George Chkiantz, Engineer – Reviews and Commentaries

Listening in Depth to Houses of the Holy

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

You really get an understanding of just how much of a production genius Jimmy Page was when you listen to a copy of Houses on high quality modern equipment, the kind that simply did not exist when the record came out in 1973.

To take just one example, listen to how clearly the multi-tracked guitars can be heard in the different layers and areas of the soundstage. On some songs you will have no trouble picking out three, four and even more guitars playing, each with its own unique character. The clarity of the better copies allows you to recognize — perhaps for the first time — the special contribution each is making to the finished song.

Side One

The Song Remains the Same
The Rain Song

Check out the guitars — the sound should be warm, sweet and delicate. There are some dead quiet passages in this song that are almost always going to have some surface noise. Most copies start out a bit noisy but almost always get quieter as the music goes along.

Over the Hills and Far Away

This is a great test track for side one. It starts with lovely acoustic guitars before the Monster Zep Rock Chords come crashing in. If both parts of the song sound correct and balanced, you more than likely have a winner. And the bigger the dynamic contrast between the parts the better.

Turn your volume up good and high in order to get the full effect, then stand back and let the boys have at it.

The Crunge (more…)

Houses of the Holy on Classic Records and 156 Other Records No Audiophile Should Want Anything to Do With

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

Houses of the Holy is another one of the very bad records Michael Fremer put on his 2009 Top LP list, while passing over one of Classic’s better titles, the first Led Zeppelin album.

(We don’t like it as much as we used to, but it is still a good record if you get a good pressing of it, something that can never be guaranteed of course. We link to our review of it below.)

Michael Fremer’s web site used to be called called musicangle (now defunct). On this site you would have been able to find a feature called “157 In-Print LPs You Should Own!”

Surprisingly it seems that the link still works. If I had made a list this misguided, it surely would have turned into a “I’m sorry,  I didn’t know what I was talking about” commentary. I would have felt an obligation to correct the record, out of sheer embarrassment at the very least.

But this guy apparently never learns. As far as he’s concerned, what worked in 1982 ain’t broke and don’t need fixing.

The List

I can’t begin to count the bad records on this list.

There are scores of them — albums that are so bad that we actually created an audiophile hall of shame section to help you avoid them.  Obviously we never got around to making listings for them all and cataloging their flaws. Who has that kind of time? 

But Michael Fremer holds just the opposite view — he thinks these are records you should own. Now I suppose we can disagree over the merits (or lack of them) of a title such as Houses of the Holy on Classic (reviewed here). It’s a free country after all.

But the reason this list does such positive harm to the record-loving audiophile public, in my opinion, is that MF passes over one of the best records Classic ever cut, Led Zeppelin’s first album, in order to put the ridiculously bright and aggressive Houses of the Holy on the list in its place.

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What Are the Best Stampers for Led Zeppelin’s Albums?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

What are the best sounding stampers for Led Zeppelin’s albums?

As if we would tell you!

This is a reworked excerpt from a much longer piece entitled record collecting for audiophiles – the limits of expert advice

In it we discussed the various stampers for some of Led Zeppelin’s albums and what role they play in our Hot Stamper shootouts.

Please to enjoy.

There is no way to know whether a record is any good without playing it, early stamper, late stamper or any other stamper.

First pressings (A, 1A, A1) don’t always win shootouts.

If they did we would simply buy only first pressings with those early stampers and only sell copies with those early stampers, since they are the best.

But this ignores the inconvenient fact that a great many other things go into the production of a record that have nothing to do with how early the stamper is.

A single copy of an album with stampers numbered (or lettered) A, when compared to B, when compared to C, has no definitive meaning for stampers A, B, C, or any others, because of the tremendous variation in the sound of all the pressings with A,B,C and other stampers.

Example Number One

There is a hot stamper for a certain Zep album that always wins the shootouts, [redacted].

It beats the hell out of the early stampers, A and B. In fact, we don’t even go after A and B anymore because they are expensive and rarely sound good enough to recoup our investment of the time and money we would spend buying, cleaning and auditioning them in a shootout.

A and B can be good, but why pay top dollar for them when they have never been any better than “good?”

We’re looking for “great” so that we can charge a premium price for them. This accomplishes three things that are obviously of great importance to any business:

  1. It pleases the hell out of our customers.
  2. It covers our costs, and
  3. It lets us pay our staff good wages and bonuses for their hard work, skill and knowledge.

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Led Zeppelin on Prestigious Japanese Limited Edition Vinyl

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

A classic case of live and learn. In 2006 I finally woke up to how ridiculously bad these Japanese pressings I was selling back in the 90s actually were.

It’s what real progress in audio is all about, in this case about ten years’ worth. Those are ten years that really shook my world, and by 2007 we had discovered much better cleaning technologies and given up on Heavy Vinyl and audiophile bullshit pressings such as these, whew!

Our story from 2006:

I used to sell the German Import reissues of the Zep catalog in the 90s. At the time I thought they we’re pretty good, but then the Japanese AMJY Series came out and I thought they were clearly better.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. I now realize those Japanese pressings are bright as bright can be. Now, not-too-surprisingly, the German pressings sound more or less right (on some of their titles).

They tend to be tonally correct, which is more than you can say for most Zep pressings, especially some of the Classics [linked here], which have the same brightness issue (as well as many other problems).

UPDATE 2024

Only one of the German-pressed Zeppelin records is good enough to win shootouts, the only title of theirs on German vinyl that we buy these days. Of course we tried them all, at no small expense I might add, because there were a great many pressings cut by many different engineers over the course of decades that were pressed in Germany, and the only way we could judge them was to buy them and have them shipped over. In the end only one had the big, bold, dynamic sound we were after.

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Houses of the Holy on Classic Records Heavy Vinyl

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

We can describe the sound of this miserable Bernie Grundman remaster in two words: ridiculously bright.

Honestly, what more do you need to know? It’s almost as bad as the Zep II he cut, and that record is an abomination.

Is it the worst version of the album ever made? Hard to imagine it would have much competition.

(Oh but it does – this misbegotten series out of Japan will do nicely to illustrate how brighter is not necessarily better, it’s just brighter.)

Over the years we have done many Led Zeppelin shootouts, often including the Classic Heavy Vinyl pressings for comparison purposes. After all, these Classic LPs are what many — perhaps most — audiophiles consider superior to other pressings.

We sure don’t, but everybody else seems to. You will find very few critics of the Classic Zeps LPs outside of those who write for this blog, and even we used to recommend three of the Zep titles on Classic: Led Zeppelin I, IV and Presence.

Wrong on all counts.

We don’t actually like any of them now, although the first album is still by far the best of the bunch.

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Listening in Depth to Led Zeppelin IV

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin 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 Zep’s mighty fourth album.

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

We always have a great time doing Zep IV shootouts. It’s one of those all-too-rare cases where amazing music and amazing sonics coexist on the same slab of vinyl. You just need to find the right slab, a proposition that turns out to be much harder than it sounds.

You probably know by now just how tough it is to find audiophile quality sonics on this album. Far too many copies just leave us cold, but the best pressings, whether British or domestic, are so good, and so much fun at the loud volumes we employ, that it ends up being worth all the time, trouble and expense it takes to wade through the vinyl dreck to find them.

But the best copies are so good, and so much fun, that it was definitely worth the trouble. Because the best copies ROCK, and it is a positive THRILL to hear this record rock the way it was meant to. If you have big speakers and the power to drive them, your neighbors are going to be very upset with you.

This link will take you to the Hot Stamper pressings of our hardest rockin’ albums currently available on the site.

Here are some of the other titles that have earned a place on our none rocks harder list.

Side One

Black Dog

The key to both of the first two tracks is to find a copy with a solid bottom end. Next look for an extended top end, easily heard on all the splashing cymbals.

Now listen for a tonally correct Robert Plant. The copies with lots of top will typically have him sounding too bright.

The copies with little in the way of high frequency extension will have him sounding veiled and dull.

One out of ten copies (with potentially good stampers) will get all three right: the top, the bottom and his voice. When you hear it you know it immediately, but you sure do have to go through a lot of copies before you have much of a chance of hearing it!

Rock and Roll

“[Rock and Roll] was a little tough to record because with the hi-hat being so open and [Bonham] hitting it that hard it was difficult to control. But I managed somehow or another.” Andy Johns

“The better copies prove once and for all that these are some of most up-front, lively and above all real sounding rock cymbals ever put on tape.” Tom Port
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Letter of the Week – “I have been listening to a first pressing Decca, but your copy made it sound egregiously insipid.”

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

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

Hey Tom, 

This LET IT BLEED is a gorgeous monster. Everything just jumps off the page, so to speak. I have been listening to a first pressing Decca, which I have owned for years, but your copy made it sound egregiously insipid. As I kept turning up the volume, the room seemed to be nodding its head and egging me on to keep increasing it. I never reached the point where too much was too much. Great copy.

The Mahavishnu EMERALD was brilliant. It brought out all the exciting dimensions of my system. The exquisite strings floated above the musical melee which tattooed its obligato deliriously across its raucous underbelly. The sound reached out like tongues of flame making the speakers completely disappear in their rocking wake.

This is an amazing record that projects and dances the music in every direction and then some. Everything is alive. So completely alive. A real treat. A great recording that tells me my system is completely responsive.

Phil

Phil,

We’ve known for a very long time — since roughly 2005 — what an awful pressing the original mono Decca is of the album.

When we last heard one, it did not evn pass the laugh test, and we never bought another.

Even the original Decca stereo pressings of the album are not that good, and at the prices being charged these days, a very poor choice if you want the best sound.

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On King Crimson’s Red Album, How Good Are the Polydor Pressings?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of King Crimson Available Now

Harsh and congested.

Not remotely competitive with the British originals.

Clean copies on the UK Island label may be hard to find, but they are the only game in town if you are serious about sound.

Want to find your own killer copy?

Consider taking the following moderately helpful advice.

As of 2024, shootouts for this album should be carried out:

How else can you expect to hear the record sound its best?

Based on our experience, Red sounds better:

That’s about it. They are neither easy nor cheap to find, but they are definitely the best sounding.

There’s more collecting help where that came from. Click on the top link below to learn about the pressings that win shootouts.

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Led Zeppelin / II – A New Player Joins the Fun

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

Aaron writes to us often about records. Here is his latest offering. (I’ve made some comments of my own. They are the ones that are not italicized.)

Hi Tom,

Today I did something I’ve wanted to do for years – I played The Two Game.

The Two Game is based on The Blue Game, the one we created for Joni’s Blue Album way back in 2007. That game was apparently harder to play than we thought since nobody seemed to want to play it.

The Rhino pressing’s shortcomings were clear to us at the time, all the way back in 2007, and we noted that it was even superior to the best Bernie Grundman-mastered vintage pressings in one respect. But it seems that no one besides us could figure out what was going on with the sound of the record, even after we gave our customers a free copy so they could play it at home head to head against our Hot Stamper pressing.

With my stereo finally dialed-in and my family all out of the house, I dived in to the Page remaster of Zep 2, side by side with my White Hot Stamper. To help the comparison, I backdropped it with a bunch of other copies I’ve accumulated over the years.

Tom, I figure I’ll need several tries to get to the bottom of this, but it’s going to be an awesome ear-training experience for me, and if I have to listen to any record on repeat, this is a good one. So let me share my thoughts from this first comparison, and maybe you can point out some directions to go in next time I’m up for trying it again.

I chose The Lemon Song, because it is awesome, and because I view it as one of the tracks that’s most balanced overall, with all the instruments contributing about equally, and relatively devoid of studio tricks. Like a kid left to eat all he wants of his favorite candy, I had to eventually stop just from fatigue and satiation.

I recommended The Lemon Song to a customer who wanted to play the game, writing:

Pay special attention in your shootout to The Lemon Song. I am going to discuss some things I learned about it recently. See how all your versions do on the song and what you think each version is doing right and wrong. Enjoy and have fun.

I think the Page remaster actually corrects a problem with this track that exists on all the original versions of the album mastered by Robert Ludwig. For anyone else who wants to play the game, please consider this a clue.

Another piece of advice would be that The Lemon Song is not a good track for overall testing.

There are much better tracks for that purpose, tracks that will make it much easier to recognize what is so fundamentally different about the two pressings.

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Can Houses of the Holy Get Any Better? Apparently It Can

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

Wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling Led Zeppelin power – our most recent Shootout Winning copies of Houses of the Holy knocked us out with their Demo Disc sound.

The Tubey Magical acoustic guitars here should be a wake up call to everyone that any attempt to remaster this album — to outdo Robert Ludwig and his awesome tube compressors and hi-rez transistor cutting equipment — is bound to fail.

This kind of sound is gone and it is never coming back.

Here are our notes for the top two copies from our recent shootout, each of which had one Shootout Winning side and one that came close but did not quite earn the top grade.

Side One

Track Three (Over the Hills and Far Away)

  • Upfront and detailed and breathy
  • Spacious
  • Big and wide when it kicks in

Track One (The Song Remains the Same)

  • Huge and rich and weighty
  • Vocals are less veiled
  • Richest, with the most extension high and low

Note that we played both a rocker as well as a quieter, more acoustic track. This is standard operating procedure. Both of these very different sounding songs have to sound their best.

Side two had a few problems which kept it from doing as well as side one.

Side Two 

Track One (Dancing Days)

  • Clear and lively
  • Has some weight but a little flat and veiled

Track Two (D’Yer Mak’er)

  • Solid but not quite as huge
  • Pretty tubey and weighty

If you had never heard a side one that sounded as amazing as this side one, how would you know the sound on side two was a little flat and veiled and not quite as huge?

You wouldn’t. That is precisely what shootouts are for, so that you can learn how good the sound can get in order to judge how good each side is relative to the others, on a curve, which is the only meaningful way it can be done.

Anyone hearing side two of this copy would be very likely be knocked out by it. But we know that side two can be even better sounding, because the copy below showed us sound that we simply could not find fault with.

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