Bill Halverson, Engineer -rev/com

A Tale of Two MoFi Deja Vu’s

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Crosby, Stills, Nash and (Sometimes) Young

UPDATE 2026

A commentary from a long time ago about two different MoFi pressings of the same title, Deja Vu. We stopped playing Mobile Fidelity records like this a long time ago and the only ones we play these days are ones that are sent to us for free from customers or friends. Mobile Fidelity made some good records back in the old days. As I wrote not long ago, I owe them a debt of gratitude.

But the records we’ve auditioned that they’ve been making more recently had me asking: How is this company still in business?

Sonic Grade: F (or not!)

Just for fun about 10 years ago [make that 20] I pulled out a MoFi pressing of Deja Vu I had laying around. I hadn’t played their version in a long time. I could have gone a lot longer without playing it, because what I heard was pretty disappointing. Playing their record confirmed all my prejudices. The highs sizzled and spit. The heart of the midrange was recessed and sour.

Know what it reminded me of? A bad Japanese pressing.

(Since most of them are pretty bad I could have just said a typical Japanese pressing, but that’s another story for another day.)

And if that’s not bad enough, the bass definition disappeared. Bass notes and bass parts that were clearly audible and easily followed on our Hot Stamper copies were murky, ill-defined mud on the MoFi.

If you own the MoFi you owe it to yourself to hear a better sounding version. You really don’t know what you’re missing.

But Then, A Few Years Later We Played This Copy…

Here is what we had to say at the time:

Hot Stamper Sound on the MoFi pressing of Deja Vu, can it be possible? I have NEVER heard the MoFi sound this good, not even close. This just KILLS the other copies I’ve heard. I wrote a scathing review of their badly mastered pressing which you can read below, and I still stand behind every word, because this copy is not your average MoFi. The average one still sucks. What we are selling here is a FLUKE. Here is the story from our Hot Stamper shootout we just did.

This week we picked up a very clean looking MoFi pressing and decided to throw it in the shootout just for fun. We were shocked — this one actually sounded good! Not as amazing as our best Hot Stampers, but much better than we had expected. We checked our old copy and heard the same bad sound described above. 

Pressing variations exist for audiophile records as well, and here was another example. It just goes to show that nothing short of playing a record will tell you how it sounds — except for reading our website. Who besides us could spend so much time playing so many bad records? It’s a dirty job, but we’re happy to do it. Hearing one amazing record makes up for playing 10 bad ones, so we’ll keep at it.

Keep in mind that the only way you can never be wrong about your records is to simply avoid playing them. If you have better equipment than you did, say, five or ten years ago, try playing some of your MoFi’s, 180 gram LPs, Japanese pressings, 45 RPM remasters and the like. You might be in for quite a shock.

It’s all good — until the needle hits the groove. Then you might find yourself in need of actual Better Records, not the ones you just hoped were better.

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Listening in Depth to Replay

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Crosby, Stills and Nash Available Now

UPDATE 2026

We stopped doing shootouts for this album many years ago after running into too many mediocre-at-best if not downright awful sounding copies. These notes are from about ten years ago.

Replay is a very handy record for setting your VTA. The end of Shadow Captain has loud vocals and punchy bass, which are a bit difficult to reproduce. (Forget trying to get this song to sound good if you don’t have an exceptionally good copy.) 

The next song is To The Last Whale, which starts with Nash and Crosby’s multitracked voices in a big hall. With the correct VTA, their voices should sound silky and sweet. If your arm is too far down in the back, they will get a bit dull. Too high, and they will lose that breathy, “fluffy” quality.

And once you get their voices to sound just right, make sure the ending of Shadow Captain is still punchy and dynamic.

Side One

Carry On 

A crappy remix, with added guitar, ugh. (more…)

Letter of the Week – “I will spare you the time to comment on my 1992 Analogue Productions Reissue…”

Hot Stamper Pressings of Sonny Rollins’s Albums Available Now

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

Dear Tom and Fred

After having had the opportunity to listen to the next batch of 7 more records, here are my observations on the 40 records I have now bought from you.

First to my listening experience. After receiving the CSNY 4 Way Street and looking for my own record, I thought was a German press easy to beat I realized it was a white label promo first press and thought, oh, did I make a mistake to buy this for this kind of money from you guys, this may be a tough one to crack?

Not so, your SH Stamper clearly beat the WL promo, check!

Next up was the Miles Davis Sketches of Spain White Hot Stamper, one of my very top Miles favorites.

I did not recall that I had the six eye first press, and on side 2, with identical stampers (when your 3/3 WH show up, you do not have the time to check this but hurry :-since your WH 3/3s sell like hot cakes!).

So even more difficult to beat?? Promising start: your WH was clearly better on side 1, now to the identical stampers side 2: not as clearly but still just more transparent, better drums, less shrill on track 2, check!

But it certainly cannot get better than this 3/3 WH stamper, can it?

Next up is Sonny Rollins 3/3 WH Stamper [of Way Out West]. Hard to believe, but yes, even better than the great Miles 3/3 WHS, and I will spare you the time to comment on my 1992 Analogue Productions reissue which I always thought was quite decent.

And so it goes on…

Christian

Christian,

In less than a year you have acquired a large number of simply amazing sounding records. Congratulations.

As you point out about the stampers, you may have a pressing with the right stampers, but our copy will still beat it. How it was pressed and how it was cleaned are critical to the sound, and that is not something the stamper numbers can tell you. It’s a subject we discuss often. Here is a good place to start.

Here on the blog there are a great many examples of records with the same stampers that do not have the same sound.

As for your 1992 Analogue Productions Heavy Vinyl remaster, I honestly don’t know how anyone can listen to a record with sound like that and consider it acceptable, or, in your words, “quite decent.” I went into the long story of the album in this commentary.

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Goodbye Cream Has Some of the Best Live Rock Sound Ever Recorded

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Eric Clapton Available Now

When you get a good side one of Goodbye Cream you’ll hear exactly why we are calling it one of the best sounding live rock albums of all time.

Goodbye has the Big Rock Sound that we go crazy for here at Better Records. The top copies just plain ROCK HARDER than all the others. Yes, they’re bigger. Yes, they have more weight and whomp down low. Yes, they are smoother and more natural up top. But what really sets them apart is the tremendous Energy they contain in their grooves. The music EXPLODES out of the speakers and comes to life on the best copies like practically nothing you have ever heard.

This link will take you to some of the hardest rockin’ albums we currently have in stock.

All the titles that have earned a place on our none rocks harder list can be found here.

It’s clearly one of  Bill Halverson‘s engineering triumphs, along with Deja Vu and Steve Stills’ first album (now that’s a trio!). Live rock music on record just does not sound better than a White Hot Stamper side one of Goodbye.

When it’s all working, you’re front and center for a fiery Cream concert with these guys delivering one heckuva performance. And where else are you gonna get that these days?

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The Turn Up Your Volume Test – Almost Cut My Hair

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Crosby, Stills, Nash and (Sometimes) Young

The only time Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young actually sound like a real rock and roll band is on the track Almost Cut My Hair.

According to Stephen Barncard, one of the engineers on Deja Vu, the track was actually recorded live in the studio.

Boy, it sure sounds like it. The amount of energy the band generates on this one song threatens to exceed the energy of the entire first album put together. (Not really. The energy on 49 Bye-Byes, the last track on side two and my favorite on the album is off the charts and shows just how powerful there brand of Hippie Folk Rock could be given the right material. I defy anyone to name two albums from the period released back to back that are better. They have their equals, don’t get me wrong, but the idea of there being a pair of “betters” is a hard one to entertain once the pot smoke clears.)

The reason this song presents such a tough test is that it has to be mastered properly in order to make you want to turn it up, not just louder, but as loud as your stereo will play.

This song is not to be used as background music whilst sipping wine and smoking cigars.

It positively cries out to be played at serious volume levels on monstrously large speakers. Nothing else will do justice to the power of the band’s one and only live performance captured on the album.

Listen to Neil in the left channel wailing away like a man possessed. Imagine what his grunged-out guitar would sound like blasting out of a stack of Marshall amps the size of a house.

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Listening in Depth to Crosby Stills & Nash

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Crosby, Stills and Nash Available Now

Now with bonus CD Advice.

Although millions of copies of CSN’s first album were sold, so few were mastered and pressed well, and so many mastered and pressed poorly, that only a ridiculously small number of Hot Stamper copies have ever actually made it to the site. A couple dozen would be my guess, compared to, for example, the Beatles albums, many of which have sold by the hundreds. To this day they are difficult to keep in stock, I assume because our customers seem to really like them.)

We wish that were not the case — we love the album — but the copies we know to have the potential for Hot Stamper sound are just not sitting around in the record bins waiting for us to scoop them up.

But of course that was never the really the case even back in the good old days, as the reissue we like was simply not produced in significantly large numbers the way the originals were. Finding the right reissues was always a matter of luck, with the odds stacked very much against us. I don’t remember ever finding more than one copy with the killer stampers in a single year.

Warning

Whatever you do, don’t waste your money on the Joe Gastwirt-mastered CD.

It couldn’t be any more awful. (His Deja Vu is just as bad.)

In-Depth Track Commentary

Side One

Suite: Judy Blue Eyes

What’s magical about Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young?

Their voices of course. It’s not a trick question. They revolutionized rock music with their genius for harmony. Any good pressing must sound correct on their voices or it has no value whatsoever. A CSN record with substandard midrange reproduction — like most of them — is a worthless record.

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Listening in Depth to Songs for Beginners

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Graham Nash Available Now

Presenting another entry in our extensive listening in depth series with advice on what to listen for as you critically evaluate your copy of Song for Beginners.

(Here are some other albums currently on our site with similar track by track breakdowns.)

This is one helluva well recorded album. Most of the credit must go to the team of recording engineers, led here by the esteemed Bill Halverson, the man behind all of the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young albums. Nash was clearly influenced by his work with his gifted bandmates, proving with this album that he can hold his own with the best of the best.

Some songs (We Can Change The World, Be Yourself) are grandly scaled productions with the kind of studio polish that would make Supertramp envious. For me, a big speaker guy with a penchant for giving the old volume knob an extra click or two, it just doesn’t get any better.

Others (Sleep Song, Wounded Bird) are quiet and intimate. Their subtlely is highlighted by the big productions surrounding them. This is that rare album in which every aspect of the production, from the arrangements to the final mix, serves to bring out the best qualities in the songs, regardless of scale.

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Is So Far Really Just a Waste of Money?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Crosby, Stills and Nash Available Now

The All Music Guide considers So Far to be a waste of money (on CD) because it was a slapped together effort to capitalize on CSN’s success, combining material from only two albums and then adding two unreleased tracks.

Their attitude boils down to the idea that the first two records are essential, so why buy this album for two songs?

I’ll tell you why.

Because finding good sounding pressings of either of the first two albums is practically impossible for the average audiophile record collector.

I mean that literally: as a practical matter, it is very, very difficult to find Hot Stamper versions of the band’s first two releases. This is especially true for the self-titled album from 1969, which sounds best in our experience on a later reissue that we have a devil of time finding and therefore rarely have in stock.

Both the first two albums and So Far are records we credit with helping us dramatically improve the playback quality of our system.

A Few Words About Deja Vu

Deja Vu is a special album for me, one I have been obsessed with since I first became an audiophile.

I was a big Crosby, Stills and Nash fan already — the first album being life-changing to a 15 year old music lover such as myself, on 8-track tape in the car no less — so it was only natural that I would fall in love with Deja Vu when it came out in 1970.

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Money CAN Buy You Happiness, You Just Have to Spend It Right

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Crosby, Stills, Nash and (Sometimes) Young

A testimonial from a customer for his Hot Stamper Deja Vu discusses what it takes to get good sound from your stereo. (Hint: it starts with a good sounding record, or two as in this case.)

An excerpt. (Emphasis added.)

Tom:

I received my Deja Vu 2 Pack yesterday. Even though I have not yet listened to all of the mother load that I got on Marathon week, I had to take a listen to this tonight.

Whew – Mother of God!

I have never heard even a semi-decent copy of this album before on either LP or CD – although the music is outstanding and chock full of memories for anyone my age. This white hot stamper is transcendental nirvana. Tom was not kidding when he said master tape sound. The vocals and instrumentals were so alive it was unbelievable. Some of the songs were so good that I just tilted my head back and opened my mouth real wide and just zoned out. Crosby’s vocal on Almost Cut My Hair is masterful. I took your advice and played it twice at even louder volumes. Yikes – better than acapulco gold. Neil Young’s Country Girl was so huge – a vast wall of sound with every single voice and instrument standing out.

This album is even better than I ever thought it was.

I was just not prepared to hear how it really sounds after all that crap I had been listening to for 30 years.

I have come to a conclusion – no matter whether I had the best $50,000 amps in the world or a $29,000 phono supply or the $150,000 Wilson Alexandria speakers or all that other incredible stuff that audiophiles lust for – not one of those items can make a shit record sound anything but like a shit record.

There is no overcoming the original source material that you play on your stereo system.

Buying a hot stamper for what can seem like a lot of money – especially if you want a whole lot of them – is really a bargain for those who have invested in a super audio system (with analog capability of course). It is true that the better your system is the more you will get out of hot stampers – but at some point in the process it is more effective to spend available resources on the LPs rather than on more better mega equipment.

I just don’t believe an additional $20,000 spent on a better amplifier can deliver as much as $20,000 spent on Super or White Hot Stampers played with my current amplifier. Additionally, I do believe that even a modest analogue system will sound fabulous when you have master tape sound coming out of it.

Bless Tom and all the folks at Better Records. My system enjoyment quotient has increased dramatically this year since I have been buying the good stuff to play on it. Keep up the good work.

Regards,
John

John,

So glad to hear you loved that Deja Vu as much as your enthusiastic letter indicates you did. When we come across a copy as good as the one we sent you, it is indeed a cause for celebration here at Better Records: We know someone is very likely going to have their mind blown, and soon. Obviously, in this case the mind that was blown was yours.

As far as megabuck equipment is concerned, we discussed the subject in a commentary entitled Money Can’t Buy You (Audio) Happiness [since removed] in which we noted that a certain reviewer’s very, very expensive equipment did not seem to be helping him tell the difference between good sounding records and bad. From our perspective, there’s little difference in the sound of the Heavy Vinyl pressings he seems to like so much from Classic, Sundazed, Speakers Corner and the like. To us almost all of them leave a lot to be desired.

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Suite: Judy Blue Eyes – Critical Listening Exercise

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Crosby, Stills and Nash Available Now

This very old commentary from an early Hot Stamper listing (2005?) for CSN’s debut makes note of some specific qualities in the recording that are a good test for midrange transparency and naturalness.

Here are some other albums with specific advice on what you should be listening for.

What’s magical about Crosby, Stills, Nash (& Young)? 

Their voices of course. It’s not a trick question. They revolutionized rock music with their genius for harmony. Any good pressing must sound correct on their voices or it has no value whatsoever. A CSN record with bad midrange — like most of them — is a worthless record.

Suite: Judy Blue Eyes

Listen to the section of the song that starts with Stills’ line “Can I tell it like it is,” with Nash and Crosby behind him — it’s clearly a generation of tape down from what came before and what comes after. The voices and the acoustic guitars just seem to lose their immediacy and transient impact for no apparent reason. Wha’ happen?

It’s the mix, folks, and no mastering engineer can fix it. This album is full of parts and pieces of various songs that are occasionally problematical in that way. Recognize them for what they are, little bumps in the road, a road that led ultimately to one of the greatest pop albums ever made.

On the hot copies the best sounding material will sound amazing, and the lesser sounding material (i.e., the more poorly recorded or mixed bits and pieces) will sound as good as they can sound.

That’s the nature of the beast. It is what it is. The more intensely you listen to a record like this — a true Rock Classic from the 60s, and one we listen to very intensely when doing these shootouts — the more you will notice these kinds of recording artifacts. It’s what gives them “character.”

It’s also what allows you to play a record like this on a regular basis and still find something new in it after all these years.

We’ve made some recent improvements to the stereo and room here at Better Records and I can tell you I heard things in this recording I never knew were there.

What could be more fun than that? The music never gets old, and neither does the sound.