Hot Stamper Pressings of Music on Island Records Available Now
Below you will see the bottom part of the stamper sheet for a shootout we did recently.
Please note that the album you see pictured is not the one we are discussing here.
It very well could have been been a Jethro Tull album, but all we can say for sure is that it was definitely an album on Island, which just happens to be one of our favorite labels, for sound and music.
The earliest pressings for many records on the Island label are not very good. This one — again, not for This Was, for some other record — is not a bad sounding pressing.
With grades of 1.5+ on both sides, it fits comfortably in our section for good, not great sounding LPs — but the right reissues from the 70s are a big step up in class sonically. They’re the ones that win shootouts, not these Pink Label LPs.
It’s big and clear but dry and spitty and badly needs tubes in the cutting chain.
Do the record collectors who prize the Pink Label pressings above all others notice these things?
Do the audiophiles who play them?
Been There, Done That
We’ve run into so many sonically-flawed Pink Label Islands by now that hearing one sound lackluster if not actually awful doesn’t phase us in the least. Some of the other Pink Labels that never win shootouts can be found here.