Record Collecting for Audiophiles – A Guide to the Fundamentals
In order to do the work we do, our approach to audio has to be fundamentally different from that of the audiophile who listens mostly for enjoyment.
Critical listening and listening for enjoyment go hand in hand, but they are not the same thing.
The first of these — developing and applying your critical listening skills — allows you to achieve good audio and find the best pressings of the music you love.
(Developing critical thinking skills when it comes to records and equipment is important too but that is not the focus of today’s commentary.)
Once you have a good stereo and a good record to play on it, your enjoyment of recorded music should increase dramatically. A great sounding record on a killer system is a thrill.
A Heavy Vinyl mediocrity, played back on what passes for so many audiophile systems these days — regardless of cost — is, to these ears, an insufferable bore. (And, judging by what we’ve played in 2024 and 2025, these remastered releases are sounding as bad as they ever have.)
If this sounds arrogant and elitist, so be it. Heavy Vinyl records are fine for some people, but for the last twenty or so years we’ve managed to set a higher standard for ourselves and our customers. Holding our records to that higher standard allows us to price our Hot Stamper pressings commensurate with their superior sound and please the hell out of the people who buy them.
For those who appreciate the difference, and have resources sufficient to afford them, the cost is reasonable. If it were not, we would have gone out of business long ago.
Hot Stampers are not cheap. If the price could not be justified by the better sound quality and quieter surfaces, who in his right mind would buy them? We can’t really be fooling that many audiophiles, can we?