loggimothe-test

On Brighter Days, The Best Pressings Have Choruses that Really Soar

Hot Stamper Pressings with Big, Clear and Lively Choruses Available Now

A recent White Hot Stamper pressing of L&M’s fourth release demonstrated pretty convincingly just what an amazing Demo Disc this album can be.

At about the 1:15 mark (and again at 3:10), the song’s chorus is a great test for weight, resolution, dynamic energy, and freedom from strain in the loudest parts.

When the whole band is really belting it out, the shortcomings of any copy will be exposed, assuming you are playing the album at good loud levels on big dynamic speakers.

It was a key test every pressing had to pass. That’s what makes it a good test disc.

When the music gets loud you want it to get better, with more size, energy and, especially, emotional power, just the way that song would be heard in concert.

Any strain or congestion in the choruses we hear in our shootout results in the pressing being downgraded substantially.

Hot Stampers are all about the life of the music, and when this music gets lively, it needs to be clear and clean.

This is of course one of the biggest issues we have with Heavy Vinyl.

Heavy Vinyl almost never gets up and almost never gets going the way vintage records do.

“Lifelss and boring” are the adjectives we most commonly use to describe those we audition, and who wants to listen to lifeless, boring records?

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Rockin’ the Mandolin with Loggins and Messina

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Loggins and Messina Available Now

A recent White Hot Stamper pressing of L&M’s fourth release demonstrated pretty convincingly just what an amazing Demo Disc this album can be.

When Jim Messina rips into his mandolin solo halfway through Be Free, your jaw is likely to hit the ground. On the best copies it positively leaps out of the left speaker.

I can’t recall another pop or rock recording that captures either the plucked energy or the harmonic nuances of the instrument better. To hear such a well-recorded mandolin on a copy of this quality is nothing less than a thrill.

This copy showed us:

  • A full-bodied piano
  • Rich, lively vocals, present between the speakers and brimming with enthusiasm
  • Harmonically-rich guitars, mandolins, dobros and the like, as well as a
  • Three-dimensional soundstage that revealed the space around them all

What to Listen For

What typically separates the killer copies from the merely good ones are three qualities that we often look for in the records we play: transparency, speed, and lack of smear.

Transparency allows you to hear into the recording, reproducing the ambience and subtle musical cues and details that high-resolution analog is known for.

Note that most Heavy Vinyl pressings being produced these days seem to be transparency challenged. Lots of important musical information — the kind we hear on even second-rate regular pressings — is simply nowhere to be found.

Lack of smear is also important, especially on a recording with so many plucked instruments. The speed and clarity of the transients, the sense that fingers are pulling on strings, strings that are ringing with tonally correct harmonics, is what makes these L&M records so much fun to play.

The best copies really get that sound right, in the same way that the best copies of Cat Stevens’ records get the sound of stringed instruments right.

No two pieces of electronics will get this record to sound the same, and some will fail miserably. If vintage tube gear is your idea of good sound, this record may help you to better understand where its shortcomings lie.

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