thought-for-the-day

Thought for the Day – Progress Depends on the Unreasonable Man

Skeptical Thinking Is Critical to Achieving Better Sound

Playwright George Bernard Shaw on why we need unreasonable people:

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

When the conventional wisdom turns out to be correct — in other words, when it comports with reality, we are happy to temporarily put aside our skepticism and learn whatever lessons the records are trying to teach us.

Why? Because the experimental evidence supports it.

And that’s how we make money, by selling the pressings that really do sound the best, regardless of what the audiophile hive-mind has to say about them.

When rules of thumb work, they’re very handy for the amateur record collector looking for better than average sound. It’s all the times that they don’t work that are the problem — the exceptions to the rule, especially if one of those exceptions just happens to be a favorite album of yours.

Then you’re really up a creek. You followed a general rule that usually works, but has in this case failed, and now you really don’t have any other way to find a solution to your problem.

Fortunately for readers of this blog, we do, and we share that knowledge with you.

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The Only Approach to Audio that Works

“Doing” Audio Is the Only Workable Approach to Better Sound

Best-selling author Nassim Taleb (“The Black Swan,” among many others) on why earned knowledge and immersing oneself in the smallest details of any subject lead to success:

“The knowledge we get by tinkering, via trial and error, experience, and the workings of time, in other words, contact with the earth, is vastly superior to that obtained through reasoning…”

This idea ties in to a great many commentaries we’ve written on this blog, more about records than the pursuit of higher quality audio in the home. We are, after all, in the record business, not the audio business.

This commentary describing how big questions rarely have good answers gets to the heart of why predicting which record pressings should be the best is a fool’s errand. An excerpt:

We’re really not that interested in big questions, mostly because there aren’t any big answers for them.

When it comes to records, being able to reveal deep underlying truths about a wide range of vinyl pressings is simply not possible. To be honest, we don’t think it can be done.

It’s not that we don’t have plenty of working knowledge. It’s that we have so much of it that we needed a blog to hold it all so that we could share it with others.

No, our working knowledge is made up of lots of little bits of data that guide us in discovering the best sounding pressings for the individual titles we choose to play.

It would be nice to have general rules to help us in our search for better sound on vinyl, but our experience tells us that general rules are so unreliable that they fail to function as rules at all.

And the same thinking applies to audio equipment, room treatments, turntable setup and everything else having to do with reproducing music in the home. We made the point years ago that tuning and tweaking — in other words, getting your hands dirty — is one of the best ways to improve your listening skills, which can’t help but lead to improvements in your ability to reproduce your favorite recordings. An excerpt:

Since we play all kinds of records all day, practically every day, as part of our regular shootout regimen, tweaking and tuning are much easier for us to do than they would be for most audiophiles. As I have told many in this hobby over the years, if you don’t do the work, the only person who doesn’t get to hear better sound is you. I can come home to my good sounding stereo — I’ve put in the work — but you’re stuck listening to all the problems you haven’t solved, right?

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Making Mistakes Is Key to Finding Better Sounding Records

Our Guide to Record Collecting for Audiophiles

Wise men and women throughout the ages have commented on the value of making mistakes.

Here is one of our favorite quotes on the subject.

“A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying… that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.”   Alexander Pope, in Swift, Miscellanies

When I think of the 20 odd years (early ’70s to early ’90s) I wasted trying to figure out how audio works before I had acquired any real critical listening skills, it brings to mind that old Faces’ song, “I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger.”

Learning how to do shootouts for your favorite albums is without a doubt the fastest and easiest way to hone your listening skills, a subject we discuss often on the site and most cogently in this commentary from way back in 2005.

We believe that the only way to really learn about records is to gather a big pile of them together, clean them up and listen to them one by one as carefully and critically as possible.

We do not recommend devoting much time to reading about them in magazines or on forums.

We also would dissuade the serious record collector from paying much attention to what the most sought after or most expensive pressings are. Records have market prices based on a host of factors that have almost nothing to do with sound quality.

And don’t think you can “logically” predict which pressings should sound the best and then just go about acquiring them.

None of these methods are likely to produce good results.

Making mistakes will though. And the more you make, the more you learn. The more you learn, the easier it is to recognize and pursue good records. It also makes it easy to part with your bad ones. The latter group we hope will include the majority of your holdings of Heavy Vinyl and Half-Speed Mastered Recordings. At best those should be seen as placeholders. They’ll do until something better comes along. And considering how mediocre so many newly remastered records are, “something better’ should not be hard to find.

And the better developed your critical listening skills become, the less likely “they’ll do” at all. They’ll just get put on a shelf. It has been our experience that good records get played and bad records don’t.

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To Find the Most Elusive Hot Stamper Records, “Press On!”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Ambrosia Available Now

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”

Calvin Coolidge

If you substitute “finding Hot Stamper pressings” for the words “the human race” you will better appreciate the point we are trying to make with this commentary.

ambrosiasomewhereOur story today revolves around the first Hot Stamper listing we had ever done for Ambrosia’s second — and second best — album. It took us a long time to find the right pressing.

Do you, or any of the other audiophiles you know, keep buying the same album over and over again year after year in hopes of finding a better sounding copy?

We do — and have been for more than twenty years as a matter of fact. Here’s why.

Around 2007 I stumbled upon the Hot Stampers for this record — purely by accident of course, there’s almost no other way to do it — and was shocked — shocked — to actually hear INTO the soundfield of the recording for the first time in my life, this after having played copy after frustratingly opaque copy for roughly thirty years.

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The Reward Comes After

Richard Feynman Is Another Guy with Good Advice on Making [Audio] Progress

But first let’s check in with Shane Parrish, who writes:

You have to train before the race, not after. You have to build the skill before you get the job that requires it. You have to be trustworthy for years before anyone trusts you with something important. The bill comes first. The reward comes later.

The universe does not offer financing.

This is hard to accept because modern life trains us to expect the opposite. We are addicted to “Buy Now, Pay Later.” You live in the house before you pay off the mortgage. You get the degree before you pay off the loan. You eat the meal before you ask for the check.

We are conditioned to enjoy the benefit today and pay the cost tomorrow.

Achievement reverses the transaction. It requires full payment in advance (and regular payments forever). If you want a fit body, a calm mind, a healthy relationship, or financial independence, the cost is non-negotiable. You must do the work before you get the result.

This is why most people quit. They pay a little, see nothing, and stop. They never make it far enough to see the first return arrive.

Some of this comports well with my audio experience over the last fifty years or so, but some of it does not. I feel the need to add some context to Shane’s advice when it comes to the hobby I have devoted most of my life to.

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Earned Wisdom Versus Borrowed Wisdom

Record Experiments Taught Us Practically Everything We Know

Shane Parrish writes:

Borrowed wisdom breaks under pressure because you haven’t earned it.

You’re trusting someone else’s compression without knowing what created it.

Earned wisdom, on the other hand, holds up because it’s rooted in your actual experience.

You know when it works, why it works, when to ignore it and when to bend it because you created the compression.

It’s amazing how far you can get in this hobby if you’re obsessive enough and driven enough. (See links below for more on these two drivers of success.)

To achieve real success you must be willing to devote huge amounts of time, money and effort to the pursuit of better home audio.

You will really go far if you’re willing to let your ears, not your brain, inform your understanding and appreciation of the sound of the various pressings you play.

If we thought like most audiophiles — that money buys good sound and original pressings are usually the best — we would currently be very unlikely to have a business selling a million dollars or more worth of Hot Stampers every year.

(For those new to the idea, here are the short versions of what they are and how you go about acquiring them.)

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“Ninety percent of success can be boiled down to consistently doing the obvious thing for an uncommonly long period of time…”

More Entries from Tom’s Audiophile Notebook

“Ninety percent of success can be boiled down to consistently doing the obvious thing for an uncommonly long period of time without convincing yourself that you’re smarter than you are.” — Shane Parrish

Everybody knows that practice of any skill with the idea of challenging yourself will more than likely make you better at practically anything you choose to do. But where have you ever seen those concepts applied to bettering your own audio skills other than right here on this blog? (And Robert Brook‘s of course.)

Just how would you go about challenging yourself as an audiophile?

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“We want the outcome, but we need the journey.”

Experiments Taught Us Everything We Know about Records

Thought for the Day

We want the outcome, but we need the journey.

Falling in love with outcomes doesn’t move you forward.

Falling in love with the process does.

Shane Parish

It’s amazing how far you can get in this hobby if you’re obsessive enough and driven enough. (See links below for more on these two drivers of success.)

To achieve real success you must be willing to devote huge amounts of time, money and effort to the pursuit of better home audio.

You will really go far if you’re willing to let your ears, not your brain, inform your understanding and appreciation of the sound of the various pressings you play.

If we thought like most audiophiles — that money buys good sound and original pressings are usually the best — we would currently be very unlikely to have a business selling a million dollars or more worth of Hot Stampers every year.

(For those new to the idea, here are the short versions of what they are and how one goes about acquiring them.)

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Thoughts on Classical Music and My Hot Stamper Collection

Hot Stamper Pressings of Classical Masterpieces Available Now

UPDATE 2025

Since moving to Georgia in 2023, my Hot Stamper listening sessions have come to a stop. I still have clear memories of hearing some of the great albums we sell, and many of those recollections inform the commentary found on this blog.

Dear Tom,

So what I can’t get out of my mind, you have been doing this all these years, your own personal collection must be the creme de la creme. Cannot even imagine. But sure would love to hear!

Dear Chuck,

I’ve had an extensive record collection for all of my life, right up until about fifteen years ago. Starting at the tender young age of 10, I bought the 45 of She Loves You on Swan records, which I still own. Can’t play it, it’s broken, but I keep it anyway. When I was a kid, I used to take my two dollar weekly allowance and buy two 45s with it. Did that for years. Still have them, close to two hundred in old carrying cases. I look forward to playing them in my retirement.

I had hundreds of amazing sounding LPs in my collection, the best of the best from more than 20 years of doing shootouts. About fifteen years ago I asked myself what were all these great sounding records sitting on a shelf for? I never played them because I got to hear all my favorite records every day, and after playing records all day, the last thing I wanted to do at night or on a weekend was pull a record off the shelf and play it.

So I put all my personal records into shootouts, and sometimes they did well and sometimes they did not. (Those of you who go back and play your old records from years past will surely find some real surprises, both good and bad.)

I sit my wife down from time to time when the stereo is at peak playback after doing shootouts all day. I might put on Deja Vu or Back in Black or The Wall or some other amazing pressing we’ve just found, and I always point out to her that this is a record that will be gone next week. This is it, listen to it now because you will not have the chance again for many months, maybe even years.

Most audiophiles outside of our customers rarely have that experience, but it’s really the only way I listen to music anymore, on the best pressings in the world.

I play mostly classical records these days, which, on the best vintage pressings, are really a thrill on big speakers at loud volumes. We had to stop going to the Santa Barbara symphony because the sound was better in my listening room than it was in that hall. Practically all of the performances on vinyl were better too, to tell you the truth.

I can’t compete with Disney Hall for sonics, but it takes two hours to get there and good tickets are $300-500 each. It’s tough to make the commitment at those prices, especially when you have spent your entire adult life building a great stereo and room. Suspension of disbelief is immediate and lasting.

The best classical recordings cannot hold a candle to a good orchestra in a good hall, but it has been my experience that those two things in combination are very hard to find in the real world. Fortunately for me, the memory of the music and sound I used to hear at the Disney Hall faded after a few weeks, at which point I could go back to playing my classical records and enjoying the hell out of them.

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Getting Older and Losing Patience

More Entries from Tom’s Audiophile Notebook

That guy you see pictured to the left has spent much of the last forty years wandering around used record stores looking for better records (ahem). Before that he wandered around stores that sold  new records because he didn’t know how good old used records could be.

Here are some of the things he’s learned since he started collecting at the age of ten, sixty years ago. (First purchase: She Loves You on 45. It’s still in the collection, although it cracked long ago and is no longer playable.)

I’ve noticed an interesting development in the world of record collecting, one that seems to be true for me as well as many of my customers.

As I’ve gotten older I find I have more money, which allows me to buy higher quality goods of all kinds, including — and especially — records.

I also seem to have much less tolerance for practically anything of mediocre quality.

And I have much less patience with the hassle of having to work to find a record exceptional sound, one that actually will reward me for the time and effort it will take to throw it on the turntable, sit down and listen to it all the way through.

As a consequence, if I’m going to play a record, I’m going to make sure it’s a good one, and I don’t want to have to play five or ten copies to find the one with the magic that will keep me involved from start to finish.

Because it’s our business, we actually do play five or ten copies of every record we judge, but I sure don’t have the patience to go through all that rigamarole for my own personal listening the way I did before I retired.

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