Record Collecting for Audiophiles – A Guide to the Fundamentals
I defy anyone who has not made a lifelong study of pressing variations to tell me which of the hundreds of records pictured below is likely to have audiophile quality sound.
There is not a chance in the world the owner knows either, and I suspect he does not care one way of the other. If this fellow describes himself as an audiophile, he is either mistaken or setting a very low bar for hinself.
An audiophile is defined as someone who “loves sound.” The owner of this collection may love sound on some level — he plays records, and they have sound, and if he loves the sound he hears on his records, that would make him an audiophile according to the dictionary.
For those of you who spend much time on this blog, to us an audiophile is a “lover of good sound,” not just any sound.
This fellow is not really an audiophile as we would define the term, certainly not much of one.
He is a record collector, plain and simple.
And that’s not a hard thing to be. Most anyone can amass a collection of records — one this big, ten times its size or one-tenth its size, the process of going about it is the same. You just buy whatever kinds of records you happen to like and organize them in whatever way you find most pleasing.
There is no limit to the kinds of records a person might collect: originals, imports, audiophile pressings, picture discs, the TAS List – you name it, you are free to collect it to your heart’s desire.
There are literally millions of records for sale around the world on any given day. They’re not hard to find, and being so common, collecting them could not be easier. A single collection for sale as of this writing contains more than 3 million records. That works out to a thousand records each for three thousand collectors. Do you really have time to play more than a thousand records? That’s a different record every day for almost three years!
Why Collect?
Some people see records as an investment.
We do not. We think audiophile-oriented music lovers should pursue good sounding records for the purpose of playing them and enjoying them, understanding that the better their records sound, the more enjoyable they will be.
Collecting records primarily to build a record collection that can be sold at a profit in the future should be the last thing on anyone’s mind.
Most of the following was written in response to a customer who wanted to know how original our Hot Stamper pressings were since he preferred to collect first pressings — which were also worth more money should he decide to sell them at a later date. We asked:
Why would you want a first pressing if it doesn’t sound as good? Or, if a later pressing sounded better, why would that make any difference in your desire to buy it? Isn’t the idea to get good sound?
If you buy records principally to collect original pressings, you will end up with one mediocre sounding collection of records, that I can tell you without fear of contradiction. The formula goes like this: Average pressing, original or otherwise = average sound.
On the other hand, if you want the best sounding pressings, we are the only record sellers on the planet who can consistently offer them to you. This is precisely the service we offer, unique in the world as far as we know. Hence the name Better Records.
Anyone can sell originals. Only we can offer the discriminating audiophile records with the best sound.
Others could of course, but none of them have ever bothered to try, so the practical effect is the same.
Finding the best sound is far more difficult and far more rewarding for both the seller and the buyer, as any of our customers will be happy to tell you.