hs-letter

Hot Stamper letters.

Letter of the Week – “I’m hearing things I’ve never heard before. Orders of magnitude better.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Emerson, Lake and Palmer Available Now

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

Hey Tom,   

Once again, you folks have proved that your albums are worth EVERY PENNY that you charge for them.

For years, I’ve had a couple of domestic pressings, and a “200 gram Anadisq” MOFI, of ELP’s Trilogy. Always thought the sound was pretty solid.

But I JUST finished spinning the British A+++ pressing I scored from you folks this past week, and OH MY. It absolutely CRUSHES all prior versions. It leaves the MOFI in the DUST. I mean, it’s not even close. Not subtle. Not “Well, if I listen closely, I think I MIGHT hear a difference….”

NO. It’s utterly ridiculous. I’m hearing things I’ve never heard before. Orders of magnitude better.

THANK YOU, for your dedication to optimizing the quality of listening. SUCH a great album – and sound that finally is commensurate to the quality of the musicianship. 🙂

Steve

Steve,

So glad to hear it!

I was selling MoFi records when that pressing of Trilogy came out. What a murky piece of crap that was. The cutting system they were using was a joke, and the one they have now is not much better.

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Letter of the Week – “Here is where the life and groove of the music is!”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Crosby, Stills, Nash and (Sometimes) Young

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

What a batch of records! I just finished playback last night.

It only occurred to me afterwards that some of these titles I had only heard on compact disc or streaming, I thought I knew this music but the Hot Stampers – particularly Aja and CSNY So Far – defied me.

Here is where the life and groove of the music is! The digital formats have been calling my attention to all the wrong details.

I could go on and on. All eight titles are a knockout. Close To The Edge is a monster – the presentation is massive, and I’m sure my system isn’t doing it full justice, but I love this record and it’s by far the best I have ever heard it.

Thanks again to the Better Records team for everything you do – for this music lover it’s manna from heaven.

Cheers,

Austin

Austin,

Yes, you are so right about the digital formats. They get the sound of classic albums wrong by drawing your attention to recording details at the expense of the flow and drive and energy of the music.

As for So Far, I am a huge Crosby, Stills and Nash fan — the first album being life-changing to a 15 year old music lover such as myself, on 8-track tape in the car no less — and my ardor never flagged in all the years that have gone by since then.

It seems that there are some albums that will last you a lifetime — the first two albums, produced in 1969 and 1970, are still right at the top of my All Time Favorites.

Close to the Edge is a monster and always has been. I listen to it regularly, along with The Yes Album and Fragile. What a run of albums they released before hitting a wall with Tales of Topographic Oceans in 1973.

Aja is record I have been writing about for decades. It’s often an overblown mess, on vintage and modern pressings alike.

The copies that do well in our shootouts are the ones that are coherent, where the over-production suits the songs and does not draw too much attention to itself.

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Letter of the Week – “I am blown away with the White Album you sent.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of The White Album Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about some a Hot Stamper pressing of The White Album he purchased quite a while back:

Hey Tom, 

I am completely stunned. I am blown away with the White Album you sent. It is as if I am there in the studio. The music has so much more shading, tone, and phrasing that gives it much more meaning and enjoyment — which has been lost on me for 40 years.

I can now hear it and I get it. Wow! You guys never cease to amaze with what you find. Thanks as usual.

Mike H.

Mike,

Glad you liked our Hot Stamper pressing of The White Album. It’s amazing how good it sounds once you know which pressings are the good ones and which ones should be avoided.

Hint: it’s the originals that are to be avoided, but don’t tell that to the average record collecting audiophile. They will think you have lost your mind.

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Letter of the Week – “These days I don’t believe sh*t until my ears hear it, which is quite different than in the past.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Peter Gabriel Available Now

Our good customer Michel wrote to tell us — again — just how much he likes his Peter Gabriel Hot Stamper pressing of So.

I remember when I bought a 2+ copy of So. I had always thought that the UK’s would be the way to go, but even though I had a first press, ear fatigue set in quickly.

My US copy was not very good, so I wound up with the Classic gatefold … kind of cool packaging … so when I first listened to the 2+ I was besides myself, goosebumps and all.

Fast forward and I purchased a 2.5/2.5 Nearly White Hot Stamper copy. What a pleasure to be able to hear the improvement in the sound to yet another level. Bliss!

You guys have totally revolutionized my ears and my listening capabilities, which is utterly fantastic. Many thanks for that.

These days I don’t believe sh*t until my ears hear it, which is quite different than in the past.

Question … when you guys do shootouts for a particular LP, do you just compare the copies you have just procured, or do you have a +3/+3 house copy to compare to during your shootout?

What I like about the write-ups you do is it always gets me to thinking and going back to my LPs and relistening to them with my ‘new’ ears.

This process has been quite revealing.

Michel

Michel,

Thanks for your letter. As for your thinking that the Brit copies would be the way to go on So — and finding out otherwise — that’s precisely what happened to us about fifteen years ago:

We did a shootout many years ago that taught us a few things. The most surprising finding? The Brit copy I had in my own collection sucked — how about that! As a rule, I like the Brit pressings best for PG, but that rule got broken after playing all these domestic copies, some of which really sound good, clearly better than the Brits we had on hand.

Are rules made to be broken?

Yes they are.

This is a digital recording, and most of the time it is BRIGHT, SPITTY and GRAINY the way digital recordings tend to be, which plays right into the prejudices of most audiophiles for the “100% analog” approach they favor.

After hearing a bad copy, what audiophile wouldn’t conclude that all copies will have these bad qualities?

After all, it’s digital. It can’t be fixed simply by putting it on vinyl.

Ah, but that’s where logic breaks down. Proper mastering can ameliorate many if not most of a recording’s shortcomings. When we say Hot Stampers, we are talking about high-quality mastering doing exactly that.

But of course the mastering is only one part of the puzzle. I have multiple copies with the same stampers. Some of them are terrible, some of them are wonderful — you just can’t rely on the numbers to guide you with a piece of mass-produced plastic like this. You have no choice but to play the record to know what it sounds like. (And that’s a good thing. Keeps you honest. There’s no “cheating” when you have nothing to go by but the sound.)

The Classic Records pressing is at best mediocre — like most of the mid-fi junk they put out, we never bothered to write a review of it. We did manage to write more than 90, which means that as far as we’re concerned, we went beyond the call of duty and then some.

We did however happen to review the 2 LP 45 RPM Numbered Limited Edition that came out in 2016. We found it to be one of the worst sounding pressings of the album ever made. Of course it went right into our audiophile hall of shame with others of its ilk where it belonged.

As for the question of having a 3+ reference copy on the shelf to keep around for the next shootout, we have some, but not that many, probably less than a hundred.

Since we do more than a thousand different titles over the course of a decade, it would be nice to have more, but they aren’t really needed. It’s easy to hear when a record is doing everything right. When a record has one side that is not quite up to snuff, it’s the shootout that shows us in what area it may be lacking.

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Letter of the Week – “All four records exceeded my expectations and in my opinion are the best copies I’ve ever heard.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now

One of our new customers had this to say about some Hot Stamper pressings he purchased recently:

Just wanted to say Thank You.

All four records exceeded my expectations and in my opinion are the best copies I’ve ever heard.

I will continue to follow your site and be a future customer as well.
Whit

Dear Whit,

We should be thanking you! That was a chunk of change you spent with us, but it seems you are quite happy with your purchases, so that’s a win-win, right?

Four truly great albums, all personal favorites and Desert Island Discs, albums that I have listened to from beginning to end hundreds of times over the last 40+ years and still play to this day.

Now you can hear and enjoy them the way I have, and you can do so for as long as you live. Hope you are young enough to spend the next forty years of your life playing this wonderful music.

You now own the pressings that show just how well-recorded these albums were. If you want to hear the magic of analog, your best bet is to go back to 1966, 1967, 1969 or 1973. That’s when they knew what they what they were doing.

Three of the titles below are reissues, and none of the four pressings you bought were mastered after the decade of the 70s.

Why the 70s was the peak decade for mastering quality is a question no one can answer, not to my satisfaction anyway, but after playing tens of thousands of records, I long ago learned to accept it as a fact, one that is supported by mountains of evidence.

Thanks for writing,

Best, TP

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Magical Mystery Tour – “I agree with you about Baby You’re a Rich Man – when you turn it up it really comes alive.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now

This is Part Two of Aaron’s letter about the White Hot Stamper German pressing of Magical Mystery Tour he acquired from us recently.

Part One can be found here.

Dear Tom,

Strawberry Fields was the standout for me on side 2.

I agree with you about Baby You’re a Rich Man. As with I Am the Walrus, when you turn it up it really comes alive. The bass is dazzling. The warbly texture it has is unlike anything else. In my room it’s sounding really balanced. Distinct bass, not boomy. Balanced with the top.

Tom, as you know, my room is small. I am sure it’s holding me back in some ways, but I really don’t mind. Someday I dream of a proper listening room, but if I never get there, I can still enjoy the crap out of my records. Citizen Kane also sounds huge in here, so I think I’m not really suffering.

Last thought listening to this record brought up – surface noise, and how totally irrelevant it usually is.

The biggest, most breathtaking records I have (balance of sound and music) are If Only I Could Remember My Name and Zep II. Both WHS copies have surface noise.

The way it just melts away once the music really gets going is just such a cool auditory illusion. Surface noise really has minimal impact on my listening experience, if any at all.

It is a nicety to have a copy as clean and quiet as this one. To think, this thing sat around for nearly 60 years, probably nearly ever played. Who owns a record that sounds this good and never listens to it??

Aaron

Aaron,

Glad to hear you found side two to be every bit as powerful as side one. The copy you now have really knocked us out over here too.

As for surface noise, you hit the nail right on the head. The biggest, most powerful and exciting records, played at good loud levels, will always have some surface noise if you’re listening for it.

But it disappears almost completely when you focus your listening on the music and the sound of the recording.

On a big speakes system like mine, in a big room with a high ceiling, the surface noise seems to occupy a different space relative to the space of the recording. Smaller systems often seem to jam the noise and the sound together. Big systems do a better job of separating them out.

That has been my experience anyway. Glad you are hearing MMT the way we did. What a thrill.

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Magical Mystery Tour – “When John sings, ‘I’m crying,’ I’m right there with him.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now

Seems like our friend ab_ba heard some truly amazing sound on his latest Hot Stamper acquisition, a White Hot Stamper German pressing (the German true stereo pressing being the only version of the album we offer) of Magical Mystery Tour.

Dear Tom,

My WHS of MMT just arrived. This record is a true treasure.

I’ve wanted to hear a copy ever since I read your commentary on how the cellos dig deeper on the best copies of “I Am the Walrus.”

I played the various copies I already had, listening to see if I could hear the string section really sweat on any of them. Nope.

But on this copy, the whole sound of that song is simply stunning. When John sings, “I’m crying”, I’m right there with him.

After I Am the Walrus ended, I turned up the volume and played it again. It only got better. The room was filled with sound, everything present, nothing harsh, nothing lacking.

It’s funny, the experience of listening to it actually reminded me of Welcome to the Machine, which similarly caps side 1 of another of my absolute favorite White Hot stampers. There are a lot of similarities in mood, soundscape, and theme to those two songs.

Anyway, I am glad you turned me on to this one. I would have put it on my want list if I had known just how stupendous it would turn out to be. I’m back in to my afternoon’s meetings now, but what a thrill it is to know that side 2 awaits me once the work day is over.

Aaron

Aaron,

As usual, thanks for writing.

It just occurred to me that the commentary about the cellists digging in on I Am the Walrus is very similar to the comments I made more than fifteen years ago about Norwegian Wood.

Those close-miked guitars can be a bit much unless you have a super-low-distortion copy.

John strums the hell out of his acoustic in the right channel, and on the best copies the sound of the guitar is very dynamic and energetic. No two copies will get that guitar to sound the same, and the more dynamic and lively it sounds, the better in my book.

Did The Beatles ever write a better song?

On the right pressings, those two songs, on two different Beatles albums, serve to make a very strong case for Hot Stampers.

Think about it: on both albums the tonality of the higher quality pressings will be the same. The bass the same, the vocals the same, the space the same, almost everything you can think of to listen for on a recording will be the same.

And yet the energy and drive you hear when playing those two songs on any two pressings is more often than not going to be different, and sometimes that difference is dramatic. When the energy and drive are especially pronounced on the side we’re playing, assuming all other things are equal, we call it a White Hot Stamper and grade that side Three Pluses.

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Letter of the Week – “Are Hot Stampers the only way to get my system to sound this good?”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Steve Winwood Available Now

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

Hey Tom, 

Yesterday I was marveling at the bottom-end and overall clarity of my new Stevie Winwood album. I think it’s right up there with Miles of Aisles, which sounded so good it made my wife cry (seriously).

But as always, I came up with a dark thought: Are Hot Stampers the only way to get my system to sound this good?

I have VERY few personally-selected LPs that can compete with a Hot Stamper. Even though I usually buy the “Budget” stampers, it looks like a future of hundred-buck-plus albums for me.

Gordon R.

Gordon,

Yes, our records are expensive, there is no denying that fact. I think you would agree they are worth what we charge, which is typically much more than a hundred dollars each these days. The average record on our site runs about three times that much.

Fortunately, if you want more records that sound as good as our Hot Stampers do, we tell you how to find your own.

We recently added some sections to our site for our “less expensive” titles:

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Letter of the Week – “For me it is like the difference between 2-D and 3-D”

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 (emphasis added):

Hey Tom, 

As a newcomer to your business, and to the entire concept of “Hot Stamper” records, I was naturally skeptical. Many of us have invested in a wide variety of vinyl that simple failed to live up to expectations. Initially I was going to order one and only one record from you, and test your bold promises. Instead, I ended up ordering a nice variety to truly put it to the test… investing a couple thousand dollars on faith. In short, I am now your customer for life.

As a point of reference, my system includes a pair of Wilson Audio Alexia powered by 2 monoblock McIntosh tube Amps and a Mc-tube preamp. Most importantly, a Brinkmann mag drive turntable with a Sumiko low output moving coil cartridge. So, not the world’s best system, but enough to discern what is to follow.

I ordered the following:
* Carole King Tapestry, ((White Hot Pressing)
* The Doobie Brothers, What Were Once Vices (White Hot Pressing)
* James Taylor, Sweet Baby James (White Hot Pressing)
* Paul McCartney, McCartney (Super Hot Pressing)
* Led Zeppelin, Houses of the Holy (Super Hot Pressing)
* Steely Dan, Countdown to Ecstasy (Super Hot Pressing)
* Donald Fagen, The Nightfly (White Hot Pressing)

I warmed up my amps with the tuner for an hour or so and then sat and listened to some of my other records and reacquainted myself with the music from my system. First up was “What Were Once Vices…”. It was immediately apparent that I was getting a range as wide, if not wider than anything I had ever heard from my stereo. Then when I got to the last song on side one, “Road Angel” the guitar and drum interplay in the instrumental jam completely blew me away. Midway through I took the volume from loud to louder, and it exposed nothing but pure, sweet rock and roll. Literally gave me goose bumps.

I then listened to “Countdown to Ecstasy” and in this instance I owe a clean original copy, so I put it to the test. Back to back. I did not have to go past “Bodhisattva” to know it was no contest. If I had to apply a percentage, something like 20% more music comes from the Hot Stamper, and this (like all of my orders) is one of my all time favorite albums.

I won’t go on and on, suffice to say that the experience repeated itself on all of the above.

Even the Fagen copy was WAY better than the 1982 MoFi copy I paid an arm and a leg for. I have always thought that record had a true analog quality, was surprised the first time I learned it was laid down on a digital track. The Hot Stamper even adds to this great sounding record.

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Letter of the Week – “Where should everything be on the ‘stage?'”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Pink Floyd Available Now

One of our good customers had some questions about the Hot Stamper pressing he had purchased:

Hey Tom, 

Hope you are fine! Please let me ask for a bit of help/advice. It may seem to be a stupid question, but it is essential to me to get clarity about my room and treatments.

It is about Wish you were here, the song on side two of the album. Got the white hot and it is sounding phenomenal.

Now my questions: It is about 1) the „huuhh“ followed by the 2) harrumph and the following 3) two tunings of the guitar.

1) Until yesterday the „huuhh“ was coming out between the loudspeaker, with small changes in the room treatment it is now coming from right, which sounds good. The accoustik guitar intro came before and comes after the changes from between the speakers. So my question: Should the „huuhh“ come from the middle or from the right. When coming from right the sound in general sounds more dynamic to me.

Hans,

Let me tell you what I can say without having to go back into the studio to play the record. These are some things I believe are generally true about recordings that have a bearing on your situation.

I am guessing you are probably correct. The reason for that is that the guitar is close-miked but not the vocal, meaning the vocal may be displaced in the soundstage due to phase issues. It is off-axis to the mic, and therefore “out somewhere,” not where the guitar is, because only the guitar is directionally miked.

2) The harrumph comes from the right side, right?

3) The two guitar tunings: first comes from the upper middle of the stage, the second comes from the right upper side, correct? Especially those two guitar tunings are in my opinion extremely fragile to changes, really minor changes in room acoustic and speaker placement, I would say half of a cm or so are enough for changes where they come from.

Would be great, if you can give me some input here. All in all, if half a year ago somebody would have told me my stereo sounds like it does now, I would have told him, that’s impossible. Now, I want even more, and the more I do, the more I am convinced that the room with the treatments together with speaker placement are the critical point.

All of this gets at the same questions – where should everything be on the “stage?”

The danger is making these judgments with one record is that you never want to optimize one record, only to find out afterwards that it sounds good but others you own don’t. Here is an old commentary about that.

BS&T is a tough test too.

So the best thing to do is get all your hardest test records out and start playing them and making notes as you make changes to your system.

You are correct that speaker placement is very important. Room treatments too. I would add electricity to that list.

I said so in my review of the 45 RPM Tillerman:

Recently I was able to borrow a copy of the new 45 cutting from a customer who had rather liked it. I would have never spent my own money to hear a record put out on the Analogue Productions label, a label that has an unmitigated string of failures to its name. But for free? Count me in!

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