ledzeledze3

Always wanted to have a Plum and Orange pressing? Here’s your chance!

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

We should have titled this one “here was your chance,” since this pressing sold very quickly.

Over the years most Plum and Orange pressings were disposed by us of on ebay for the benefit of collectors and those audiophiles who might be ill-informed enough to think that early British pressings would have the best sound for Led Zeppelin III.

They do not. They can, however, sound reasonably good in some cases with the proper cleaning.

However, they are not even Double Plus (A++) good, which sounds like something from the novel 1984 but is in fact a Very Good grade and guaranteed to trounce any and all copies of the album you have ever heard.

No, the best Zeppelin album we have played to date with the early label in this case earned a grade of Single Plus to Double Plus, which we describe as “[a] wonderful sounding side with many impressive qualities, notably better than a Single Plus copy. A big step up from the typical pressing.”

UPDATE:

We do not even offer Single Plus copies on the site anymore. Although their faults would be less obvious to anyone who went through the shootout process with the album, such faults are much too bothersome to us precisely because we did go through that process.

Once you know what is right, it’s very easy to spot what is wrong.

This is the foundational principle of Hot Stampers.

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Led Zeppelin – III

More of the Music of Led Zeppelin

  • A vintage import pressing that was doing just about everything right, earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them on both sides – remarkably quiet vinyl too
  • Huge, Tubey Magical and lively, with solid weight down low and lots of space around all the instruments, this copy is guaranteed to rock like nothing you have ever heard (particularly on side one)
  • Drop the needle on “Since I’ve Been Loving You,” turn it up good and loud and Zep will be right there in front of you for the live concert of a lifetime
  • 5 stars: “On their first two albums, Led Zeppelin unleashed a relentless barrage of heavy blues and rockabilly riffs, but Led Zeppelin III provided the band with the necessary room to grow musically. While there are still a handful of metallic rockers, III is built on a folky, acoustic foundation that gives the music extra depth.”
  • If you’re a fan of the band, this classic from 1970 belongs in your collection.

Drop the needle on Since I’ve Been Loving You and turn it up good and loud. Robert Plant will be right there between your speakers, and your jaw will be on the floor!

Cue up Tangerine on side two for a taste of rich, sweet, Tubey Magical Analog Sound. The acoustic guitars are lush and delicate, the bass is deep and well-defined, and the vocals are completely natural and free from bad mastering or phony EQ.

Zep Unplugged

The three Zep albums with out of this world acoustic guitars are the first album, III and Houses of the Holy. (All three are currently on our Top 100 list, along with II and IV. All five can be amazing sounding on the right pressings, but those pressings tend to be tough to come by in clean condition.)

The guitars are every bit as rich, tubey, sweet, delicate and harmonically correct as those found on Tea For the Tillerman, Rubber Soul, Comes a Time or any of the other phenomenally good recordings we rave about on the site.

Of course, without the right pressing, you would never know that. Later copies, Classic Records copies, typical domestic and import copies — none of them are going to sound like this one. We guarantee it.

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Customers Rave about their Hot Stamper Pressings of Zep III

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

Below you will find some of the letters customers have sent us after playing one of our Hot Stamper reissue pressings of Led Zeppelin III.

We’ve written more about Led Zeppelin’s music and sold more of their albums than any other band apart from The Beatles.

All five of their first five albums are in our Top 100, and for good reason: they are amazingly well-recorded albums, but — and this is a big but — you can’t know how good these albums can sound without the right pressings.

Letter of the Week – “…fantastic and beyond expectation.”

Letter of the Week – “A great example of a record where proper mastering makes an ENORMOUS difference”

Letter of the Week – “While the loud parts rock in an unbelievable way, the quiet bits reveal the magic…”

Letter of the Week – “I now have twelve copies in total… eleven of them are useless.”

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Letter of the Week – “…fantastic and beyond expectation.”

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, 

Wanted to say thanks for the Led Zep III, fantastic and beyond expectation.

While the loud parts rock in an unbelievable way the quiet bits reveal the magic, the surreal presence, space and uncanny realism. Brilliant!

I am so lucky to have the Zep III so thanks again.

Peter

Peter,

What can we say? Glad to hear it!

Best, TP

Further Reading

In 2008 We Had a Lot More R&D Ahead of Us

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

A classic example of live and learn.

In 2008 we simply had not done our homework well enough. I had been an audiophile for at least 33 years by then, and a professional audiophile record dealer for 21, but we still hadn’t cracked the code for Zep III.

Sure, by 2008 we had auditioned plenty of the pressings that we thought were the most likely to sound good: the original and later domestic pressings, the early and later British LPs, some early and later German pressings, maybe a Japanese import or two. In other words, the usual suspects.

We already knew the Classic Records Heavy Vinyl was unbelievably bad; no need to put that in a shootout. It earned an “F” right out of the gate for its bright and harsh sound.

The result? We were roughly in the same position as most serious record collecting audiophiles, if not actually in a better one: who do you know that has played at least ten different pressing Led Zeppelin III, or any other album for that matter?

We had auditioned a number pressings of the album and thought we knew enough about the sound to pick a winner. We thought the best original British Plum and Orange label pressings had the goods that no other copies could or would have. (Years later we would get hold of another one, clean it up and put it in a shootout.)

But of course, like most audiophiles who judge records with an insufficiently large sample size, we turned out to be quite mistaken.

Logic hadn’t worked. None of the originals would end up winning another shootout once we’d discovered the right reissues.

But in 2008, we hadn’t stumbled upon the best pressings because we hadn’t put enough effort into the only approach that actually works.

What approach is that? It’s trial and error. Trial and error would eventually put us on the path to success. We had simply not conducted enough trials and made enough errors by 2008 to find out what we know now.

We hadn’t made the breakthrough we needed to make in order to know just how good the album could sound.

Can you blame us? The pressings that have been winning shootouts for years are from the wrong country (not the UK) and the wrong era (not the original).

We reproduce below the commentary for the 2008 listing that gets it wrong.

The best British originals are good records, but none of them would win a shootout these days up against the superior import pressings we discovered around 2015 or so.

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Letter of the Week – “While the loud parts rock in an unbelievable way, the quiet bits reveal the magic…”

More of the Music of Led Zeppelin

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

Hey Tom,   

Wanted to say thanks for the Led Zep III, fantastic and beyond expectation. While the loud parts rock in an unbelievable way the quiet bits reveal the magic, the surreal presence, space and uncanny realism. Brilliant!

I have an OK copy of Led Zep IV and the first section of Stairway to Heaven is similar in that I love hearing the acoustic guitar and then the breathy recorders (oh those recorders) and then Plant’s voice seems to appear from nowhere right before your ears.

I am so lucky to have the Zep III so thanks again.

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Letter of the Week – “I now have twelve copies in total… eleven of them are useless.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of Led Zeppelin’s Albums Available Now

We love it when our customers take the time and make the effort to do their own shootouts, especially when we win, which is what happens about 99% of the time.

Hey Tom,   

I’ve really been enjoying the LPs that I’ve gotten from you. Especially the Led Zep 3 most recently. Mindboggingly good. My first copy of that record I got Christmas 1970, I now have twelve copies in total… eleven of them are useless.

Think of all the money wasted on bad pressings, which 98% of them are! If not bad, then certainly mediocre.

I want to thank you for this invaluable service. I tell my friends about your service but so far it falls on deaf ears.

All the best,
Fred

If you want to convince them of the reality of Hot Stampers, play them that Zep III you bought. Ask them to bring over their best pressings and then blow that shit right out of the water. That ought to do it.

As I wrote to a customer not long ago, explaining doesn’t work. Only hearing works.

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Letter of the Week – “A great example of a record where proper mastering makes an ENORMOUS difference”

More of the Music of Led Zeppelin

One of our good customers had this to say about a Hot Stamper he purchased recently:

Hey Tom, 

Today I opened up a box of records I just bought from you and your staff at Better Records and in it was a copy of Led Zeppelin 3 with an A++ – A+++ side one.

I’ve read so many of your testimonial letters with customers gushing over records they’ve bought from you and having bought quite a few now myself I can understand their enthusiasm.

But WOW! What a record! My head nearly exploded playing side 1!

And what a great example of a record where proper mastering makes an ENORMOUS difference. Thank you!

Robert

Robert, thanks for your letter.

Let’s face it: the average copy of Zep III is no great shakes. We would never even bother to try and sell the average copy. Who needs it? Audiophiles want something that sounds good and record collectors can find records like these on ebay all day long.

Audiophiles come to us for the best, the copies that beat the Remastered Heavy Vinyl Con Jobs, the originals, the Half-Speeds, the whatever Audiophile BS pressing may be out there. We take them all on and beat them with ease, even with our lowest priced copies.

And sometimes the record we send you is so good that it almost makes your head explode. It happens more often than you might think. Here are just some of the examples our customers have written us about:

The Hot Stamper pressing you now own will give you joy and pleasure far out of proportion to its cost. And it will last forever if you take good care of it.

As always, we look forward to finding you more Better Records of your favorite music.

Best,
TP

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Another Bright and Harsh Led Zeppelin Title from Classic Records

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

Ridiculously bright and harsh, sounding nothing like the good pressings we sell.

We are proud to say this was one of the Classic Records Led Zeppelin releases that we never carried back when we were selling Heavy Vinyl (along with II and Houses, both of which stink to high heaven).

You will find very few critics of the Classic Zep LPs outside of those who work for Better Records, and even we used to recommend three of the Zep titles on Classic: Led Zeppelin I, IV and Presence.

Wrong on all counts. Live and learn, right?

Since then, we’ve made it a point to create debunking commentaries for some of the Classic Zeps, a public service of Better Records. We don’t actually like any of them now, although the first album is by far the best of the bunch.

Is this pressing of III the worst version of the album ever made?

There may be too much competition to make that claim – in our experience, most pressings of Zep records tend to be poorly mastered, barely hinting at how well recorded their albums really are — but it is certainly a record no audiophile should want anything to do with.

Here are a few commentaries you may care to read about Bernie Grundman‘s work as a mastering engineer, good and bad.

Led Zeppelin III – Hot Stampers vs. The World

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

Robert Brook has a blog which he calls

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

Below is a link to a comparison Robert Brook carried out with various pressings of Led Zeppelin III.

Led Zeppelin 3: Audiophile Record Collecting During the Trump Era

The Classic has of course been a member of our hall of shame from the very beginning.

Classic Records was an awful record label from day one. The link will take you to more of our reviews for their rock records.

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