customer-shootout

Letters from customers who did their own shootouts using one of our Hot Stamper pressings.

“It’s great to hear a copy of this record that does the music justice.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Richard Thompson Available Now

One of our good customers years ago had this to say about a Hot Stamper pressing of Shoot Out the Lights he’d purchased:

Hey Tom,   

Recently purchased The Hot Stamper of R&L Thompson’s Shoot Out The Lights. What a wonderful copy! Easily put to shame the copies I have on hand by a long shot. It’s great to hear a copy of this record that does the music justice. An exceptional find on your part. Great doing business with you.

Jim S.

Jim,

Glad to hear you liked the copy we sent you as much as we did. We love the album and wish more audiophiles would give it a try. It is a truly extraordinary recording.

With very special recordings like this one, if you turn up your volume good and loud, you will surely be amazed at how dynamic the guitar solos are. I wrote about just such an experience I had many years ago.

I’ve seen Richard Thompson on a number of occasions over the years, and as loud as my stereo will play, which is pretty darn loud, I’ve never been able to make his guitar solos 20 dB louder than everything else, because they’re simply not on the record that way. That’s why live music can’t be reproduced faithfully in the home: the dynamic contrasts are much too great for the typical listener, or his stereo. 

Having said that, when you actually do turn this record up, way up, you get the feeling of hearing live music, and that’s not easy to do.

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“I now know how the Beatles ACTUALLY sound, and cannot bear to listen to any substandard versions.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about a Hot Stamper pressing he purchased recently:

I just received the Super Hot Stamper copy of the Beatles Oldies and would like to thank you for selecting a very nice copy that is in the surprisingly good condition. On the first listen, the outstanding tracks are “She Loves You” (super sweet, crystal clear vocals), “Day Tripper” (incredibly soft, yet energetic sound), “Eleanor Rigby” (powerful voice and strings), “I Feel Fine” (crisp, powerful drums), and “A Hard Day’s Night” (oooh, those vocals and those chiming guitars bursting out of the speakers!)

The only somewhat disappointing track is “Help.” Hard sounding, even harsh, with boosted highs and insufficient bass.

Alex followed up in more depth with this:

Just wanted to send you compliments on picking a very good pressing of the The Beatles “A Collection of Beatles Oldies” (Super Hot Stamper). I am a massive Beatles fan and have a number of various copies of their LPs in my collection. I received your hot stamper yesterday, and spent some time doing side-by-side shootouts comparing the tracks on your hot stamper to the same tracks on my other LPs.

I’ll just quickly comment on “Ticket To Ride” (one of my all time favourite Beatles songs): I compared the hot stamper pressing with my original UK pressing of the LP “Help.” After playing “Ticket To Ride” (last track on side one of “Help”, I said to myself “hey, no way this track could ever sound better than it already does. The sound is big as a house, loads of energy, the guitars are cutting, shimmering. and leaping out the right speaker, Lennon’s voice is searing, Ringo’s drums are rocking!”

Then I played the hot stamper version. Wow! What a stunning difference. It’s as if someone pulled cotton wool out of my ears. Such presence, such clarity, such musicality. The sweetness, the razor sharp imaging and precision in the soundstage. I mean, I’m speechless.

I then dutifully went on to play “Ticket To Ride”, comparing the hot stamper with my Japanese pressing of “Help”, my Capitol pressing, etc. Of course, all those other pressings fared much worse than my original UK pressing.

I am kind of in disbelief now. How’s such a stunning difference even possible, given that they’re pretty much coming from the same (or similar) master tape. My 1965 UK pressing [1] was obviously cut from the fresh master tape, and yet it sounds muddled and blaring compared to the 1966 [2] pressing of the hot stamper.

Another interesting thing to note is that, prior to hearing the hot stamper, I honestly thought that the UK version on the “Help” LP sounded fantastic.

This experience sounds and feels like witchcraft. It took me a while to follow Robert’s advice [Robert Brook the man behind The Broken Record] and get to listen to a hot stamper, but here we are.

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“I now have twelve copies in total… eleven of them are useless.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of Led Zeppelin’s Albums Available Now

We love it when our customers take the time and make the effort to do their own shootouts, especially when we win, which is what happens about 99% of the time.

Hey Tom,   

I’ve really been enjoying the LPs that I’ve gotten from you. Especially the Led Zep 3 most recently. Mindboggingly good. My first copy of that record I got Christmas 1970, I now have twelve copies in total… eleven of them are useless.

Think of all the money wasted on bad pressings, which 98% of them are! If not bad, then certainly mediocre.

I want to thank you for this invaluable service. I tell my friends about your service but so far it falls on deaf ears.

All the best,
Fred

Fred,

If you want to convince them of the reality of Hot Stampers, play them that for Zep III you bought. Ask them to bring over their best pressings and then blow that shit right out of the water. That ought to do it.

As I wrote to a customer not long ago, explaining doesn’t work.

Only hearing works.

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“We could appreciate every tiny decision Heiftez was making. When the orchestra came in, it was thunder.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Tchaikovsky Available Now

A good customer wrote us the following letter. It’s mostly about the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto and The Wall.  (Emphasis added.)

Dear Tom,

The next best thing to a big pile of Better Records is a friend with a big pile of Better Records.

Last night my good buddy Bill came over with a selection from his recent spate of hot stamper purchases.

You remember Bill, right? He’s the friend who knew I was into stereos, so he came over for some advice about how to assemble a top of the line modern digital playback system.

I played him my White Hot Stamper of Rumours, he buried his face in his hands, and took a deep plunge into building himself a Port-recommended vinyl playback rig, and he’s now a Better Records aficionado.

First up, we played his White Hot Stamper of the Tchaikovsky violin concerto. It was magnificent. We could appreciate every tiny decision Heiftez was making. When the orchestra came in, it was thunder.

Then, we played my Super Hot Stamper. Same stamper, and mine had quieter vinyl, but man, the sound just wasn’t the same. Mine was more shrill (but slightly), and the orchestra was less meaty (but slightly.) I’ve always loved my copy, still do, but the White Hot Stamper clearly improved on it. We were simply hearing more music.

I know a lot of people say they have great sounding records. For anybody who thinks they may have stumbled across a hot stamper out in the wild, I have one simple test: turn it up. If it’s a true White Hot Stamper, you just want to keep turning up the volume. If you get to the point where you say, “actually, that’s a little too loud. Let me just dial it back a little. Ah, that’s better.” Well then, you don’t have a hot stamper on your hands. White Hot Stampers just invite you to play them loud. There’s no limit, they just cohere without getting shrill or strident. It’s a truly strange effect, and until you hear it for yourself, you won’t believe me.

Next up, we put on Bill’s White Hot Stamper of The Wall. Very loud, of course.

It was probably the best my stereo has ever sounded.

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“I felt wonderfully uplifted and clear-headed, and all the noise in my head had vanished. It lasted for hours. All that remained was a smile.”

New to the Blog? Start Here

One of our good customers recently wrote us an especially touching letter about two debut albums we share a love for: Led Zeppelin’s and Jeff Beck’s. After listening to them at length, he felt the need to put into words the deep and powerful feelings our records had given him. (Emphasis added.)

Dear Tom, Kenji, and the Better Records Team,

I am writing to share my absolute astonishment after listening to the Hot Stampers I recently acquired. To give you some context, I set up a rigorous shootout against my own collection.

For Led Zeppelin, I prepared seven of my finest vintage vinyl copies:

    • One UK “Turquoise” First Pressing
    • Six US copies (cut by RG or GP; pressed by Presswell or Monarch with △12703 / △18257 matrix codes, spanning the Broadway to Rockefeller eras)

For Jeff Beck, All from my brain memory not real records:

    • Two “Japanese” First Pressing and reissue
    • Two UK “Blue Columbia” MONO & STEREO Pressing and one EMI reissue

If the seven Zeppelin records that rivaled the HOT STAMPER were like 8mm film, then the HOT STAMPER was 70mm Cinemascope!

A vast, rich space—stretching from wall to wall, floor to ceiling—appeared right before my eyes, and the sound that burst forth passed right through me.

I was so astonished by the sheer difference in scale that I couldn’t believe it.

I kept turning up the volume, bathing in the sound like a shower.

When I played the UK Turquoise and GP/MONARCH records again at the same volume, the sound was so blindingly bright and overwhelmingly loud that I had to lift the needle after just a few seconds.

As for Beck, ever since I was a teenager, no matter how many times I listened to *TRUTH*, I could never be satisfied with its sound, so I ended up selling it. I’d concluded that while *TRUTH* is a matter of personal musical taste, it wasn’t a record that sounded good. However, after seeing *SKEPTICAL AUDIOPHILE* recommend this record, I decided to give it one last challenge.

When I turned up the volume, it was as if the band was right there in front of me, in the fifth row. I was sharing that space with them, and the sound came straight at me without any barriers.

It was as if I were actually there at the concert.

This was my first time having an experience like this with my home audio system.

This is what a “WHITE HOT STAMPER” is! What a blissful time I had! Warm, Rich, Dynamic, & Transparent!

P.S.

1. After finishing both records, I felt wonderfully uplifted and clear-headed, and all the noise in my head had vanished. It lasted for hours. All that remained was a smile; my wife even remarked, “You look so happy.”

I can say with certainty that this was due to the chemical effects of the HOT STAMPER. I believe it resulted from a decrease in stress hormones like cortisol and an increase in the secretion of “happiness hormones” such as dopamine and serotonin.

Furthermore, after I finished listening and was tidying up the room where the records were scattered—something I’ve experienced several times before—my digestive system became more active. I attribute this to the relaxation effect of the HOT STAMPER. It’s likely due to the “brain-gut axis,” where my favorite music and the superb sound quality triggered parasympathetic dominance, stimulating intestinal peristalsis.

2. Considering the time, energy, and money spent tracking down this rare Zeppelin record, this is no ordinary man’s job. There is a Bible verse that says, “Ask, and it will be given to you.”

I offer my deepest respect and admiration, as well as my boundless gratitude and love, to the treasure hunters led by Tom, who have successfully completed this mission—a mission truly bestowed upon them by God.

Sincerely yours,
Nobu

Dear Nobu,

Thanks for describing so elegantly what it feels like to finally hear music you have treasured for decades sounding the way you always dreamed it could. I know well the feelings of bliss, exhilaration and joy that coursed through you. I’ve experienced them countless times myself since I first got into home audio fifty years ago.

There is a joy that cannot be expressed when music sounds so good there are no words to describe it. This is what audiophiles such as you and me live for.

Few have had the pleasure of experiencing it outside of a live musical event. We were able to do it with records, but they were very special records, the kinds of records few audiophiles know exist, or have any reason to believe exist. Fewer still have ever experienced such records. Indeed, we must count ourselves fortunate to have had the privilege.

You describe us as treasure hunters, which is a very good way of looking at who we are and what we do. We have been hunting for treasure for more than 30 years. Our dedication increased dramatically over the last twenty or so. By then we had finally given up on the false promise of the modern remastered record. (Fittingly, it was a exceptional straw that broke the camel’s back.)

You played our Hot Stamper pressings (Super Hot for Zep 1, White Hot for Truth) against all the copies that the conventional wisdom told you were sure to have the best sound. Now you know something not widely understood by the audiophile community, which is simply that when it comes to records, the conventional wisdom is not very good at predicting which pressings will turn out to have better sound.

This blog has well over a thousand commentaries detailing chapter and verse (to make use of a phrase associated with the bible) how this is simply a fact that cannot be denied by anyone who has carefully studied the matter.

You proved it for yourself. You did your own shootout. Who can gainsay the insights you acquired? Certainly not those who have never played one of our records. What evidence do they have to support their views?

Do they have a theory to base their objections on?

Is it more than a conjecture? A feeling? Some intuition? A form of knowledge beyond our understanding?

As you now know better than anyone, whatever they think they have to disprove the possibility of the Hot Stamper pressing, it is surely a crock.

I very much enjoyed hearing about the happiness you felt when playing such exceptional pressings of these wonderful albums. The joy of music is in many ways the greatest joy there is. It is the one thing that has driven me to pursue our hobby more than any other — in fact, to dedicate much of my life to it — and I have never seen reason to regret a moment of it.

Thank you for writing and brightening our day here at Better Records!

Best, TP

Letter of the Week – “I have to tell you that I was floored at the sound of the Hot Stamper Aqualung I just bought.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Jethro Tull Available Now

This testimonial letter comes from our good customer Roger, who was blown away by the Hot Stamper pressing of Aqualung we sent him [many, many years ago].

Roger, as expected, did a thorough shootout of his own, comparing of our Hot Stamper against the audiophile usual suspects. The result? Another knockout for our Hot Stamper pressing.

Note that a well known audiophile reviewer did his own shootout for the album years ago, failing miserably, unlike our good customer Roger, who succeeded admirably.

Hi Tom,

I have to tell you that I was floored at the sound of the hot stamper Jethro Tull Aqualung I just bought. Darn you again and your hot stampers.

To give you some idea of how many times I have heard this album, backtrack to 1971 when it came out. On a Boy Scout trip a friend of mine had a portable 8-track tape player and this one tape, Aqualung. I remember sleeping on one of the seats in a car with the Aqualung tape on infinite repeat all night. In high school I had the 8-track and listened to this record hundreds of times.

Through the years after becoming an audiophile I bought many different copies looking for the ultimate-sounding LP, finally settling on the MFSL version, which I bought when it came out.

So I had a good time comparing 4 copies:

    1. the MFSL half-speed,
    2. the DCC version,
    3. the 25th anniversary digitally remastered copy,
    4. and the Hot Stamper.

First I tried the 25th anniversary and it was just as I remembered it — it sounds digital, like a CD. Lots of detail, but hard, hyped, edgy, flat soundstage, compressed dynamics. As digital usually sounds, guitars were harsh and jumped unnaturally out of the mix.

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Letter of the Week – “…never heard the details in the guitars and cymbals and keyboards like this.”

Pink Floyd Hot Stamper Pressings Available Now

One of our best customers, Roger, received his $150 Hot Stamper [those were the days!] ’Wish You Were Here’ and went straight to work comparing it with the various other pressings he owned: two different CBS Half Speeds. The not-so-shocking results are presented in detail below.

Hi Tom,

I received your Pink Floyd ‘Wish You Were Here’ Hot Stamper and compared it to my CBS Half-Speed (I found a bunch of these Half-Speeds in a bargain bin years ago and did a shootout to select the best one) and the pressing that I considered the best, the Japanese Mastersound Half-Speed, for which I paid dearly.

Drum roll, please while Vanna hands me the sealed envelope………… and the winner is: Surprise — the Hot Stamper!

And it wasn’t even close.

Once I heard the center-of-the-earth bass on the Hot Stamper ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’, it was all over. I was amazed at how bright the CBS was, transparent yes, but bright and no bass and no body to the saxophones and voices. The Mastersound was better-balanced in that the highs were tamed, but no real dynamics and the bass was flabby.

I have heard this record hundreds of times, but never heard the details in the guitars and cymbals and keyboards like this.

And did I mention the huge, huge soundstage with a wall of sound like that of other Pink Floyd records? Nice job as usual.

Roger,

Thanks for verifying the accuracy of our Hot Stamper claims once again. The decent sounding Half Speed Mastered records, CBS and otherwise, can be counted pretty easily on one’s fingers. We could debunk them all day long if we wanted to (and had ten times the staff). It doesn’t take long to hear how anemic the sound is compared to The Real Thing, the real thing being, of course, a vintage pressing.

The copy you bought was rated A Plus on both sides, two full sonic grades below the best, so you can imagine how good those copies sound. But since neither you nor I are made out of money, for $150 you now own a copy that will trounce anything you throw at it, especially if what you throw at it is an audiophile pressing.

Those moribund LPs belong on Ebay where all the Technics turntable owners of the world can find them in order to complete their — let’s be honest — silly and ultimately pointless audiophile collections.

Modern equipment shows half-speed foolishness for what it is. You heard it, we heard it, and slowly but surely we are spreading the word to the rest of the audiophile community.

Thanks again. It’s a big job and we need all the help we can get.

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“I assumed that there must be some better sounding pressings out there.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Neil Young Available Now

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

Hey Tom, 

The West Side Story I picked up from you a few months ago was just something else. I was sitting on my couch watching the stage as Tony and Maria sang through the WSS songbook. I mean, there they were.

Sure, Mono has a particular feel and you can only quiet down an old 6-eye so much, but it was just beautiful.

I was very happy with what I received. All four records sound wonderful and are well worth the outlay. I have had several copies of “El Rayo-X” and “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere”.

They sounded quite good but I assumed that there must be some better sounding pressings out there. Now here they are.

Paul S.

Paul,

Thanks for your letter.

We love all those albums too, and we love finding killer pressings of them for our customers.

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Letter of the Week – “…the WHS is huge and clear. It had ALL the positive attributes I heard in the others.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Pink Floyd Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about a Hot Stamper pressing of Dark Side of the Moon he purchased a while back:

Dear Tom and Fred,

This is one of those records where I already had a handful of well-regarded pressings. How intriguing that it was such an obscure pressing that won your shootout! [1]

I compared the WHS to my early US pressing (Ken Perry mastered [2]), my MoFi [3], a Japanese “blue triangle” pressing, and of course, the 2016 remaster [4].

Sure, there are tons of sought-after pressings that go for prices even more exorbitant than what I paid you, none of which I’ve heard, so I guess it’s not a proper shootout. But, at least among the ones I have, the WHS bested them all handily. In each of the others I was able to find something that I could appreciate, that on its own compared well to the WHS. This is such a great, and well-recorded, album that any pressing of it is going to have something worthwhile to offer.

The Japanese pressing came closest to the WHS. [Doubtful we would agree with you on the merits of this Japanese pressing. We rarely like them, and we like them less with each passing year.]

At the other end of the spectrum the 2016 remaster, noted for its great bass, just sounded clogged and thudding [5].

Compared to each of them, the WHS is huge and clear. It had ALL the positive attributes I heard in the others. Is it 15x better than my next-best copy? Objectively, probably not. But, subjectively, it must be, since I’m keeping it.

Since the hot stamper arrived the day after my Legacy Signature III’s got here, it was one of the first records I played on them. What a great pairing they are! 

This was of course the first mini-shootout I’ve done using the Legacys. What a great window into a record these speakers provide. I switched back to my Bowers and Wilkins 805s and re-ran the shootout, just to see if my impressions would still align. They did, with the hot stamper providing more vividness and a bigger sound than the other pressings did, even on the B&Ws.

But on the bigger speakers the hot stamper stands apart from the others by a wider margin.

Thank you both for all the great records you find, and thank you Tom for the stereo advice. You keep doing what you’re doing, and I’ll keep doing what I’m doing.

Aaron

Aaron,

Glad to hear you are a Legacy man now. We love our Legacy Speakers and can’t imagine doing shootouts without them. (The old ones, not the newer models.) The Big Speaker sound, at loud levels, is what allows a record like Dark Side of the Moon to be every bit the immersive experience we know it can be if you have a top quality pressing to play. Now you know it too.

And thanks for doing the shootout so that you know exactly what our best copies of Dark Side are capable of. If you make any improvement to your system, be sure to go back to this Dark Side and hear the change for yourself.

Then play any of these other pressings and note how the gap has widened. That is our experience and we expect you will find the same differences in your listening room as well.

The following notes may be of general interest:

[1} Obscure pressings that sound better than everything else are our bread and butter here at Better Records.

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“Listening to my very first Hot Stamper purchase was by far the most significant event in my life as an audiophile.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of Singer-Songwriters Available Now

Note: rarely do we have any records by Carole King on the site, and we almost never have any copies of Tapestry, a record we know from experience that is very hard to find with top quality sound and almost impossible to find with quiet vinyl. We do the best we can, better than anyone else, but we would surely love to do better.

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased back in 2017 [the bolding of the text has been added by us.]

Hey Tom, 

Listening to my very first Hot Stamper purchase was by far the most significant event in my life as an audiophile. I discovered the Better Records website way back in 2007, but being a hardcore skeptic I didn’t purchase anything until almost two years later. Although I agreed with the premise that different pressings have varying degrees of sound quality, I simply could not believe that any record could sound so much better to justify the prices. Frankly, I thought that the buyers of these records were folks with more money than sense.

What finally drove me to purchase my first Hot Stamper was my attempt to find a decent copy of Carole King’s Tapestry album. I had decided to try the Better Records approach and gathered half a dozen copies, as well as the Classic heavy vinyl reissue that I had read good things about. Talk about an exercise in futility. Despite a thorough cleaning with Disc Doctor, no copy sounded significantly better than any of the others. However, Better Records just happened to have a 1+ copy of Tapestry on sale for $75 at the time, so I decided to take the plunge and buy it, even though I still thought the price was outrageous.

What followed next absolutely stunned and amazed me. Although I was prepared to shoot out the Hot Stamper against my own copies, I knew within the first minute of play that it would be totally unnecessary. The Hot Stamper sounded like a completely different recording. I cannot stress this enough.

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