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.

Letter of the Week – “The WHS made the music sound more natural and more involving.”

More of the Music of Steely Dan

One of our good customers recently bought a Super Hot pressing of Aja, and wasn’t quite sure if he loved the music enough to keep it, so he wanted to try a White Hot Stamper pressing to see if that would win him over, the idea being that the better sound of the White Hot copy would communicate the music better. This is his story.

Dear Tom,

Probably my favorite thing to do in audio these days is putting on a record of yours for the first time. When the Aja White Hot Stamper came, I had to wait a few hours until after the kids were all tucked in. I listened with headphones for a change, and right away I could tell how clear and intricate this copy was. Knowing how my other copies sounded, I knew no shootout was going to be necessary.

I also really love doing mini-shootouts of my own. It’s a great way to really sink in to listening for a while. I don’t have 16 other copies of Aja, the way your other customer described, but I could still stack your WHS up against three other ABC pressings with identical-looking labels and nearly-identical deadwax, along with a MoFi and a Japanese pressing.

It proved to be the most beguiling shootout I’ve ever done. Each copy had merits, and among the ABC pressings, I was hearing clear similarities to the WHS. This is such delicate and full music, so obviously well-recorded, that I guess it’s hard for any pressing to completely muck it up.[1]

I’ve heard you say that a white hot stamper is a copy that just does everything right, and that was completely true in this case. The differences were subtler, but also more important, than they usually are in my mini-shootouts. The WHS made the music sound more natural and more involving. All those crazy details, present in the others if you really pay attention, came right up to the surface when the WHS played.

I really can’t claim it trounced the others, but I can certainly say that it had the best aspects of each of them, while in turn not being improved on in any aspect by any of the others. Sure, it would be fun to get to hear one of the sought-after pressings, like a Cisco, but with prices verging on hot stamper territory, it’s not like I’m going to go track that down. I’ll just content myself with your word that this one would beat one of those.[2] Since I’m not feeling anything lacking here, I have no reason to keep going.

After almost every purchase from you, I ask myself, “is it worth what I paid?” This was a funny one. I don’t love Steely Dan, even though all indications are that I should. I’ve always dug Aja, but not to the obsessive levels I know others to be (and that I am with other records). I was curious to own a WHS because I know it’s such a well-recorded album, I knew I’d love the sound, and as you suggested when I asked you about it, I wanted to see if a great-sounding copy could help me get into the music.

So far so good. I appreciate the virtuosity of the musicians, the touch they’ve got on their instruments, the clever wordplay (now that the vocals are so easy to make out), and the communication among them, like a great jazz session. Is it worth what I paid? Well, I’m not sending it back, even though I know you wouldn’t mind if I did. So, thanks for another gem in my collection.

Thank you,

Aaron

Aaron,

Thanks for your letter. A few thoughts:

[1] Yes, an early ABC pressing is unlikely to sound wrong or terrible in our experience. Of the hundred or more that we’ve played, a don’t remember one that did not at least sound good enough to sell, earning perhaps our lowest Hot Stamper grade.

You’ve recently upgraded your system quite a bit. If you keep going that way, in five or ten (or two!) years you may want to revisit the WHS copy relative to your other three ABC pressings (forget the others) and see what changes you have wrought, although I do not recommend you use Aja as a test disc, for the simple reason that extremely artificial recordings can often sound amazingly good, but when your system goes off the rails to some degree from a new tweak or change, they will sound different, but not necessarily better or worse, not more right or more wrong, and then you don’t know whether the change was a good one or a bad one.

Different means nothing. Things sound different all the time.

More right or more wrong should always be your test.

Test discs like the ones we recommend should make it easy to distinguish better from worse, right from wrong. Test discs that don’t are simply not good test discs and should not be used for that purpose.

[2] Don’t take my word for how bad the Cisco pressing is. We have letters from customers who say the same thing.

The Cisco is so bad we call it a pass/fail record.  We describe pass/fail records this way:

Some records are so wrong, or so lacking in qualities that are crucial to the sound — qualities typically found in abundance on the right vintage pressings — that the advocates for these records, reviewers and audiophiles alike, have clearly failed to judge them accurately.

Tea for the Tillerman on the new 45 may be substandard in almost every way, but it is not a Pass/Fail pressing. It lacks one thing above all others, Tubey Magic, so if your system has an abundance of that quality, the way many vintage tube systems do, the new pressing may be quite listenable and enjoyable. Those whose systems can play the record and not notice this important shortcoming are not exactly failing. Audiophiles of this persuasion most likely have a system that is heavily colored and not very revealing, but it is not a system that is hopeless.

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Letter of the Week – “The most expensive record I ever bought but well worth the dough!”

More of the Music of Led Zeppelin

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

I will share with you guys a few more observations.

You will not be surprised to learn that the Led Zep 2 WHS leads the pack. The most expensive record I ever bought but well worth the dough!

Your description says it all: Freakishly good! Firmly trounced my early UK plum and my German RL (side 1).

No disapointments regarding the sound whatsoever with all others. One has to understand though that a 3/3 is an absolute judgement but a relative one (Bruce Springssteen comes to mind) but if one follows you long enough the prices asked for give a bit of indication so that‘s fine with me.

Christian ended his letter with these thoughts.

You made my life better with your records. I keep learning a lot from you following your site everyday now, enhanced my listening skills and sometimes detect now my own HS (just listening and comparing my two early UK Track Who Tommy inspired by your listing yesterday) and am amazed by the quality but also differences from side to side).

Best.
Christian

Christian,

We are so happy to hear that we’ve made your life better with our records, who could ask for anything more?

It wasn’t hard for us to beat your UK and German pressings, the UK original is a joke next to the good RL pressings. I hope you had a chance to play our Hot Stamper against the Heavy Vinyl reissue. If you did, please let us know what you heard.

As for your copies of Tommy have side to side differences, we’ve been going on about that for three decades, but for some reason audiophiles and those who write for them never notice these things.

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Letter of the Week – “…the $900 White Album is blowing my mind…”

More of the Music of The Beatles

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

Hey Tom, 

Loving the recent records… the $900 White Album is blowing my mind… keep thinking I’m going to have to wipe Paul McCartney’s spit off my toes…

And the K. D. Lang… words fail for the sound here (not to mention the music) – it’s MASSIVE and lush.

Also, I’ll include the new AP Kind of Blue UHQR with this return for you to hear. I have been burning in a new phonostage, and my previous impressions were a bit rough and ready given that I was having to use a temporary phonostage at that time… so now I’d say that while yes there is more air in this issue/pressing than the claustrophobic and downright weird MoFi, this doesn’t sound natural; instruments (esp. horns) have no edge to them; piano and horn fade together in a single midi-like tone… see what you think and let me know.

Dear C.,

Looking forward to hearing it. Nothing could be more wrong sounding than the new MoFi Kind of Blue, but AP could certainly give it a run for its money in the weird Audiophile Remastering Race to the Bottom that these labels are currently engaged in, owing to their production of one awful Heavy Vinyl LP after another.

What you describe are the trademark sounds of bad mastering choices, which are the only kinds of choices that Analogue Productions makes it seems.

As you may have read elsewhere on this blog:

As long as Analogue Productions is around, at least no one can say that Mobile Fidelity makes the worst sounding audiophile pressings in the history of the world. They are certainly some of the worst, but not so bad that they have never made a single good sounding record, which is the title that Chad Kassem holds (to the best of our knowledge. Obviously we have only played a small fraction of the records released by him. In our defense let me say that that small fraction was all we could take.)

Thanks for your letter. That White Album was indeed killer. For $900 it had better be!

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Letter of the Week – “The 3+ sides really light up the room and at times have me shaking my head in disbelief at the musical presentation. Holy smokes!”

More Hot Stamper Testimonial Letters

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

Hey Tom,  

You know I am a Better Records believer having purchased hot stampers over the past decade and having over 90% of my collection hot stampers.

I only play vinyl and recently got some upgrades to the system. I’ll save you all the audiophile jargon and simply state my system sounds better.

What I have noticed, as good as the albums have been, I’m hearing an even greater delineation in the grading. The 2+ and 2.5+ are good, but the 3+ sides really light up the room and at times have me shaking my head in disbelief at the musical presentation. .

Holy smokes! Thanks, Tom

Mike

Dear Mike,

Glad to know you made improvements to your stereo and things are cookin’ now, so much so that the White Hots truly shine the way they should. They sure shine over here.

It took us a long time to get to get them to sound that way, forty plus years of messing around with equipment and rooms and cleaning techniques.

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Letter of the Week – “I break out into a cold sweat whenever I think about the fact that I was willing to shell out $2000 for one record.”

More of the Music of Led Zeppelin

One of our good customers had some questions about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently. We’ve added an addendum to the bottom of his letter because it turns out he traded in his $2000 copy for a $2500 copy.

This Zeppelin 2 hot stamper is killing me, Tom. I love it. It’s not perfect, but it’s significantly better than almost any other copies I’ve heard. Enough that I’d stop my quest with this one, I really believe.

But, I break out into a cold sweat whenever I think about the fact that I was willing to shell out $2000 for one record. I never saw this coming. But then, I play it, I love it, and I can’t think of letting it go. (I rationalize the expenditure by reminding myself of all the ~$2000 audio purchases that bring me less joy than this one record does – headphones, cartridges, preamps, etc.)

It’s not like I’m a surgeon or a dentist – I’ve got a limit, and I’m past it. I’m inclined to keep it, but would you please help me conceptualize this? I have some questions maybe you won’t mind answering:

Is this the most expensive record you’ve ever sold?

I don’t recall any record selling for more than that, so yes, probably.

I actually think this thing might hold some of its value. This record in this condition might sell for $700+ on ebay or discogs, even if people can’t actually listen to it. I wonder what this record in this good shape will be selling for in ten years.

This copy might sell for $2000 today! I have seen them go for more than that. The right guy will pay it because it is unlike 90+% of the copies that come up for sale, which are groove-damaged, noisy and scratched.

Have you got “super hot stampers” or other white hots of Zep II on-hand to list?

If so, will the prices be significantly less than the $2K I just paid?

I don’t want to end up feeling even more buyer’s remorse if I felt like something nearly as good was available for significantly less…

There will probably never be a time when the price of that record comes down, unless you are talking about a copy with serious condition issues.

The prices we pay preclude any lowering of prices for good copies. If anything we are going to have to charge more, and that goes for all the big titles. Harvest? Used to be 500-600. Now? 800-1200. This is the world we live in now, and if we can’t charge those prices, we won’t do the shootouts and we won’t have copies to sell of those titles.

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Letter of the Week – “To this day, he refers to the wondrous sound he heard that night every time we get together.”

More of the Music of The Beatles

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

Hey Tom, 

My younger brother came over for dinner a few years ago. As usual, he asked to have a listening session. He is a dedicated Beatles fan and he prefers to listen to them in mono.

After warming up the system, I played a stereo copy of side two on Sgt. Pepper I purchased from Better Records that was graded A+++. We listened to the first cut and he asked that I play it again. Then again. Then again.

After listening to the rest of the side, we were interrupted by my wife calling us to dinner. He told me he couldn’t make small talk at dinner so please let him lie on the couch and excuse him from the meal. We ate dinner without him.

After the meal, I approached him on the couch and he said he had to go home. He said he was stunned by the sound and that it had put him in a mesmerized state where he needed to be alone so he could contemplate what it had done to him.

This is a true story. To this day, he refers to the wondrous sound he heard that night every time we get together. And no, now I don’t ever play that recording for him before dinner.

Phil R.

Phil,

Stunned and mesmerized are the effects we were going for. Thanks for writing!

Further Reading

Letter of the Week – “I was swept up, and able to relax and enjoy a stupendous album again.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Michael Jackson Available Now

One of our good customers wrote to us about his experience with a Hot Stamper pressing of Thriller.

Dear Tom and Fred,

I surprised myself by buying a White Hot Stamper of Thriller. It’s an album that struck me as a particular challenge to your business model. This is probably the most-pressed record in existence. A hot stamper has to be a needle in a really big haystack. And besides, how much better can they be, really? Isn’t any old copy of Thriller a pretty awesome-sounding record?

And, what’s more, why do I need an expensive copy of an album that I could happily live my entire life without ever hearing again?

But hey, I’ve returned records to you before, and you’ve never once tried to convince me to keep it, or given me any headaches about a return, so why not explore the limits of what your business can provide?

The first time I put it on, I could already tell it was special. It’s not like I was “hearing new details” or something like that. It’s that I was swept up, and able to relax and enjoy a stupendous album again. Listening to this copy of Thriller brought me as much joy as this music used to.

ab_ba

Dear ab_ba,

We’ve written about this experience before. If your current copy or some new audiophile pressing doesn’t bring you the joy of the music you remember feeling back in the day, it’s not the music’s fault. It’s the record’s. Or the stereo’s.

Aaron, you have taken your system to new heights. Your ears don’t work the way they used to. While you weren’t looking, the bar mysteriously reset itself. Now it’s much, much higher.

You’re simply a lot harder to please than you used to be. You have a much better understanding of how high is up, and up is a lot higher than it used to be, whether you like it or not. Good just isn’t good enough anymore.

And you will never be able to go back, even if you wanted to.

You could no more go back to those days than you could become a child again.

Welcome to my world, post 2007.

That’s why we tout Beatles albums as being critically important for testing and tweaking your system. We know they have the life of The Beatles’ music in their grooves, giving you the sound you remember falling in love with all those years ago.

If you’re not getting a thrill from your Beatles records, something is very, very wrong — precisely the reason their recorded oeuvre is a true audiophile wake up call.

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Letter of the Week – “I literally sat there with what I am sure was a dazed looked on my face, with open mouth and all.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of Let It Be Available Now

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

Hey Tom, 

They say the first time is the best…

I have now purchased and enjoy well over 50 Hot Stampers. My first one a few years ago was The Beatles Let It Be. I was very skeptical to be honest, but there was a money back guarantee, so I went for it. It was $250, I think. It was an A+ on Side 1 and A+++ on Side 2.

It arrived and I put on my serious listening ears, put on Get Back on Side 2 (A+++) and dropped the needle.

Instantly, I was like a dog hearing a new sound for the first time. My head was cocked a little and I was trying to fathom exactly what I was hearing. I was hearing presence, breathing, clarity in voices before they started playing and I literally sat there with what I am sure was a dazed looked on my face, with open mouth and all. I could not believe it. Everything jumped out of my B&W’s. The sound was something that no CD could duplicate, no matter how clean the CD sounded. I have an all tube, all analog system and I sat there in amazement. I played The Long and Winding Road next and the instruments literally had me teared up from how it much jumped out at me.

Well, I was hooked and I have since bought a lot of Hot Stampers and I enjoy them all. Along with some of my Japanese vinyl [ouch], there are by far the most treasured LPs in my entire collection. You can bet when friends come over, we choose records from the Hot Stamper stack. I really have a ball watching the look on their face when they hear it for the first time.

As I once wrote, I appreciate the fact that Better Records provides a service. They go out and buy numerous copies of an LP. Then some of them sit and listen to them all to narrow down to the best of the best. I have no problem paying their price, as I know they have a definite cost involved and the end result is a phenomenal sounding LP. they provide a great service to us audio nuts.

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Letter of the Week – “We listened to all of side one the day it came, Magic!”

More of the Music of Return to Forever

Hot Stamper Pressings of Jazz Rock Fusion Albums in Stock

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

Hey Tom, 

We know Better Records are big fans of Return to Forever, Romantic Warrior, and so are we.

I saw a white hot copy (Both sides!) on your website, and immediately ran upstairs to tell my son. We both drooled over the listing for a couple minutes, My son turned to me and said ” Dad, I’ll split it with you!” Done!

We listened to all of side one the day it came, Magic! Even better than we imagined! From time to time, we pull the album out and listen to an entire side. Just as great now as it ever was! The gift that keeps on giving!

Charles and Paul S.

Dear Sirs,

Even better than you imagined is what we were going for. Glad to know we succeeded.

The White Hot realm is admittedly an expensive place to hang out, but the quality, as you know, is out of this world.

Thanks for your letter.

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Letter of the Week – “I swear the hair on the back of my neck stood up!”

More of the Music of Heart

More Music from Women Who Rock

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

Hey Tom, 

I put on side one of my A+++/A+++ “Dreamboat Annie.”

I’ve found my new Demo Disc.

The drums are from another world. Cranked to the halfway mark on my preamp, I feel the drums and bass in my chest like they’re right here in my living room.

The guitar solo on “Magic Man” is intoxicating — especially the twisting interplay when the second guitar comes in. And when the synthesizer comes in and slides down the scale to hit that low note, I swear the hair on the back of my neck stood up!

The air around the vocals on “Dreamboat Annie” was unbelievable. There’s an ethereal reverb in the opening stanza, just a hint, that I’d never really noticed before. And then the acoustic guitar on center stage grabs you by the lapels, before moving to the right channel so the drums and bass can take center stage and the electric guitar can come crashing in from the left side. 

I can actually hear the bass so well, I’m convinced now the bass player is using a pick, rather than just strumming with his fingertips.

This just became my new favorite record. At least, that is, until I try another of my White Hot Stampers … ha!

Thanks for all you’re doing to help me build the right system.

Bill P.

Bill,

Thanks for your letter,

Both Little Queen and Dreamboat Annie easily qualify as Rock Demo Discs when played on big speakers at loud levels, which, as you know, is the only way to listen to them.

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