beatlsgtpe

Sgt. Pepper’s and Mistaken Audiophile Thinking (Hint: the UHQR Is Wrong)

Hot Stamper Pressings of Sgt. Peppers Available Now

This commentary was probably written between 2005 when we did our first shootout for the album and 2008, by which time it would have been a regular feature on the site. 

We charge hundreds of dollars for a Hot Stamper Sgt. Pepper, which is a lot to pay for a record. But consider this: the UHQR typically sells for a great deal more than the price we charge and doesn’t sound remotely as good. 

Of course the people that buy UHQRs would never find themselves in a position to recognize how much better one of our Hot Stampers sounds in a head to head shootout with their precious and oh-so-collectible UHQR.

They assume that they’ve already purchased the Ultimate Pressing and see no reason to try another.

I was guilty of the same mistaken audiophile thinking myself in 1982. I remember buying the UHQR of Sgt. Pepper and thinking how amazing it sounded and how lucky I was to have the world’s best version of Sgt. Pepper.

If I were to play that record now it most likely would be positively painful. All I would hear would be the famous MoFi 10K Boost on the top end (the one that MoFi lovers never seem to notice), and the flabby Half-Speed mastered bass (ditto).

Having heard really good copies of Sgt. Pepper, like the wonderful Hot Stampers we put on the site from time to time, now the MoFi UHQR sounds so phony to me that I wouldn’t be able to sit through it with a gun to my head.

UPDATE 2025

If you are still buying these remastered pressings, making the same mistakes that I was making before I knew better, take the advice of some of our customers and stop throwing your money away on Heavy Vinyl and Half-Speed mastered LPs.

At the very least let us send you a Hot Stamper pressing — of any album you choose — that can show you what is lacking on your copy of the album.

And if for some reason you disagree with us that our record sounds better than yours, we will happily give you all your money back and wish you the very best.

To learn more about records that sound dramatically better than any Half-Speed mastered title ever made (with one exception, John Klemmer’s Touch), please go to our Half-Speed mastering main page .

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More Customers Write Us About Our Amazing Pressings of Sgt. Pepper

beatlessgtHot Stamper Pressings of Sgt. Peppers Available Now

Below you will find some of the letters customers have sent us after hering one of our Hot Stamper reissue pressings of Sgt. Pepper. (More letters for the album can be found here.)

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 – “…you sell a product that is singular and unique. And completely worth every penny.”

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


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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.

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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.

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

beatlessgtHot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now

You might agree with some reviewers that EMI’s engineers did a pretty good job with the new Sgt. 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? You’re damn right he’s fanatatical. And 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 appear to have so little understanding of how records are made, how variable the pressings can be, and, more importantly, how critical it is to maintain rigorously controlled conditions when they carry out the comparisons among pressings that they discuss in their reviews.

Here’s the gist of the problem:

Critically comparing LPs is difficult and time-consuming.  It requires highly developed listening skills. Looking back, these are skills that I know I could not possibly have had because I didn’t have a clue as to 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.

Moving on, let’s look at what one well-known reviewer has 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.)

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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.”

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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, Beatles For Sale, this way:

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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

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!

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