hsm-letter

Letters from customers about Half-Speed mastered records.

Letter of the Week – “When the needle hit the record, the room suddenly expanded by two quadrants.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Queen Available Now

Our customer Michel wrote to tell us how much he likes the sound 0f his recently purchase Super Hot Stamper pressing of A Night at the Opera.

Hi Tom,
I should title this one “MFSL, Now You Can Kiss My Ass Goodbye” from the song, you know.

A Night at the Opera and Sheer Heart Attack are my two all time favorite Queen LPs. I’ve listened to so many copies of each and decades ago found happiness for sure, like when I got the MFSL.

But later in life, listening more critically, I was never happy… so much going on… always some sort of mish-mash of sound. Turning these LPs up to max volume and jamming out was no longer pleasurable, so I found myself not playing them anymore.

Recently I purchased A Night at the Opera from BR, a SHS.

When the needle hit the record, the room suddenly expanded by two quadrants. So wonderfully wide and big, the room was just filled with sound…..warmth abundant sound sans mish-mash.

The difference is truly dramatic. The depth is also there… you can feel the sound coming out of the shadows towards you in places. Absolutely stunning sound.

You have cracked the code on this one. This is an analog delight for sure. Many thanks.

Michel

Michel,

Thanks for your letter. I’m not sure how big two quadrants are, but I know a mish-mash when I hear one, and that is indeed the sound found on most pressings of the album, even the UK ones. I might describe it as a combination of congestion and vague imaging — a cloud of instruments, all mashed together.

A lot of records have that problem, especially if they haven’t been cleaned properly.

Later in life it seems you were rather less impressed with your MoFi than when you first bought it.

As I have said again and again on this very blog, it’s axiomatic with us here at Better Records that the better your stereo is at playing records, and the more critically you are able to listen, the worse their records will sound. There is no way their junk Half-Speed mastered vinyl can sound right on good equipment.

Now you know just how good a top quality pressing of A Night at the Opera can sound.

Even we didn’t until about seven years ago.

That’s how long it took us to crack the code, but I tell you this with confidence, having played practically every version of the UK pressings ever made: the right stampers are mindboggingly good and there is nothing like them. We wrote about the subject here:

As is sometimes the case, there is one and only one set of stamper numbers that consistently wins our Night at the Opera shootouts. We stumbled upon an out-of-this-world copy of the right pressing many years ago, a copy took the recording to a level we had no idea could even be possible. (We were going to give it Four Pluses, and probably should have, but cooler heads prevailed.)

Since then we have had many copies come in, but none that could compete with the Magic Stamper pressings. And the best part of this story is that, no, the best stampers are not 1, or 2, or even 3.

In other words they are far from the stampers found on the earliest pressings.

That’s one reason it took us so long to discover them, because they are much less commonly found than pressings with the earlier stampers. By the time these later pressings were mastered, pressed and released, the album’s biggest selling days were over.

Why is that, you ask?

Who knows? Who cares? What difference could it possibly make anyway?

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Letter of the Week – “It almost seems as if it is another recording altogether, so much more alive and dynamic.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Cat Stevens Available Now

Our good customer Roger likes doing his own shootouts, having acquired many of the so-called audiophile recommended pressings over the years.

Like us, he knows firsthand that those recommended records have little hope of standing up to the real thing, the real thing of course being an old record we charged him a lot of money for, or, to put it another way, a Hot Stamper. Can it possibly be worth the three hundred clams it cost him?

Let’s hear from Roger on that subject. (Emphasis added.)

Hi Tom,

Just the usual note to let you know of my latest LP shootout: Cat Stevens Teaser and the Firecat. Since you recommend this recording so highly, I was looking forward to comparing your Super Hot Stamper (SHS) to a British Sunray pressing I had and my Mobile Fidelity Anadisq. Since I had previously found, as you have, that the MFSL version was thin and bright, I bought a UK pressing, finding it much more full, warm, and dynamic, and my recent comparison confirmed that.

The MoFi is hideously bright and edgy, making guitars sound like zithers and Cat’s voice thin and reedy, like he had a head cold. Yep, that about sums it up, Cat Stevens and His Zither Band. It makes me wonder whether the ear-damaged MFSL engineers ever heard a good pressing of this record–even the UK was leagues better.
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Letter of the Week – “I can’t listen to 99 percent of my audiophile or Japanese pressings…”

Hot Stamper Pressings of Jazz Rock Fusion Albums Available Now

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

Hey Tom, 

Now, meaning in the past year…

I can’t listen to 99 percent of my audiophile or Japanese pressings… 

I hear how wrong they sound…

I, of course, have since replaced just about all and 999 out of 1000 sound better than the average copy.

Why did I think a Japanese pressing was better? My god, all my Crusader Japan pressings next to plain old original releases nooooo comparison.

Btw, can’t believe your customers don’t want Southern Comfort, Crusaders 1 and Crusaders 2… all are unreal powerful double LPs.. and many in their catalogue almost equal to those… Crusaders: the best of the best.

Regards
Andy

Andy, we tried to do shootouts for some of their records a few years back and were underwhelmed by the sound, the music, or both.  I’m afraid you will have to do your own shootouts for now.

And of course we’ve long been of the opinion that Japanese pressings mostly suck. Maybe one out of fifty is great, and those odds do not make them an attractive proposition for audiophiles.

You know what we know: vintage pressings — when you find good ones — will beat anything and everything you can throw at them.

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Letter of the Week – “I just figured this was just a bad recording…”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Steely Dan Available Now

This week’s letter is from our good friend Roger, who, like us, is a GIANT Steely Dan fan. Apparently he had tried every copy of Katy Lied he could get his hands on and practically had given up on the album — until he decided to shell out the princely sum of Three Hundred Clams ($300, probably not the last piaster he could borrow, but a pretty hefty chunk of dough for a fairly common used LP from 1975) to Better Records, with the hope that we might actually find a way to put him in touch with the real Dr. Wu.

Let’s just say it seems that Roger got his money’s worth — and maybe a little more.

The title of his letter is: 

Katy Lied? Are you sure?

I tried your Hot Stamper Steely Dan Katy Lied. You gotta be kidding me. Are you sure this is the same recording? I remember your saying that this one is your favorite SD record and I could never understand why, at least until I heard this secret recording. Other than the HS copy you basically had a choice between the dull and lifeless bland US pressing, or the Mobile Fidelity version, which has those indescribable phasey, disembodied instruments and voices that sound unmusical to me.

I even tried British and Japanese pressings with no luck. I just figured this was just a bad recording, which made sense in light of all the press about the problems during the recording and mixing sessions, and I don’t think I bothered to listen to it again for at least the past 5 years.

But wow, this is clearly in another league. The voices and instruments are in three dimensions, the bass and dynamics are far far better, the saxes are up-front and breathy. I couldn’t believe how good Daddy Don’t Live in that New York City No More and Chain Lightning sounded. Even my subwoofer that I roll off at 30Hz got a good workout. It sounds like live music. So how did you sneak your tape recorder into the studio sessions, anyway?

Roger, we’re so happy to know that your love for Katy Lied has finally been requited after all these years. The reason we go on for days about the sound of practically every track on the album is that we love it just as much as you do.

We struggled ourselves from one bad pressing to another. Eventually, with better cleaning fluids, better equipment and tons of pressings at our disposal, we broke through the Bad ABC Pressing Barrier and discovered the copies that had the real Katy Lied Magic.

We Are Heartened

Everything you said was true. We are especially heartened by the fact that you cited Chain Lightning as a high point of the album we sent you. Your copy, earning a grade of A+ for side two, was a couple of steps down from the best — but it still sounds great! You don’t have to buy the Ultimate Copy to get sound that beats the pants off any “audiophile” pressing, any import, any anything, man.

It’s Not About The Money

You and I both know it’s not about the three hundred bucks. It’s about some of the best music these guys ever made. It’s about their ambitious yet problem-plagued recording surviving the record label’s mass-production-on-the-cheap, opting to stamp the sound on a slice of not-particularly-good vinyl. It’s about the search for that rare pressing with the kind of sound that conveys the richness and sophistication of Becker and Fagen’s music, music that I’ve been listening to since 1975 and do not expect to tire of any time soon (so far so good: as of 2013 this is still my favorite Dan album). [Still true as of 2022.]

So what if it took thirty years to finally get hold of a good one? With a little luck we’ll both be listening to this album for another thirty years, and that works out to the very un-princely sum of ten bucks a year.

I wish I could have sneaked a tape recorder into the studio. I sure wouldn’t have gone in for that crazy DBX Noise Reduction system they used. That alone would have saved us all a decade or two of suffering (unless you like the sound of two trash can lids crashing into each other).

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Letter of the Week – “It was a happy revelation to get Monk flying again on your Hot Stamper.”

More of the Music of Thelonious Monk

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

Note that he owns the kind of audiophile pressing that seems to be all the rage, but, at least in this case, turns out to be just another example of the emperor’s new clothes.

         Hey Tom, 

The Thelonious Monk is AMAZING. If you ever get another 3/3/3/3 of that, I’ll pay almost anything : )

(I also have a MoFi Ultradisc One Step of Monk’s Dream, which I can barely stand to listen to — just boring, so it was a happy revelation to get Monk flying again on your Hot Stamper.)

Hello,

Thanks for writing. A boring MoFi? Say it isn’t so!

By definition, boring records do not have Hot Stampers. We made that point about a Shootout Winning copy of Revolver way back in 2007.

At the risk of being definitive about things that are better left ill-defined,I would say that the Number One quality we look for in a pressing is the element of Life or Energy.

We can put up with many shortcomings, including even some tonality problems, but when a record fails to convey the spirit and enthusiasm of the musicians, it’s pretty much over.

The Monk record we sent you seems to have gotten Monk flying again, and what could be better than that?

Best, TP

PS

If you are still buying these modern pressings, take the advice of some of our customers and stop throwing your money away on Heavy Vinyl and Half-Speed Masters.

At the very least let us send you a Hot Stamper pressing — of any album you choose — that can show you what is wrong with your copy. And if for some reason you do not find that our record sounds better than yours, we will happily give you all your money back and wish you the best.

Letter of the Week – “…I am surprised at how muddy the bass sounds on the new one.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Sting and The Police Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about a record he read about on the blog, the Nautilus pressing of Ghost in the Machine.

Hey Tom,   

Did you write something about the Nautilus record… I thought so, but I couldn’t find it.

[This Ghost in the Machine link will take you to it.]

This is one of my favorites from my teenage years and so I decided to do my own little test… Sterling vs. Nautilus vs. Half Speed Abbey Road reissue… it feels pretty clear the Sterling is tops with Nautilus close but I am surprised at how muddy the bass sounds on the new one. And just how tamped down the record sounds. Which is I guess your point.

Geoff

Geoff,

You now know a great deal more about this album than most of the audiophiles expressing their opinions on audiophile forums.

You conducted a shootout, something most of them can’t be bothered to do.

You should not be surprised about muddy bass on Half-Speed mastered records, they all have it.

And tamped down? Tell me about it.

Compressed and lifeless are two qualities the audiophile record can be guaranteed to deliver. How these companies get away with producing one shitty remaster after another is beyond me. They’ve been making this junk for more than forty years and they apparently haven’t learned anything about records in all that time.

Welcome to the upside-down world of the modern audiophile record. The worse they sound, the more audiophiles seem to like them.

Your shootout provided you with a good lesson to learn right from the start. It has set you on a better path.

Try this experiment: Take four or five UK pressings, clean them up and then compare them to any of the ones you played — the sound should be night and day better. And, after doing that shootout, one of the four or five would be a truly Hot Stamper pressing.

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Letter of the Week – “Your Hot Stampers have changed the game for me.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Foreigner Available Now

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

Hi Tom,

Recently I purchased Double Vision by Foreigner White Hot stamper 3/3. I also have the MoFi #1-052 copy. Using your notes, I did a comparison of the two copies.

Double Vision WH stamper 3/3, absolutely mind bending on my system and every bit as described in the notes. WOW!

On the other hand, the MoFi copy is just like the rest of the early MoFi copies I have. They are nothing special!

The low end sounded like the sound was underwater! The midrange is smeared, harsh and very hard to listen to, especially at loud volumes. The high end (cymbals) were there but nothing special. The voice sounded like it was on a 2 dimensional plain. No depth or space around it. No extension from top to bottom, no space or air between the instruments. No 3-D to the voice.

If I had never listened to a Hot Stamper in my life, especially WH or NWH copies, I probably would have thought the sound was great.

However, your Hot Stampers (WH & NWH) have changed the game for me. I do have a system that will blow your mind and probably your socks off too.

The sound is absolutely awesome and mind bending and what an incredible spiritual experience!

Thx, Mike

Mike followed up the next day with this additional thought:

One thing I want to add to my comments. One of the most important aspects of the Hot Stamper vs MoFi….

Absolutely NO energy from the MoFi copy and TONS of energy from the WH stamper!

Yeah baby!

Dear Mike,

It’s amazing how many audiophiles do not seem to notice that Half-Speed mastered records almost always are seriously lacking in energy and musical drive, especially the rock titles.

What good is a compressed, lifeless Foreigner record? Their music lives and dies by how lively it is. The MoFi we played years ago was dead on arrival. Seems yours is too.

And if you start pulling out all the MoFi pressings in your collection, you are going to find that the other titles you own have a lot in common with your Foreigner MoFi — they’re guaranteed to bore you to tears.

Clear out that crap and put the money towards records that have real life in their grooves. Those are the ones we sell, but you can find your own using our shootout approach and the advice we give out here on the blog.

Thanks for writing.

Best, TP

Mike read this post and added the following the next day:

Read your blog, thank you for your feedback.

Recently I mentioned to Fred regarding the fact that I will no longer buy a vinyl pressing from anyone but you guys. He mentioned it is a common refrain from many of your best customers.

It is like a man being blind his whole life and suddenly being given sight! That is how powerful the experience is with Hot Stampers versus the boring…

Soon, I will start listing albums from my collection I purchased over the last 5 years uninformed by the machine (record companies) just how funny and crappy their records sound!

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Letter of the Week – “I feel like I wasted a lot of money on inferior albums. I will continue to make wise purchases from you.”

beatlessgt

Hot Stamper Pressings of Sgt. Peppers… Available Now

The continuing story of one man’s quest to find better sounding Beatles albums. His story can be seen below. Here is the latest back and forth concerning The Beatles, a band we think we know something about.

Hi Tom
I think I have purchased 6 albums from you. Obviously I believe in your company! Could you tell me which Beatles albums that you test have the best sound.

Our Top 100 Rock and Pop list would include many of the best sounding Beatles albums. There are currently six on the list.

I have the Sgt Pepper, White, Help, and a Hard Days Night. I have the Beatles Mono Box set which I purchased new. I agree with you that the stereo versions purchased from you are superior.

That stereo set is a bad joke played on the record loving public, and the mono set is every bit as bad.

Dead as a doornail. A complete ripoff. Here is my review.

I am not impressed by the MOFI pressings.

For the most part neither are we.

I am still checking each day hoping I won’t miss out on a good Abbey Road pressing.

We almost always have them in stock these days. Our selection can be found here.

I always get great info and service from you. I feel like a wasted a lot of money on inferior albums.

I will continue to make wise purchases from you. I am trying to spread the word around here to check out Better Records.

Thanks for your kind thoughts and for spreading the word. Perhaps someone you know will be saved the expense of buying inferior Heavy Vinyl pressings. We review the worst of them here, so just point him to this blog and perhaps you will be able to help a fellow audiophile get Better Records.

And of course the best way to help your fellow audiophiles is by letting them hear your Hot Stamper pressings. That’s the only surefire way we know of to convince the skeptics. One listen to your Sgt. Pepper should be all it takes.

Tom

Below is Edward’s original conversation with us. (more…)

Letter of the Week – “This one is great — involving, NOT smeared, 3-D — most of all it invites me in…”

Hot Stamper Pressing of the Music of The Rolling Stones Available Now

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

Hey Tom, 

I bought the Sticky you suggested (seemed like a dare). Like I said, I have several pressings, including the horrible MFSL. This sounds better than all of them, by far. My sense is that it’s a tough album, deliberately a bit muddy and smeared and inconsistent from track to track, which made the quest even more appealing. This one is great; involving, NOT smeared, 3D — most of all it invites me in, instead of saying “OK, this may be a bit cloudy, but try to enjoy anyway.”

I’m on my 5th listen. And Catch Bull at Four is also seriously good. Such an underrated album. I’ll be back, inasmuch as most of my other vinyl sounds flaccid compared to these.

John

John,

Thanks for your letter. You are spot on with your observation about the sound being deliberately muddy.

Glyn Johns loves his tube compressors. They can make some tracks murkier than many of us would like, but they work positive wonders most of the time.

A lot of the smearing you reference is from uncleaned or improperly cleaned vinyl. Once we got our cleaning regimen dialed in, a lot of the smear we used to hear so often on old records stopped being a problem.

3-Dimensionality also greatly improves with clean, fully-restored vinyl.

A lot of old records just sound like old records until you figure out how to clean them right.

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Letter of the Week – “…it was like there was a blanket taken off the speakers.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Creedence Clearwater Revival Available Now

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

Hey Tom,   

Just some comments on the records purchased in July. Some of these records were a night and day experience for me. [For more tales of night and day experiences, we refer to them as “revelations,” please click here.]

I bought ten years after a space in time and nilsson son of shmilsson from the columbia record club back in the early seventies. I’ve taken good care of them and thought they sounded very good so I didn’t need to upgrade. You mentioned that we’ve never heard these records sound like this, so I thought I’d take a chance.

WOW! Space in time, son of schmillson, eat a peach, it was like there was a blanket taken off the speakers. Everything sounded sooo much better, more involving, the sound jumped out at me. And not that in-your-face shrill “run for the volume control” sound which was so prevalent in the late 80’s and into the 90’s. 

CCR cosmo’s factory, I’ve got an original mofi copy which sounded really good (I must have lucked out, 90% of the mofi’s I bought didn’t have a problem with sibilance. The ones that did have that problem and the dead as a doorknob presentation — anadisc 200 — are all gone.)

The super hot stamper of Cosmos factory on side 1 completely smoked the mofi, side 2 they were comparable. The super hot stamper had more depth to it. You could hear into the recording, making the experience more lifelike.

Thanks, Shane

Shane,

Thanks for writing. We love to hear from our satisfied customers!

Comparing the sound of the pressings you owned — including audiophile LPs in this case — versus the Hot Stamper pressings we sent you will allow you to recognize some fairly consistent differences. We’ve listed them below for handy reference and further study.

We hope these links will help you avoid other records with these same problems. As a general rule, the average pressing — of any kind — will fall short in some or all of the following areas when played head to head against the Hot Stamper pressings we offer:

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