and that was 47 years ago
  • The sound is as heavily processed, artificial and overly glossy as practically anything produced in the 70s, which means that its Mid-Fi appeal is all but assured
  • For those of you on the Higher Fidelity end of the spectrum, our best Hot Stampers get everything sounding as right, balanced and natural as Aja can possibly sound
  • Unfortunately for those of you who don’t like paying our prices or doing your own shootouts, Bernie’s new UHQR leaves a lot to be desired. With mediocre-to-bad sound on all four of its sides and a price tag of $150, what else can you call it but another Analogue Productions rip-off?

Folks, there’s not much I can tell you about this copy of Aja that’s going to make you want this record, other than to say this: If you’re in the market for a superb pressing of what’s gotta be the most beloved Steely Dan record they made, look no further. It’s right here. (more…)

Letter of the Week – “The Hot Stamper copy went WAY beyond what I expected in terms of the sonic shortcomings I could hear on the other pressings.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Steely Dan Available Now

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

Hey Tom,   

I got the shipment today and it was meticulously packed. It all got here in perfect shape.

I could not resist doing a little side-by-side comparison of Aja tonight, as I have several copies. When I realized that different pressings sounded different (before I found your site) I began accumulating multiple copies, but I find it quite difficult to get loads of mint minus copies of anything. [It’s not as easy as it used to be, that’s for sure.]

Anyway, I was totally blown away. The Hot Stamper copy went WAY beyond what I expected in terms of the sonic shortcomings I could hear on the other pressings. Just… amazing… music.

The good news is my record collection should shrink by at least 75% in size as I sell off all the old multiple copies!

Adrian B.

Adrian,

You TOTALLY get it.

You do your own shootouts.

That way, you have no trouble recognizing how much better our pressing sounds than the ones you own. (This is not a foregone conclusion. You could have told us that you liked one of your copies better, and we would have refunded your money. We can be right a lot, but we can’t be right all the time, nor should we expect to be.)

And you then got rid of the stuff that is not worth keeping because it’s not worth playing.

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Letter of the Week – “…now I’m compelled to listen, it’s just so damned good.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of Personal Favorites Available Now

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

Hey Tom,

You bring up several experiences that can happen with listening to Hot Stampers, and I’ve had them all (which has caused me to pay more attention to you than I might have, since you clearly learn as you age, which makes you a rarity.)

I often come up with my own – they don’t count unless there are multiple instances. Here’s one — I’ve been meaning to write you with a list of many, but it’s always in the middle of listening, so it never gets done.

Records that have been forever more or less my least liked of a particular band suddenly become my favorite.

This is really weird, but it happens often enough to notice.

Pretzel Logic is the most obvious.

Never really like it much, but the sound quality of yours is so amazingly better than any other I’ve heard, I just fell into the music, even though I’d heard it for decades. I totally love this record now, and the most it would get from me in the past was a grudging acknowledgement of its existence.

I suppose I should at least mention two, but I’ll have to modify the category, lol. Records where I love the music, but can’t stand to listen, but now with a HS, I can’t get enough.

It’s not just that now I can listen, but that now I’m compelled to listen, it’s just so damned good.

Really, this one is one of my absolute favorites for pure sound quality, and the music is so up my alley I can’t believe I get both on the same record. Okay, Every Picture Tells a Story. Wow, what a record, er, stamper.

There was a time not long ago, a few years, that I thought I could help myself by ignoring the Heavy Vinyl but buying the SACD or whatever from the same companies. Maybe there’re some good ones, but Rod’s Masterpiece certainly wasn’t one of them.

Take Care,

Erich H.

Erich,

Thanks so much for your letter. As you point out, I know exactly what you mean.

However, I fell in love with both of those albums after the first play, so how they failed to impress you the first time around is probably mostly attributable to a fact of record collecting that few audiophiles seem to appreciate: luck.

The first time I played Pretzel Logic I was amazed at the sound quality of the copy I had just bought from Tower Records. That would have been 1974, and the way I would have found out that the album had been released is by going in the store every week and checking out all the newest arrivals.

Obviously they sold me an original — nothing else existed at the time — and although it may not technically have been a Hot Stamper — they didn’t exist either — it was most assuredly a very good sounding copy.

I was already a big Steely Dan fan after playing Countdown to Ecstasy for months on end. This album put them right up there with all of my favorite bands of the day, bands that were dedicated to making their record albums as emotionally powerful a listening experience as possible, and ensuring the quality — sonically and musically — was as high as possible from the first note to the last. (Here are two others that tell that same story.)

The copy I had in 1971 of Every Picture Tells a Story would have been the domestic original as well. The right stampers on that title are amazing sounding — as you now know firsthand, since that’s what we sent you — but of course that is something I would have had no understanding of at the time and wouldn’t come to appreciate for another twenty years or more.

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