Hot Stamper Pressing of the Music of Joni Mitchell Available Now
UPDATE 2026
This commentary about a very special 2-pack was written close to ten years ago. We think it’s every bit as true today as it was then.
The long and the short of it is simply that when it comes to collecting high quality vinyl:
There are no easy answers and there are no quick fixes.
To those of us who have been doing this for a long time, the above is obvious, a core insight that comes from playing thousands upon thousands of records and listening to them critically.
(The fact that the modern audiophile reviewer class has yet to appreciate this basic concept goes a long way in explaining how inadequate and error-prone their approach to records and audio has always been. Some of them may still be living in 1982, but I’m glad to say we’re not. Our business could not exist in 1982. Many of the technologies on which it is based had not yet been invented.)
Once you stop looking for easy answers and quick fixes, you will then be free to build a truly wonderful stereo system and acquire a superb sounding record collection to play on it. It will, naturally, and to some of you surprisingly, comprise virtually nothing but vintage vinyl.
The album under discussion today is Joni Mitchell’s Song to a Seagull. Our commentary begins: