More of the Music of Led Zeppelin
One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:
Hey Tom,
The domestic copy you sent me of Houses of the Holy trashed my UK pressing.
Side 1 is so engaging. What a difference a good Stamper makes — to be engaged by the music, not just entertained.
Thanks again.
Mark H.
Mark,
You are more than welcome!
Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Steely Dan Available Now
One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:
Hey Tom,
I got the shipment today and it was meticulously packed. It all got here in perfect shape.
I could not resist doing a little side-by-side comparison of Aja tonight, as I have several copies. When I realized that different pressings sounded different (before I found your site) I began accumulating multiple copies, but I find it quite difficult to get loads of mint minus copies of anything. [It’s not as easy as it used to be, that’s for sure.]
Anyway, I was totally blown away. The Hot Stamper copy went WAY beyond what I expected in terms of the sonic shortcomings I could hear on the other pressings. Just… amazing… music.
The good news is my record collection should shrink by at least 75% in size as I sell off all the old multiple copies!
Adrian B.
Adrian,
You TOTALLY get it.
You do your own shootouts.
That way, you have no trouble recognizing how much better our pressing sounds than the ones you own. (This is not a foregone conclusion. You could have told us that you liked one of your copies better, and we would have refunded your money. We can be right a lot, but we can’t be right all the time, nor should we expect to be.)
And you then got rid of the stuff that is not worth keeping because it’s not worth playing.
Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Boston Available Now
This letter probably came in around 2010 or so, early days in the world of Hot Stampers, which explains the price for the top copy being $250.
This week’s letter comes from our good customer Roger, who did a little shootout of his own among three very different sounding pressings: two Half-Speeds, one by MoFi and one by CBS, probably the two most popular pressings among audiophiles, and our very own Hot Stamper LP.
Here are his findings. Keep in mind that Roger bought a copy priced at $125, half the price of the best copy in our shootout.
Hi Tom,
I got your Boston hot stamper today and enjoyed comparing it to MFSL and CBS half-speed versions in a shootout. I had long since given up on listening to this record since it became part of a communist ploy to brainwash us by playing Boston repeatedly on the radio until we would give up any information they desired. “Deep Purple Lite” was what my college buddies and I used to derisively call it. Now I only wish we had this type of music still around. So I had fun reliving my college days and listening to this LP.
For a pop recording, it is a pretty good recording soundwise, and all 3 pressings were indeed good, if not interesting. I tried the CBS half-speed first, and it was tonally lean with good speed and detail, and bass was extended and quick. However, its Achilles heel was that it had too much energy on top and excessive brightness, something that couldn’t hide from my speakers’ ion tweeters.
Roger, you seem to be using the phrase “tonally lean” unpejoratively (if I can make up such a word), whereas for us here at Better Records, that is the kiss of death for Half-Speeds, and in fact Audiophile Records of All Kinds. Lack of weight down below, lack of Whomp Factor, is the main reason half-speed mastered records are so consistently and ridiculously bad. If not bad, certainly wrong. You can be very sure that Boston would not want, nor would they put up with, that kind of anemic sound for a minute.
The CBS is cut clean from a good tape, so it easily beats the bad domestic pressings, of which there are many. But it can’t rock. What good is a Boston record that doesn’t rock? It’s a contradiction in terms; the band, as well as their debut album, have no other reason to exist.
So the MFSL was somewhat of a relief in that regard, being more sweet and rolled-off on top. However, it sounded bland, blah, slow and murky by comparison. It was still OK sonically with a fuller midband, but didn’t have the midrange energy or dynamics of the CBS and it just seemed slow and plodding, no other way to put it. Bass on the MFSL copy was weightier but more midbass than the quick and extended bass on the CBS.
Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Heart Available Now
One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased a while ago (emphasis added):
Hey Tom,
Hope you don’t mind me E-mailing you with comments on my recent purchase of Dreamboat Annie but I’m busting to tell somebody.
I am stunned. I had one “run of the mill” copy and one of the Nautilus albums which I thought was pretty good.
It’s good if you never hear a Hot Stamper. The Hot Stamper just blew them both away.
I read the description of the HS on your site and every word was spot on. The energy, the bass, the clarity was all there. I still can’t get over it.
Near the end of Magic Man the synthesizer goes down to a very low octave and just drags you with it and keeps you there. It’s amazing.
It’s hard to understand why these people on the audio forums mock and degrade you guys. I guess they are afraid to spend a little money and see what a Hot Stamper sounds like. I have a feeling even if they knew how good the HS was they still would not buy one simply because it’s more money than they are willing to part with. So to justify not buying one they put the Hot Stamper down.
It’s just my opinion. They sure don’t know what they’re missing.
Only bad thing about you guys is once you hear how good a record can sound, the rest of your collection kind of takes a back seat to the HS. Oh well, I can’t stop now.
Steve E.
Steve,
Thanks for writing. We used to like the Nautilus pressing of Dreamboat Annie about as much as you did. Here’s our review.
Once you hear just how good the best pressings can sound, it becomes clear that the Nautilus is not worth the vinyl it’s pressed on, but until then, it’s certainly a good sounding record, just not as good as the real thing.
Our explanation for the mistaken judgments we audiophiles make is not complicated. As you may have read elsewhere on this blog, it all boils down to three little words.
Hot Stamper Pressings of Personal Favorites Available Now
One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stamper pressings he purchased recently (emphasis added):
Hey Tom,
You bring up several experiences that can happen with listening to Hot Stampers, and I’ve had them all (which has caused me to pay more attention to you than I might have, since you clearly learn as you age, which makes you a rarity.)
I often come up with my own – they don’t count unless there are multiple instances. Here’s one — I’ve been meaning to write you with a list of many, but it’s always in the middle of listening, so it never gets done.
Records that have been forever more or less my least liked of a particular band suddenly become my favorite.
This is really weird, but it happens often enough to notice.
Pretzel Logic is the most obvious.
Never really like it much, but the sound quality of yours is so amazingly better than any other I’ve heard, I just fell into the music, even though I’d heard it for decades. I totally love this record now, and the most it would get from me in the past was a grudging acknowledgement of its existence.
I suppose I should at least mention two, but I’ll have to modify the category, lol. Records where I love the music, but can’t stand to listen, but now with a HS, I can’t get enough.
It’s not just that now I can listen, but that now I’m compelled to listen, it’s just so damned good.
Really, this one is one of my absolute favorites for pure sound quality, and the music is so up my alley I can’t believe I get both on the same record. Okay, Every Picture Tells a Story. Wow, what a record, er, stamper.
There was a time not long ago, a few years, that I thought I could help myself by ignoring the Heavy Vinyl but buying the SACD or whatever from the same companies. Maybe there’re some good ones, but Rod’s Masterpiece certainly wasn’t one of them.
Take Care,
Erich H.
Erich,
Thanks so much for your letter. As you point out, I know exactly what you mean.
However, I fell in love with both of those albums after the first play, so how they failed to impress you the first time around is probably mostly attributable to a fact of record collecting that few audiophiles seem to appreciate: luck.
The first time I played Pretzel Logic I was amazed at the sound quality of the copy I had just bought from Tower Records. That would have been 1974, and the way I would have found out that the album had been released is by going in the store every week and checking out all the newest arrivals.
Obviously they sold me an original — nothing else existed at the time — and although it may not technically have been a Hot Stamper — they didn’t exist either — it was most assuredly a very good sounding copy.
I was already a big Steely Dan fan after playing Countdown to Ecstasy for months on end. This album put them right up there with all of my favorite bands of the day, bands that were dedicated to making their record albums as emotionally powerful a listening experience as possible, and ensuring the quality — sonically and musically — was as high as possible from the first note to the last. (Here are two others that tell that same story.)
The copy I had in 1971 of Every Picture Tells a Story would have been the domestic original as well. The right stampers on that title are amazing sounding — as you now know firsthand, since that’s what we sent you — but of course that is something I would have had no understanding of at the time and wouldn’t come to appreciate for another twenty years or more.
Hot Stamper Pressings of Classic Rock Albums Available Now
One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased many, many years ago:
Hey Tom,
Wow. Most impressive, Tom.
From the moment the needle went down, I was blown away.
Really, really happy with this record.
-g
Dear Sir,
When you hear the good British early pressings of Electric Warrior, it is clearly a Demo Disc of the highest order, with dramatically more Tubey Magic, space and richness that any record we know of made in the decade of the 80s or thereafter.
That sound is gone and it shows no sign of ever coming back.
More on the sound of the best pop and rock recordings of the Seventies here.
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 Sgt. Peppers he purchased from us a while ago:
Hey Tom,
Wish I found your blog earlier. I do not have a huge collection but any new audiophile pressing I have sounds flat when comparing it to a pressing you’ve sold – i.e., Sgt Pepper.
Even my wife, who enjoys music but is not into it for the best sound, picked the 80s Pepper pressing I played her over the recent stereo remix and the mono from the box set everyone seems to love. Not close.
Dear Ryan,
It is indeed disheartening when collectors and audiophiles rave about mediocre records such as the two you mention. More proof, as if any were needed, that the audiophile record collecting world has lost its mind.
As for the copy you got from us having been pressed in the 80s, yes, we do sell some of those later pressings as Hot Stampers. The best of them can sometimes earn Super Hot (2+) stamper grades on one or both sides.
We always put a number of them in our shootouts to keep our grading honest by making sure that our best copies are a big step up over anything pressed in that decade. For The Beatles, a good rule of thumb is that the 60s can be rough and the 80s can be rough, but the 70s are where you will find the sweet spot for many of their titles.
For a big shootout we did in 2024, we actually had an early label pressing (stampers: -1/-2) that earned grades of 1.5+/2+ — not bad by any means, but a long ways from the best.
This early pressing would be the one that would set the standard for most audiophiles.
However, without a proper cleaning — good typically for a half-plus improvement or more — practically any of the Hot Stamper pressings we would sell would be better in almost every way, and a whole lot quieter to boot, at a fraction of the price a collector would be likely to pay for a clean first label pressing in stereo.
Glad to hear your wife had no trouble hearing the difference, they usually do.
Thanks for writing,
Best, TP
Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now
One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased back in 2024:
Hey Tom,
I’m genuinely thrilled to have someone who figured out what’s going on with vinyl and how to make it sound best and what vinyl to buy. I’ve been posting in different places, like on Reddit, Discogs.com and other groups I belong to over the last year, telling them essentially two things: you figured out that the best pressings can only be found through shoot outs or your service. They’re not going to be the first pressing of a record necessarily or anything simple like that. It’s just not that easy.) And to stay away from recent remasters and half-speed remasters.
And I said that while some stuff on your site may not be in everyone’s budget, certain things are so worthwhile, like mid-career Beatles albums, to take one example. You’d be foolish to go anywhere else. To get a Hot Stamper or Super Hot Stamper of, say, Rubber Soul or Revolver from you is a great deal. You might pay a lot more for an early Beatles pressing on Discogs.com but you’d still pay less at better-records.com AND get a better pressing from your site. And I give other examples where it just makes more sense to buy from you and know you’ll get a guaranteed great record; money back guarantee – no questions.
And the other discovery is that you figured out how to clean the records better than anyone, and how important that is. You’ve heard me say it’s the clarity of a CD with the warmth of vinyl. (I can’t have been the first one to think up that analogy.) And that even brand new records need to be cleaned before you can truly judge them. So unless one buys from your company, or learns to clean the records using your system and learn to do shootouts (which will take a long time, but it’s a good skill if you have the interest), you’re going to be listening to mediocre stuff.
And when you hear the real deal for the first time, it will be so obvious that the previous stuff was crap. (My next purchase will be your cleaning system before I buy another record. I’ve just got to have this book off my plate.)
So I wanted you to know I was spreading the gospel and you’ve already given me a lot that I’m really grateful for. And I appreciate you answering all my early questions and my occasional questions in addition to redefining everything I know about vinyl.
Andrew
Andrew,
Thanks for the kind words, as usual!
It’s true that our Beatles pressings are going to beat practically any early pressing of any title you can find for yourself, for lots of reasons, the main one being that the early Beatles pressings of Revolver and Rubber Soul and most of their other titles are not especially good sounding.
Our good customer Michel wrote to tell us how much he liked the White Hot Peter Gabriel (3) Hot Stamper pressing we just sent him. (I have edited some of the text but mostly it came to me this way.)
Hi Tom,
Knowledge is everything and good ears don’t lie!
Side 2 of Peter Gabriel 3 is the side that I really like. I have had many pressings and many 12″ 45s made in the UK and a few 12″ 33s from the US.
Over the years I kept searching for good sound, but I never got there apparently. I simply stopped listening to the music. Maybe a Biko 12″ once in a while, but the LP never cut it. Not even the supercool packaging of the Classic along with the fancy clarity handmade super vinyl profile II. Now that’s a mouthful!
So in comes the 3+ side 2 that I just received. I played side two first.
It was all over.
I looked at the speakers in wonderment, goosebumps down my legs.
I was looking right into the music.
The separation was through the roof, everything in its proper proportion.
The naturalness of it all was astounding. The highs crystal clear, the mids all there, the bass punchy and tight.
The whole thing demanding to be turned up to maximum volume.
I play it over and over again, smiling all the way. This is the shit!
So then I put the Classic on. [Cue the sound of a needle sliding across a record.]
I could not keep turning it up, as the sound got worse on the top end. Their version, don’t know if it was BG, is whacked out.
Things are not in proper proportion in the soundfield. Too much and not enough kind of thing.
Why do they have to f*ck with the tape so much, as if they know better?
Michel
Michel,
Judging by the enthusiasm of your letter, I could not be happier to learn of the joy our Hot Stamper pressing of the album has brought you.
Good ears don’t lie, as you say, and we take that to mean that you’re hearing what we heard when we played side two of your copy, the side that won the shootout. We agree — it is a thrill to hear a record sound that good.
Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now
Below you will find some of the letters customers have sent us after playing one of our Hot Stamper reissue pressings of Led Zeppelin III.
We’ve written more about Led Zeppelin’s music and sold more of their albums than any other band apart from The Beatles.
All five of their first five albums are in our Top 100, and for good reason: they are amazingly well-recorded albums, but — and this is a big but — you can’t know how good these albums can sound without the right pressings.
Letter of the Week – “I now have twelve copies in total… eleven of them are useless.”
Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Peter Gabriel Available Now