boosted-deep-bass

When Did You First Hear that 10k Boost on Sittin’ In?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Loggins and Messina Available Now

UPDATE 2026

It took us a long time to recognize it, I can tell you that. 30 years? Maybe even more.

And how about the boost to the low end?

This commentary is from many years ago, perhaps as far back as 2010.

Of course it could not have been written until the stereo had reached the level where these anomalies and others like them could be easily recognized, the clearest kind of evidence of progress in audio.

If you’re not noticing these kinds of things on the vintage vinyl you play, then it’s probably time for a serious upgrade or two.

The anomalies are there, of that there can be no doubt. They’re everywhere. You just need a more accurate and revealing system and room to show them to you.

In that respect, you my find our shootout notes are helpful at pointing you in the right direction as to what you should be listening for. They are especially helpful in recognizing when one side or another falls short in some specific area.

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If Only I Could Remember My Name – Another in a Long Line of Classic Records’ Mediocrities

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of David Crosby Available Now

What do you get with our best Hot Stampers compared to the Classic Heavy Vinyl reissue?

On high quality equipment, you can expect to hear improvements in all of the following areas:

  • Noticeably more warmth,
  • Noticeably more sweetness,
  • Noticeably more delicacy,
  • Noticeably more transparency,
  • Noticeably more ambience,
  • Noticeably more energy,
  • Noticeably more size (width and height),
  • Noticeably more correct timbres (without the boost to the top and the bottom end that the Classic suffers from).

in other words, the kind of difference you almost ALWAYS get comparing the best vintage pressings with their modern remastered counterparts, if our first hand experience with thousands of them can be considered evidentiary.

The Classic is a decent enough record. I might give it a “C” or so. It’s sure better than the Super Saver reissue pressing, but that is obviously setting a very low bar. No original I have ever played did not sound noticeably better than Bernie’s recut.

A Hot Stamper of an amazing recording such as this is a MAGICAL record. Can the same be said of any Classic Records release? None come to mind.

By the way, the remastered CD that came out in 2011 (I think that’s the one I have) is excellent, with a surprising amount of the Tubey Magic that is on the original tape. On a good CD player it would be clearly superior to the Classic vinyl, and for that reason, we say buy the CD.

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The Alan Parsons Project – A MoFi Disaster

Hot Stamper Pressings of Albums Engineered by Alan Parsons Available Now

MoFi Regular LP: F / UHQR: D 

Two — count ’em, two — hall of shame pressings and two more MoFi Half-Speed Mastered Audiophile LPs reviewed and found wanting.

The MoFi is a textbook example of their ridiculous affinity for boosting the top end, not to mention the extra kick they like to put in the kick drum, great for mid-fi (sometimes known around these parts as stone age audio systems) but a serious distraction on a high end stereo with good low end reproduction.

If you like the album –and that’s a big if, I myself have never been able to take it seriously — try the Simply Vinyl or the Classic LP.

Even the UHQR sucks. Don’t kid yourself. They’re still mastered by Stan Ricker, and he likes plenty of top end.

Like the old saying goes, if it’s worth doing it’s worth overdoing.

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We Was Wrong About The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour (Circa 1985-90)

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now

This is a very old and somewhat embarrassing commentary about how ridiculously wrong we were about which are the best sounding German pressings of the Magical Mystery Tour.

Today we would never consider selling a record that sounds as phony as this version of the album does, but we did back in the 90s and probably as late as the 2000s.

Bad sounding records I once liked are common enough on the blog to have their own category, with 76 entries to date. If we had the time to make listings for them, there would surely be hundreds of others. If you’ve been in the audio game for as long as we have, you should have plenty of records that fit that bill. All those old records sitting on the shelves that you haven’t played in years might not sound they way you remember them, but the only way to know that is to pull them out and play them. If you’ve been making regular audio progress, most of them should sound better than ever, but there have to be plenty that won’t. You just don’t know which are which as long as they sit on the shelf.

This German pressing has sound that is dramatically different from that found on other Hot Stamper pressings of MMT we’ve had on the site. I used to be convinced that its sound was clearly superior to the regular German MMT LPs.

Back in the late 80s and into the 90s this was the pressing that I was certain blew them all out of the water.

We know better now. We call this version the “Too Hot” Stamper pressing — the upper mids and top end are much too boosted to be enjoyable on top quality equipment.

It does have some positive qualities though. It has substantially deeper bass than any other version; in fact, it has some of the deepest bass you will ever hear on a pop recording. It can literally rattle the room when Paul goes down deep on Baby You’re A Rich Man.

It also uses a slightly different mix on some tracks and is mastered differently in terms of levels. The level change is most obvious at the beginning of Strawberry Fields, where it starts out very quietly and gets louder after a short while, unlike all other versions which start out pretty much at the same level.

The effect is pleasing, you might even say powerful, but probably not what The Beatles intended, as no other copy I’ve ever heard makes use of the same quiet opening. An unknown mastering engineer made the choice, he created a new sound for the song, probably because he didn’t like all the tape hiss at the opening, during which few instruments were playing loud enough to mask it.

With this mix the record is now more of a Hi-Fi spectacular — great for waking up sleepy stereo systems but not the last word in natural sound.

Records that are boosted on the top and bottom suffer from what we like to call the smile curve. This pressing, as well as lots of records remastered to appeal to audiophiles, have a bad case of it.

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One of the Great Audio Disasters, Courtesy of Mobile Fidelity

More of the Music of Steely Dan

We recently amended this listing. Scroll down to see what we have to say about it in 2023.

More MoFi bashing, but boy does this MoFi deserve it. In our estimation, it is tied with the Cisco 180g pressing (2007) for the worst version ever.

I remember back in 1977 when Aja was released. I was a big Steely Dan fan by then, having been turned on to their albums with Countdown to Ecstasy in 73. With each new Dan record I became more impressed with their music, from Pretzel Logic to Katy Lied to Royal Scam and finally on to this, their commercial breakthrough.

At the time I thought the album sounded pretty good on my plain old ABC original.

Then I got a copy of the Mobile Fidelity pressing and I thought it sounded much, much better.

Side two of the MoFi had bass that was only hinted at on my domestic copy. Wow! Listen to all that bass!

Sometime in the 80s, I realized that the MoFi was hideously phony sounding, and that all the bass on side two was boosted far out of proportion to what must be (I’m guessing) on the master tape.

If I May

How much bass is on the master tape is of course of no concern to anyone not mastering the record. The bass has to be right on the record, not the tape.

The song Home At Last has at least an extra three or four DBs added around 50 cycles. It’s ridiculous.

And that’s just the bottom end; the highs are every bit as wrong.

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Another Fine Entry for Our Hall of Shame (Now Nearly 300 Strong)

Hot Stamper Pressings of Pictures at an Exhibition Available Now

Classic Records Repress at 33, 45, or any other speed – they’re all terrible.

A Heavy Vinyl Disaster if there ever was one (and oh yes, there are plenty).

The shrillness, the hardness, the sourness, the loss of texture to the strings, the phony boosted deep bass — this is the kind of sound that makes my skin crawl. After a minute or two of listening to sound this bad, I have had it.

HP put this on his TAS List? Sad but true.

What do you get with Hot Stampers compared to the Classic Heavy Vinyl reissue? Dramatically more warmth, sweetness, delicacy, transparency, space, energy, size, naturalness (no boost on the top end or the bottom, a common failing of anything on Classic); in other words, the kind of difference you almost ALWAYS get comparing the best vintage pressings with their modern remastered counterparts, in our experience anyway.

Now if you’re a Classic Records fan, and you like that brighter, more detailed, more aggressive sound, our Hot Stampers are probably not for you. We don’t like that sound and we don’t like most Classic Records. They may be clean and clear but where is the RCA LIVING STEREO Magic that made people swoon over these recordings in the first place? Bernie manages to clean that sound right off the record, and that’s just not our idea of hi-fidelity.

Our Hot Stamper Classical Pressings will be dramatically more transparent, open, clear and just plain REAL sounding than practically any record Classic Records ever made, if only because these are all the areas in which heavy vinyl pressings tend to fall short in in our experience.

Chet Atkins – Mister Guitar

More Chet Atkins

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Chet Atkins

This RCA Living Stereo LP is as TUBEY MAGICAL as it gets. It seems as though Bill Porter just doesn’t know how to not make a Living Stereo record with shockingly good sound. Practically anything the guy touches is GOLD!

Need a refresher course in Tubey Magic after playing too many modern recordings or remasterings? These records are overflowing with it. Rich, smooth, sweet, full of ambience, dead-on correct tonality — everything that we listen for in a great record is here.

I suppose we owe a debt of gratitude to Harry Pearson for pointing out to us through his TAS Super Disc List some of the other amazing sounding Chet Atkins records, although I’m pretty sure anybody playing this album would have no trouble telling after a minute or two that this recording, especially on this copy, is very special indeed. I would rank it right at the top with the best Bill Porter / Chet Atkins records we have ever heard.

The All Music Guide gives Mister Guitar 4 1/2 Stars! They rate no Chet Atkins record higher by the way. (The User Rating is even better, Five Stars.)

What to Listen For (WTLF)

Note how the record has that Bill Porter extra dB or two of bottom end — his signature sound.

There is a misprint on the cover. The last track on side two is listed as Concerto In C Minor (Rachmaninoff) but the song on the record is actually Piano Concerto In B Flat Minor (Tchaikovsky).