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Upper Midrange on The Nightfly

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Donald Fagen Available Now

We just finished a big shootout for Donald Fagen’s first solo effort, released just two years after Gaucho and the end of Steely Dan and we gotta tell you, there are a lot of weak sounding copies out there. We should know — we played them. 

Robert Ludwig cut all the originals we played. Are you going to tell me that every copy with RL in the dead wax sounds the same as every other copy with those initials? The question answers itself.

What to Listen For

The upper mids on certain tracks of both sides have a tendency to be brighter than we would have liked.

Ruby Baby on side one can be that way, and the title track on side two has some of the wannabe hit single radio EQ that makes it less likely to please, so to speak.

Other records with a tendency to have boosted upper mids can be found here.

On a good copy the first track of each side should be all you need to hear.

Here are hundreds other titles with specific advice on what to listen for on some of the albums we’ve played in shootouts.

If you know how to do shootouts, you know how to find good sounding records.

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Help – Germans Versus Brits

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now

UPDATE 2026

We used to buy the German pressings of Beatles’ albums like Help, but eventually we discovered that they were simply not competitive with the better Brits.

The lousy Brits, the ones sitting in the bins of your local record store or the ones you find in most BC-13 Beatles box sets, sure, the better German pressings beat those, but at some point many years ago we chanced upon some amazing sounding British pressings.

They forced us to reckon with the reality that even the best German pressings were very unlikely to reach the audio heights that the better British pressings showed us were possible.

Our commentary from 2011 follows.

We’ve heard some excellent German pressings before, but this time [circa 2011] nothing could touch our best Brit copies. What the best British copies have is more of the Tubey Magic that can typically be heard on early pressings, due no doubt to the fact that they are mastered with tube equipment.

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Mozart’s Quintet / Trio Is a Great VTA Test Disc

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Mozart Available Now

CS 6109 is a handy record for VTA adjustment.

Listen for fullness and solidity, especially in the piano, although a rich, full sounding clarinet is a joy here as well. 

Some of the copies we played in our shootout lacked the weight and solidity to balance out the qualities of transparency and clarity.

The resulting sound is less natural, with the kind of forced detail that CDs do so well, and live music never does. There is a balance to be found.

The right VTA will be critical in this regard. When you have all the space; the clearest, most extended harmonics; AND good weight and richness in the lower registers of the piano, you are where you need to be (keeping in mind that it can always get better if you have the patience and drive to tweak further).

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Letter of the Week – “No one doubted your records after this listening session.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stamper pressings of Abbey Road and ELP’s debut he purchased a while back.

Hey Tom, 

Yesterday, I attended an audio event in Verona, NJ, where I had purchased my stereo.

I spent my time in the “analog” room. This room had the flagship equipment (Vandersteen 7 speakers, Aesthetix Jupiter series amps, pre-amps, phono stage, Clearaudio’s Goldfinger Statement cartridge, etc).

I listened for a while, hearing all the issues with almost every record they played. I then asked the store’s “turntable guru” to play some of the records I brought with me.

They thumbed through my boxes and asked me what the difference was between my two copies of Abbey Road. When I explained the superior side X on either copy, the audience found this concept amusing, based on their laughter. Any doubters would soon become believers.

They played Abbey Road‘s side 2 (3+ side, of course). While “Here Comes The Sun” was playing, Garth had his eyes closed. At the track’s conclusion, he exclaimed “Outstanding!,” and the record played on.

Next, we listened to ELP’s “Lucky Man.” Garth said it was the best he had ever heard.

I do not really know Garth, but I suspect he does not easily offer up such compliments in a room full of people. Others in the room, including the store’s turntable guru, were all very impressed. Several folks approached me, all pointing out parts of the music that blew them away.

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Our History with Led Zeppelin’s Rock Classic from 1990 – 2010

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

UPDATE 2026

In 2010 we wrote the overview below about what we thought we knew about Zep II. We have since amended the text in a few places and added some links. Please to enjoy.

This is undoubtedly one of the best, maybe THE best hard rock recording of all time, but you need a good pressing if you’re going to unleash anything approaching its full potential. We just conducted a shootout and heard MUCH more bad sound than good. You name it — imports, reissues, originals — we’ve played ’em, and most of them were TERRIBLE.

Especially the non-RL originals. That’s some of the worst sound we’ve ever heard.

If you see a “J” stamper, run for your life.

The best copies of Zep II have the kind of rock and roll firepower that’s guaranteed to bring any system to its knees. I can tell you with no sense of shame whatsoever that I do not have a system powerful enough to play this record at the levels I was listening to it at in one of our shootouts a while back. When the big bass comes in, hell yeah it distorts. It would have distorted worse at any concert the band ever played. Did people walk out, or ask the band to turn down the volume? No way. The volume IS the sound.

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Neil Young and the Limits of Expert Advice

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Neil Young Available Now

Richard Feynman gave a series of lectures concerning the workings of the scientific method. Here is an excerpt from one of them that I would like you to keep in mind as you read the discussion that follows. [Bolding added by me.]

Now I’m going to discuss how we would look for a new law. In general, we look for a new law by the following process. First, we guess it (audience laughter), no, don’t laugh, that’s the truth. Then we compute the consequences of the guess, to see what, if this is right, if this law we guess is right, to see what it would imply and then we compare the computation results to nature or we say compare to experiment or experience, compare it directly with observations to see if it works.

If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science.

It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are who made the guess, or what his name is … If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.

Back in 2015, a mastering engineer by the name of Phil Brown contacted me in reference to a Hot Stamper pressing of Neil Young’s  Zuma he had seen in our mailer. (Apologies in advance for not giving out the stamper numbers; we tend to frown on that sort of thing around here.) He wrote:

  Hey Tom,   

I see it’s a featured disc in the newsletter. I’m curious what the matrix numbers are since I mastered it.

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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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Looking for 5 Star Albums with Hot Stampers? There Are 50+ in Stock Now

beck_truth_1610_1302710570Hot Stamper Pressings of Allmusic Five Star Albums in Stock

From Cannonball Adderley’s sonic Masterpiece Somethin’ Else to X’s Under the Big Black Sun.

Including albums like Truth here. If I were to make a list of the best albums from 1968, this album would definitely be on it.

That said, it’s a one and done album for me, but probably not for many of you reading this. It all depends on how much you like Jeff Beck’s music — including, I suppose, his very successful foray into jazz/rock fusion.

Those records were in heavy rotation at my house and my friends’, at least for a couple of years. Beck-Ola spent some time on my turntable back then too but eventually fell by the wayside. Just not good enough to bother playing.

In short, I can take him or leave him, and I left him a long time ago. But that first album is as big and bold a musical statement as he would ever make. That makes it a Must Own in my book. (The complete list of such records can be found here.)

Below are some excerpts from our review of the album.

One of the most surprising things we learned in our first big shootout from 2014 was how well recorded the album is. It’s yet another triumph from one of our favorite engineers, Ken Scott.

In many ways it sounds like the first Zep album, and that’s a good thing. The sound is a perfect fit for the music. (more…)

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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Vivaldi / Concertos for Harpsichord, Guitar, Harp and Violin

Hot Stamper Pressings of Mercury Recordings Available Now

UPDATE 2026

Many years ago we wrote the following review. We’ve ordered a few copies of the album recently and hope to do a shootout for it assuming it still sounds as good as we used to think it did, but who can say?

Near Demo quality and a true Mercury sleeper.*

These concertos have excellent sound and the music is very enjoyable.

Sleepers

*A “sleeper” is an exceptional record that is not well known to audiophiles and collectors.

By conducting thousands of auditions and shootouts, we’ve discovered hundreds of amazing titles like SR-90401, which has been one of the greatest sources of joy for those of us here at Better Records.

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