Andy Johns, Engineer – Reviews and Commentaries

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

Hot Stamper Pressings of Led Zeppelin’s Albums Available Now

We love it when our customers take the time and make the effort to do their own shootouts, especially when we win, which is what happens about 99% of the time.

Hey Tom,   

I’ve really been enjoying the LPs that I’ve gotten from you. Especially the Led Zep 3 most recently. Mindboggingly good. My first copy of that record I got Christmas 1970, I now have twelve copies in total… eleven of them are useless.

Think of all the money wasted on bad pressings, which 98% of them are! If not bad, then certainly mediocre.

I want to thank you for this invaluable service. I tell my friends about your service but so far it falls on deaf ears.

All the best,
Fred

Fred,

If you want to convince them of the reality of Hot Stampers, play them that for Zep III you bought. Ask them to bring over their best pressings and then blow that shit right out of the water. That ought to do it.

As I wrote to a customer not long ago, explaining doesn’t work.

Only hearing works.

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More Bright and Harsh Sound from Classic Records

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

Ridiculously bright and harsh, sounding nothing like the good pressings we sell.

We are proud to say this was one of the Classic Records Led Zeppelin releases that we refused to carry back when we were selling Heavy Vinyl (along with II and Houses, both of which stink to high heaven).

You will find very few critics of the Classic Zep LPs outside of those of us who work for Better Records, and even we used to recommend three of the Zep titles on Classic: Led Zeppelin I, IV and Presence.

Wrong on all counts. Live and learn, right?

Since then, we’ve made it a point to review many of the Classic Zeps, a public service from your friends at Better Records. We don’t actually like any of them now, although the first album is by far the best of the bunch.

Is this pressing of III the worst version of the album ever made?

There may be too much competition to make that claim – in our experience, most pressings of Zep records tend to be poorly mastered, barely hinting at how well recorded their albums really are — but it is certainly a record no audiophile should want anything to do with.

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With This UK Copy You’d Better Be Ready to Rock

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

UPDATE 2026

The shootout for Zep IV discussed below was carried out in 2012.

It seems an early British PORKY/PECKO pressings did very well, winning side one and coming close to the best on side two.

For at least five years now we have been unable to find a British pressing that eaned grades better than 2+, or Super Hot. Since the British pressings tend to be very expensive and hard to find in good shape, we have simply stopped buying them as they do not seem to be capable of winning shootouts anymore.

Other comments may be problematic in this review as well, so best to consult our latest listing for what we think we currently know about the album. Here is a short test to get you started.

Our Review from 2012

We did a massive shootout in 2012 for Zep’s beloved fourth album and this British pressing earned a nearly perfect score with some of the BIGGEST, BOLDEST, HARDEST Rockin’ sound we have ever heard on the album. Without a doubt this is the best sounding IV side two we’ve ever played, with the biggest bottom of them all.

When the Levee Breaks, a problematical track on even the best copies, finally sounds the way you’ve always heard it in your head — relentless and so powerful it’s downright scary.

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Another Dirty Little Secret of the Record Biz

More of the Music of Traffic

For our current take on the sound of the various labels and stampers for Mr. Fantasy and The Best of Traffic, please click here.

Let’s talk about hits that are made from dubbed tapes.

The sound of some songs on some greatest hits albums can be better than the sound of those very same songs on the original pressings.

How can that be you ask, dumbfounded by the sheer ridiculousness of such a statement?

Well, dear reader, I’ll tell you. It’s a dirty little secret in the record biz that sometimes the master for the presumptive Hit Single (or singles) is pulled from the album’s final two track master mix tape and used to make the 45 single, the idea being that the single is what people are going to hear on the radio and want to buy. Or, having heard it sound so good on the radio, go out and buy the album.

One way or another, it’s the single that will do the selling of the band’s music. This is clearly the case with Mr. Fantasy on the original Island Pink Label pressing. (Some of the other pink label Island pressings that never win shootouts can be found here.)

A dub is then made of the tape that was used to cut the 45 and spliced back into the album master, so that the single (or singles) is one generation down from the master for the other songs on the side.

This explains why the hit single from so many albums is often the worst sounding song on the album — it’s the one most likely to suffer from bad radio EQ and distorted, smeary, sub-generation sound.

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More of the Same Heavy Vinyl Trash from Classic Records

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Jimi Hendrix Available Now

One of the worst things those dummies at Classic ever did. The mono mix is just plain awful.

Their reissue of the mono mix is flat and dry with practically no Tubey Magic whatsoever.

It positively screams “CHEAP REISSUE.” That two word description reminds me of this record, although to be fair the sound is quite a bit worse on the Hendrix.

Is it the worst version of the album ever pressed? It almost has to be, doesn’t it?

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Letter of the Week – “Wanted to drop you a note and let you know [I’m] not a skeptic any more.”

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:

Hey Tom, 

Wanted to drop you a note and let you know you have me now not a skeptic any more.

Case in point, over the 12 days of Christmas I acquired an [original] Led Zeppelin IV from you. I also received one from a family Member.

You are absolutely correct in that not all pressings sound the same.

I played both copies in a shootout and yours hands down was the better of the two.

The most recent purchase has me sitting staring at my speakers in amazement.

Both the Rumours and the But Seriously Folks are AMAZING!

Kevin

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Letter of the Week – “What a mind-blowing experience!”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Jimi Hendrix Available Now

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

Hey Tom,    

Well, you found another INCREDIBLE Hot Stamper with “Axis: Bold as Love.” What a mind-blowing experience!

This was at least my fifth copy of this album and it shamed all other sad sacks I had bought.

I really don’t know how you do it, but I’m infinitely grateful that you do. The notion of a “great sounding Hendrix album” almost sounds like an oxymoron, but again you struck sonic gold and unearthed one of those rare few that offer a deeply satisfying listening experience – to put it mildly!

My appreciation for Hendrix’s towering musical achievements has doubled, maybe even tripled, from hearing this Hot Stamper. That’s quite a feat for an artist I already considered to be one of the best ever! All this because of those magical Hot Stamper grooves. This goes to show what a difference amazing sound can have on the ability to appreciate an album or artist.

Oh, and I once owned a copy of the abysmal Classic pressing. Among its many other failings is the decision to re-release it in mono. Mono!? “Axis” is one of the creative examples of stereo mixing known to man! Reducing this album to mono is a travesty, but I guess that didn’t bother Classic Records.

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Six Ways in Which Bad Sounding Remasters Get Approved

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Jethro Tull Available Now

UPDATE 2026

The comments you see below for Stand Up were written in 2023.

Unfortunately, we rarely have any stock on Stand Up, or any of the other classic Tull releases for that matter. (There is a copy of Thick as a Brick on the site as of this writing, but it may have sold by the time you read this.)

In our commentary we discuss some of the reasons why a truly awful sounding Heavy Vinyl pressing — in this case the Analogue Productions’ remaster of Stand Up — could possibly have gotten released.

Our Commentary from 2023

Here’s how we think it might have gone down.

On whatever crappy audiophile system they are using to play these records, the new pressing beat the original Pink Label Island. Drinks all around.

Not knowing that the original pressings do not sound very good — really, not knowing all that much about records period — made their job seem a lot easier than it actually was.

They didn’t produce a good sounding record. They produced a record that was (perhaps) better than a bad sounding record. They unknowingly set the bar very low.

But unknowingly is how this label has been operating from the very beginning.

I’ve written extensively about many of their bad sounding records, starting all the way back in 1995 with Way Out West.

Not much has changed. You may remember from the Washington Post video years back that Geoff Edgers blind-tested me with two copies of Quiet Kenny, one from The Electric Recording Company (“this guy makes mud pies!”) and the other from Analogue Productions (‘it’s the best record they ever made, because it’s not terrible”), or words to that effect.

If I’d had a good copy of Quiet Kenny on hand, a record I think I know much better now that we have done a couple of shootouts for it, I could have elucidated all the shortcomings of the AP pressing in great detail. Instead I was stuck comparing a very bad pressing of the album to a copy that was not as bad.

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Always wanted to have a Plum and Orange pressing? Here’s your chance!

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

We should have titled this one “here was your chance” since this pressing sold very quickly.

Over the years most Plum and Orange pressings were disposed of by us on ebay for the benefit of collectors and those audiophiles who might be ill-informed enough to think that early British pressings would have the best sound for Led Zeppelin III.

They do not. They can, however, sound reasonably good in some cases with the proper cleaning.

However, they are not even Double Plus (A++) good, which sounds like something from the novel 1984 but is in fact a Very Good grade and guaranteed to trounce any and all copies of the album you have ever heard.

No, the best Zeppelin album we have played to date with the early label in this case earned a grade of Single Plus to Double Plus, which we describe as “[a] wonderful sounding side with many impressive qualities, notably better than a Single Plus copy. A big step up from the typical pressing.”

UPDATE:

We do not even offer Single Plus copies on the site anymore. Although their faults would be less obvious to anyone who went through the shootout process with the album, such faults are much too bothersome to us precisely because we did go through that process.

Once you know what is right, it’s very easy to spot what is wrong.

This is the foundational principle of Hot Stampers.

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How Do the The Mastering Lab Pressings of Sticky Fingers Sound?

Hot Stamper Pressing of the Music of The Rolling Stones Available Now

A listing for an early domestic Hot Stamper pressing for Sticky Fingers will typically be introduced like this:

If you have never heard one of our Hot Stamper pressings of the album, you (probably) cannot begin to appreciate just how amazing the sound is.

A landmark Glyn Johns / Andy Johns recording, our favorite by the Stones, a Top 100 Title (of course) and 5 stars on Allmusic (ditto).

After hearing so much buzz about it, we finally broke down and ordered a German TML pressing about a year ago. Having played scores of phenomenally good sounding copies of the album over the past fifteen or so years, we were very skeptical that anyone could cut the record better than the mastering engineers who inscribed Rolling Stones Records into the dead wax on the early pressings. (I could find no mastering engineers credited.)

Well, the results were not good. As we suspected would be the case, we were not impressed in the least with what The Mastering Lab — one of the greatest independent cutting houses of all time, mind you — had wrought.

Their version is not really even good enough to charge money for. It might have earned a grade of One Plus, just under the threshold for a Hot Stamper that we would put on the site these days. Decent, but not much more than that.

Wait, There’s More

We subsequently learned that it is the British TML pressings that are supposed to be the best.

So we got one of those in, an A3/B4 copy.

Better, but good enough? Barely.

Here are the notes for the copy we played. For those who have trouble reading our writing, I have transcribed the notes as follows:

Side One

Track one:

Weighty, a bit veiled or smeary. Backing vox kinda lost.

Track three:

Very full, rockin’ but not the sparkle/space.

Kinda compressed.

Not as huge.

Side Two

Track two:

Not as rich, clear.

A bit pushy/dry vox.

No real space.

Thick drums

Track one:

This works better.

A bit hard, but full and lively.

This Sound?

Is this the sound audiophiles are raving about?

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