christian-letter

“I started leaving notes and assessments which I frequently check later and often correct, since I keep learning more and more what to listen for.”

Our Guide to Record Collecting for Audiophiles

One of our customers wanted to give us his reactions to the first year’s worth of Hot Stamper pressings he had purchased, starting in 2022 and hitting 31 by 2023. (He has since put in more than 200 additional orders. Turns out he really likes our records.)

What you see below is just a small excerpt from the longer letter he sent. Apologies for not having posted it sooner. (Emphasis added.)

Dear Tom

I learned already a lot from your website by constantly following your new entries and digging into older ones.

I listen to my records at a far louder level than I used to and can appreciate the advantages of bringing the music really to life (while hopefully not hurting my not very young ears :-).

More importantly, I listen to my large collection more than I ever did.

I started leaving notes and assessments which I check frequently later and often correct, since I keep learning more and more what to listen for. I never did this before and it is great fun. And I keep scribbling a list of records which I may be interested in to buy from you.

There are also lots of reissues I bought and never really compared to originals, taking for granted the kudos they receive frequently in the press. Some are good, some are respectable, some are really bad, and none was as good or even better than a good original or one of your SH stampers at hand for comparison.

The One step Mofi Michael Jackson is almost a bad joke compared to your Super Hot stamper. So I stopped buying reissues and started putting aside still sealed reissues which should sell well anytime in the future.

To sum it up: I never had more fun listening to my collection and to your records thanks to you guys. Keep up the good work.

Christian

Christian,

Thanks for your letter. We love to hear from customers who actually take the time to read what we say about records and, even better, follow our advice (wherever possible) regarding their playback.

When you listen critically to records, taking the time to compare pressings and actually making notes about what you are hearing, you will certainly end end up understanding and enjoying the music you play on a much deeper and more emotionally powerful level. As you put it so well:

“I never did this before and it is great fun.”

Which means you get what we have been saying for more than twenty years:

When you do the work needed to get good sound, and the work it takes to find better records, the effort you make is work, but much more importantly, it is fun.

If it wasn’t fun, who would do it?

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Letter of the Week – “I will spare you the time to comment on my 1992 Analogue Productions Reissue…”

Hot Stamper Pressings of Sonny Rollins’s Albums Available Now

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

Dear Tom and Fred

After having had the opportunity to listen to the next batch of 7 more records, here are my observations on the now 40 records I bought from you.

First to my listening experience. After receiving the CSNY 4 Way Street and looking for my own record, I thought was a German press easy to beat I realized it was a white label promo first press and thought, oh, did I make a mistake to buy this for this kind of money from you guys, this may be a tough one to crack?

Not so, your SH Stamper clearly beat the WL promo, check!

Next up was the Miles Davis Sketches of Spain White Hot Stamper, one of my very top Miles favorites.

I did not recall that I had the six eye first press, and on side 2, with identical stampers (when your 3/3 WH show up, you do not have the time to check this but hurry :-since your WH 3/3s sell like hot cakes!).

So even more difficult to beat?? Promising start: your WH was clearly better on side 1, now to the identical stampers side 2: not as clearly but still just more transparent, better drums, less shrill on track 2, check!

But it certainly cannot get better than this 3/3 WH stamper, can it?

Next up is Sonny Rollins 3/3 WH Stamper [of Way Out West]. Hard to believe, but yes, even better than the great Miles 3/3 WHS, and I will spare you the time to comment on my 1992 Analogue Productions reissue which I always thought was quite decent.

And so it goes on…

Christian

Christian,

In less than a year you have acquired a large number of simply amazing sounding records. Congratulations.

As you point out about the stampers, you may have a pressing with the right stampers, but our copy will still beat it. How it was pressed and how it was cleaned are critical to the sound, and that is not something the stamper numbers can tell you. It’s a subject we discuss all over this blog. Here is a good place to start.

As for your 1992 Analogue Productions Heavy Vinyl remaster, I honestly don’t know how anyone can listen to a record with sound like that and consider it acceptable, or, in your words, “quite decent.” I went into the long story of the album in this commentary.

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Letter of the Week – “The most expensive record I ever bought but well worth the dough!”

More of the Music of Led Zeppelin

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

I will share with you guys a few more observations.

You will not be surprised to learn that the Led Zep 2 WHS leads the pack. The most expensive record I ever bought but well worth the dough!

Your description says it all: Freakishly good! Firmly trounced my early UK plum and my German RL (side 1).

No disapointments regarding the sound whatsoever with all others. One has to understand though that a 3/3 is an absolute judgement but a relative one (Bruce Springssteen comes to mind) but if one follows you long enough the prices asked for give a bit of indication so that‘s fine with me.

Christian ended his letter with these thoughts.

You made my life better with your records. I keep learning a lot from you following your site everyday now, enhanced my listening skills and sometimes detect now my own HS (just listening and comparing my two early UK Track Who Tommy inspired by your listing yesterday) and am amazed by the quality but also differences from side to side).

Best.
Christian

Christian,

We are so happy to hear that we’ve made your life better with our records, who could ask for anything more?

It wasn’t hard for us to beat your UK and German pressings, the UK original is a joke next to the good RL pressings. I hope you had a chance to play our Hot Stamper against the Heavy Vinyl reissue. If you did, please let us know what you heard.

As for your copies of Tommy have side to side differences, we’ve been going on about that for three decades, but for some reason audiophiles and those who write for them never notice these things.

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