whs-letters

Our customers tend to be very enthusiastic about the sound of our White Hot Stamper pressings. Here is a sampling of the letters they have written us over the years.

Dark Side of the Moon – “A Wasted Purchase”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Pink Floyd Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about a White Hot Stamper pressing of Dark Side of the Moon he purchased a recently: Bill writes:

No, not my White Hot Stamper purchase.

But, rather, my purchase of an original UK edition, the so-called Holy Grail of pressings.

When I purchased the White Hot Stamper of Dark Side of the Moon a couple of weeks ago (for what seemed like an outrageous amount of money), I thought I’d compare it to the version I had, the 50th Anniversary, and send it back for a refund if it didn’t blow me away. It was the same strategy I had used several years ago when I bought a White Hot Stamper of Led Zeppelin II.

And the same thing happened to me this time that happened last time—the White Hot Stamper blew me away! It was so transparent. I heard things in the mix I had never heard before. The bass was tight, and the soundstage and “air” were HUGE. It was as big of a night/day comparison as the Led Zeppelin II comparison was.

Now, the bad news, for me.

Every source I checked said the original UK pressing is far and away the best pressing of Dark Side of the Moon.

So I bit the bullet and bought a pressing on eBay. It was, as advertised, in mint condition, with almost no surface noise.

And it was AWFUL compared to the White Hot Stamper. The soundstage was tiny in comparison, the bass was bloated, and overall it sounded muffled and lifeless. And, unfortunately, that UK pressing didn’t come with a money back guarantee. So I have a nice collectible on my hands that I will never listen to.

As Tom has pointed out many times, there are variations within pressings, so it might be that I just got a dud of a first pressing. One thing I have learned, though, is that even your outrageously priced White Hot Stampers, and maybe even especially your outrageously priced White Hot Stampers, are, in fact, a good bargain. Audio nirvana.

Bill

Bill,

Thanks for your letter, and sorry to hear you threw all that money away on a white elephant you will never find any use for. Unlike our records, at least it has some collector value. Discogs and ebay are your two best options for helping it find a new home.

The one good use I can think of for it would be to use it as a comparison pressing next time somebody comes over to your house and wants to hear the album. You could do a little shootout for them, just to see how far their jaw drops when the needle hits the groove on your Hot Stamper pressing.

I’m not going to say “I told you so,” but what I will do is refer you to the scores of commentaries on this blog telling you not to believe a word you read written by any of the self-described experts in the world of record collecting. Their advice just cost you a big chunk of dough. Now will you believe me?

Putting your faith in their record knowledge often turns out to be a one-way ticket to an expensive, non-refundable lesson. It has been for me anyway. I got hold of an early UK Dark Side and was disappointed too, though probably not as disappointed as you were, as mine was merely mediocre, maybe somewhere in the 1.5+ range.

We’ve all been there.

And if we hadn’t been there, we probably wouldn’t have learned much of anything about records, because experience is by far the best teacher. When it comes to audio and records, it’s practically the only teacher, something we have tried to change, with limited success, through this blog.

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“I felt wonderfully uplifted and clear-headed, and all the noise in my head had vanished. It lasted for hours. All that remained was a smile.”

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One of our good customers recently wrote us an especially touching letter about two debut albums we share a love for: Led Zeppelin’s and Jeff Beck’s. After listening to them at length, he felt the need to put into words the deep and powerful feelings our records had given him. (Emphasis added.)

Dear Tom, Kenji, and the Better Records Team,

I am writing to share my absolute astonishment after listening to the Hot Stampers I recently acquired. To give you some context, I set up a rigorous shootout against my own collection.

For Led Zeppelin, I prepared seven of my finest vintage vinyl copies:

    • One UK “Turquoise” First Pressing
    • Six US copies (cut by RG or GP; pressed by Presswell or Monarch with △12703 / △18257 matrix codes, spanning the Broadway to Rockefeller eras)

For Jeff Beck, All from my brain memory not real records:

    • Two “Japanese” First Pressing and reissue
    • Two UK “Blue Columbia” MONO & STEREO Pressing and one EMI reissue

If the seven Zeppelin records that rivaled the HOT STAMPER were like 8mm film, then the HOT STAMPER was 70mm Cinemascope!

A vast, rich space—stretching from wall to wall, floor to ceiling—appeared right before my eyes, and the sound that burst forth passed right through me.

I was so astonished by the sheer difference in scale that I couldn’t believe it.

I kept turning up the volume, bathing in the sound like a shower.

When I played the UK Turquoise and GP/MONARCH records again at the same volume, the sound was so blindingly bright and overwhelmingly loud that I had to lift the needle after just a few seconds.

As for Beck, ever since I was a teenager, no matter how many times I listened to *TRUTH*, I could never be satisfied with its sound, so I ended up selling it. I’d concluded that while *TRUTH* is a matter of personal musical taste, it wasn’t a record that sounded good. However, after seeing *SKEPTICAL AUDIOPHILE* recommend this record, I decided to give it one last challenge.

When I turned up the volume, it was as if the band was right there in front of me, in the fifth row. I was sharing that space with them, and the sound came straight at me without any barriers.

It was as if I were actually there at the concert.

This was my first time having an experience like this with my home audio system.

This is what a “WHITE HOT STAMPER” is! What a blissful time I had! Warm, Rich, Dynamic, & Transparent!

P.S.

1. After finishing both records, I felt wonderfully uplifted and clear-headed, and all the noise in my head had vanished. It lasted for hours. All that remained was a smile; my wife even remarked, “You look so happy.”

I can say with certainty that this was due to the chemical effects of the HOT STAMPER. I believe it resulted from a decrease in stress hormones like cortisol and an increase in the secretion of “happiness hormones” such as dopamine and serotonin.

Furthermore, after I finished listening and was tidying up the room where the records were scattered—something I’ve experienced several times before—my digestive system became more active. I attribute this to the relaxation effect of the HOT STAMPER. It’s likely due to the “brain-gut axis,” where my favorite music and the superb sound quality triggered parasympathetic dominance, stimulating intestinal peristalsis.

2. Considering the time, energy, and money spent tracking down this rare Zeppelin record, this is no ordinary man’s job. There is a Bible verse that says, “Ask, and it will be given to you.”

I offer my deepest respect and admiration, as well as my boundless gratitude and love, to the treasure hunters led by Tom, who have successfully completed this mission—a mission truly bestowed upon them by God.

Sincerely yours,
Nobu

Dear Nobu,

Thanks for describing so elegantly what it feels like to finally hear music you have treasured for decades sounding the way you always dreamed it could. I know well the feelings of bliss, exhilaration and joy that coursed through you. I’ve experienced them countless times myself since I first got into home audio fifty years ago.

There is a joy that cannot be expressed when music sounds so good there are no words to describe it. This is what audiophiles such as you and me live for.

Few have had the pleasure of experiencing it outside of a live musical event. We were able to do it with records, but they were very special records, the kinds of records few audiophiles know exist, or have any reason to believe exist. Fewer still have ever experienced such records. Indeed, we must count ourselves fortunate to have had the privilege.

You describe us as treasure hunters, which is a very good way of looking at who we are and what we do. We have been hunting for treasure for more than 30 years. Our dedication increased dramatically over the last twenty or so. By then we had finally given up on the false promise of the modern remastered record. (Fittingly, it was a exceptional straw that broke the camel’s back.)

You played our Hot Stamper pressings (Super Hot for Zep 1, White Hot for Truth) against all the copies that the conventional wisdom told you were sure to have the best sound. Now you know something not widely understood by the audiophile community, which is simply that when it comes to records, the conventional wisdom is not very good at predicting which pressings will turn out to have better sound.

This blog has well over a thousand commentaries detailing chapter and verse (to make use of a phrase associated with the bible) how this is simply a fact that cannot be denied by anyone who has carefully studied the matter.

You proved it for yourself. You did your own shootout. Who can gainsay the insights you acquired? Certainly not those who have never played one of our records. What evidence do they have to support their views?

Do they have a theory to base their objections on?

Is it more than a conjecture? A feeling? Some intuition? A form of knowledge beyond our understanding?

As you now know better than anyone, whatever they think they have to disprove the possibility of the Hot Stamper pressing, it is surely a crock.

I very much enjoyed hearing about the happiness you felt when playing such exceptional pressings of these wonderful albums. The joy of music is in many ways the greatest joy there is. It is the one thing that has driven me to pursue our hobby more than any other — in fact, to dedicate much of my life to it — and I have never seen reason to regret a moment of it.

Thank you for writing and brightening our day here at Better Records!

Best, TP

Letter of the Week – “…the WHS is huge and clear. It had ALL the positive attributes I heard in the others.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Pink Floyd Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about a Hot Stamper pressing of Dark Side of the Moon he purchased a while back:

Dear Tom and Fred,

This is one of those records where I already had a handful of well-regarded pressings. How intriguing that it was such an obscure pressing that won your shootout! [1]

I compared the WHS to my early US pressing (Ken Perry mastered [2]), my MoFi [3], a Japanese “blue triangle” pressing, and of course, the 2016 remaster [4].

Sure, there are tons of sought-after pressings that go for prices even more exorbitant than what I paid you, none of which I’ve heard, so I guess it’s not a proper shootout. But, at least among the ones I have, the WHS bested them all handily. In each of the others I was able to find something that I could appreciate, that on its own compared well to the WHS. This is such a great, and well-recorded, album that any pressing of it is going to have something worthwhile to offer.

The Japanese pressing came closest to the WHS. [Doubtful we would agree with you on the merits of this Japanese pressing. We rarely like them, and we like them less with each passing year.]

At the other end of the spectrum the 2016 remaster, noted for its great bass, just sounded clogged and thudding [5].

Compared to each of them, the WHS is huge and clear. It had ALL the positive attributes I heard in the others. Is it 15x better than my next-best copy? Objectively, probably not. But, subjectively, it must be, since I’m keeping it.

Since the hot stamper arrived the day after my Legacy Signature III’s got here, it was one of the first records I played on them. What a great pairing they are! 

This was of course the first mini-shootout I’ve done using the Legacys. What a great window into a record these speakers provide. I switched back to my Bowers and Wilkins 805s and re-ran the shootout, just to see if my impressions would still align. They did, with the hot stamper providing more vividness and a bigger sound than the other pressings did, even on the B&Ws.

But on the bigger speakers the hot stamper stands apart from the others by a wider margin.

Thank you both for all the great records you find, and thank you Tom for the stereo advice. You keep doing what you’re doing, and I’ll keep doing what I’m doing.

Aaron

Aaron,

Glad to hear you are a Legacy man now. We love our Legacy Speakers and can’t imagine doing shootouts without them. (The old ones, not the newer models.) The Big Speaker sound, at loud levels, is what allows a record like Dark Side of the Moon to be every bit the immersive experience we know it can be if you have a top quality pressing to play. Now you know it too.

And thanks for doing the shootout so that you know exactly what our best copies of Dark Side are capable of. If you make any improvement to your system, be sure to go back to this Dark Side and hear the change for yourself.

Then play any of these other pressings and note how the gap has widened. That is our experience and we expect you will find the same differences in your listening room as well.

The following notes may be of general interest:

[1} Obscure pressings that sound better than everything else are our bread and butter here at Better Records.

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Letter of the Week – “…the overall sound is like as if I have upgraded my entire system.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Neil Young Available Now

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

Hey Tom, 

I just wanted to thank you for helping me own my first “White Hot Stamper.”

I have had two copies of After the Gold Rush and none of them comes close to my WHS copy.

I’m perfectly happy owning Hot Stampers and a few Super Hot Stampers, but this WHS is really different. To begin with, it is a quiet copy that allows you to hear and almost feel the texture of the instruments. It also has lots of energy, tight bass, big sound stage, and most of all a silky top end. 

Without exaggeration, the overall sound is like as if I have upgraded my entire system.

My biggest challenge now is, with few exceptions, all my favorite non-Hot Stamper albums need upgrading too. But with you guys around, I just have to wait till my favorite albums show up on your Hot Stampers list.

Gerardo

Gerardo,

Thanks for writing, and thanks for taking the time to do your own shootout.

Now you know from your own experience just how good the right pressings of After the Gold Rush can sound.

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Letter of the Week – “Let’s just say the physiological experience was absolutely terrific.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Rolling Stones Available No

One of our good customers had this to say about a Hot Stamper copy of Let It Bleed he purchased recently.

Hi Tom,

Just a quick note to say that I’ve never been more engaged with the music of Let It Bleed than yesterday when I heard a 3+ side one.

Let’s just say the physiological experience was absolutely terrific.

I don’t need to go on about the sound, as it was simply the best I’ve ever heard. So transparent!

I am feeling very fortunate to be really enjoying this music the way it was meant to sound.

Michel

Michel,

We like to think that the White Hot Stamper pressings we offer are the ones that take the music to another level, typically beyond where the listener (and that even includes us) thought it could go.

It seems that you had the same kind of revelation that many of our customers have had when they finally hear a famous recording sound the way they had always wished it could.

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Letter of the Week – “I called off a meeting, poured a whiskey, and let it rip.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Bruce Springsteen Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about a White Hot Stamper pressing he purchased recently:

Dear Tom,

My White Hot Stamper of Born in the USA arrived today.

I called off a meeting, poured a whiskey, and let it rip.

How nice to be able to finally hear one of the albums I’ve listened to the most in my life.

Hearing where the backing vocalists are standing on Darlington County was a revelation.

Aaron

Dear Aaron,

Thanks for your letter.

Yeah, Born in the U.S.A. is a tough one — so much distortion and processing make for a tough shootout!

We would be foolish to make claims for “audiophile quality” sound on Springsteen’s albums — they are what they are. The simple claim we make for our Hot Stampers is that the best of them sound as good as the album can sound, and we back that up with a 100% Money Back guarantee.

Born in the U.S.A. is yet another example of an album that must be graded on a curve.

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Letter of the Week – “No one doubted your records after this listening session.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stamper pressings of Abbey Road and ELP’s debut he purchased a while back.

Hey Tom, 

Yesterday, I attended an audio event in Verona, NJ, where I had purchased my stereo.

I spent my time in the “analog” room. This room had the flagship equipment (Vandersteen 7 speakers, Aesthetix Jupiter series amps, pre-amps, phono stage, Clearaudio’s Goldfinger Statement cartridge, etc).

I listened for a while, hearing all the issues with almost every record they played. I then asked the store’s “turntable guru” to play some of the records I brought with me.

They thumbed through my boxes and asked me what the difference was between my two copies of Abbey Road. When I explained the superior side X on either copy, the audience found this concept amusing, based on their laughter. Any doubters would soon become believers.

They played Abbey Road‘s side 2 (3+ side, of course). While “Here Comes The Sun” was playing, Garth had his eyes closed. At the track’s conclusion, he exclaimed “Outstanding!,” and the record played on.

Next, we listened to ELP’s “Lucky Man.” Garth said it was the best he had ever heard.

I do not really know Garth, but I suspect he does not easily offer up such compliments in a room full of people. Others in the room, including the store’s turntable guru, were all very impressed. Several folks approached me, all pointing out parts of the music that blew them away.

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Letter of the Week – “The most remarkable drums I’ve ever heard, especially on side two.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Santana Available Now

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

Hey Tom, 

[The Abraxas White Hot Stamper] is a monster. Practically tore down the walls. The most remarkable drums I’ve ever heard, especially on side two. The sound is completely circumambient, completely enveloping, but always musical with lovely harmonics even when blasting in the tuttis.

The Mobile Fidelity, which I own, is an attenuated portraiture of the real thing. I will soon be dropping it off at the local Salvation Army store.

Phil

Phil,

Quick question: Did you buy your MoFi before or after I put it in my Mobile Fidelity hall of shame?

And wrote this review of it: MoFi Manages to Disgrace Itself Even Further

See what happens when you don’t read my blog?

You end up with crappy remastered records like the ones Mobile Fidelity has been spewing out for more than forty years.

Some forum posters take us to task for criticizing the old MoFi that everybody knows made lousy records, not the new MoFi, which they believe — for reasons that I cannot begin to understand — makes good sounding records.

If this is the pride of the new MoFi, and it seems to be, I will leave it to those who post on forums to defend it. I certainly am not up to the task.

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Letter of the Week – “To think I spent all those years playing a record that was bright and edgy, none the wiser to matrix numbers and pressing variations.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Michael Jackson Available Now

Our good customer who goes by the handle ab_ba on the web wrote to us about his experience with the White Hot Stamper pressing of Michael Jackson’s Thriller he recently acquired.

Part one of his letter can be found here.

Here he tells us about the shootout he conducted, which included a “pricey Japanese pressing” and a pressing that the forums recommended as the “holy grail.”

A few weeks later, on the eve of the closing of the return window, I shot it out against the best of my other copies. They range from the copy I grew up with, one of the few records from childhood that I held onto, to a pricey Japanese pressing in great shape (purchased long ago, when I thought Japanese pressing were where it’s at), to some copies I’ve picked up over the years because they looked to be in good shape and they were just five bucks, and a pressing that the forums told me was the “holy grail.”

None stacked up to the white hot stamper. In fact, they really weren’t even close. Here’s what I found:

The copy I grew up with is bright and edgy. To think, I spent all those years playing and re-playing a record that was bright and edgy, none the wiser to matrix numbers and pressing variations.

Some other lucky kid back then was surely listening to the copy I now own. I wonder if he ever said to himself, “wow, there’s something about this record. It sounds really special.”

The pressing with a sought-after matrix code had phenomenal bass, but the vocals were recessed. I’d so easy to be impressed with those huge drums on Billie Jean, but that alone is not enough to tell you it’s a great pressing. A lot of pressings seem to get that right.

My Japanese pressing was clear and full. But too smooth. The guitars don’t bite. Also, it fatigued me by about halfway through the side. This is energetic music. It might exhaust you, but it doesn’t have to fatigue you. This is an example of where if you don’t have a white hot stamper to compare it to, you’ll just assume your version sounds as good as it can get.

Dear ab_ba,

Most Japanese pressings cater to the sound a mid-fi system would need to sound good and a hi-fi system would find disastrous. They are almost always made from dubbed tapes, which are then brightened up in the mastering phase since that is the sound that appeals to the Japanese market for some reason unknown to me. (Old school audio equipment — horn speakers and vintage tube electronics — would be my guess.)

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Letter of the Week – “I immediately noticed an improvement in lower end presence with the white hot stamper.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Jackson Browne Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about some a Hot Stamper pressing of Late for the Sky he purchased a while ago:

Hey Tom, 

It’s been a good day of listening! Something about this copy of Late for the Sky is bugging me. Jackson’s voice just doesn’t seem as natural sounding as in the other albums I have. Wondering if the white hot stamper you have might be a better choice? Thinking this album (more his voice) should sound as good as the other two I bought ? If you think the white hot stamper would be a better choice should I just order it then send this one back?

Thanks again for your help!

Rob

Rob,

It is always a good idea to hear the best copy against whatever you have, even when you have a Hot Stamper. It’s unlikely to fix the problem you hear with the voice — not sure what those might be, the recording is what it is and if they wanted the voice to sound the way it does, we just accept it as a choice they made, grading on a curve and all that — but it is possible you might like it better, even a lot better. 

Go ahead and order it, you have nothing to lose and plenty to gain. Hang on to your old copy for now so you can play the two against each other.

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