Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now
After finishing our first shootout for In Through the Out Door in 2007, our faces were positively red with shock and embarrassment. Once again we found smeared with egg on our faces.
We used to think the Classic version that came out in 2001 was pretty decent, one of the three we’d liked and recommended back in the day when we were selling Heavy Vinyl, but now we know that the best originals slaughter it.
We’d never done a shootout for this album before 2007. We didn’t feel up to the challenge, because most pressings tend to be miserable — gritty, grainy, hard sounding, with congested mids, dull, and so on.
The best pressings of this album sound amazing, but they are few and far between.
The test any copy of the album must pass is an easy one — a copy that makes you want to turn up the volume is likely a winner. The Classic fails that test.
One reason the turn up your volume test is such a great test is this: as problems in the sound get louder, they become harder and harder to ignore. Records that have edgy vocals and an upper midrange boost cannot be played at realistic levels without their artificiality inducing a palpable sense of discomfort in the listener. Isn’t listening to music supposed to be fun? Not when it sounds like this.
