Hot Stamper Pressings of Large Group Jazz Recordings Available Now
What happens when all the stampers are RE-2?
This is precisely the problem we were faced with on the Jimmy Smith Verve album you see pictured to the left and whose stamper sheet is shown below.
What information can you rely on when trying to find the best sounding pressings? The stamper numbers are no help. There were some markings in the dead wax for the 3+ copies that were different from the copies that earned lower grades, but they are hard to read and most sellers we buy from would struggle to identify them.
No, on this record there was really nothing to go by other than the sound.
From our shootout panel’s point of view, this is the only way it can possibly work.