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Big Speakers, Loud Levels and Plenty of Bass Work Their Magic on Stand Up

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Jethro Tull Available Now

It’s common for pressings of Stand Up to lack bass or highs, and more often than not the copies that we play in our shootouts, shootouts which are strictly limited to import pressings on Island or Chrysalis, lack both.

The bass-shy ones tend to be more transparent and open sounding — of course, that’s the sound you get when you take out the bass.

90-plus percent of all the audiophile stereos I’ve ever heard were bass shy, no doubt for precisely that very reason: less bass equals more detail, more openness and more transparency. Go to any stereo store or audiophile show and notice how bright the sound is. (Yet another good reason not to go to those shows. We stopped decades ago.)

Just what good is a British Classic Rock Record that lacks bass?

It won’t rock, and if it don’t rock, who needs it? You might as well be playing the CD. (The average CD of Stand Up — I have a couple of them — is terrible, but the MoFi Gold CD is superb in all respects.)

The copies that lack extreme highs are often dull and thick, and usually have a smeary, blurry quality to their sound. When you can’t hear into the music, the music itself quickly becomes boring. Most Island pressings suffer from these shortcomings.

If I had to choose, I would take a copy that’s a little dull on top as long as it had a meaty, powerful, full-bodied sound over something that’s thinner and more leaned out. There are many audiophiles who can put up with that sound — I might go so far as to say the vast majority can — but I am not one of them.

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The Mamas & The Papas – Self-Titled

More of The Mamas and The Papas

  • Clear, rich, present vocals, tons of Tubey Magic, and a solid bottom end; this quintessential 60’s pop album really comes to life here
  • 4 stars: “Sometimes art and events, personal or otherwise, converge on a point transcending the significance of either… For the Mamas & the Papas, it happened twice, with their first album, If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears, and, on a more complex level, with this album.”

Vintage covers for this album are hard to find in clean shape. Most of them will have at least some ringwear, seam wear and edge wear. Some will have cut corners. We guarantee that the cover we supply with this Hot Stamper is at least VG, and it will probably be VG+. If you are picky about your covers please let us know in advance so that we can be sure we have a nice enough cover for you.

This album is ridiculously difficult to find good sound for, but this pressing finally hit the mark! While we have to wade through dozens of copies to find one this impressive, we’re happy to do it because we love records and we love the music of The Mamas and the Papas.

Unfortunately, most copies of this album sound like distorted cassettes. They’re clearly made from tapes that are at least one and probably more like two or three generations down from the master two-track mix.

The CD that Hoffman cut for MCA back in the day can be quite good, and the Creeque Alley double CD set sounds fine to these ears as well. But they’re CDs. They won’t satisfy the serious analog devotee. (more…)

MoFi Thought the Guitars on Sundown Could Use More “Sparkle”

Another Record Better Suited to the Stereos of the Seventies

Sonic Grade: F

An audiophile hall of shame pressing and another MoFi LP reviewed and found wanting.

I comment below about the ridiculous sound of the MoFi pressing of this album.

When you have a recording that is already plenty bright, adding more top end and taking out more lower midrange is the last thing in the world you should be doing.

Since that is standard operating procedure for MoFi (as well as most other Half-Speed mastering outfits), that’s exactly the approach they ended up taking.

Those of you who have had the opportunity to play the Mobile Fidelity pressing of this record should know what a disaster it is.

His voice sounds so phony on the MoFi that you’d swear it’s a bad CD.

But it’s not a bad CD. It’s an expensive audiophile record!

If you’ve spent any time on this blog, you should know by now that many audiophile records sound WORSE than the typical CD.

The typical CD does not have an equalization curve resembling a smile. The classic smile curve starts up high on the left, gets low in the middle, and rises again at the end, resulting in boosted bass, boosted top end, and a sucked out midrange — the Mobile Fidelity formula in a nutshell. (more…)

Our First and Only Shootout for the DCC Pressing of Pet Sounds

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beach Boys Available Now

Sonic Grade: D to C+

Not long ago [2014 or so, time flies!] we pulled out the three copies we had in our leftover stock of DCC vinyl and gave them a spin. They weren’t awful, but they weren’t very good either. They sounded like most Heavy Vinyl we’ve played over the years: airless, blurry, smeary, two-dimensional, dull and opaque.

Not surprisingly (to us anyway) one copy was quite a bit better than the other two. I would say that the sound of the three copies would plot on a curve from about a D to maybe a C+, so let’s figure the average would be around a C- or so.

I’d be surprised if the DCC Gold CD didn’t sound better.

More often than not it does. (Kevin Gray’s lousy cutting system would not be involved and that is almost a guarantee that the sound would improve and markedly. We discuss that subject in more depth here.)

If you own the DCC vinyl, buy the CD and find out for yourself if it isn’t better sounding.

The no-longer-surprising thing about our Hot Stamper pressings of Pet Sounds is how completely they trounce the DCC LP. Folks, it’s really no contest. Yes, the DCC is tonally balanced and can sound decent enough, but it can’t compete with the best “mystery” pressings that we sell. It’s missing too much of the presence, intimacy, immediacy and transparency that we’ve discovered on the better Capitol pressings.

As is the case with practically every record pressed on Heavy Vinyl over the last twenty years, there is a suffocating loss of ambience throughout, a pronounced sterility to the sound. Modern remastered records just do not BREATHE like the real thing. Good EQ or Bad EQ, they all suffer to one degree or another from a bad case of audio enervation. Where is the life of the music? You can try turning up the volume on these remastered LPs all you want; they simply refuse to come to life.

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Ten Years After – A Killer Audio Fidelity Gold CD

Hot Stamper Pressings of Psychedelic Rock Recordings Available Now

Our old commentary:

The BGO Import CD of this album is excellent. No match for a Hot Stamper of course, but dramatically better than the average classic rock CD, and quite a bit better than the domestic CDs we’ve auditioned, which are flat and badly lacking in Tubey Magic.

UPDATE 2014

The Audio Fidelity Gold CD mastered by Steve Hoffman is even better.

If you don’t want to buy a Hot Stamper LP, that CD is your best bet (assuming it sounds as good as mine, something one should not assume, but that’s a story for another day).

L.A. Woman on German Heavy Vinyl, Part Two

Part One can be found here.

I have a Super Saver budget reissue domestic pressing of LA Woman. Want to guess what it sounds like? It sounds exactly like this German version. When I described the sound of the German version to Steve, he immediately recognized what I was talking about. There is a tape — they call it “the master tape” — of L.A. Woman that has exactly the bad qualities I have described above. I’m guessing that my Super Saver copy is a flat transfer of that bad tape. (When budget reissues are mastered, it’s often the case that the transfer is flat or something very close to it, because little time and expense is justified for a cheap reissue.)

Now if the Super Saver is a flat transfer and sounds just like this German pressing, I think we can safely infer that this new 180 gram remastered record is a flat transfer. It’s a flat transfer of a bad tape. Nothing more, nothing less.

And nothing new. There are tons of badly remastered records out there. I’m sure you’ve bought some. I could spend days listing them in the Records We Don’t Sell section. Most of the records found on my competitor’s Web sites could be cut and pasted into that section if I wanted to take the time to do it.

But how is it that such a bad record seems to have met with such favor among audiophiles? I’m frankly at a loss to understand it. I’m sure some of you reading this commentary own the record. Some of you no doubt LIKE the record. So let me think of a few reasons why you might not have noticed how bad sounding a record it is.

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Compare the Gold CD and the Vinyl on The Original Soundtrack

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of 10cc Available Now

UPDATE 2025

This commentary was written sometime around 2004 I imagine. It references my old Legacy Whisper Speaker system, which I permanently replaced with the Legacy Focus shortly thereafter.

We sold off our Whispers long ago. You can read all about what we use now to find our Hot Stamper pressings in this listing.

As good as the DCC Gold CD is, this record has all the MAGIC of ANALOG vinyl — and then some. It’s the kind of sound you will never hear coming from a CD or digital source of any kind, trust me.

If there isn’t a huge difference in sound between the Hoffman DCC gold CD and your LP, I can tell you without fear of contradiction that you:

A.) Need a better front end (turntable, arm, cart, phono stage — which of course we are happy to help you acquire) or,

B.) You have a second- or third-rate pressing of the vinyl. 

UPDATE 2023

Note that as of 2023, we offer only a few select pieces of equipment: the Dynavector 17dx, the Townshend Platform, the EAR 324P, the Triplanar tonearm and maybe one or two more. Email for details if you are interested in any of the above.

Most likely it would be a combination of the two, which, if I can say it without sounding too smug or arrogant, is the most likely scenario.

I haven’t run into too many audiophiles who own a hot copy of The Original Soundtrack, or have the kind of system that can play a record like it. As I am fond of saying, this is the kind of record that is guaranteed to bring any audiophile stereo to its knees.

The recording itself is a tour de force, one reason I’ve been demonstrating my stereo with it for more than thirty years. The extended suite that opens side one, One Night in Paris, has ambience, sound effects, and incredibly dynamic multi-tracked vocals at its climax that will make your jaw drop.

Reinventing The Wall of Sound The Right Way

This is the kind of record that makes you sit up and take notice. It’s classic 10cc everything-but-the-kitchen-sink “Wall of Sound” sound (minus the Phil Spector distortion), the kind big speaker guys like me live for. Supertramp, Yes, Ambrosia, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Zeppelin, Bowie — to this day I’m a sucker for that Cinerama soundstage these bands like to play on. It’s one of the reasons I am a proud owner of the Legacy Whisper speaker system, complete with its eight fifteen inch woofer driver complement. You need that kind of piston power to produce The Really Big Sound with Super Low Distortion at Really High Levels. The louder the better. (We have a pair of highly modified Focuses set up in our listening room as well. Three twelves per channel moves a fair amount of air too.)

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Miles Davis / Steamin’ – A Thousand Bucks and Worth Every Penny (When It Sounds Like This)

More of the Music of Miles Davis

  • Insanely good sound throughout for this extremely rare original Prestige Yellow and Black label pressing with both sides earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • This early Mono pressing takes the sound of the recording to a place we never thought it could go – never have we heard an album from these famous sessions sound as good as this very LP
  • An original in pristine condition, with this kind of sound, is a record that is very unlikely to pass our way again
  • 5 stars: “The end results are consistently astonishing. At the center of Steamin’, as with most outings by this band, are the group improvisations which consist of solo upon solo of arguably the sweetest and otherwise most swinging interactions known to have existed between musicians.”

WOW — this Prestige Yellow Label Mono pressing has some of the most realistic, natural Miles Davis sound we’ve ever heard! Both sides earned A+++ grades and play Mint Minus to Mint Minus Minus, truly exceptional for a vintage pressing such as this one. You will have an incredibly difficult time finding a copy that can hold its own with this one. (more…)

The Soft Parade – Our Shootout Winner from 2007

More of the Music of The Doors

This incredibly rare, exceptionally quiet Elektra Gold Label LP sounds AMAZING, As Good As It Gets (AGAIG)! The sound is BIG, RICH, and FULL-BODIED, exactly the way it should be.

As good as the Hot Stamper Big Red E Label copies can be, and that’s very good indeed, the right first pressing is still The King. It just can’t be beat. 

The difference might only be 5%, but on a big dynamic speaker playing at loud levels that 5% can really give the sound the boost it needs to go over the top into crazy Demo Disc Land.

How rare is a clean, properly mastered gold label original like this? So rare this is THE FIRST ONE WE’VE EVER LISTED on the site! I think I run into one like this about every five years. Most of the gold label pressings we come across are full of groove distortion, covered with scratches and skips, and often have no top end left after being ploughed with a bad needle.

I’m sure the console stereo on which I first played my copy of The Soft Parade tracked at five or ten grams. The fine squiggles that carry the most delicate extended highs gets shaved off pretty quickly at that weight, and once they’re gone they’re gone for good. We never noticed because the frequency response of the speakers in those cabinets probably topped out at 6k, if that. (This is why so many dealers on Ebay don’t hear the surface noise on the beat up records they sell — no top end, no surface noise to worry about! Works out great for everybody except us audiophiles who actually care about the sound of our records, not just the color of their labels.)

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The Cars – The King Is Dead, Long Live the King

Hot Stamper Pressings of New Wave Recordings Available Now

This is a commentary from many years ago.

As you may remember from our last go around with The Cars’ debut, we proclaimed that new White Hot Stampers had been discovered, and indeed they had. These, dear reader, are the very ones of which we spoke, and let me assure you, they are every bit as good. They just plain blow the doors off our previous favorites, which is both shocking and wonderful.

The King is Dead, Long Live the King!

Talk about jumping out of the speakers, the energy level of this copy is completely OFF THE CHARTS. You’ve probably heard these songs a million times, but you’ve NEVER heard them sound like this. Both sides have FREAKISHLY GOOD SOUND — dynamic, spacious and ALIVE!

Sides One and Two

Side one is OUT OF THIS WORLD! The material is superb — just check out the first three tracks: Let The Good Times Roll, Best Friend’s Girl, and Just What I Needed — how many albums start off with that kind of a bang? Each of those tracks sounds amazing — if you’ve got big speakers and a phono stage capable of resolving musical information at the highest levels, put this record on, turn it way up and get ready to hear some serious DEMONSTRATION QUALITY SOUND.

The guitars are meaty and grungy beyond belief, the synths have so much texture, and the drums are some of the punchiest you’ll ever hear. The overall sound is rich, full, present, dynamic and ALIVE! We rate side one an A+++ — it’s As Good As It Gets (AGAIG!)

Side two is every bit as good — super transparent, with amazing presence — the best we heard for ANY SIDE TWO — not to mention generous amounts of ambience. Moving In Stereo sounds SUPERB here — just listen to that floating synth and the full-bodied vocals. The top end is Right On The Money; check out the superb extension and the silky quality the cymbals have.

Candy-O Blew Our Minds

When we did our Candy-O shootout back in 2007, we had never before heard Demo Disc sound on a new wave record. Times have changed, though, and we owe much of that change to our EAR 324 Phono stage, which is capable of resolving at a much higher level than anything we had before. That super high resolution has allowed us to find the magic in the grooves that we always hoped was there.

And now we KNOW it is. Just listen to all the texture to the synthesizers or the character of the distortion on the guitar. Roy Thomas Baker (the man behind Queen) engineered this album, and he did a stellar job — it’s an amazing sounding recording, and a pressing like this gives you entree to all of that magic.

The DCC Gold CD is pretty darn good, one of Steve’s best, but it can’t begin to compete with this kind of seriously Hot Stamper vinyl.

Power Choruses

The hottest of the Hot Stampers did one easily recognizable thing better than the Also-Rans, and it was apparent pretty much from the get-go. The multi-multi-multi-tracked choruses on the best copies don’t strain (a very common problem), they are bigger and more powerful, they stretch from wall to wall, and the voices that make them up are separated much more than on other copies. I won’t say you can make out all the players — there are dozens of tracks overdubbed together don’t you know — but you can make out some of the voices. At least you can if you have the kind of high resolution front end that we do. Big speakers help a lot too, giving space for each voice to occupy. What small driver speakers do to an album like this is a travesty, but that’s a horse we have already beaten savagely in more than enough places on the site, so we’ll leave that problem for the listener to solve.

Big Dynamic Speakers

Which means that if you have big dynamic speakers and like to rock, you can’t go wrong here. Neil Young albums have the Big Rock sound, and if you’re more of a Classic Rock kind of listener, that’s a good way to go. We’re behind you all the way, just check out the majority of the Hot Stampers on the site: CSN, Zep, Tull, The Stones — we can’t get enough of the stuff.

Still, variety is the spice of life, and the Cars really deliver the good on this new wave classic. If you love big meaty guitar chords, wild synth sounds, and HUGE punchy drums, this record may be just what you needed… so let the good times roll!