One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:
Hey Tom,
Wow! this copy of Exile on MS is amazing! It sounded fantastic before my amps even were warm.
The drums sound like they are in the same room as the room with the microphone; the horns sound like……. well like… horns.
The copy I had before was brand new and sucked. This $350 copy is worth the dough and I am surprised. I am tempted to stop buying vinyl at all unless it has been pre-tested by your team (this will be tough).
I had NO IDEA there was this much difference between copies.
Brian S.
Brian,
Thanks for your letter. Now you know what we know, that there is a huge difference between pressings of an album like Exile, and the only way to find the good ones is to play them until you luck into one.
Saint-Saens’ symphonic poem, Danse Macabre, the second piece on the second side, is the heart of the album and its raison d’être for us. This is where the real fireworks can be found, although that’s not really fair as there are fireworks aplenty on both sides.
What we have here is the best Danse Macabre we have ever played.
We have always been fans of Gibson’s performance on the legendary Witches’ Brew. As good as that recording may be, this one is clearly superior in practically every way — it’s bigger, clearer, richer, more resolving, more spacious, more real and, to my surprise, more EXCITING and involving.
If you own a copy of LSC 2225, hopefully not the awful Classic Heavy Vinyl pressing, you need to hear what Fremaux and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra have accomplished on this wonderful 70s EMI.
Audiophiles (especially those of us with large dynamic speakers) have always been drawn to the biggest and most exciting orchestral spectaculars, and we have plenty on the site at all times to satisfy the need to hear these kinds of records at their properly-mastered, properly-pressed best.
Why spend money on another underperforming modern reissue that you will end up rarely playing when much more powerful and involving sound can be found on our site, sound so good it has the potential to change your life.
This piece opens the side. There is depth and richness to beat the band, as well as clarity and tonal correctness that let you forget the recording and just enjoy the music.
A superb performance as well, as good as any we know of. And the sound is the equal of the best recordings we’ve played.
As good as Fremaux is, I think the Ansermet (CS 6438) might still have the edge, but both are so good that it might just come down to a matter of taste. You cannot go wrong with either.
Comparable to our longtime favorite for sound and performance with Ansermet, we cannot say which one we would prefer without doing quite a bit more critical listening, a luxury we do not have at the moment.
We can tell you this: Turn it up and it really comes to life like LIVE MUSIC. It’s big, wide and believable.
This side one was far and away the best we played.
Transparency, depth and space were superb on this side, allowing that “you are there” feeling to take hold in the mind. The best copies like this one had plenty of all three.
Let me ask you one question. If so many of the current labels making 180 gram reissues are using the real master tapes — the real two-track stereo masters, not dubs, not cutting masters, not high-resolution digital copies, but the real thing — then why do so many of their records sound so bad?
If you’re honest you’ll say “I Don’t Know…” because, and here I want you to trust me on this, you don’t know. I don’t know either. Nobody does.
Records are mysterious. Their mysteries are many and deep. If you don’t know that you clearly haven’t spent much time with them, or don’t have a very revealing stereo, or don’t listen critically, or something else, who knows what.
They’re mysterious. That’s just a fact.
There is no shortage of records that say “Made From the Original Master Tapes” that simply aren’t. I know this dirty little secret for a fact. I would never say which ones those are for one simple reason: it would make it seem as though others must be, when in fact we have little evidence that very many of them are.
We want them to be — I’m all for it — but how can we know if they are or not? Face it: we can’t.
We must make do — heaven forbid — with actually opening up our own ears and engaging the sound of whichever Heavy Vinyl Reissue we may find spinning on our turntable. Judging the quality of the sound — no doubt imperfectly — coming out of the speakers.
This review is for the 2008 Warner Brothers 45 RPM 180g Double LP Half-Speed Mastered by Mobile Fidelity from the original analog master tapes.
Compressed, sucked-out mids, no deep bass and muddy mid-bass, the mastering of this album is an absolute disaster on every level.
If you want to know how clueless the average audiophile is, a quick Google search will bring up plenty of positive comments from listeners and reviewers alike.
Here are some other records that are good for testing the faults of this awful sounding release.
Here are some of our reviews and commentaries concerning the many Heavy Vinyl pressings we’ve played over the years, well over 200 at this stage of the game. Feel free to pick your poison.
In the record shootouts we do during the week, we evaluate records using something very much like the double blind testing mentioned above.
It’s what makes us unique in the world of record dealers and collectors. We allow the records to speak for themselves.
With the evaluation process we use, there can be no influence or bias from the reviewer’s preconceived notion of what pressing should sound best, because the person sitting in the listening chair does not have any way of knowing which pressing is actually playing.
This is not quite true for audiophile pressings, since the VTA must be adjusted for their thicker vinyl. The way such evaluations are done is simple enough however. We play a top quality Hot Stamper pressing, typically one that received a grade of White Hot (A+++), check the notes for what the test tracks are and what to listen for, and then proceed to test the Heavy Vinyl pressing on those same tracks, listening for those same qualities.
It rarely takes more than a few minutes to recognize the faults of the average audiophile pressing.
When played head to head against an exceptional vintage LP, the audiophile pressing’s shortcomings become all too obvious. Again and again, the audiophile pretender is found to be at best a second- or third-rate imitation of the real thing, if not downright awful.
How the sound of the modern remastered mediocrity has managed to impress so many self-identified audiophiles is shocking to those of us who have been working to get the best sound from our records for a very long time, developing both our systems and our critical listening skills over the decades.
In defense of these surprisingly easily-impressed audiophiles, I should point out that even we were fooled twenty years ago by many of the Heavy Vinyl records produced around that time, such as those on the DCC label and some by Speakers Corner, Cisco and others. It took twenty years to get to where we are now, taking advantage of much better equipment, better cleaning technologies, better room treatments, and the like, most of which did not even exist in 2000.
A turning point came in 2007 with the Rhino pressing of Blue, a record that made us ask, “Why are we selling records that we would not want to own or listen to ourselves?”
In closing, there is one fact that cannot be stressed enough, which may seem like a tautology but is nevertheless axiomatic for us:
Without that process, one which we painstakingly developed over the course of the last twenty-five years, we could not possibly do the work we have set out for ourselves: to find the best sounding pressings of the most important music ever pressed on vinyl.
To learn more about how to conduct your own shootouts and gain the critical listening skills that come from doing them, click here.
Do you want a recording that is going to put your system to the test? Well this is that record! That violin is REAL. As you compare equipment or tweak your system, you will hear the sound of that violin change and it should be obvious when it gets better and when it gets worse.
The piano is also very well recorded. If you lose some body to the piano you’re probably going in the wrong direction. But since that direction would make the violin almost unbearable sounding, I’m going to guess that would be easily recognized as a mistake.
The balance between those two instruments on this recording is perfection, so if you get this record right, you’re making progress of the most important kind: toward musical naturalness.
Otherwise this violin, at least on the Kreutzer Sonata, is going to tear your head off.
We think this is probably still one of the better Speakers Corner Deccas.
We haven’t played a copy of this record in years, but back in the day we liked it, so let’s call it a “B” with the caveat that the older the review, the more likely we are to have changed our minds. Not sure if we would still agree with what we wrote back in the ’90s when this record came out, but here it is anyway.
Superb sound with a great performance to match. A TOP TOP TITLE in every way. This performance has never been equaled and probably never will be (on any format I can stand to listen to!)
But is that the standard for sound quality, the original pressing?
No. The idea that the original is the best sounding version of any album is a myth, and an easily debunked one.
To make the case, here is just a small sampling of records with the potential to sound better on specific reissue pressings when compared head to head against the best originals. We also have some amazing sounding reissues available should you wish to purchase pressings that beat the originals, any originals, or your money back.
How Did We Do It?
There are more than 2000 Hot Stamper reviews on this blog. Do you know how we learned so much about so many records?
Simple. We ran thousands and thousands of record experiments under carefully controlled conditions, and we continue to run scores of them week in and week out to this very day.
If you want to learn about records, we recommend you do the same. You won’t be able to do more than one or two a week, but one or two a week is better than none, which is how many the average audiophile seems to want to do.
When it comes to finding the best sounding records ever made, our advice is simple.
Play them the right way and pay attention to what they are trying to teach you. You will learn more this way than any other.
In a 2007 commentary for the Hot Stamper pressing of Blind Faith we noted that:
When it finally all comes together for such a famously compromised recording, it’s nothing less than a THRILL. More than anything else, the sound is RIGHT. Like Layla or Surrealistic Pillow, this is no demo disc by any stretch of the imagination, but that should hardly keep us from enjoying the music. And now we have the record that lets us do it.
The Playback Technology Umbrella
Why did it take so long? Why does it sound good now, after decades of problems? For the same reason that so many great records are only now revealing their true potential: advances in playback technology.
Audio has finally reached the point where the magic in Blind Faith’s grooves is ready to be set free.
What exactly are we referring to? Why, all the stuff we talk about endlessly around here. These are the things that really do make a difference. They change the fundamentals. They break down the barriers.
You know the drill. Things like better cleaning techniques, top quality front end equipment, Aurios, better electricity, Hallographs and other room treatments, amazing phono stages like the EAR 324p, power cables; the list goes on and on. If you want records like Blind Faith to sound good, we don’t think it can be done without bringing to bear all of these advanced technologies to the problem at hand, the problem at hand being a recording with its full share of problems and then some.
Without these improvements, why wouldn’t Blind Faith sound as dull and distorted as it always has? The best pressings were made more than thirty years ago [thirty? make that fifty]; they’re no different. What has to change is how you clean and play those pressings.
The Good News
The good news is that the technologies we recommend really do work. Now Blind Faith, the record, can do what it never could before: sound so good you can find yourself totally lost in the music. The best copies, played back properly, make you oblivious to the album’s sonic problems because, for the most part, they really weren’t the album’s problems, they were, to some extent, your problems.
They were mostly post-groove; you just didn’t know it. This is how audio works. The site is full of commentary discussing these issues. Rest assured that no matter how good you think your stereo sounds now, it can get better if you want it to, and that’s good news if you’re a fan of albums like Blind Faith.
Of course, let us not forget the old Garbage In, Garbage Out rule. You must have a good pressing if you want this album to sound good, and that’s precisely where we and our famous Hot Stamper Pressings come in.
If you guessed the Cisco LP from 2007, one of the worst sounding versions of the album ever pressed, you win a prize!
Occasionally, when I go searching the web to find out something about a record, I find something I had no idea even existed. Look what I found today: a survey of various pressings of Aja, an album I think I know pretty well since I’ve been playing it since the day it came out in 1977.
Are you learning anything useful from the guy in this video? Does he seem to understand much about the sound of the pressings he is reviewing?
I didn’t think so either. If you know much about records you should be appalled at the nonsensical opinions coming out of this guy’s mouth. This video will of course garner many ten of thousands of hits, but that is to be expected.
Phony record gurus like this guy — as opposed to authentic record gurus like us — have found a home in every corner of the web, full of bad advice for those foolish enough to take it.
We Can Help
Would you like some helpful advice, some “actionable intelligence” vis-a-vis Aja?
When you are done you can make your own video if you like.
And if you follow our methods, your video, unlike this video, would actually be of value to audiophiles trying to find a better sounding pressing of Aja. It sure ain’t the Cisco. If that pressing doesn’t come in last place in the shootout, you need to try harder. You’re not doing it right. (The Japanese pressing you see pictured should do poorly also.)
If this guy had better playback equipment and had developed some basic critical listening skills, he would not be recommending the Cisco pressing. He would be telling you how awful it is, just the way we did back in 2007 when it came out.
The Cisco pressing, so beloved by the gentleman above, also happens to be a good example of a Pass/Fail record. We describe Pass/Fail records this way:
Some records are so wrong, or so lacking in qualities that are crucial to the sound — qualities typically found in abundance on the right vintage pressings — that the advocates for these records, reviewers and audiophiles alike, have clearly failed to judge them accurately.
Tea for the Tillerman on the new 45 may be substandard in almost every way, but it is not a Pass/Fail pressing. It lacks one thing above all others, Tubey Magic, so if your system has an abundance of that quality, the way many vintage tube systems do, the new pressing may be quite listenable and enjoyable. Those whose systems can play the record and not notice this important shortcoming are not exactly failing. Audiophiles of this persuasion most likely have a system that is heavily colored and not very revealing, but it is not a system that is hopeless.
A system that can play the MoFi of Aja without revealing to the listener how risibly wrong it is is clearly on another level of bad entirely, and that we would characterize as a failing system. My system in the ’80s played the MoFi just fine. Looking back on it now, I realize my system was doing more wrong than right. Over the next forty years I worked hard to make it right. It is at the heart of everything we do here at Better Records. Without it there could be no Hot Stampers.
The value of identifying such records is simply this: if you know anyone, or come across anyone, that has anything nice to say about records that are as awful as the ones on this list, you should know that such a person cannot tell a good record from a bad one, and therefore nothing they say about anything on the subject of either audio or records will be of any real value to you if you care about good sound.
Our video maker above fits neatly into this category. Why is he talking about better and worse versions of Aja when he clearly cannot tell the good ones from the bad ones? Why indeed.
When you sit down to play ten or twelve copies of an album, one right after the other, patterns in the sound are going to emerge from that experience, patterns which would be very likely to pass unnoticed when playing one copy against another or two over the course of the twenty or thirty minutes it would take to do it.
In the case of this album, the pattern we perceived was simply this: About one or two out of that dozen or so will have punchy, solid, rich, deep bass. (There is a huge amount of bass on the recording so recognizing those special copies is not the least bit difficult if you have a full-range speaker and a properly treated room.)
About one or two copies really get the top end right, which is easily heard when the cymbals splash dynamically, with their harmonics intact, and they extend high about the rest of the soundfield (just the way they do in live music).
Fewer copies have an extended top end compared to those with tight punchy bass by the way.
Like so many Mastering Lab tube-mastered records from the era, most copies tend to be somewhat smooth.
Only one copy had both the best bass and the best highs. All the other copies fell short in one or both of these areas.
Think about it: if you do your home shootouts with three or four or even five copies of an album, what are the chances that:
1. You will detect this pattern? Or, 2. That you will run into the one copy that does it all?
This is precisely the reason we have taken the concept of doing comparisons between pressings to an entirely new level.
It’s the only way to find the outliers in the group, the “thin tails” as the statisticians like to call them. (More on outliers here.)
These very special White Hot Stamper pressings are the kind of game-changers that more than make up for all the hassle and expense of seriously good analog.
They can take your stereo, and your listening experience, to a place no other records can.
Sonic Grade: F
