pricing-letter

Letter of the Week – “I’m so blown away with this Hot Stamper that I think it’s a bargain at $500.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Doors Available Now

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

Hi Tom,

I must confess, that like most audiophiles, I was not a believer in Hot Stampers. I thought my DCC Compact Classic and my 180 gram Box Set was the best. Boy was I dead wrong!

I have been buying Hot Stampers from you on a regular basis for the past two months. They truly allow me to hear what was intended in the recording studio and, man, is it breathtaking.

I received the Doors – LA Woman a couple of days ago and never in my wildest dreams did I ever think a record could be this realistic.

I couldn’t believe the amount of information I was hearing coming out of the groove of this LP — the biggest, most realistic staging and largest acoustic space I have ever heard in my life.

The highs were sweet and extended, the midrange was as natural as a midrange could ever be, and the bass was tight and rich with incredible weight down to the lowest region. Transparency and resolution on this LP are simply out of this world. I’m so blown away with this Hot Stamper that I think it’s a bargain at $500.00.

I truly believe you really have to experience a Hot Stamper, especially one like this, to see why I’m losing my mind. I’m slowly but surely replacing all of my favorite records with your Hot Stamper versions.

Thank you for this masterpiece! (more…)

Letter of the Week – “It almost seems as if it is another recording altogether, so much more alive and dynamic.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Cat Stevens Available Now

Our good customer Roger likes doing his own shootouts, having acquired many of the so-called audiophile recommended pressings over the years.

Like us, he knows firsthand that those recommended records have little hope of standing up to the real thing, the real thing of course being an old record we charged him a lot of money for, or, to put it another way, a Hot Stamper. Can it possibly be worth the three hundred clams it cost him?

Let’s hear from Roger on that subject. (Emphasis added.)

Hi Tom,

Just the usual note to let you know of my latest LP shootout: Cat Stevens Teaser and the Firecat. Since you recommend this recording so highly, I was looking forward to comparing your Super Hot Stamper (SHS) to a British Sunray pressing I had and my Mobile Fidelity Anadisq. Since I had previously found, as you have, that the MFSL version was thin and bright, I bought a UK pressing, finding it much more full, warm, and dynamic, and my recent comparison confirmed that.

The MoFi is hideously bright and edgy, making guitars sound like zithers and Cat’s voice thin and reedy, like he had a head cold. Yep, that about sums it up, Cat Stevens and His Zither Band. It makes me wonder whether the ear-damaged MFSL engineers ever heard a good pressing of this record–even the UK was leagues better.
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Letter of the Week – “I would have paid $15,000 for this feeling had I known it was there”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about his Hot Stamper copy of Let It Be that he purchased recently:

Hey Tom, 

Wow, yep! This Let It Be Hot Stamper is doing what it’s supposed to. I haven’t felt this way in a long time. It’s INSANELY good!

I would have paid $15,000 for this feeling had I known it was there. No, I’m not going to. I’m just sayin’.

Absolutely gorgeous.

Billy M.

Billy,

Thanks for writing. That’s exactly what we are going for, feelings that are so powerful they’re like hearing the record for the first time. Those feelings are priceless, although $15k is probably not too far off.

The lifeless reissues they put out year after year do nothing but keep audiophiles from experiencing the record the way it was meant to be heard.

If you want to dig a pony, you can’t do it without a properly-mastered, properly-pressed vintage UK LP, which are the only ones we offer. Accept no substitutes. We don’t.

That’s why we think the music of The Beatles is an audiophile wake up call.

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Letter of the Week – “Un******believable that any record could sound that good.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of America Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased not long ago:

Hey Tom, 

I want to tell you I bought America’s 1st LP from you some couple of years back. White Hot designation at that time. I don’t know if you have found one better since then.

Paid big dollars and I still cannot believe the sound. Worth every penny. 

When I play that LP, I cannot avoid getting goose bumps or getting totally enveloped with the music. The guitars and vocals are flat out surreal.

It is just as amazing as the Eagles 1st LP Hot Stamper. Un******believable that any record could sound that good.

Bill 

Bill,

Thanks for your letter. I know exactly what you mean. In 1971 or 1972 I got my first copy of America and it quickly became a record I could not get enough of.

I didn’t discover how hot the first Eagles album could sound until about 2000. That’s how long it took me to stumble upon the original white label Asylum pressing.

Before then all I had heard were the blue label reissues, and most of those are unimpressive to say the least.

Since then we have written in some depth about the album, which you can read all about here if so inclined.

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Letter of the Week – “Your pressings are worth every dollar and more!”

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

Hey Tom, 

Many many thanks! Like others before me I have spent a LOT of time and A LOT of money researching best pressings and buying from Discogs and other sources, with varying degrees of success. More often than not the record is not a good pressing or is lacking something (many reasons as listed in your blogs) regardless of my efforts to pick best matrices, etc..

Your shootout winning pressings (I now have a handful) are always the best and almost always BY FAR better than my former reference copy – EVERY time. This is not hyperbole, I have a great ear, a world class resolving system, a world class ultrasonic RCM and 50 yrs of focused music listening under my belt.

Your pressings are worth every dollar and more!

There will be skeptics and trolls as per usual out there trashing your site, me and others for buying from you, I read it all, and that is why it took me years to take the leap of faith and buy my first record from you – and SO glad I did.

The know-it-alls and trolls can officially f*ck off, they JUST… DON’T… KNOW.

They cost me a few years of being able to listen to the best. Cheers to your continued success!

Mike

Mike,

Thanks for writing, and thanks for taking the time to do your own shootouts.

It’s the only way to get ahead in this hobby, because the only ears you can really trust are your own.

You are so right about the skeptics and trolls — they, along with the the vast majority of reviewers, are doing a great disservice to the audiophile community.

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Letter of the Week – “I am still amazed by the negativity I read sometimes about your records and prices…”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Stevie Wonder Available Now

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

Hey Tom,   

I also offer my humble apologies for ordering one LP at a time, it started with that (insanely good by the way) 4-star pressing of my wife’s favorite Stevie Wonder record, then, I have been waiting for a solid B-52 pressing for years now, so I had to grab it and just today, I noticed the Bee Gees… just glad nobody snatched it before me, seriously, this is the HARDEST Bee Gees record to get in any condition at all !!

I am still amazed by the negativity I read sometimes about your records and prices… we talked about it before but, for god’s sake, nobody is forced to buy anything. Plus, you have very fair prices for hot stampers that are great pressings of the best records, if the luxury items are not your cup of tea.

Still keeping my eyes open for a 4-star (or maybe 5 stars 😉 Hunky Dory one day. Would not mind a similar grade for a copy of Southern Accent too !!

Cheers,
David

My reply to David, in part:

The lack of curiosity on the part of the audiophile community is really something, but who am I to complain? I held many of the same mistaken ideas about Heavy Vinyl up until about 2000, so let’s be fair and give the audiophile community another twenty years and hope they catch on the way we and our customers have.

(There were so many records I used to like that don’t sound especially good to me now that I felt I needed to come clean about them, so I created a special link to them on the blog. Click here to read more.)

Pardon my cynicism, but we doubt that much of the audiophile community is likely to catch on.

We had to work very hard for more than twenty years to get to where we are now.

Most audiophiles don’t seem very interested in doing that kind of work.

It takes time, effort and discipline to create, tweak and tune a system to be both revealing and accurate.

When it gets to be resolving and accurate enough, such a system can reveal how lacking the modern remastered LP really is.

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Letter of the Week – “I had no idea that vinyl could produce this sound.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Crosby, Stills, Nash and (Sometimes) Young

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

Hey Tom, 

Tom, I just listened to the White Hot Stamper (A+++) CSNY album.

Amazing. I had no idea that vinyl could produce this sound. Worth every penny.

The sound at low volume is amazing. The sound at high volume is spectacular.

The clarity, the depth, the soundstage are very rich and alive with color and presence.

Thank you! I am now going to investigate your piece on the cleaning process.

Rocco

Rocco,

Glad you liked this copy as much as we did! Deja Vu is indeed a very special album, one I have been obsessed with since I first became an audiophile.

I was a big Crosby, Stills and Nash fan already — the first album being life-changing to a 15 year old music lover such as myself, on 8-track tape in the car no less — so it was only natural that I would fall in love with Deja Vu when it came out in 1970.

Years went by and then, oddly enough, my love for the music was reignited by a pressing that came out 13 years after the album’s first release, on a label you may have heard of, Mobile Fidelity.

I realized instantly that Mobile Fidelity had indeed improved upon the average original’s sound. (Not a high bar considering how awful sounding most originals are.)

It would take me and my staff many years, at least another 13 or so, to come across the domestic reissues that trounced the MoFi and showed me how colored, compressed, thick, blurry and limited it was.

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Letter of the Week – “I am rocking at a different level now”

Hot Stamper Pressings of Let It Be Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently. (Italics added.)

Hey Tom,  

I was just now able to give this Let It Be Hot Stamper a thorough listen. I really sat back and put my listening ears on, as I have listened to this album a lot, both on vinyl and on CD. 

It took about three songs into the LP before I was truly able to comprehend what I was hearing and how different it was compared to any other copy I have heard. I still am not sure exactly how to describe it in words, but it is amazing and unlike anything I have ever heard before.

Not only did I hear things I haven’t heard before, the things I have heard hundreds of times prior reached out and grabbed me like I couldn’t ever foresee. I heard a voice in the background of the opening to “Get Back” in clarity this time, where on other copies it was not much more than a mumble.

I guess the closest I can describe it is that this LP has a combination of punch, clarity and realism that I never knew existed on any recorded media before.

Some of the guitar riffs were beyond description. The voices are “live” and the bass is incredibly tight.

Now, being a collector of records for both listening pleasure and sheer collectability, I have paid a lot for some rare stuff. Because of that, I was very leery of paying this crazy price for this copy. Even after listening to it twice, I was still wanting to tell you that it sounded amazingly good, but I was going to send it back because it was just too much money.

But, I then asked myself, do you want to send it back? My immediate answer to myself was hell no, it sounds way too good and I need to have this for a demo disc to show my friends.

Anyway, I am impressed, Tom. I will be an avid watcher going forward and will be picking off some additional Hot Stampers as they show up on your site. Someone wrote you a while back and said he was better off getting a few Hot Stampers instead of a bunch of run-of-the-mill vinyl. I agree!

I am rocking at a different level now.

Bryan S.

Thanks Bryan, happy to be of service, as always.

I get what you mean about being leery of paying so much money for one record — you are not alone in feeling that way — but I see that you had no trouble recognizing the superior quality of the record we sent you, whose sound is where all its value rightfully lies.

Of course one could point out that the music is pretty good too.

Who can put a price on hearing some of the best music The Beatles ever recorded with sound you could have never imagined?

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What’s the Average Record Worth?

More Letters from Customers and Critics Alike

What follows is an excerpt from a very old letter (circa 2005) in which the writer attempted to make the case that spending lots of money on records is foolish when a dollar buys a perfectly good record at a thrift store and provides the listener with exactly the same music and decent enough sound.

We think this is silly and, with a few rough calculations, along with a heavy dose of self-promotion and not a little bullying, we set out to prove that the average record is practically worthless. Prepare to confront our exercise in sophistry.

(Yes, we are well aware that our reasoning is specious, but it’s no more specious than anybody else’s reasoning about records if I may say so.)

Jason, our letter writer, points out this fact:

Your records are a poor value in terms of investment. Until you convince the whole LP community that your HOT-STAMPER choices are the pinnacle of sound a buyer will never be able to re-sell B S & T for $300. Even if they swear it is the best sounding copy in the world.

We replied as follows:

If records are about money, then buying them at a thrift store for a buck apiece and getting something halfway decent makes perfect sense. As the Brits say, “that’s value for money.” If we sell you a Hot Stamper for, say, $500, can it really be five hundred times better?

The Math

I would argue that here the math is actually on our side. The average pressing is so close to worthless sonically that I would say that it isn’t even worth the one dollar Jason might pay for it in a thrift store. I might value it somewhere in the vicinity of a penny or two. Really? Yes indeed.

Assuming it’s a record I know well, I probably know just how wonderful the record can really sound, and what that wonderful sound does to communicate the most important thing of all: the musical value.

A copy that doesn’t do that — allow the music to come alive — has almost no value. It’s not zero, but it’s close to zero. Let’s assign it a nominal value. We’ll call it a penny.

What Have You Got to Lose?

You see, when I play a mediocre copy, I know what I’ve lost.

Jason can’t know that. All he knows is what he hears coming from his mediocre equipment as his mediocre LP is playing. To him it sounds fine. To me it sounds like hell. (Hell is in fact the place where they make you listen to bad sounding records all day.)

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Letter of the Week – “…the $900 White Album is blowing my mind…”

More of the Music of The Beatles

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

Hey Tom, 

Loving the recent records… the $900 White Album is blowing my mind… keep thinking I’m going to have to wipe Paul McCartney’s spit off my toes…

And the K. D. Lang… words fail for the sound here (not to mention the music) – it’s MASSIVE and lush.

Also, I’ll include the new AP Kind of Blue UHQR with this return for you to hear. I have been burning in a new phonostage, and my previous impressions were a bit rough and ready given that I was having to use a temporary phonostage at that time… so now I’d say that while yes there is more air in this issue/pressing than the claustrophobic and downright weird MoFi, this doesn’t sound natural; instruments (esp. horns) have no edge to them; piano and horn fade together in a single midi-like tone… see what you think and let me know.

Dear C.,

Looking forward to hearing it. Nothing could be more wrong sounding than the new MoFi Kind of Blue, but AP could certainly give it a run for its money in the weird Audiophile Remastering Race to the Bottom that these labels are currently engaged in, owing to their production of one awful Heavy Vinyl LP after another.

What you describe are the trademark sounds of bad mastering choices, which are the only kinds of choices that Analogue Productions makes it seems.

As you may have read elsewhere on this blog:

As long as Analogue Productions is around, at least no one can say that Mobile Fidelity makes the worst sounding audiophile pressings in the history of the world. They are certainly some of the worst, but not so bad that they have never made a single good sounding record, which is the title that Chad Kassem holds (to the best of our knowledge. Obviously we have only played a small fraction of the records released by him. In our defense let me say that that small fraction was all we could take.)

Thanks for your letter. That White Album was indeed killer. For $900 it had better be!

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