Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now
We discuss in detail what we’re listening for and what the best copies seem to do well that the run-of-the-mill copies simply do not.
If you own a copy of the German MMT, play yours and listen for what we’re listening for. It’s all laid out in the track commentary below.
Side One
Magical Mystery Tour
The fact that this is a key track should be obvious to anyone who has ever played the album. If you don’t have a good copy of the MMT this song will take your head off. Only the German pressings have any real hope of getting it right — the MOFI, British, Japanese, domestic, etc. are uniformly awful in my experience: aggressive and irritating, the worst being the MOFI I would guess.
The German ones break down into three groups – too smooth; just right; and a bit bright or thin. Now remember, almost every copy of this record I played had the exact same stamper numbers. You can’t tell one from another except by dropping the needle on them. There is no visual clue on the record to associate with the sound, no possibility of bias. What comes out of the speakers is all I had to go by.
And it’s easy to confuse the overly smooth ones with the best ones, because on the song MMT smooth is a good thing . But when is smooth too smooth? That’s where track two comes in.
The Fool On The Hill
This song is full of airy flutes, woodwinds and the like. They should sound harmonically extended, delicate and sweet. We talked about the sound of the flutes on another record recently, Blood, Sweat & Tears. It’s as a good a test for this album as it is for that one.
Having said that, what separates the killer copies from the merely excellent ones is the quality of the flute sound. When you can hear the air going through the flute, and follow the playing throughout the song, you have a superbly transparent copy with all the presence and texture of the best. If the flute sounds right Katz’s voice will too. The sound will be Demonstration Quality of the highest order. Want to shoot out two different copies of this album on side one? Easy. Just play this track and see which one gets the flute right.
On the best copies Paul’s voice is amazingly present. You should feel as though you could reach out and touch him. Which means there are two basic elements to listen for in this song, both of which must be proportional and balanced. First, the flutes must sound open and airy. Then, Paul’s voice must retain its lower-midrange body and warmth without sounding veiled or thick in any way, yet have excellent presence. Not too many copies, maybe one out of ten, can really pull it off. It’s amazing when they do though!
If the first track is alive but not aggressive, and Fool sounds the way I describe it above, the only thing left is The Walrus Test. Feel free to skip to the last track if you like.