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Letter of the Week – “What a revelation compared to every other copy I have heard.”

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:

Hey Tom, 

Just had a chance to listen to my new hot stamper.  Wow! What a revelation compared to every other copy I have heard.

Quiet vinyl, huge soundstage, great tonal balance, amazing level of detail. Sounds even better when cranked up as you know : ).

Been waiting for this one for a while and it has been so worth it! Thanks again!

Rob

Rob,

So happy to hear that you enjoyed it as much as we did. Like you say, the louder the better, and only a top quality pressing will let you turn up the volume as loud as your system can play.

One reason the turn up your volume test is such a great test is simply that as the problem gets louder, it doesn’t take long until it is painful to ignore. Records that are full of phony detail — especially those of the audiophile variety — cannot be played at realistic levels without their artificiality inducing discomfort, even pain, in the listener.

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Jimmy Page Makes a Mess of His Masterpiece

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

In 2022 Geoff Edgers contacted me to find out what the story was with these so-called Hot Stampers we were selling, the ones that had so many audiophiles up in arms.

I told him our records will beat anything he can find to throw at them, so we arranged to meet at my studio and play anything he wanted to hear.

He brought with him three well known titles to play on our reference system in order to get my reaction to the sound of some of the Heavy Vinyl pressings that had found favor with reviewers and the audiophile community in general, including the 2014 remaster of Led Zeppelin II (excellent), the remaster of Brothers in Arms that Chris Bellman cut, released in 2021 (also excellent, review to come), and last and definitely least, the pricey Craft Recordings remaster by Bernie Grundman of Lush Life (astonishingly bad, review coming).

What shocked me about the sound of the Led Zeppelin II that Geoff brought over to play was how big, dynamic, present and alive it was. It sounded like a real record, not one of these remastered fakes.

At the time, it was simply not part of our experience to play a Heavy Vinyl pressing with those qualities.

We’d heard hundreds of them (and reviewed 330 on this blog as of 5/2025) that were small, flat, compressed, veiled and lifeless, but big, dynamic, present and alive were qualities we’d only experienced when playing the carefully-cleaned, properly-mastered, curated-for-sound-quality pressings we sell as Hot Stampers.

In fact, those are some of the very qualities that confer the status of Hot Stamper to a record during a shootout. That’s exactly what we’re listening for.

Houses of the Holy from the same series had a bad case of modern sound, lacking all the best qualities of the original Robert Ludwig-mastered pressings that we have come to adore. (Naturally those Ludwig masters are the only ones we would ever consider offering).

Now it’s time to talk about the first album, which I suspect will be the last of the Page remasters we will bother to play. It seems that II was a fluke.  Here is everything we didn’t like about it, which is pretty much everything.

Side One

Good Times Bad Times

    • Small, no real power

Babe I’m Gonna Leave You

    • Tonally fine
    • A very light sheen
    • Not extending high or low

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Led Zeppelin / Self-Titled

More Led Zeppelin

  • A truly excellent import of Zep’s amazing debut with outstanding sound from first note to last
  • Arguably the biggest, clearest and most Tubey Magical Zeppelin album ever recorded, thanks to the engineering genius of Glyn Johns (and production genius of Jimmy Page, who paid for the whole thing out of his own pocket)
  • Just look at the track list – the lucky owner of this LP will be hearing those songs come to life like never before
  • The band’s first album is a permanent member of our Top 100 and a Big Speaker Demo Disc like you will not believe
  • 5 stars: “Taking the heavy, distorted electric blues of Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, and Cream to an extreme… But the key to the group’s attack was subtlety: it wasn’t just an onslaught of guitar noise, it was shaded and textured, filled with alternating dynamics and tempos.”

For the real Led Zep magic, you just can’t do much better than their debut — and here’s a copy that really shows you why. From the opening chords of “Good Times Bad Times” to the wild ending of “How Many More Times” (“times” start the album and end it, too, it seems) this copy will have you rockin’ out!

Both sides have the BIG ZEP SOUND. Right from the start we noticed how clean the cymbals sounded and how well-defined the bass was, after hearing way too many copies with smeared cymbals and blubbery bass.

When you have a tight, punchy copy like this one, “Good Times Bad Times” does what it is supposed to do — it really rock! With this much life, it’s lightyears ahead of the typically dull, dead, boring copy. The drum sound is perfection.

Drop the needle on “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” to hear how amazing Robert Plant’s voice sounds. It’s breathy and full-bodied with in-the-room presence. The overall sound is warm, rich, sweet, and very analog, with tons of energy. “Dazed and Confused” sounds just right — you’re gonna flip out over all the ambience!

“Communication Breakdown” sounds superb — the sound of Jimmy Page’s guitar during the solo is shockingly good.

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Letter of the Week – “…this copy blows the sonics of my old press away.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of David Bowie Available Now

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

Hey Tom, 

I’ve been meaning to write to thank you for the magic you and your team create. I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but it is mindblowing to hear the music that comes from even just Hot and Supers. I still haven’t crossed the Rubicon into Whites. 

I have been lucky enough to have vintage pressings passed down to me from family. And while I started hearing the difference as soon as I started cleaning those old presses vs. new “remastered” ones, this small sample from your team is incredible!

Abbey at Hot is incredible! Frankly I admired the album, now it’s one of my favorites! I’m not even a huge Beatles guy, haha (Thanks for that!)

Purple Rain at Super knocked out the vintage and remastered copies that I own.

Zep I is terrific. (Weirdly on my system, “Good Times” is the least mindblowing, but “Dazed” and all of Side 2 is crazy!)

Perhaps the best sounding so far is “Ziggy,” like you said. I own a pristine vintage press passed down and this copy I got from you blows the sonics of my old press away.

Anyway, thanks again! (more…)

Led Zeppelin / Self-Titled on Domestic Vinyl

More Led Zeppelin

Reviews and Commentaries for Led Zeppelin I

  • In 2021 we came across a superb original domestic pressing of Zep’s debut with Double Plus (A++) sound on both sides – exceptionally quiet vinyl, especially considering that this is an early Atlantic pressing
  • Note that from our perspective in 2023, we would be very unlikely to try another domestic original — our guess is that it would be more likely that the next original would be worse sounding and noisier rather than better sounding and quieter, and the right imports are practically guaranteed to beat the pants off of any domestic LP
  • The story of how we came to possess this specific LP is told below
  • 5 stars: “Taking the heavy, distorted electric blues of Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, and Cream to an extreme… But the key to the group’s attack was subtlety: it wasn’t just an onslaught of guitar noise, it was shaded and textured, filled with alternating dynamics and tempos.”

There’s an interesting story behind this copy.

I bought it from an erstwhile customer who also had one of our Hot Stamper imports from years back, and he swore up and down that this original domestic pressing was a step up in class, a true White Hot Stamper pressing.

Well, that turned out not to be the case, and it’s the main reason shootouts on highly-tuned, properly-calibrated, extremely-resolving large audio systems are the only way to separate the winners from the also-rans.

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Letter of the Week – “I get a lot of buyer’s remorse when I purchase records from you.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

Aaron sent us this email not long ago:

This email to you reminds me of a thought I’ve been having recently: I get a lot of buyer’s remorse when I purchase records from you. The best antidote to my buyer’s remorse is to play the record. For all the records I’ve kept, whenever I listen to them, I’m glad I purchased them. The only remorse I’ve felt, actually, is when I went super hot instead of white hot. Or when I put something in my cart, but it vanished while I dithered.

This happened to me last night. I was feeling pretty bad about the money I spent on the Zep 1 WHS I just purchased. It didn’t help when you posted that favorable review of the Classic Records Zep 1. I just sold that record, sealed, as part of a box set. I got $2000 for the set, having paid $500 just four years ago, but that $2000 is a fraction of the cost of getting them as white hot stampers. If the Classic Records Zep 1 sounded nearly as good as the Zep 1 WHS I just purchased, then I’d have a lot of remorse. Because I sold it sealed (having disliked 2 and 4 from that set), I couldn’t compare, so I’ll never know.

With all these thoughts swirling through my head, last night I put on my headphones (everybody else was asleep) and gave an end-to-end listen to the Zep 1 WHS. It is perfect. Hard to imagine any other mastering and pressing coming even close to it. I shut down my stereo happy, buyer’s remorse obviated, at least until the next one.

Aaron

As you suspect, there is not a chance in the world that the Classic reissue comes close. We know because we have played both, but you don’t have to take our word for it. When you hear sound as good as the sound on that White Hot Stamper pressing we sold you, it’s simply not the kind of sound you can find on any modern reissue.

You were wise to leave those Heavy Vinyl pressings sealed and sell them. New records such as those Classic Records pressings don’t do what the copy you now own can do — leave you happy after spending a ton of money on a single record.

You’re not the first person to tell us how good our Led Zeppelin Hot Stamper pressing sound either. We actually hear it a lot.

As always, thanks for your letter,

TP

Led Zeppelin – Our Old Shootout Winner and Lessons We’ve Learned

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

A textbook case of live and learn.

In 2007 we simply had no idea just how good this recording could sound on vintage vinyl. We needed to do a lot more homework, a subject we discussed in some depth here for Led Zeppelin III.

My guess is that we discovered the right pressings, with the right stampers, pressed in the right era, and mastered by the right guy, sometime in 2014. That was the year this copy came along.

Which, according to my audiophile math, means we needed 7 more years of buying, cleaning and playing copies of the album until we stumbled upon the hottest stampers of them all. And in the many years since, nothing has come along to take the crown away from this bad boy. Our customers seem pretty happy with the pressing we sold them, too.

Yes, it turned out to be quite the breakthrough, and it could not have happened to a better record, as Zep’s first album is my favorite rock album of all time. (Please excuse the all caps writing.)

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Led Zeppelin – A Classic Records LP that Will Beat Most Pressings (!)

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

Considering how bad (or at best mediocre) the average copy of the first Zep album sounds, let’s give credit where credit is due and say that Bernie’s remastered version on Heavy Vinyl is darn good (assuming you get a good one, something of course that neither I nor you should assume).

It’s without a doubt the best of all the Classic Zeppelin titles, most of which we found hurt our delicate ears.

Our Thinking Circa 2010 

[The last time we played a copy.)

We like the Classic, albeit with reservations. It’s without a doubt the best of all the Classic Heavy Vinyl reissues of the Zeppelin catalog, most of which are not very good and some of which are just awful.

Why is this one good? It’s tonally correct for one thing, and the importance of that cannot be stressed too strongly.

Two, it actually ROCKS, something a majority of pressings we’ve played over the years don’t.

Three, it’s shockingly dynamic. It may actually be more dynamic than any other pressing we have ever played.

UPDATE 2023

It might have been back in the day, but it’s highly unlikely we would agree with that assessment in 2023. Much like this record, we had a lot of R&D ahead of us before we could know just how dynamic this recording could be.

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Letter of the Week – “Listening to my very first Hot Stamper purchase was by far the most significant event in my life as an audiophile.”

More Hot Stamper Testimonial Letters

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased back in 2017 [the bolding of the text has been added by us.]

Hey Tom, 

Listening to my very first Hot Stamper purchase was by far the most significant event in my life as an audiophile. I discovered the Better Records website way back in 2007, but being a hardcore skeptic I didn’t purchase anything until almost two years later. Although I agreed with the premise that different pressings have varying degrees of sound quality, I simply could not believe that any record could sound so much better to justify the prices. Frankly, I thought that the buyers of these records were folks with more money than sense.

What finally drove me to purchase my first Hot Stamper was my attempt to find a decent copy of Carole King’s Tapestry album. I had decided to try the Better Records approach and gathered half a dozen copies, as well as the Classic heavy vinyl reissue that I had read good things about. Talk about an exercise in futility. Despite a thorough cleaning with Disc Doctor, no copy sounded significantly better than any of the others. However, Better Records just happened to have a 1+ copy of Tapestry on sale for $75 at the time, so I decided to take the plunge and buy it, even though I still thought the price was outrageous.

What followed next absolutely stunned and amazed me. Although I was prepared to shoot out the Hot Stamper against my own copies, I knew within the first minute of play that it would be totally unnecessary. The Hot Stamper sounded like a completely different recording. I cannot stress this enough. Everything sounded much, much more lifelike and REAL, as if I was listening to the performance inside the recording studio, instead of sitting outside hearing it through the walls. Of particular note was the fact that I could hear the personality in Ms. King’s voice, with all the attendant subtle inflections and timbre; she sounded like a real person, not just a recording of one. The $75 price was suddenly transformed into a real bargain, and the skeptic in me died completely. (more…)

Led Zeppelin – 2 Originals of Led Zeppelin

More of the Music of Led Zeppelin

This is a very old review from something like twenty years ago so take it with a very large grain of salt.

This is a Minty looking German Import Atlantic 2 LP set, consisting of Zep’s first two records. We dropped the needle on all four sides of this record and WOW! Side one of Zep II was SHOCKINGLY GOOD. Big bottom, lots of top, clean vocals — what more could you ask for? Our Rough Hot Stamper Grade: A+ or better. (Side two was more typical for this album, a bit recessed and flat. Oh well.)

On Zep I, again, side one was definitely the stand out. Very clean, punchy, smooth and sweet, and not smeary at all (which is unusual to say the least). Side two was a little midrangy and didn’t have the fullness and warmth that the best copies do.

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