thin-sound

Paris 1917-1938 – Side One Versus Side Two

Hot Stamper Pressings of Mercury Living Presence Records Available Now

UPDATE 2025

This listing was written all the way back in 2012 for the first Hot Stamper pressing of SR 90435 we’d ever listed as a Hot Stamper.

Note that it only had one good side, and even that side had a serious problem.

Thirteen years later in 2025 we would do a real shootout for this wonderful recording and learn something very few audiophiles know to this day — that the best stampers and the worst stampers are sometimes the same stampers.

Our 2012 Review

Super Hot Stamper sound for Eric Satie’s wonderfully eccentric Parade (and the Auric piece as well) can be found on this rare original promo copy of Mercury SR 90435, a record that was previously on the TAS List if I’m not mistaken.

It certainly deserves to be. The sound is BIG and OPEN, and like so many Mercury recordings with the London Symphony, it’s rich and full-bodied, not thin and nasally as is so often the case with their domestically recorded releases. Above all the sound is transparent, lively and dynamic.

In many ways this album would certainly serve quite well as an audiophile Demo Disc: the timbre of the wide array of instruments used is (mostly) Right On The Money.

Check out the lengthy and humorous producer’s notes for the sessions below. And people think The Beatles discovered experimental sounds in the studio.

The Brass Lacked Weight

With one small exception: the brass doesn’t have all the weight of the real thing, and for that we have deducted one plus from our top grade of three.

Side one has classic bad Mercury sound.

So screechy, hard and thin. How many audiophiles own records like this and don’t know that the sound of one side is awful and the other brilliant?

Since so few have ever commented publicly about such matters — and even supposedly knowledgeable audiophile reviewers never bother to even bring up the subject of one side versus the other — one must conclude that this is a subject that has yet to pierce the consciousness of most of our audiophile brethren, especially the ones who haven’t yet discovered this site.

Now’s a good time to start. Dig in, you may be surprised by what you find.

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Audiophiles Should Skip Swingin’ the ’20s on OJC

Hot Stamper Pressings of Contemporary Jazz Records Available Now

This album is fairly common on the OJC pressing from 1988, but more recently we’ve found the sound of the OJC pressings we’ve played seriously wanting. They have the kind of bad reissue sound that plays right into the prejudices of record collectors and audiophiles alike, the kind for whom nothing but an original will do.

They were dramatically smaller, flatter, more recessed and more lifeless than even the worst of the ’70s LPs we played. (We tend to like those, by the way.)

The lesson? Not all reissues are created equal. Some OJC pressings are great — including even some of the new ones — some are awful, and the only way to judge them fairly is to judge them individually, which requires actually playing a large sample.

Since virtually no record collectors or audiophiles like doing that, they make faulty judgments – OJC’s are cheap reissues sourced from digital tapes, run for the hills! – based on their biases and reliance on inadequate sample sizes.

You can find those who subscribe to this approach on every audiophile forum there is. The methods they have adopted do not produce good results, but as long as they stick to them, they will never have to worry about discovering that inconvenient truth.

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Paganini on Heavy Vinyl – Where Is the Outrage?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Paganini Available Now

Years ago we managed to get hold of the Heavy Vinyl pressing put out by Fenn Music in Germany, about which a well known record dealer on the web (you may recognize the style) had this to say:

“Stunning Reissue Of EMI ASD 440 Recorded In Stereo In 1961. This Recording Featuring The Royal Philharmonic Conducted By Alberto Erede Provides Convincing Proof, If Any Were Needed, That Menuhin Was One Of The Great Violinists Of The 20th Century.”

The “convincing proof” provided by this record is that those responsible for it are Rank Incompetents of the Worst Kind (see what I did there?).

Screechy, bright, shrill, thin and harsh, it’s hard to imagine worse sound than this piece of Heavy Vinyl trash delivers.

Had I paid good money to buy this pressing from 2004 in the hopes of hearing the supremely talented Yehudi Menuhin of 1961 tear it up on Paganini’s legendary first two concertos, I can tell you one thing: I would be pissed.

Where is the outrage in the audiophile community over this kind of trash?

I have yet to see it. I suspect I will grow quite a bit older and quite a bit grayer before anyone from the audiophile commentariat notices just how bad this record sounds. I hope I’m proven wrong.

Screechy, bright, shrill, thin and harsh, it’s hard to imagine worse sound from this piece of Heavy Vinyl garbage.

In other words, no trace of the original’s (or the early reissue’s) analog sound. At most I may own one or two classical CDs that sound this bad, and I own quite a few. When audiophiles of an analog bent tell you they don’t like the sound of CDs, this is why they don’t like them: they sound like this junky Heavy Vinyl record.

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Obscured By Cloudy Japanese Vinyl

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Pink Floyd Available Now

When I was just getting up to speed in audio and exploring the world of music available on vinyl in the 70s, many of the stereo stores I frequented carried Japanese pressings. They were widely believed to have superior sound relative to their domestic counterparts — in this case, the mass-produced pressings I would see at the Tower Records right across from the Sports Arena in my hometown of San Diego. I went there at least once a week, probably more like two or three times.

Tower was far and away the best place to go record shopping in those days. The store was huge and they had dramatically more stock than Licorice Pizza or The Wherehouse.

They also had a separate section for Half-Speed mastered pressings from a number of labels, which of course was the first place in the store I would visit, digging through the bins to see what new remastered titles may have been produced for audiophiles searching for the ultimate in sound quality.

Of course, I identified as just such a person. In terms of sound quality, and with the extremely limited knowledge I had acquired at the time, I believed I set a high standard for the sound of the records I bought. I was willing — eager even, you could even say excited — to pay whatever premium price I had to for a record that was sure to deliver superior sound quality. To me, in the late 70s, that meant two things: direct to disc recordings, and Half-Speed mastered pressings.

(There was a another category of records that did not fall into the above two, best exemplified by American Grammaphone and the Fresh Aire series, but the less said about those schlocky releases the better, other than to point out that some of their titles are TAS list carryovers from HP’s time running the Super Disc list, specifically Fresh Aire 2 and 3, both best avoided.)

And, like any other open-minded individual, when it came to Japanese vinyl I was willing to give a few a spin.

However, the more of them I bought, the more clear it became to me that even the best of them sounded mediocre (veiled, smeary and dubby from second generation tapes) and more often than not they were just plain awful. (Second generation tape issues being the main problem, of course, with the additional insult of poor tonality, the result of being mastered using wacky equalization, typically with added brightness where none was needed.)

Pink Floyd

The notes for the Pink Floyd album you see below, Obscured by Clouds, were written sometime in March of 2025 as part of the shootout we conducted for the album.

If we assume it would be an audiophile who would be attracted to this pressing, perhaps for its quieter playing surfaces, perhaps operating under the assumption that the Japanese engineers mastering the record would be more likely to do a better job as well, then what we have here is a textbook case of an audiophile bullshit pressing.

One that sounds nothing like the album is supposed to, based on having played a number of exceptionally good sounding copies, all British and all on the Green Harvest label, mastered from good tapes, sometimes by the legendary Harry T. Moss. We feel we are more than qualified to make these judgments. If we can’t make them, nobody can.

Discogs allows us to glean some information regarding the desirability of this Japanese reissue with the record buying public currently in the market for Pink Floyd vinyl who register on their site.

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Andre Previn – These Two OJC Pressings Didn’t Make the Grade

Hot Stamper Pressings of Contemporary Jazz Recordings Available Now

The mastering choices of the cutting engineers for these two recordings did them no favors.

Like so many of the early OJC pressings we’ve played over the years, we found that both of these reissues tended to be somewhat thin tonally, with a brittle top end, which can clearly be heard in the tizzy quality of the cymbals.

This is not remotely the right sound for a vintage Contemporary recording.

When doing the shootouts for these albums, warmth turned out to be key to the sound of the best copies.

When the piano sounds warm and smooth, everything else in the recording seems to fall into place.

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Breakfast in America – An A&M Half-Speed Mastered Disaster

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Supertramp Available Now

Sonic Grade: F

This title is yet another Half-Speed we think belongs in our audiophile hall of shame.

It’s better suited to the stone age stereos of decades past. I should know — my system in 1976 was one-tenth as revealing as the one we use now.

But this pressing is so awful even my old system could not be fooled by this kind of audiophile BS sound. The console you see pictured might be the ideal system to play it. Hard to say, I haven’t heard one of those since the 60s.

It is just ridiculous that someone would consider marketing this kind of sound to audiophiles.

So washed out, brittle, thin and lifeless, it practically defies understanding that anyone with two working ears ever considered calling this piece of crap an “audiophile” record.

But are today’s remastered records marketed to those looking for superior sound any better? Not the ones we’ve played recently. (If you know of any good ones, please drop us a line.)

Is this A&M pressing the worst version of the album ever made? It’s hard to imagine it would have much competition.

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Stick with Porky on East Side Story

More Hot Stamper Pressings We Only Offer on Import Vinyl Available Now

Porky cut the original British pressings of this Squeeze album, one of countless personal favorites of yours truly. They are records (and cassettes and CDs) I have played hundreds of times and still listen to regularly to this very day, in this case more than forty years after I purchased my first copy. (Good albums age well.)

I would have picked the record out of the bin at my local Tower Records, probably based on the radio play Tempted was getting.

That copy undoubtedly would have been domestic and made from a sub-generation tape, although I’m quite sure I could not have recognized what constituted dubby sound back then. In 1981, what I understood about the importance of different record pressings would have fit comfortably in a thimble.

I had my MoFi’s, and although I hate to admit it, that’s about as far as I had gotten in my quest for superior sounding pressings. You could add Nautilus and a few other Half-Speeds to the list of what pressing I thought were impressive, leaving plenty of room in that thimble unfilled.

Thankfully those bad old days are gone, and the music can now, finally, live and breath on the best of these imports from the UK. Of course they are the only ones we buy these days for our shootouts. The others are what are known around these parts as “mistakes.”

Sometimes the imported pressings are mastered by Porky and sometimes they are not. The ones that are not tend to have a lot of problems, as you can see from our stamper sheet below.

When Porky is not on side one, that side will tend to be hard, lean and bright. Side two of that copy had decent sound, earning a minimal Hot Stamper grade of 1.5+.

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Coltrane’s Sound – Forget the 70s Reissues

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of John Coltrane Available Now

This is yet another superb Tom Dowd recording of Coltrane in his prime, with support from the brilliant McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones.

Just don’t bother with the later Red and Green Atlantic pressings.

Every one we’ve ever played was flat, dry, and thin. They sound like most of the cheap reissues that Atlantic churned out in the ’70s.

Don’t get me wrong; there are some good sounding records on the Red and Green label, but you really have to know what you are doing — or be really lucky — to find them.

We’ve played them by the score, and found relatively few winners among a slough of losers. If you want to take your chances on some, knock yourself out, more power to you, but expect to come up with nothing to show for your time and money almost every time. That’s been our experience anyway.

And be very thankful if you happen to run into one of these early Atlantic stereo pressings, especially if it plays quietly. Few Classic Coltrane albums survived the jazz lovers of the day and their awful turntables.

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Black Byrd on Heavy Vinyl – Yes, You COULD Do Worse!

Hot Stamper Pressings of Blue Note Recordings Available Now

We did a shootout for Black Byrd in 2025. We were fortunate to be able to include the Heavy Vinyl pressing that came out in 2002 along with the vintage pressings we had on hand.

The reissue was made back in the days when Rainbo Records was pressing records. (Scorpio carried a lot of Rainbo Records when I was still selling regular vinyl, and their pressings were often warped and defective, causing me to stop buying their releases.) Rainbo Records went under in 2011 (according to Discogs), not a moment too soon. They pressed mostly cheap junk vinyl aimed squarely at the lo-fi crowd.

But let’s get back to Black Byrd. Here is the way we described a Hot Stamper we put up on the site recently:

We played a bunch of these recently and only a few had the kind of sound we were looking for. This one was one of the best we heard — big, bold and lively with excellent presence. The bottom end is meaty and punchy, the highs are sweet and extended, and the mids sound right.

Most copies didn’t jump out of the speakers the way this one does. You’ll have a hard time finding such rich, smooth sound for this wonderful jazz album.

Some of these later pressings are just plain weak, but every now and then you find one like this that clearly benefits from the use of modern cutting equipment. The bass is tighter, the drums have more snap, and the soundfield has real depth. There’s excellent energy and good presence throughout, and the top end sounds just right.

Admittedly the above is fairly generic, but good records tend to do what good records always do, so why get specific? If you want to see in-depth notes for records that we’ve played in shootouts, we have a section full of them on the blog and you can be sure there are a great many more on their way if I have anything to say about it. (You can’t fire me — technically I still own the company.)

At around $30, all this Heavy Vinyl pressing would have to be is decent sounding. With a grade of 1+, it’s close, but just short of a cigar. Heavy Vinyl reissues of mediocre quality have their own section, mostly populated by the better releases on Speakers Corner, Cisco, Classic Records and others starting in the 90s.

We use the 1+ grade for vintage records that are passable, not good enough to qualify as a Hot Stamper but not really a bad pressing either.

A mediocre grade puts it well ahead of the pack when you consider just how dreadful many of the releases we’ve played recently turned out to be.

(The Heavy Vinyl disasters section you see below has more than two hundred entries at this point, with many more on the way. As long as they keep making bad sounding remastered vinyl, we’ll keep publishing our notes, hopefully to help music lovers and audiophiles more easily recognize their shortcomings. Perhaps someday both groups will recognize what a waste of money these pressings are.)

We only played side two of this copy for some reason. It’s possible side one is better, but it may be worse, we honestly can’t say since we didn’t play it. Considering it was pressed by Rainbo Records, side one is unlikely to be any better.

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With The Beatles on Mobile Fidelity

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now

Sonic Grade: C+

The MoFi pressing of With the Beatles has so many problems it would take an hour to describe them all. Suffice it to say, it’s thinner and brighter, with voices that are grittier and grainier. The overall effect is the sinking feeling that you are listening to a cheap reissue and not the real thing. Don’t the Beatles sound better than this? To be fair, some tracks are okay, others a disaster.

If you own the MoFi, play it. Listen to it carefully. Make notes of which songs sound better than others and why. That’s how we spend our days, evaluating the relative merits of various pressings, and it’s that and that alone that has given us the critical listening skills necessary to recognize and appreciate the differences among the records we play.

One of the biggest problems with the average Parlophone copy is just the reverse of the MOFI. They tend to have rolled off highs, which emphasizes the harshness in the upper midrange and causes a loss of transparency. (The best Hot Stamper copies are of course as smooth, sweet, and transparent as they come.) Even with those shortcomings though, I would still rather listen to a typical Parlophone pressing. I wouldn’t be frustrated by the sound of somebody fooling with the EQ and screwing it up.  (more…)