Chris Thomas, Producer-Engineer – Reviews and Commentaries

Baby You’re a Rich Man

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now

Below we discuss listening to Baby You’re a Rich Man from side two of the German Magical Mystery Tour album.

If you own a copy, play yours and listen for what we describe in this track by track breakdown.

For those of you interested in digging deeper into the sound of scores of other titles, our listening in depth commentaries have track breakdowns for some of the better-known albums we’ve done shootouts for.

Baby You’re A Rich Man

This track is Demo Disc Quality on the best Hot Stamper pressings. As I was playing this song for the shootout, the thought occurred to me that if I had one track to play to someone to demonstrate what a thrill it is to have a big, expensive stereo, it would be hard to pick a better song than Baby You’re A Rich Man.

The only other one that occurs to me off the top of my head is Sergio Mendes’ For What It’s Worth off Stillness, a record we never have in stock by the way.

The sound is wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling and big as life. You can’t get that sound with screens and you can’t get it with smaller speakers and their smaller drivers.

Once you’ve heard that sound it’s hard to get too excited about any other.

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Letter of the Week – “I have never heard such transparent, full-bodied sound on any previous copy.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of The White Album Available Now

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

Well, I feel there is little I can say that could do justice to how this copy of the White Album sounds. It is simply mind-blowing! And it’s exactly the kind of sound reproduction that this Masterpiece deserves.

I’ve listened to quite a few pressings of this album before, but I have never heard such a transparent, full-bodied sound on any previous copy. And of course, the White Album is not exactly the most transparent recording to begin with.

Truly marvelous, and a privilege to be able to listen to the best sound of the best music there is!

You guys are real treasure hunters. Many thanks for the great service.

Bogdan P.

Bogdan,

Glad you liked our White Album. It’s amazing how good it sounds once you know which pressings are the good ones and which to avoid.

Hint: it’s the originals are to be avoided, but don’t tell that to the average record collecting audiophile. They will think you’ve lost your mind.

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MoFi Proves Once Again It Has No Idea How to Make a Good Record

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Women Who Rock Available Now

We recently auditioned the Mobile Fidelity pressing of Learning to Crawl and wrote down our impressions as the record was playing that you see below.

We try to be very specific about the strengths and weaknesses of the records we play, which is why we reproduce our notes — in this case for audiophile records — whenever possible. (There are plenty of shootout notes for vintage pressings on the blog as well.)

The title at the top of our post-it sets the stage for what you are about to read: the specific faults of an “especially bad MoFi.”

Do they make any other kind? Well, sometimes, to be sure, but the good ones are few and far between.

It must be hard to make a record sound this bad, but if anyone can do it, Mobile Fidelity has proven that they are the men and women for the job. Let’s get down to brass tacks.

Side One

Dull drums at intro.
Bass compressed and wooly.
Vocal present and hard.
Everything else recessed.

Side Two

Very dry snare and guitar.
Flat, edgy and lifeless.
Not even clear.
Just shitty.
Lacks bass here too.

Consensus

NFG.

This one definitely belongs in the Mobile Fidelity hall of shame (along with 66 of their other titles). My CD sounds better.

To aid you in understanding just how lost the buyers of these audiophile records are these days — and who am I to talk? — we reproduce the five most recent reviews from Discogs as of 5/2026 below.

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Siren on Import Vinyl? Not So Fast

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Roxy Music Available Now

Siren is one of our favorite Roxy albums, right up there with the first album and well ahead of the commercially appealing Avalon.

After reading a rave review in Rolling Stone of the album back in 1975, I took the plunge, bought a copy at my local Tower Records and instantly fell in love with it.

As is my wont, I then proceeded to work my way through their earlier catalog, which was quite an adventure. It takes scores of plays to understand where the band is coming from on the early albums and what it is they’re trying to do. Now I listen to each of the first five releases on a regular basis.

Somehow they never seem to get old, even after more than forty years.

Of all the Roxy albums (with the exception of Avalon) this is probably the best way “in” to the band’s music. The earlier albums are more raucous, the later ones more rhythmically driven — Siren catches them at their peak, with, as other reviewers have noted, all good songs and no bad ones.

Imports? Not So Fast

The British and German copies of Siren are clearly made from dub tapes and sound smeary, small and lifeless.

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Pitchfork’s Review of the 2012 Roxy Music CD Box Set

More of the Music of Roxy Music

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Roxy Music

Tom Ewing has written a beautiful piece here about one of my favorite bands of all time.

This career-spanning box set to mark Roxy Music’s 40th anniversary is often startling, usually wonderful, and more affecting than expected. It’s also fascinating as the story of a gradual hardening of an elegant, enigmatic persona, of Bryan Ferry’s transformation from art-school pop star to self-made sphinx.  

In their 1970s heyday, Roxy Music enjoyed enormous critical and commercial success, but even so, they and their art-school rock were admired more than trusted. American critics snipped at leader Bryan Ferry’s arch romanticism, while the Brit press considered the models Ferry squired and the suits he doffed and dubbed him “Byron Ferrari”. Almost everyone affirmed that the band were great, while disagreeing as to when, exactly. For some, the great achievement was 1982’s farewell, Avalon– impeccably designed pop for weary grown-ups. Others went a decade further back, to the early, playfully experimental albums Roxy released when Brian Eno was in the band, playing androgyne peacock to Ferry’s tailored lothario. Whether you see their development between those points as progress or cautionary tale, it’s easy to let this contrast define the band.

This box set of remasters to celebrate the band’s 40th anniversary– not lavish, but thorough and reasonably priced– is an opportunity to break free of narrative and see what sets every phase of Roxy Music apart. The answer is Bryan Ferry, one of rock’s great, sustained acts of self-definition. In classic 70s style, like Bowie or Bolan, Ferry invented a pop star. A sybarite with a plummy, awkward croon, gliding through his own songs like they were parties he’d forgotten arriving at. A flying Dutchman of the jet set, doomed to find love but never satisfaction. Having worked his way into character over an album or two, he simply never left it, becoming more Bryan Ferry with every record and every year, whether performing or not.

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Too Low For Zero – The Last in a Great Run

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Elton John Available Now

Much of the production — the smooth, sweet harmony vocals, the rich, grungy guitars, the solid, warm piano — reminds me of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, one of the classics from back in the day when Gus Dudgeon was running the show.

Caribou (1974) and Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (1975) have a similarly glossy, perfectionist approach to production as well, of course.

It was 1975’s Rock of the Westies that went off in another direction.

The next six albums, from Blue Moves to Jump Up, at least to these ears, don’t sound good enough or have enough consistently good material compared to the six albums recorded from 1970 to 1973.

Four of those are in our Top 100 Rock and Pop album list, and all four are Must Owns in my book. Pop music just doesn’t get any better.

So if Too Low For Zero reminds us in any way of those albums, especially in the songwriting department now that Bernie Taupin has rejoined team Elton after a too-long hiatus, that is all to the good.

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Expanding Space Itself on The Dark Side of the Moon

Hot Stamper Pressings of Pink Floyd’s Albums Available Now

Many years ago, right around 2015 I believe, we played a copy with all the presence, all the richness, all the size and all the energy we could have ever hoped to hear on a pressing of Dark Side of the Moon.

It did it all and then some.

The raging guitar solos (there are three of them) on Money seemed to somehow expand the system itself, making it bigger and more powerful than I had ever heard.

Even our best copies of Blood Sweat and Tears have never managed to create such a huge space with that kind of raw power. This copy broke through all the barriers, taking the stereo system to an entirely new level of sound.

Listen to the clocks on Time. There are whirring mechanisms that can be heard deep in the soundstage on this copy that I’ve never heard as clearly before. On most copies you can’t even tell they are there.

Talk about transparency — I bet you’ve never heard so many chimes so clearly and cleanly, with such little distortion on this track.

One thing that separates the best copies from the merely good ones is super-low-distortion, extended high frequencies. How some copies manage to correctly capture the overtones of all the clocks, while others, often with the same stamper numbers, do no more than hint at them, is something no one can explain. But the records do not lie. Believe your own two ears. If you hear it, it’s there. When you don’t — the reason we do shootouts in a nutshell — it’s not.

The best sounding parts of this record are nothing less than ASTONISHING. Money is the best example I can think of for side two. When you hear the sax player rip into his solo as Money gets rockin’, it’s almost SCARY! He’s blowin’ his brains out in a way that has never, in my experience anyway, been captured on a piece of plastic. After hearing this copy, I remembered exactly why we felt this album must rank as one of the five best Rock Demo Discs to demonstrate the superiority of analog. There is no CD, and there will never be a CD, that sounds like this.

In fact, when you play the other “good sounding” copies, you realize that the sound you hear is what would naturally be considered as good as this album could get. But now we know better. This pressing took Dark Side to places we never imagined it could go.

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Our Top Copy of Broken Barricades Was Amazing Sounding

Hot Stamper Pressings of Art Rock Albums Available Now

Our recent Shootout Winning early UK pressing was described this way:

Looking for some proggy music that falls somewhere between Jethro Tull and Supertramp, with sonic credentials to match the recordings of those two very well-recorded bands? Well, look no further.

This early UK press is full of the Tubey Magic and studio space that makes the band’s recordings the joy they are to play on a heavily-tweaked audiophile rig.

If you’re a Prog Rock or Art Rock fan, this is a classic from 1971 that belongs in your collection. This also just happens to be our pick for the best sounding recording by the band. Others of similar stature can be found here.

And here are the notes that back up everything we had to say about the copy that knocked us out.

We LOVED playing this album, both for the music and the sound. These guys don’t get the respect they deserve among audiophiles, but we’re doing our best to try to change that.

Side one kicks off with the hit track Simple Sister, and you won’t believe how hard it rocks. Some copies are overly clean — they have the kind of clarity you might hope to find, but lacked the richness and fullness that makes ’70s analog so involving. Those “clean” copies simply do not earn very high grades from us. We leave that sound to the Heavy Vinyl and CD crowd; they seem to like it.

Punter and Thomas

John Punter engineered and Chris Thomas produced. They have worked on many of our favorite — and best-sounding – albums by British artists.

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Letter of the Week – “I am blown away with the White Album you sent.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of The White Album Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about some a Hot Stamper pressing of The White Album he purchased quite a while back:

Hey Tom, 

I am completely stunned. I am blown away with the White Album you sent. It is as if I am there in the studio. The music has so much more shading, tone, and phrasing that gives it much more meaning and enjoyment — which has been lost on me for 40 years.

I can now hear it and I get it. Wow! You guys never cease to amaze with what you find. Thanks as usual.

Mike H.

Mike,

Glad you liked our Hot Stamper pressing of The White Album. It’s amazing how good it sounds once you know which pressings are the good ones and which ones should be avoided.

Hint: it’s the originals that are to be avoided, but don’t tell that to the average record collecting audiophile. They will think you have lost your mind.

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Magical Mystery Tour – “I agree with you about Baby You’re a Rich Man – when you turn it up it really comes alive.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now

This is Part Two of Aaron’s letter about the White Hot Stamper German pressing of Magical Mystery Tour he acquired from us recently.

Part One can be found here.

Dear Tom,

Strawberry Fields was the standout for me on side 2.

I agree with you about Baby You’re a Rich Man. As with I Am the Walrus, when you turn it up it really comes alive. The bass is dazzling. The warbly texture it has is unlike anything else. In my room it’s sounding really balanced. Distinct bass, not boomy. Balanced with the top.

Tom, as you know, my room is small. I am sure it’s holding me back in some ways, but I really don’t mind. Someday I dream of a proper listening room, but if I never get there, I can still enjoy the crap out of my records. Citizen Kane also sounds huge in here, so I think I’m not really suffering.

Last thought listening to this record brought up – surface noise, and how totally irrelevant it usually is.

The biggest, most breathtaking records I have (balance of sound and music) are If Only I Could Remember My Name and Zep II. Both WHS copies have surface noise.

The way it just melts away once the music really gets going is just such a cool auditory illusion. Surface noise really has minimal impact on my listening experience, if any at all.

It is a nicety to have a copy as clean and quiet as this one. To think, this thing sat around for nearly 60 years, probably nearly ever played. Who owns a record that sounds this good and never listens to it??

Aaron

Aaron,

Glad to hear you found side two to be every bit as powerful as side one. The copy you now have really knocked us out over here too.

As for surface noise, you hit the nail right on the head. The biggest, most powerful and exciting records, played at good loud levels, will always have some surface noise if you’re listening for it.

But it disappears almost completely when you focus your listening on the music and the sound of the recording.

On a big speakes system like mine, in a big room with a high ceiling, the surface noise seems to occupy a different space relative to the space of the recording. Smaller systems often seem to jam the noise and the sound together. Big systems do a better job of separating them out.

That has been my experience anyway. Glad you are hearing MMT the way we did. What a thrill.

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