art-one-done

These are the titles by an artist or band in which they put everything they had, producing by far their best work. Unless you are a big fan, their other albums are, in our opinion, mostly derivative and second-rate.

We’ve gone to the trouble of playing a great many of their other releases, and been forced to recognize that, for most of our customers, the dropoff in quality seems fairly steep.

If you like Phil Collins, his second album is not bad. However, unless you’re a big fan, the first album is really all the Phil Collins you probably need. If you find that Phil Collins is “your thing,” by all means, try his second album.

Toto, B-52s, Boston, Warren Zevon, Gary Wright, Robin Trower, Carole King, Jeff Beck, The Tubes, the list of One and Done albums is simply our way of saying that you might not feel the need to go too deep into these artists’ catalogs, not at the prices we charge anyway.

Mike Oldfield / Tubular Bells

  • This British Virgin LP has an incredible Triple Plus (A+++) side one backed with an excellent Double Plus (A++) side two
  • The space, the richness and the clarity all combine to make this a powerful listening experience
  • It’s incredibly hard to find good sounding copies of this record – this is only the second White Hot copy to hit the site in a long time
  • “Mike Oldfield’s groundbreaking album Tubular Bells is arguably the finest conglomeration of off-centered instruments concerted together to form a single, unique piece. A variety of instruments are combined to create an excitable multitude of rhythms, tones, pitches, and harmonies that all fuse neatly into each other, resulting in an astounding plethora of music.”

These sides sounds good from top to bottom — the top end extension brings out the harmonics in the bells, and the deep bass really brings the organ to life. Many copies are smeary and veiled, but this one has no such problems.

There is a lot going on here, and unless you have a clear and transparent copy like this one it just turns into a mess. This one has all the presence and space required to bring this music to life, with no attendant sacrifice in richness or Tubey Magic.

What makes this copy better than the others we played? An extended top end; spaciousness and transparency; richness and fullness, and so much more.

Many copies were congested in the louder sections, some never got big, some were thin and lacking the lovely analog richness of the best — we heard plenty of copies whose faults were obvious when played against two excellent sides such as these. (more…)

Dusty Springfield / Dusty In Memphis – Our Shootout Winner from 2011

The Gold Standard for Female Vocal Blue-Eyed Soul is here in White Hot Stamper form! It takes us AGES to pull together enough clean copies to get this shootout going, and this one was a HUGE step up from most of them. We’re always looking for a killer pressing (who out there doesn’t want to hear Son Of A Preacher Man sound great?) but it is difficult to find one that does half as many things right as this one does!

Most copies of this album are noisy, and unfortunately this one is no exception. It can get pretty ticky at times, so if that’s going to drive you crazy this may not be the one for you. If that’s not a problem though, this could be your best chance to get great sonics at a substantial discount! (If we ever find a copy that sounds this good and plays quietly, I guarantee it would cost at LEAST twice as much!). This record was picked as the #9 coolest record of all time in the April 11, 2002 issue of Rolling Stone and chosen by Mojo Magazine as one of the best 100 albums ever released. The All Music Guide review linked above is especially insightful and well worth reading.

Side one is a HUGE step up over most we’ve heard. It’s WAY richer and fuller, WAY bigger, and has possibly the best bottom end we’ve ever heard for this album! The sweet, extended top end here does wonders for Dusty’s voice as well. We rated side one at A+++, and I doubt there are many out there that can compete with it.

Side two may not be quite as stunning at A++, but it still runs circles around the typical pressing. It’s got the top end extension and presence you really need if you want the vocals to sound their best. Just a touch more clarity and this side could very well be competitive with the elites! (more…)

John Mayall with Eric Clapton – Blues Breakers

More John Mayall

More Eric Clapton

  • You’ll find outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound on both sides of this superb pressing – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Far more richer, smoother and livelier than most, with Tubey Magic and space you won’t believe
  • The Decca UK vinyl on this superb pressing is as QUIET as we ever expect to find for this album
  • 5 stars: “Bluesbreakers was Eric Clapton’s first fully realized album as a blues guitarist — more than that, it was a seminal blues album of the 1960s, perhaps the best British blues album ever cut, and the best LP ever recorded by John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers.”
  • Want to find your own shootout winner? Scroll to the bottom to see our advice on doing just that.

This copy is guaranteed to be superior to virtually all imports, all domestic pressings, whatever crappy Heavy Vinyl they’re making these days — in short, any version of this music on any format that you’ve ever played. This is it folks. They cut this one right and it doesn’t take a pair of golden ears to know it. Blues Breakers finally sounds the way you always wanted it to sound.

We’ve been searching for copies of Bluesbreakers for years — everyone wants a great copy of this Five Star Classic, the only album John Mayall ever made that we would consider a Must Own. After many, many years of experimentation and dozens of copies purchased we’ve finally discovered the British pressings that deliver the best sound we’ve ever heard for this music.

But they don’t come easy and they sure don’t come cheap, so don’t expect the floodgates to open with White Hot Stamper after White Hot Stamper hitting the site. One was it and it will be a year or two at the very least before we have a big enough stack of copies with which to do a shootout fo find another.

Until then this is a great copy that belongs in your collection, and it’s QUIET. (more…)

Al Dimeola / Elegant Gypsy – Di Meola’s Masterpiece

More Al Di Meola

More Jazz Rock Fusion

  • One of the best copies of this phenomenal Fusion Guitar Jazz Classic to ever hit the site — Triple Plus (A+++) throughout
  • Both sides are incredibly lively, full-bodied, open and present — the sound is HUGE and WEIGHTY and it rocks
  • 5 stars: “Generally an explosive affair, although it does have a fair amount of variety. A near classic in the fusion vein.”

SHOCKINGLY GOOD SOUND for one of the all-time great guitar albums! We were positively BLOWN AWAY by how lively, dynamic and full-bodied this copy sounds. There’s real texture to all the instruments and the bottom end is tight and punchy beyond belief. They just don’t make records with this kind of Tubey Analog Magic anymore.

If you’ve enjoyed the sonics on one of our Hot Stamper pressings of Return To Forever, Weather Report or Santana, I think you’ll find a lot to like about this record.

This album still holds up today. The All Music Guide gives it five big stars, and on a copy like this one I bet you’ll rate the music just as highly. When you have a pressing with this kind of weight, power, clarity and transparency, you can easily appreciate just how amazing the musicianship is. (more…)

Atlanta Rhythm Section – Champagne Jam

  • You’ll find outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it on both sides of this wonderful copy of Champagne Jam – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • The size, clarity, presence and energy are superb – and talk about Tubey Magic, this pressing is overflowing with it
  • If all you know is the sound of the MoFi release from back in the day – compressed, with their penchant for sucked-out-midrange EQ – this copy will be a revelation
  • “… Champagne Jam is one of the group’s strongest releases: a seamless marriage of Southern rock muscle and uptown blues dress… fans will definitely want to make this the first title they consider from the band’s regular album catalog.”

(more…)

Grand Funk Railroad – Closer To Home

More Grand Funk Railroad

  • You’ll find Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on both sides of this KILLER Grand Funk pressing
  • Closer to Home is supposed to be a hard rockin’ Power Trio record, and on the better pressings such as this one that’s exactly what the hell it is!
  • A tough record to find in audiophile playing condition these days – it took us years to get this shootout going
  • 4 stars: “… the record that really broke them through to the level of metal masters such as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath … instead of the excess force of other bands, such as MC5, Grand Funk Railroad are able to retain the often-elusive melodic element to their heavy compositions.”

Our best Hot Stamper pressings are BIGGER and BOLDER sounding than we ever expected.

You get more ambience, natural tape hiss, loads of energy, and more. Most copies were too murky, smeary and opaque to be taken seriously but this one was dramatically cleaner and clearer, without sacrificing the richness and warmth of vintage 1970  analog in the least. (more…)

Robert Palmer – Sneakin’ Sally Through The Alley

More Robert Palmer

Island Is One of Our Favorite Labels

  • This outstanding pressing boasts solid Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish – fairly quiet vinyl for the most part too, although one mark is a problem
  • Rich, smooth, Tubey Magical sound is what makes these wonderful import pressings win our shootouts – that and lots of funky bass
  • The best album Robert Palmer ever made – with Little Feat and The Meters helping out, it had to be
  • 4 stars: “While the music is tight and solid, it is Robert Palmer’s voice that is revelatory — he sounds supremely confident among these talented musicians, and they seem to feed off his vocal intensity. Fans of the Meters or people who want to discover the funky side of Robert Palmer should check this one out.”

(more…)

Johnny Nash – I Can See Clearly Now

  • Johnny Nash makes his site debut with this SUPERB pressing of his Number One Album, boasting Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it throughout – mostly quiet vinyl too  
  • When we first dropped the needle on a copy of the album, we were knocked out by just how RICH and SMOOTH the chorus was on the title track
  • Here was a Top Quality Analog Recording to rival the best releases of 1972, one that we had practically never heard of – and of course, the shootout produced an even better copy that the one we’d auditioned
  • 4 stars: “Nash’s buoyant, breezy, optimistic classic proved to be a phenomenal record holding the number one pop position for four weeks… It’s a tribute to its high quality that I Can See Clearly Now was in print almost three decades after its original release.”

Seventies Analog

Produced in 1972, the best copies of I Can See Clearly Now are rich, smooth and sweet in the best tradition of the ANALOG record.

Less than ten years later the warm, rich analog sound we Old School Audiophiles prize would go completely out of style. Those later years were a difficult time for audiophiles who liked the pop music of the day but not the pop sound of the day. Heavy-handed processing, as well as the overuse of synthesizers and drum effects, with the whole of the production slathered in digital reverb, not to mention a puzzling lack of bass foundation, have resulted in many of the albums recorded after 1980 being all but impossible to enjoy on a modern high-end system.

For some reason, the ’70s seems to get little respect from audiophiles, when in fact a high percentage of the best recordings we know of were made in that arbitrarily designated ten year period. A rough count leads me to think that more than half of our Top 100 Rock Albums were recorded in the years spanning 1970-79, which is very unlikely to be a statistical anomaly.

The pool of well-recorded albums was simply wider and deeper. Great sounding records like this one were made by the hundreds, their numbers falling off precipitously in the decades that followed. Fortunately for us hard core analog holdouts, we have easy access to the best of the ’70s recordings, still widely available in their original format: the vinyl LP.

Like many of our favorites from the ’70s, this one is not well known in audiophile circles, but we hope to change that with this wonderful sounding pressing. Both the sound and the music are worth your time, and if you find that you don’t agree with us about the music or the sound, feel free to return the record, at our expense even. (more…)

Anita Baker – Rapture

  • This quiet-storm classic earned outstanding Double Plus (A++) grades for sound on both sides and plays on exceptionally quiet vinyl to boot
  • Rapture is one of the best sounding recordings from the era – with all due respect to Whitney Houston, if I could have only one album of ’80s soulful female vocals, it would have to be this one
  • Key to the sound is richness and Tubey Magic, along with strong midrange presence, and on this Super Hot Stamper you get all three
  • 5 stars: “Rapture gave Baker one moving hit after another, including ‘Sweet Love,’ ‘Caught up in the Rapture,’ ‘Same Ole Love,’ and ‘No One in This World.'”

A Soul Classic — winner, and deservedly so, of 2 Grammy Awards: Best R&B Song and Best R&B Female Vocal. (more…)

R.E.M. – Murmur

  • For the first time ever — a stunning sounding copy with Triple Plus (A+++) sound on the first side and Double Plus (A++) on the second
  • Both sides here are big and full yet still clean, clear and open with a punchy bottom end
  • 5 Stars: “R.E.M. may have made albums as good as Murmur in the years following its release, but they never again made anything that sounded quite like it.”

This is certainly one of the best sounding copies of Murmur that we’ve ever had the pleasure of playing. Fans of the band’s music will have a hard time finding better sound for the album than this very copy, that’s for sure. We guarantee it will murder anything you have ever heard. And if you own the ridiculously thick and opaque MoFi pressing from the ’90s then you are really in for a treat! (more…)