rollistick-letter

Letter of the Week – “This one is great — involving, NOT smeared, 3-D — most of all it invites me in…”

Hot Stamper Pressing of the Music of The Rolling Stones Available Now

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

Hey Tom, 

I bought the Sticky you suggested (seemed like a dare). Like I said, I have several pressings, including the horrible MFSL. This sounds better than all of them, by far. My sense is that it’s a tough album, deliberately a bit muddy and smeared and inconsistent from track to track, which made the quest even more appealing. This one is great; involving, NOT smeared, 3D — most of all it invites me in, instead of saying “OK, this may be a bit cloudy, but try to enjoy anyway.”

I’m on my 5th listen. And Catch Bull at Four is also seriously good. Such an underrated album. I’ll be back, inasmuch as most of my other vinyl sounds flaccid compared to these.

John

John,

Thanks for your letter. You are spot on with your observation about the sound being deliberately muddy.

Glyn Johns loves his tube compressors. They can make some tracks murkier than many of us would like, but they work positive wonders most of the time.

A lot of the smearing you reference is from uncleaned or improperly cleaned vinyl. Once we got our cleaning regimen dialed in, a lot of the smear we used to hear so often on old records stopped being a problem.

3-Dimensionality also greatly improves with clean, fully-restored vinyl.

A lot of old records just sound like old records until you figure out how to clean them right.

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Who Deserves the Credit for Knocking this Sticky Fingers Pressing Out of the Park?

Hot Stamper Pressing of the Music of The Rolling Stones Available Now

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

Hey Tom,   

All time world champ.  A cut above unbelievable!  All the magic sans the shrillness so common in the multitudinous copies I’ve heard.  Breathtaking finesse and musicianship exploding in holographic dynamics that are clean and tonally real and penetrating.  

What a copy.  Pure gold.  Thank you Tom.  You knocked it out of the park.

Phil

Dear Phil,

Fantastic news. We loved it too.

A small correction, if I may:

Some mastering engineer knocked it out of the park. All we did was find the ball, grab it and run with it.

And if you want to find the killer pressing that can sail over the back wall with ease, possibly landing in the bed of a pickup truck never to be seen again, there is only one way we know of to do it: by turning over lots of rocks.

Some of the rocks we turned over for our first big shootout many years ago can be seen in the picture below.

It was taken in the early- to mid-2000s. By that time I had been buying up Sticky Fingers in local record stores for more than twenty years. I didn’t have much to show for my efforts, however, as the records were just too noisy, scratched-up, groove-distorted and just plain bad sounding to qualify for a shootout.

It wasn’t until 2007, with the discovery of the Prelude Enzyme Record Cleaning System and the Odyssey record cleaning machine (similar to Keith Monks’ design from the 70s that I used to use) that we were finally able to get Sticky Fingers to sound good enough and play quietly enough to identify the Hot Stamper pressings lurking in the pile of copies you see below.

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Letter of the Week – “I have NEVER had such a big smile on my face while listening to this epic album.”

More of the Music of The Rolling Stones

Our new customer Michel wrote to tell us how much he likes his Super Hot Stamper pressing of Sticky Fingers.

Hi Tom,

Fifty two years ago when I was eleven I got given a little Sony cassette player and 4 cassettes. One of them was Sticky Fingers. Needless to say, I have listened to that album for five decades, as I am 63 now. I’ve listened to countless different pressings in that time span.

I have NEVER ever had such a big smile on my face, eyes shut, in absolute bliss, totally engrossed in how incredibly full and lush the sounds were, while listening to this epic album.

‘I Got The Blues‘ blew my brain it sounded so good.

That luscious warmth in perfect balance with the vocals and all the other instruments besides bass, guitar, drums.

The highs all there…no shrillness whatsoever…everything clear and precise…simultaneously within that warmth. It is a TRUE pleasure to listen to this lp…unmatched by endless other copies.

I feel so lucky to be having this experience. It is that good. I feel privileged to be in the presence of such sound. It is very healing!!

My parents were both classical musicians (violin and piano) and I got played classical music during mealtime as a baby…don’t know if that developed my ears and subsequent pleasure from beautiful sounds or not, but it sure feels like it.

This SHS is really something special. Many Many thanks to you and your crew, as you all have brought much joy into my life.

Michel

Michel,

Thanks for your enthusiatic letter!

Bringing joy into our customers’ lives is something we are fortunate to be able to do.

All the way back in 2007, after playing the Hoffman-Gray remastered Blue, we asked ourselves what was the point of these nothingburger records.

Do they bring anyone even a fraction of the joy the real thing could?

The answer was obvious even back then.

As you know firsthand, the attempts by other labels to remaster Sticky Fingers have been quite a bit less successful than Blue (which, truth be told, isn’t half-bad).

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Getting the Wife On Board Is Key to Audiophile Happiness

More of the Music of The Rolling Stones

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

Hi Tom,

My wife and I had a sort of meditative / semi-religious experience the other night when we were a bit woozy just from a long day and we sat and listened to Can’t You Hear Me Knocking. It was almost transcendent.

I was playing her the record for the first time to show her the money wasn’t wasted. That convinced her.

Andrew

Dear Andrew,

A very good strategy. You have to hear the record to know what the value of it is. I Got the Blues would have been my first choice, but being woozy is a big help too no matter what track you play.

Best, TP

Andrew had earlier noted to my main man Fred (who runs the business now) how bad the MoFi Sticky Fingers sounded.

Anyway, I told [Fred] how worthwhile it was to finally have a good copy of Sticky Fingers. I have three other copies, including the MFSL (it’s embarrassing they even released the record to begin with.)

I was checking out the MFSL copy again and I think the thing that really caught my ears in the past was the bass on Can’t You Hear My Knocking during the last three minutes when they do the Santana breakdown. Then you kinda notice it as a dull thud on other songs also. But I think that was the worst offender, especially since everything drops out.

I was rereading the articles about your business to see what I could glean about how you clean the vinyl. I still can’t believe the criticism since A) they’ve never actually heard one of your records and B) you offer a no questions asked money back guarantee. That just screams legitimacy. A con man who offers a 100% refund. I don’t think so.

I think these remasters and half speed remasters are bullshit and cashing in. That’s the con. Those people wouldn’t be so pissed off if you didn’t win people over who actually take the time to listen. To me it’s like hearing the perfect balance and placement of a great remastered CD but with all the depth of vinyl.

You are a good arbiter of what’s a good pressing by most any definition, at least from the two albums I have. And the Sticky Fingers really impressed me as I have 3 other copies.

They did a really nice job of remastering Joni Mitchell’s 70’s albums on CD and if you have a good CD player with good D to A conversion, it sounds pretty damn good. But it will never have the depth and 3-D space of a record. Not even close.

You capture the best of both worlds is how I think of it. Spending $200-$400 for some of these records is a no brainer. And Sticky Fingers was well worth the money. It’s kind of amazing people calling you out without listening.

Andrew,

It is indeed shocking how bad the bass is on MoFi’s records, and yet it is the rare audiophile that seems to notice. I cannot for the life of me understand it.

I appreciate the fact that you took the time to do your own shootout. That’s when a record like MoFi’s Sticky Fingers really shows just how awful it is.

As for our records being judged by people who have never heard them, to paraphrase Jonathan Swift, we’ve given up reasoning those folks out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.

Of course that doesn’t keep us from writing about it.

If you are able to judge records by their sound, not whatever hype may surround them, you are well on your way to putting together an audiophile quality record collection, a subject we discuss in a commentary entitled:

If, however, you believe you are able to judge the sound of records you’ve never played, then it’s more than likely that things will not work out well for you, as was probably the case for this gentleman:

We have a number of commentary sections devoted to thinking about records critically, the best of which is probably this one:

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