Hot Stamper Pressings of Direct-to-Disc Recordings Available Now
Reviews and Commentaries for Direct to Disc Recordings
In a shootout we conducted more than ten years ago, two White Hot Stamper pressings tied for the best side two we had ever heard.
In the final round it simply came down to the fact that the other copy was a little more clear, this one is a little richer.
They were both so amazing we couldn’t decide which we preferred so we gave them both White Hot Stamper grades.
In our experience this rarely happens.
Most of the time one side of one of the records in the shootout will show itself to be the clear winner, doing everything — or almost everything; there is no such thing as a perfect record — right.
When you play enough copies, eventually you run into the one that shows you how the music wants to be heard, what kind of sound seems to work for it the best. The two side twos we liked were variations, and fairly subtle ones at that, on a theme — a little richer here, a little clearer there, but both so good.
To be honest, most copies of this title were quite good. Few didn’t do most things at least well enough to earn a Hot Stamper grade. This has not been the case with many of the Sheffield pressings we’ve done shootouts for in the past. Often the weaker copies have little going for them. They don’t even sound like Direct Discs.
Some copies lack energy, some lack presence, most suffer from some amount of smear on the transients.
But wait a minute. This is a direct disc. How can it be compressed, or lack transients? Aren’t those tape recorder problems that are supposed to be eliminated by the direct to disc process?
