hs-letter

Hot Stamper letters.

Letter of the Week – “I never thought I’d spend $600 on ‘it’s only a record.’ But it is worth every goosebump.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Steely Dan Available Now

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

Hey Tom, 

You bastard! You did it again. GREAT pressing of AJA Steely Dan – promo album.

This is by far the best recording I’ve heard. I am a freak listener. Everything has to sound perfect, I hear everything.

I savor every note, every instrument, every vocal. The separation and presence of each sound is amazing.

Well done. I wish you continued success. I never thought I’d spend $600 and more on “it’s only a record.” But it is worth every goosebump.

Rocco

Rocco,

By far the best recording you’ve heard? That is high praise indeed!

So glad you liked the record as much as we did. We heard 600 bucks worth of sound and apparently so did you.

Goosebumps are indeed expensive, but you could spend $1,000 or $10,000 on Heavy Vinyl and not even get a single one, so, money well spent.

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Letter of the Week – “After a quick listen through them it was immediately obvious that they were dead…”

More Letters from Customers about Heavy Vinyl

“…and they’ve been sitting in their heavy vinyl glory on my shelf for most of the past year unplayed.”

One of our good customers asked us for our take on a Heavy Vinyl remastering label recently:

Also curious your thoughts on these guys: Music Matters

I replied:

Every label with a checkered history gets put into our Record Labels with Shortcomings Section (scroll down to the bottom to see the list), and in there toward the bottom you will find the two awful Music Matters records we have reviewed to date.

Really bad. And the guy that let me borrow them said that of all the heavy vinyl he owned by these idiots, he thought these were two of the best!

Until these records sound wrong to you in the ways I describe, you have work to do on the stereo. The better your stereo gets, the more wrong these records should sound.

They sound very wrong to me, and no mastering engineer in the history of the world made records that sound the way these do until sometime in the 90s when some audiophile labels started producing this crap.

That should tell you something.

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Letter of the Week – “a magical tonal balance filled with glimmers of insight.”

More of the Music of Willie Nelson

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

Hey Tom, 

I just wanted to give a quick thanks for helping me pull out of the modern reissue scam. Willie Nelson’s Yesterday’s Wine was my wake up record.

I listened as close as I could to the Speakers Corner press trying to find some kind of merit. I thought there was something wrong with me or my equipment.

The hot stamper of the same record I recently received had a magical tonal balance filled with glimmers of insight.

Thanks for getting me on the right track to truly hearing analog.

Guy

Guy,

You are very welcome.

Nothing could make us happier than to get another audiophile away from the fast-food-quality sound of the modern Heavy Vinyl LP.

Once you hear what you are missing, really hear it, there is no going back.

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Letter of the Week – “The differences between all the copies was even far more obvious the second time I did the shootout.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Dire Straits Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about a Hot Stamper pressing of Dire Straits’ first album he purchased a while ago. (Emphasis added.)

Hey Tom, 

I’ve got to admit that I was skeptical when I purchased your Hot Stamper Dire Straits album. I told my brother I just paid $400 CAD (shipping and duties included) for a used record. Of course he thought I was nuts! I have an original Mercury [?] copy that I bought in 1978 plus an audiophile copy mastered by Bernie Grundman from the original analogue tapes and plated and pressed at Pallas, Germany. [Back to Black reissue from 2013.]

I finally got the chance to do the shootout between all copies. The original totally sounded like shit. It was bright sounding, noisy and lacked bottom end and dynamics. The Grundman mastered copy was much quieter, it was much smoother and more dynamic but it didn’t sound great.

When I put on the Hot Stamper, within a few notes I knew it was far superior. It was far more dynamic as if I turned up the volume. It was also quiet and far more transparent but had that great bottom end.

My brother came to visit me a few days ago and I did the shootout between all the copies again.

The differences between all the copies was even far more obvious the second time I did the shootout. I can tell you that my brother doesn’t think I’m nuts any more. I hope I can purchase more albums from you in the future.

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Letter of the Week – “The kind of sound my CD ‘audiophile’ friends can only dream about.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of Hippie Folk Rock Albums Available Now

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

Hey Tom, 

Recently bought a Tarkio Hot Stamper and what a great album it is. This record has truly great ANALOG sound. The kind of sound my CD “audiophile” friends can only dream about. This recording is a lot of fun to listen to. There is much more to it than the songs that had airplay.

Anyway, another great find from the better records crew.

Jim S

Jim,

Thanks for your letter. This is one my favorite records too. I have it on tape and that tape has been played at least 500 times.

Along with Crosby, Stills and Nash’s debut, Tarkio represents the pinnacle of what we affectionately call Hippie Folk Rock.

On the best copies, the Tubey Magical acoustic guitar reproduction is some of the best we have ever heard, right up there with another record Stephen Barncard recorded, If Only I Could Remember My Name. As you may have read elsewhere on the site, the guy is a genius.

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Letter of the Week – “…you’re actually saving me some money and you’re definitely saving me time.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Who Available Now

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

Hey Tom, 

I really like all the full disclosure you have of your methods and what you pay for the records and by the time I purchase five different copies of “Who’s Next“ and figure out which one I like best I think you’re actually saving me some money and you’re definitely saving me time.

Although I will admit that my 57-year-old years and perhaps my lack of the revealing system (McIntosh MC302, PS Audio Stellar Gain Cell DAC, and Sonus Faber Cremona’s with the soft dome silk tweeter) do permit me to enjoy some of the Mobile Fidelity sound labs releases.

Thank you for your time and consideration,

David

Dear David,

Some of those MoFi records can sound passable enough, especially if you don’t have something better to compare them to. Your ears are probably fine.

As you say, more revealing equipment would expose their flaws, but then you have to acquire, at no small expense, other pressings of albums you already own, one of the most fundamental problems in trying to collect better sounding pressings.

Best, TP

We protect money because it’s visible and throw away time because it’s not.

If you burn money, people call you crazy. If you burn time, they call you busy.

We treat money as valuable because it’s quantifiable and time as disposable because it’s not.

Shane Parrish

One Customer’s Ten LP Shootout for Abbey Road

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 of Abbey Road he purchased a while ago:

Hey Tom,   

I just played a couple of songs from the Abbey Road album ($850) I just purchased and I am blown away by the sound. The texture and clarity of the bass drum in Come Together is much more pronounced than any of the copies of the 10 Abbey Road copies that I have, including the MoFi and [Japanese] Pro Use albums. The album is so much better in all areas.

It was well worth the money and I am grateful to have it as it is my favorite album.

I like forward to hearing all of the songs. Wishing you all the best.

Ed

Ed,

That’s great news. Looking back through some of the emails we’ve exchanged, I see that I told you we would send you the best sounding Beatles records you ever imagined, and by the looks of it, apparently that is indeed the case.

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Letter of the Week – “It seems I had barely scratched the surface”

Hot Stamper Pressings with Demo Disc Sound Available Now

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

Hey Tom, 

Thank you, I was amazed by the records you sent me. All these years listening to these albums and thinking I’ve heard them correctly but now it seems I had barely scratched the surface.

Gustav

Gustav,

You are more than welcome. We love to send our customers records that amaze them. Some of our most amazing Demo Disc quality recordings can be found categorized as follows:

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Letter of the Week – “The vocal, dynamic range, space, punch, energy, detail … it was just a night and day difference.”

What’s It Like to Play a White Hot Stamper Pressing?

We’re happy to let our good customer Bill tell us all about his recent listening session with a couple of his fellow analog audio enthusiasts.

When it comes to the five amazingly well-recorded titles you see pictured, it’s clearly a very special experience, one he was lucky to be able to share with his friends, and what could be better than that?

Fred,

Several weeks ago, I hosted a Hot Stamper/heavy vinyl comparison for a couple of my friends. Both of my friends have spent most of their lives in the high-end music industry.

We started with Deja Vu. One of my friends had brought the 50th Anniversary deluxe edition, and warned me that it was amazing, and would be impossible to top. One of his clients had recommended it to him and raved about it. We played the first track of that edition, Carry On, and then played the same track on the Hot Stamper.

A few seconds into the Hot Stamper, when the harmonies kicked in, my friend’s mouth dropped. He managed to whisper “Glorious.” It was a revelation. And then we enjoyed several other songs on the album. It’s just great music, wonderfully recorded. As a result of this comparison, a few days later my friend bought a Super Hot Stamper of Deja Vu from you.

Next up was The Eagles debut album. This was not a straight-up comparison of albums, because I only had one copy of the album, and that was the Super Hot Stamper. But one of my friends had brought the DCC Greatest Hits album, which is widely recognized as being the best version of that album. [Not by us!]

We compared Witchy Woman on the two albums. And the contrast was even greater than the Carry On comparison. Everything was better on the Hot Stamper. The vocal, dynamic range, space, punch, energy, detail…it was just a night and day difference. Witchy Woman has become my favorite demo song.

The last of the comparisons was a White Hot Stamper RL Led Zeppelin 2 with the Classic Records version. We decided to focus on Bring it On Home and Moby Dick. You just couldn’t listen to the Classic at the same volume as the RL. It was painfully bright at loud volume. The RL was a joy to listen to.

And that harmonica on Bring it On Home—wow. It was in the room. And the drums on Moby Dick were as close to “live” as you could probably get. Gut-punchingly wonderful. So of course we listened to several more tracks just for enjoyment.

Wanting to hear more “blow your mind” rock, we listened to a White Hot Stamper of Who’s Next. We didn’t compare it to anything, we just listened. And were transported.

Finally, one of my friends said we had to call it a night, because he was jet lagged, felt a cold coming on, and was exhausted. As he got up to leave, he stopped and said “But wait. You said you just got a WH Stamper of Tapestry. Can I listen to that for a second? I’m wondering how it compares to the MoFi.”

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Letter of the Week – “What a revelation compared to every other copy I have heard.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

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

Hey Tom, 

Just had a chance to listen to my new hot stamper.  Wow! What a revelation compared to every other copy I have heard.

Quiet vinyl, huge soundstage, great tonal balance, amazing level of detail. Sounds even better when cranked up as you know : ).

Been waiting for this one for a while and it has been so worth it! Thanks again!

Rob

Rob,

So happy to hear that you enjoyed it as much as we did. Like you say, the louder the better, and only a top quality pressing will let you turn up the volume as loud as your system can play.

One reason the turn up your volume test is such a great test is simply that as the problem gets louder, it doesn’t take long until it is painful to ignore. Records that are full of phony detail — especially those of the audiophile variety — cannot be played at realistic levels without their artificiality inducing discomfort, even pain, in the listener.

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