beatlsgtpe

The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band

More of the Music of The Beatles

  • Huge, spacious and detailed, with the Tubey Magic of a fresh tape, this is the way to hear Sgt. Pepper in all its analog glory, not remixed and not remastered
  • Most pressings – especially the new ones – have nothing approaching the Tubey Magic, space and energy of this LP
  • A Better Records Top 100 title – “It’s possible to argue that there are better Beatles albums, yet no album is as historically important as this.”
  • It’s hard to conceive of any list of the best rock and pop albums of 1967 that would not have this record on it, and there is a very good chance it would be perched right at the top of that list
  • Quite a few customers have written us letters telling us how much they enjoyed the Hot Stamper pressing of Sgt. Pepper we sent them

The sound here is so big and rich, so clear and transparent, that we would be very surprised, shocked even, if you’ve ever imagined that any pressing of Sgt. Pepper could sound this powerful and REAL. (more…)

Letter of the Week – “…an album I know very well, and thought I already had some good pressings of it.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of Sgt. Peppers’ Available Now

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

Hey Tom,   

I recently received my first LP from your company, and you will see from the attached photo that Sergeant Peppers is an album I know very well, and thought I already had some good pressings of it.

Your copy in Super Hot Stamper takes so many layers away and opens you up to the actual recording as it was intended by The Beatles, George Emerick and George Martin.

I can’t even imagine what it would sound like in White Hot, just can’t really afford them… (yet)

Kind regards,
Antoine

Antoine,

That’s great news, glad you were pleased with the sound of our Super Hot Stamper Pepper. The best pressings do indeed remove many layers and show you the sound of the real tape.

Thanks for your support and for doing your own shootout, because, as we all know, hearing is all it takes.

(more…)

Letter of the Week – “I feel like I wasted a lot of money on inferior albums. I will continue to make wise purchases from you.”

beatlessgt

Hot Stamper Pressings of Sgt. Peppers… Available Now

The continuing story of one man’s quest to find better sounding Beatles albums. His story can be seen below. Here is the latest back and forth concerning The Beatles, a band we think we know something about.

Hi Tom
I think I have purchased 6 albums from you. Obviously I believe in your company! Could you tell me which Beatles albums that you test have the best sound.

Our Top 100 Rock and Pop list would include many of the best sounding Beatles albums. There are currently six on the list.

I have the Sgt Pepper, White, Help, and a Hard Days Night. I have the Beatles Mono Box set which I purchased new. I agree with you that the stereo versions purchased from you are superior.

That stereo set is a bad joke played on the record loving public, and the mono set is every bit as bad.

Dead as a doornail. A complete ripoff. Here is my review.

I am not impressed by the MOFI pressings.

For the most part neither are we.

I am still checking each day hoping I won’t miss out on a good Abbey Road pressing.

We almost always have them in stock these days. Our selection can be found here.

I always get great info and service from you. I feel like a wasted a lot of money on inferior albums.

I will continue to make wise purchases from you. I am trying to spread the word around here to check out Better Records.

Thanks for your kind thoughts and for spreading the word. Perhaps someone you know will be saved the expense of buying inferior Heavy Vinyl pressings. We review the worst of them here, so just point him to this blog and perhaps you will be able to help a fellow audiophile get Better Records.

And of course the best way to help your fellow audiophiles is by letting them hear your Hot Stamper pressings. That’s the only surefire way we know of to convince the skeptics. One listen to your Sgt. Pepper should be all it takes.

Tom

Below is Edward’s original conversation with us. (more…)

Letter of the Week – “I cannot recall a purchase that’s made me happier since I went back to vinyl a year ago. It’s THAT good.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of Sgt. Peppers Available Now

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

Hey Tom, 

You’ve done it again. I thought the Hot Stamper copy I bought back in June sounded extraordinary. But this White Hot Stamper puts it to shame. This is truly unbelievable.

Paul’s bass on the opening track blew me away. Ringo’s drums are so strong it’s scary. I ALMOST had to turn it down (I live in a top-floor apartment and push my neighbors below me right to the edge), but screw it, this sounds so good at my regular listening volume I’ll happily put up with a complaint if I must. Hell, I’ll invite him in and put him in The Chair, and that’ll be the end of THAT.

And you weren’t kidding about George’s vocals and his sitar on Within You, Without You. That’s always been one of my least-favorite cuts on the album, but I’ll skip it no longer.

I cannot recall a purchase that’s made me happier since I went back to vinyl a year ago. It’s THAT good.

Now what am I gonna do with this Hot Stamper copy I bought back in June? It’s been played twice since you sent it. Come to think of it, I’m keeping it as an insurance policy, just in case. You never know!

Thanks, gentlemen. Exquisite, just exquisite.

Bill P.

Bill,

Fantastic news, we could not be happier for you.

Within You Without You has always been a favorite of mine. I never got around to writing about playing a very special copy many years ago, probably in 2007.

I played a copy of the album that magically — or so it seemed — created a swirling cloud of sitar harmonics floating above the speakers, close to the ceiling, something I had never heard before I hooked up the Townshend Super Tweeters and started cleaning records with the Prelude System and the Odyssey machine.

All those changes revealed top end information I had simply no idea existed on the record.

With all those changes to the system and cleaning, it was only a matter of time until the right reissue pressing came along to show me what I had never heard before.

I can still remember the experience very clearly. You never forget the feeling you get from something like that.

Right around that time I heard a pressing of Meddle with the same mind-boggling extension going all the way up into the stratosphere. That one I did write about.

White Hot Stamper pressings have long been known to have a powerful effect on those who play them. To back up everything we say, here is a sampling of some of the letters we’ve received, sounding very much like your own.

(more…)

Sgt. Peppers on Heavy Vinyl – The Reviewers from 1982 Blow It Again

beatlessgtHot Stamper Pressings of Sgt. Peppers Available Now

You might agree with some reviewers that EMI’s engineers did a pretty good job with the new Pepper.

In the March 2013 issue of Stereophile, Art Dudley weighed in, finding little to fault on this title but being less impressed with most of the others in the new box set.

His reference disc? The MoFi UHQR. Gadzooks!

Oh, and he also has some old mono pressings and a domestic Let It Be. Now there’s a man who knows his Beatles. Fanatical? Who can blame him? We’re talkin’ The Beatles for Chrissake!

When I read the reviews by writers such as these I often get the sense that I must’ve fallen through some sort of Audio Time Warp and landed back in 1982.

How is it that our so-called experts evince so little understanding of how records are made, how variable the pressings can be, and, more importantly, how absolutely crucial it is to understand and implement rigorous protocols when attempting to carry out comparisons among pressings.

Critically comparing LPs is difficult and time-consuming.

It requires highly developed listening skills that I could not possibly have had because I had no clue as to what they were or how to go about acquiring them.

I see no evidence that the audiophile reviewers of today are better at it than I was in 1982, and I was terrible.

What does one well-known reviewer have to say, keeping in mind that he’s using his original British pressing for comparison? I quote at length — without prejudice so to speak — so there can be no misunderstanding. (Emphasis added.)

(more…)

Customers Write to Us About the Sound of Sgt. Pepper

beatlessgtHot Stamper Pressings of Sgt. Peppers Available Now

Below you will find some of the letters customers have sent us after playing one of our Hot Stamper reissue pressings of Sgt. Pepper.

The Beatles are the only group to have their own page on the blog. No surprise there. We’ve written more about their music and sold more of their albums than we have for any other band.

Letter of the Week – “This is absolutely the best vinyl I have found since I began re-collecting 8 years ago.”

Letter of the Week – “What a revelation the Hot Stamper is!”

Letter of the Week – “I feel like I wasted a lot of money on inferior albums. I will continue to make wise purchases from you.”

Letter of the Week – “…an album I know very well, and thought I already had some good pressings of it.”

(more…)

Is the Heavy Vinyl from 2012 the Best Sounding Sgt. Pepper?

beatlessgtHot Stamper Pressings of Sgt. Peppers Available Now

You might agree with some reviewers that EMI’s engineers did a pretty good job with the new stereo pressing of Sgt. Pepper mastered by Sean Magee from the 2009 digitally remastered tapes.

In the March 2013 issue of Stereophile Art Dudley weighed in, finding little to fault on this title but being less impressed with most of the others in the new box set. His reference disc? The MoFi UHQR! Oh, and he also has some old mono pressings and a domestic Let It Be.

Now there’s a man who knows his Beatles. Fanatical? Of course he is! We’re talkin’ The Beatles for Chrissakes.

When I read the reviews by writers such as these, I often get the sense that I must’ve fallen through some sort of Audio Time Warp and landed back in 1982. How is it that our so-called experts evince so little understanding of how records are made, how variable the pressings can be, and, more importantly, how absolutely crucial it is to understand and implement rigorous protocols when attempting to carry out comparisons among pressings.

Critically comparing LPs is difficult and time-consuming. It requires highly developed listening skills. I didn’t know how to do it in 1982. I see no evidence that the audiophile reviewers of today are much better at it now than I was in 1982.

Just to take one example: They all seem to be operating under the same evidence-free conceit: that the original is the benchmark against which other pressings must be compared.

To those of us who have played Beatles pressings by the hundreds, this is patent nonsense. To cite just one instance, a recent Hot Stamper listing notes [inaccurately as it turns out, see below]:

We defy any original to step into the ring with it. One thing we can tell you, it would not be a fair fight. The cutting equipment to make a record of this quality did not exist in 1967, not at EMI anyway.

We had the opportunity not long ago to audition a very clean original early pressing of the album and were frankly taken aback by how AWFUL it was in virtually every respect. No top end above 8k or so, flabby bass, murky mids — this was as far from Hot Stamper sound as one could imagine. If it were a Heavy Vinyl or Audiophile pressing we would surely have graded it F and put it in our Hall of Shame.

To be fair we have played exactly one early copy of the record on our current system. (Played a copy or two long ago but on much different equipment, so any judgments we might have made must be considered highly suspect.) Perhaps there are good ones. We have no way of knowing whether there are, and we are certainly not motivated to find out given the price that original Sgt. Pepper’s are fetching these days.

We can tell you this much: no original British pressing of any Beatles album up through Pepper has ever impressed us sonically. We’ve played plenty and have yet to hear one that’s not congested, crude, distorted, bandwidth-limited and full of tube smear. (The monos suffer from all of these problems and more of course, which is only natural; they too are made with the Old School cutting equipment of the day.)

If that’s your sound more power to you. It’s definitely not ours. The hotter the stamper, the less congested, crude, distorted, bandwidth-limited and smeary it will be. (Or your money back.)

UPDATE 2023

There is a copy of a Beatles album on the original label that was competitive with our best 70s pressings, this one. We explained why it’s not a problem to admit we were wrong about the album in question, For Sale, this way:

This finding about For Sale is precisely why live and learn is our motto.

We don’t know it all, and we’ve never claimed that we did. We constantly learn things about pressings in our daily shootouts. That should not be too surprising, as record shootouts are the only way to learn anything about the sound of records that’s actually worth knowing.

Start doing your own experiments and your record knowledge might just take off the way ours has. 99% of what we think we know about the sound of records we’ve learned in shootouts over the course of the last twenty years.

Here is our advice on getting started.

Before this, the only Beatles record we would sell on the Yellow and Black Parlophone label was A Collection of Oldies… But Goldies. That title does have the best sound on the early label. In numerous shootouts, no Black and Silver label pressing from the ’70s was competitive with the best stereo copies made in the ’60s.

Until now, it was clearly the exception to our rule. From With the Beatles up through Yellow Submarine, the best sounding Beatles pressings would always be found on the 70s reissue label.

The Best Pepper Pressings

How did we come to find the best Sgt. Peppers pressings? Our recent commentary about a wonderful Benny Carter record on the original Contemporary Black Label may serve to shed some light on the process.

(more…)

Letter of the Week – “To this day, he refers to the wondrous sound he heard that night every time we get together.”

More of the Music of The Beatles

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

Hey Tom, 

My younger brother came over for dinner a few years ago. As usual, he asked to have a listening session. He is a dedicated Beatles fan and he prefers to listen to them in mono.

After warming up the system, I played a stereo copy of side two on Sgt. Pepper I purchased from Better Records that was graded A+++. We listened to the first cut and he asked that I play it again. Then again. Then again.

After listening to the rest of the side, we were interrupted by my wife calling us to dinner. He told me he couldn’t make small talk at dinner so please let him lie on the couch and excuse him from the meal. We ate dinner without him.

After the meal, I approached him on the couch and he said he had to go home. He said he was stunned by the sound and that it had put him in a mesmerized state where he needed to be alone so he could contemplate what it had done to him.

This is a true story. To this day, he refers to the wondrous sound he heard that night every time we get together. And no, now I don’t ever play that recording for him before dinner.

Phil R.

Phil,

Stunned and mesmerized are the effects we were going for. Thanks for writing!

Further Reading

Our Advice on the Sgt. Peppers Pressings to Avoid

beatlessgtHot Stamper Pressings of Sgt. Peppers Available Now

Chris, an erstwhile customer from a very long time ago, sent us a letter describing his search for a good sounding Sgt. Pepper.

The first thing that comes to mind when reading his letter is that many record collecting rules were broken in going about his search the way he did. But then I thought, What rules? Whose rules? Where exactly does one find these rules? If one wants to avoid breaking them they need to be written down someplace, don’t they?

Wikipedia maybe?

Sadly, no, not at Wikipedia, or any place else for that matter — until now. As crazy as it sounds, we are going to try to lay down a few record collecting rules for record loving audiophiles, specifically to aid these individuals in their search for better sounding vinyl pressings. And by “these individuals” we mean you.

See if you can spot the rules that were broken by Chris in his fruitless search for a good sounding Sgt. Pepper. Note that this letter came to us long before the new Beatles CDs and vinyl had been remastered.

Hi Tom

A few months ago, I purchased a new UK import of Sgt Pepper. Too bad it turned out to be digitally remastered. I had been checking your site for this album over the last few months, but only saw two: a sealed MFSL UHQR for $1000, and a hot stamper for $500, both out of my price range. So then I started looking at Ebay, and recently purchased two “sealed” versions of Sgt Pepper – a USA Apple, which cost me $170, and a USA Capitol (original rainbow label) for which I paid $80.

Tonight, I wanted to copy one of the Sgt Pepper’s to Hi-rez (192/24) DVD audio. Both sealed records from Ebay were cleaned with Last RCM record cleaner on a VPI 16.5, and treated with LAST record preservative. (My usual routine)

First I tried the Capitol (rainbow). It even had “mastered by Capitol” stamped on the run-out area, usually a good sign, I thought. The sound was quite good, except for two things:

1) the sound level drops about 3 db in the first track where they sing “We’d love to take you home with us , we’d love to take you home” (3 db drop occurs) followed by “I don’t really want to…” 2) the record has thousands of audible ticks. No kidding, when I recorded it, and looked at the waveform in Adobe Audition, there are really about 20 little ticks per second. If I try to clean it up manually, one click at a time, (my usual routine), it will take an eternity to finish the job. (slight exaggeration) [sic] So I tried the $170 sealed “Apple” purchased from someone named “sealedbeatles”.

This record is a total disaster. It has no high end. It’s like someone turned the treble all the way down (if my system had a treble control). I looked at the spectrum of a few seconds of music, and the level at 8 khz is the same as the level at 60 khz, down about 90 db. (duller than poor AM radio). The record is loaded with surface noise too. The record is totally useless.

Finally I tried the UK digitally remastered Parlophone, purchased probably from Music Direct, or some place like that. It sounds harsher than hell, and oddly has a tone actually recorded on the record at about 70 Khz, which you can “see” poking up from the noise floor in its spectrum.

I’m still looking.

Chris

My first thoughts upon receiving this letter:

There is almost no chance Chris would be successful with the approach he took.

The following would have been my five pieces of advice had he told me in advance what he was planning to do.

(more…)

Letter of the Week – “This is absolutely the best vinyl I have found since I began re-collecting 8 years ago.”

More of the Music of The Beatles

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

Hey Tom, 

After many disappointing attempts to pair my brother’s original and extremely well-worn Sgt. Pepper, I came across Better Records and decided to try a Hot Stamper copy. This is absolutely the best vinyl I have found since I began re-collecting 8 years ago. I can only imagine how good Super and White Hot sound — but I will be sure to find out!

Kevin

Kevin,

Thanks for your letter!

(more…)