Hot Stamper Pressings of The Soft Parade Available Now
Sonic Grade: F
A Gold Label original pressing blew our minds many years ago, after which we wrote “Need I even mention how much better this copy sounds than the 180g version from the Rhino Box Set, digitally remastered by Bernie Grundman? That thing is just awful, possibly the worst sounding pressing I have ever heard.”
The Gold CD Hoffman did for Audio Fidelity is very likely to be night and day better. So much for the concept of vinyl superiority. Not with Bernie at the helm anyway.
Rhino has really made a mockery of the analog medium. Rhino touts their releases as being pressed on “180 gram High Performance Vinyl.” However, if they are using performance to refer to sound quality, we have found the performance of their vinyl to be quite low, lower than the average copy one might stumble upon in the used record bins.
More of the Music of The Doors
This incredibly rare, exceptionally quiet Elektra Gold Label LP sounds AMAZING, As Good As It Gets (AGAIG)! The sound is BIG, RICH, and FULL-BODIED, exactly the way it should be.
As good as the Hot Stamper Big Red E Label copies can be, and that’s very good indeed, the right first pressing is still The King. It just can’t be beat.
The difference might only be 5%, but on a big dynamic speaker playing at loud levels that 5% can really give the sound the boost it needs to go over the top into crazy Demo Disc Land.
How rare is a clean, properly mastered gold label original like this? So rare this is THE FIRST ONE WE’VE EVER LISTED on the site! I think I run into one like this about every five years. Most of the gold label pressings we come across are full of groove distortion, covered with scratches and skips, and often have no top end left after being ploughed with a bad needle.
I’m sure the console stereo on which I first played my copy of The Soft Parade tracked at five or ten grams. The fine squiggles that carry the most delicate extended highs gets shaved off pretty quickly at that weight, and once they’re gone they’re gone for good. We never noticed because the frequency response of the speakers in those cabinets probably topped out at 6k, if that. (This is why so many dealers on Ebay don’t hear the surface noise on the beat up records they sell — no top end, no surface noise to worry about! Works out great for everybody except us audiophiles who actually care about the sound of our records, not just the color of their labels.)
More of the Music of The Doors
Reviews and Commentaries for The Doors’ Debut
THE BEST SOUNDING COPY OF THIS ALBUM WE’VE EVER HEARD!
This Elektra Gold Label SLAUGHTERED the DCC, MURDERED the MoFi, and DECIMATED every last pressing we played it against! You aren’t going to believe all the TUBEY MAGIC on this copy!
Both sides are chock full of wonderfully grungy guitars, BIG beefy bass, and amazingly full-bodied vocals. The overall sound is open and spacious with lots of room around the instruments. This copy has the kind of presence and energy that will have you really rockin’ out! Side one rates an A+++ and side two is right behind, rating A++ – A+++. We’ve never heard a better copy and we expect that you haven’t either — it’s OUT OF THIS WORLD! (more…)
Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Doors Available Now
Sonic Grade: DCC: B / Rhino: C
It’s not easy for us to find copies of Strange Days that outperform the DCC, but our best Hot Stampers beat it handily. We also put our original copies up against the 180g version from the Doors Box Set and it was an absolute bloodbath.
We understand that a well-known reviewer likes the sound of those Doors pressings (along with just about every Heavy Vinyl reissue that hits his table) but we here at Better Records prefer to set higher standards.
We think you deserve better, and at these prices the record better deliver a world of sound that the Heavy Vinyl pressing only hints at. And it does. (more…)
More of the Music of The Doors
Reviews and Commentaries for The Doors’ Debut
Sonic Grade: B
We used to like the Doors First album on DCC back when it came out in the late ’90s; it sure beat the MoFi and every other pressing I had around, including all my original gold label Elektra pressings.
But much water has gone under that bridge. There have been countless audio revolutions, as well as the improved record cleaning technologies we employ (and tout at every turn). Without them old records just sound like old records, and the DCC pressing will be better.
But with them, and lots of other changes, the right original stomps all over the DCC.
Hey, We Was Wrong and we’re not too proud to admit it. If you have the DCC and want to know what you’re missing, a Hot Stamper is the ticket.
It will cost you a fair bit more than the DCC, but the difference in sound should more than justify the difference in price if this album is important to you, and how could it not be?
Further Reading
More of the Music of The Doors
Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of The Doors
Sonic Grade: F
What a mess. Imagine listening to this album with a two inch thick velvet curtain placed over your speakers — that’s the sound of this remastered record!
How bad does a stereo have to be in order to disguise the fact that this is one of the worst Classic Rock reissues in the history of the world?
I don’t know and I sure don’t want to find out.
Letters and Commentaries for The Soft Parade
One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:
Hey Tom,
Tom, I have not listened to the other two yet, but I had to shoot you a quick email about the Doors Soft Parade. It is totally killer.
It’s for records like this that we pour money into high performance audio systems. Bravo! Never heard the Doors sound like this before.
It’s hard to describe that pressing. It has everything you could want in a vinyl LP. Huge wide and deep soundstage, Jim’s voice and each instrument in its own 3D place in the soundstage, phenomenal tonal balance over the entire range of the music, great texture of voice and instruments, real here-with-you presence and the decay of notes is for real. Yeah, you’re right, this one has the magic.
Ed M.
Ed, thanks very much for your letter. I think you did a great job describing the pressing we sent you.
Best, TP
More of the Music of The Doors
Reviews and Commentaries for The Doors’ Debut
Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of The Doors
What to listen for you ask? ENERGY and RAW POWER. Few audiophiles have any idea how well recorded this album is, simply because most pressings don’t do a very good job of encoding the life of the master tape onto the vinyl of the day, regardless of whether that day is in 1967 or 2017.
The first Doors album is without a doubt the punchiest, liveliest, most powerful recording in the entire Doors catalog.
Huh? I’m guessing this statement does not comport well with your own experience of the album, and there’s a good reason for that: not many copies of the album provide strong evidence for any of the above qualities.
Most pressings are opaque, flat, thin, veiled, compressed, lifeless and sound exactly the way so many old rock records sound: like some old rock record. (more…)