super-shortcomings

Pros and Cons of this Copy of Swings in High Stereo

Hot Stamper Pressings of Large Group Jazz Recordings Available Now

Side One

Big and spacious, yet clear, dynamic and energetic. The brass is never “blary” the way it can be on so many Big Band or Dance Band records from the 50s and 60s. (Basie’s Roulette records tend to have a bad case of blary brass as a rule.)

Sharp transients and mostly correct tonality and timbres, powerful brass — practically everything you want in a Hot Stamper is here!

The stage is exceptionally wide on this copy.

Listen to the top end on track two — man, that is some natural sound!

This side could use a bit more weight so we feel a grade of Super Hot (A++) gets it right.

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The Up-Front Vocals on Bringing It All Back Home Can Be a Bit Much

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Bob Dylan Available Now

It’s hard to find copies of this album that give you the tubey richness and warmth that this music needs to sound its best. We’ve done this shootout a number of times over the years, but I can count the number of Hot Stamper copies that have hit the site on one hand.

A lot of copies seem to be EQ’d to put the vocals way up front, an approach that makes the voice hard and edgy. Copies like that sound impressive at first blush (“Wow, he’s really IN THE ROOM!”) but get fatiguing after a few minutes. When you get a copy that’s smooth, relaxed and natural, the music sounds so good that you may never want it to stop.

Our Hot Stamper Pressings from Years Ago

Side one is lively and present with a punchy bottom end and real depth to the soundfield. It’s also open and transparent with lots of natural ambience. Compared to the A+++ side two here, there’s a touch of grit and grain at times, but dramatically less than you get on most copies. We rated side one A++, which means you get excellent sound for Subterranean Homesick Blues, Maggie’s Farm, She Belongs To Me and a few more classic Dylan tracks.

Side two was UNSTOPPABLE — it was clearly As Good As It Gets based on years of listening and scores of copies auditioned over the years. Everything sounds right — the vocals and guitar sound wonderfully natural and correct with superb clarity and lots of richness and warmth. 

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Manna – Super Hot Versus White Hot

Hot Stamper Pressings of Great Sounding Pop Albums Available Now

Back in the mid- to late-2000s, we felt we owed our Hot Stamper customers a more complete picture of the good and bad qualities we heard in our shootout for practically every record we played.

The idea was that the buyer could listen along for what the record was doing well and what it might not be doing so well. If you noticed that the top end was a little soft, well, that’s what we might have heard too. We would put that shortcoming, and any others we thought worth mentioning, right there in the listing.

Over the years, in order to avoid having to write every listing from scratch, we streamlined the process and dropped the criticisms.

Below you can see a typical example of an older listing. This is how we used to recognize when a record was Super Hot as opposed to White Hot.

This commentary on the famous recording of The Firebird with Dorati discusses the same issues in more depth.

Side One

A++, with good balance and lots of rockin’ energy. It’s transparent — just listen to how clear the drums are on the first track. It’s a bit dry and doesn’t have all the top end extension of the best, so Super Hot is a fair grade we think.

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