I tested the waters of Better Records and bought one of the lower priced offerings and was not really blown away but it does sound quite good.
A fair assessment. The least expensive Hot Stampers (A+) are quite good. Probably better than most records you ever heard but I could easily imagine having ones in the collection that are every bit as good. Super Hot (A++) are quite a bit better than that. The ones I have are all head and shoulders above what I had before. The ones that really shine though are White Hot (A+++) these cost a small fortune and sometimes depending on the original source recording frankly may not be worth it. What something is worth depends entirely on your love for the music and the sound quality. What I mean is no matter how good the pressing you can only get to where the master tape was, and that will be that, and they are not all created equal. Where it really gets mind blowing is when it all comes together. Like Tom Petty Souther Accents, one I really liked the music but never really thought the recording quality was that great. Until I get a White Hot and oh my God this is one of the best records, EVER!!! Had no idea. None whatsoever. Shelley Youkas or whatever his name was, the recording engineer, man he got it dynamic, punchy, extended, and beyond spread out wide and deep this is a total tour de force demo disk! Or Nilsson Schmilsson, Coconut, holy crap! I defy anyone to bring me their copy of either of these and put them up against my White Hot Stampers and not be confessing, apologizing, and back-pedaling big time. We got so much snow here in Redmond UPS is not delivering and so I have to make do with writing about it. Arrgh! |
I get where you're coming from. In most people's experience the difference between pressings, unless you get a really bad one, the differences in actual sound quality are very slight. That is not what we are talking about here. The difference between what you would consider the best copy you ever heard and a White Hot Stamper is not, "Okay, yes, I think I hear a difference, yes it is slightly better." That is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about, "Wait, you're telling me that's the same record? Let me look at that! No way. No freaking way! That is insane how good that sounds! I never heard anything like that from any record anywhere ever! Where did you get that? Seriously. Tell me the truth!"
Uh, he listens and finds the best.
"No way! I don't believe it! This is not even close!"
The words, "slight difference" never come up. Ever. |
audioguy85- Digitizing vinyl? Ugh...it defeats the whole purpose of buying vinyl. Correct. The thing with vinyl, the noise is of a nature that is obvious and easy for anyone to hear. Even the most rudimentary novice audiophile, if the pop is loud enough, they will hear it. The thing with digital, the noise is interwoven right into the signal. This greatly annoys skilled experienced discerning listeners, those who have refined their knowledge base of all the different ways music can sound good or bad. For us digital is far noisier than vinyl. But most have a hard time explaining how, typically falling back on stuff like vinyl is warmer. The disciples of digits then seize on this and say we like it cuz it's colored. Whatever. Point is you digitize records you get the worst of both worlds: obvious surface noise and insidious digital noise. Lol, upgrading equipment before looking to upgrade vinyl? Nope! A bad sounding pressing is a bad sounding pressing, no matter what you play it on! Get a pressing that sounds right and its magical! Exactly. Why I was chasing down the best sounding recordings even as far back as the 1970's. Technics, Kenwood, JBL and lamp cord. Not even a detachable power cord. Because there were none back then. But with the right record we were spellbound. Literally. Friend and I sat up one night listening to the Crime of the Century MoFi and on a rowdy college campus (WSU) for 40 minutes we were in our own little world. Imagine if someone told me back then, a guy will come along find ordinary copies that sound ten times better than this MoFi, which frankly is hopelessly stepped on. Would have been every bit as skeptical then as a lot of these guys are now. So I get it. But it's true. I believe the pressing of 1812 MC is referring to is this one:
SPA 108 - TCHAIKOVSKY - 1812 Overture ALWYN London Symph Orch.
Found copy of it on ebay from a UK seller, in mint condition. Only paid $25. Whether or not it is a hot stamper, too soon to tell, as it has not been played. Just went and looked to be sure and yes, that's the one. The performance is terrific. Use the Walker Enzyme 4step method to get the most out of it. Then if you like it enough to try a White Hot like mine will blow your mind! For only about 12 times the price too! 😂😂 Damn they are expensive! But then you hear what one does, it is like a whole system upgrade. Beyond a whole system upgrade. Which makes it a bargain, I guess. |
arizonabob- Thru this post, reading each one, no one mentioned the secret trail-off codes. No one that is except the OP himself: millercarbon- Some people make a big deal of the scribbles in the "hot wax" which is typically insider engineer type info. This tells you almost nothing in terms of sound quality. Might help weed out the crap stampers but it will not help at all to identify the really good sounding copies. arizonabob again- Even if you’re lucky enough to find that 1A stamper, how was it treated in it’s former life (assuming buying a ’pre-owned’ copy)? They are all pre-owned, bob. Logically impossible not to be, if you think about it, since playing is the only way to judge, therefore they are all used records. Might want to spend some time on the site checking it out. The info is scattered around and not always easy to find what you want, but altogether represents an incredible treasure trove of how to get the most out of your system and records, how to listen and evaluate, and not only in terms of sound quality but also what you just mentioned, condition. All Hot Stampers are graded both for sound quality and condition. There’s standard text on every single item saying these are old records, Mint - - is about the best they ever are. In addition to this, anything more than normal groove wear type noise is always noted. There will be a comment like, "a soft pop plays 6 times at the beginning of track 2" or some such. There are also sometimes what they call "White Hot With Issues" which means A+++ sound quality but a scratch, tic or pop, some kind of issue that would probably make them toss a lesser quality record except for the rest of it sounding so good. These things are incredibly highly particularized. In the first place they are not for casual listeners. Who cares? Why do you think so many people stream? They want to hear a lot of different crap! In that case as Obi Wan would say these are not the records you are looking for. They even go so far as to rate them side by side, and sometimes with the issues thing even track by track. One time I ordered INXS and it was A+++ on side 1, A++ on side two. Before shipping they said sorry our mistake it is the other way around. Well my favorite song on there, one of my main reasons for getting it, just went from White to Super Hot. So I passed. (They would also have been happy to let me return it.) It is easy to imagine someone who wants a record really bad for one great song they absolutely love, and they find it and get a great deal because the record has "Issues" but the issue is a track they don’t care about. Score! |
The interesting change of pace on this topic is that, AFAIK, this is the first time I have come across a thread expressing support for Better Records business model. The typical thread on this topic is a negative thread upset at their pricing structure. What I found interesting is Tom tells me that years ago they used to have to charge much more. Because cleaning and listening, doing shoot-outs consumes so much time, and for the volume they were selling they had to charge a lot more. As volume grew he has been able to afford a professional cleaning machine, people and facilities to improve efficiency. With this he has actually been able to lower prices, a lot. Which usually I am pretty good with business economics, and figuring the dwindling supply of choice records must make finding them harder and therefore more expensive, this came as a surprise. But it shows once again ingenuity and quality wins in the end. As far as the prices being "too high" besides audio I've been into high end cars, watches, bicycles, telescopes, marine invertebrate aquariums, and probably half a dozen others my tired old brain is forgetting just now. I have yet to find the niche where the people hooked aren't complaining about the high cost of entry. In other words, situation normal. |
For years I bought the hype of MFSL and other reissues being audiophile quality. For sure these were almost always much higher quality vinyl. Surface noise was indeed very quiet. This was easy to hear, and good enough to keep me convinced. For years, decades, I was quite certain the only difference between a good and a bad pressing was this sort of obvious noise. If there were no warps, skips or pops then it must be perfect. Right?
Then I started to notice, quite by accident, that cut-outs sounded a lot better than most other records. Cut-outs are where the cover is cut, a notch or a corner, sometimes also with a sticker or embossed with the warning Promotional Not For Resale or something similar. These would go to radio stations and such and tended to be among the earliest copies pressed.
If you know anything about records at all you should know they use a stamper to literally stamp out copies. Well obviously over time the stamper is going to wear out. Equally obviously the finest most subtle details will be the first to go. So no wonder the early pressings sound better.
Unfortunately there are no serial numbers or other markings to know which are early and which are late. Some people make a big deal of the scribbles in the "hot wax" which is typically insider engineer type info. This tells you almost nothing in terms of sound quality. Might help weed out the crap stampers but it will not help at all to identify the really good sounding copies.
One way I know for sure is by comparing some of my old records to the Hot Stampers. In every case so far they are absolutely identical. Only one way to tell them apart- play and listen. Then it becomes obvious. Absolutely unambiguously obvious.
Probably what happens is the first few hundred copies have pretty much all the detail that ever was on the stamper. These are White Hot Stampers. Then gradually over time as this detail wears away they are producing Super Hot Stampers, and then Hot Stampers. From that point on, from say a thousand to a hundred thousand, are all the vast majority of what we consider "good" pressings.
This is all assuming everything else is up to snuff. One tiny detail anywhere not quite right and it won’t matter how new the stamper or how good the engineering. Which details? Wish we knew. Something tells me even Tom Port, who being in the business he is probably knows more than anyone, never really knows for sure. Record pressing is after all very much like making virtuoso violins, where details as fine as what pigments were used in the varnish wind up influencing the resulting sound. The craftsmen who ran those old record machines are about as long gone as Stradivari himself- and their secrets gone with them.
That at least is how I figure it. This would explain how it is that even as obsessed an audiophile as Chad Kassem who bought an entire lathe and pressing plant and had it relocated and restored like some fine work of art, even he does not seem to be able to match some of these old records. Which is amazing, considering they were the CD of their day.
The info on Better-records.com is spot on. There are always exceptions, sure. But for the most part it really does come down to a choice- you can have quiet vinyl, or you can have tubey magic. Quiet vinyl we have in abundance. Tubey magic they just don't seem to be able to make any more.
The last MoFi I bought will probably be the last MoFi I ever buy. Year of the Cat on MoFi is so stepped on, so devoid of life and presence and detail I sent it off to Tom for entertainment value. Some clown on discogs thought it was worth $20! Pure crap, even compared to my random average beat up played a million times copy. My White Hot Stamper is expected to be delivered tomorrow. I can hardly wait!
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Sweet. Why you been hiding? (I can imagine.) Thanks for posting. And thanks for the link! |
A common thing posted all over the site is something along the lines of only one in 20 copies is Hot Stamper quality. This is probably true for Tom. Based on my experience however it is probably more like one in 100.
Tom Port does not personally go around scouring record stores for Hot Stampers. He has people all over the country who know a Hot Stamper is worth real money. So when these folks find a gem they can sell for $20 on discogs vs $50 or more to Tom, guess where they go?
Which I know from having bought a record from a guy who has sold to Tom. So this guy, he scours around and does the same thing. He probably went through 20 copies of Steve Miller Book of Dreams to find the one he sold me, claiming it was Hot Stamper quality. Well it was awfully good, and after cleaning it up properly was probably right about Hot Stamper quality. Not A+++ for sure, but maybe A+.
But that's not the point. The point is he went through a whole lot of copies before finding this one. This is probably the case for all the copies sent to Tom. When Tom does a shoot-out with say 20 copies and says only one in 20 is White Hot, that is 1 in 20 out of 1 in 20, which is actually 1 in 400.
Some of them like Year of the Cat, the same guy who got me Book of Dreams said it is very hard to find a good copy of YOTC. A lot of records are like that. If they were popular then a lot of copies, which means a lot were stamped out which means a lot of worn stampers. Also means a lot of people playing them a lot. My copy of Honky Chateau is really surprisingly quiet, until you get to Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters which sounds like it was played a million times.
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Whart raises a good point and something I had to think about a lot. Stereo Review used to have this standard format for music reviews where they would rate the recording and the performance. The recording being the record/playback part of how it sounds. The performance being the quality of the music. Two very different things.
Hot Stampers add another level to this because now in addition to the quality of the recording we are also now giving weight to the quality of the pressing, as something distinctly separate and different from the recording. That is to say you can have an absolutely fabulous pressing, but if the recording quality (reference the master tape) is poor it is not going to suddenly magically improve just by being pressed real good. Stones, cough cough, Springsteen...
Read through enough of the descriptions on better-records.com you will find this mentioned, and even some full articles expanding on it. This came up with my second one Peter Gabriel, So. A completely different sounding recording from Rumours yet also crazy good. Way better than I ever heard it anywhere else.
The Beatles Help, Elton John GBYBR, Honky Chateau, these are not going to magically transform into audiophile reference material. They do however sound so much better than anything I ever heard before it is literally like taking a step back in time to be there in the studio with them. Elton is right there in front of me, easily as spooky real as any other vocal on any really good recording. Nilsson Schmilsson, now there is a bona fide audiophile reference! Some of these tracks it is flat-out insane how good they sound. Transform your system, they will!
Several times now this level of improved sound quality has allowed me to really enjoy some music way more than I ever thought possible. Classical for example was one that was always sort of there on the shelf but never with any real desire to play. Now the 1812 is so emotionally powerful I can’t explain. It just is!
This is another area where Tom shines. This particular recording, he noted that not only is it A+++ quality, it is also (in his opinion) one of the best performances. Not being into classical that long I couldn’t say but the feeling comes across in the performance, for sure.
There’s definitely two sorts of audiophiles, the ones who enjoy listening to everything in the world once, and ones like me who crave spellbinding, have a hard time finding it, but when we do are happy to play it over and over again. A highly specialized market niche, for sure.
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Far be it from me to speak for everyone, but I am sure that at least some of us are aware of the fact that wax is not stamped at all. Wax is cut on a lathe in the beginning of the process. |
All - My comment about giving a twenty to a homeless person was not intended to interject a political or social comment into the thread. It is just my preferred act as opposed to buying something of unknown quality. So you give it all away. Great. More virtue signaling. I take ownership of my choice. You did it so guess what? You own it. Goes without saying. When you feel the need to say it, guess what? Virtue signaling! I gladly spend a few Benjamin’s (and more) on audio gear or media that has credibility or an viable assurance behind it. That’s a put down. While virtue signaling. Is there anything you have to say other than, "Look at me! Look what a great person I am"? All you’ve done is confirm you are just like all the others worried how other people see them, while throwing their Benjamin’s (and more!) as you say out the window instead of actually helping all the people you want so badly for us to believe you care about. Stop. Just stop. Please. |
I had fully expected the hot stamper to be a marketing trick and corresponded with Tom in advance ensuring that if I was unhappy I could return it per his guarantee
I didn’t return it and that’s why I thanked him
NOW.. I did return multiple lps later as they did not meet my requirements nor match their descriptions, in my view.
My standards are high and by all means mock but I’m here to contribute. Not get involved in tomfoolery Thanks for clarifying with "correspond". If you say "talked" with Tom the midwits here cannot figure out that could mean email. There's a small aberrant group here who live to mock, and we can only dream of the day they back off to the level of tomfoolery. Hang around longer you will notice a pattern. They never contribute anything of value. They insult and deride constantly. They travel around in packs. It may take a while but if you search around you will find threads that run for pages with nothing but these same sad losers bantering back and forth. Because of this an awful lot of people avoid posting at all. When they want to know something they ask me directly. Happens all the time. They get the same great high quality information, only without the distasteful experience of having to wade through these miscreants excrement to find it. |
So, ’Virtue signaling’ causes homelessness?? You think it doesn't? Here's how it works. At any given point in time there are people who for whatever reason simply are not productive enough to be worth more than a few dollars an hour. But libtards want to feel virtuous, so they jack up the minimum wage to $15, then $20. Why not $150? Nevermind. Libtards want to be seen to be doing something. All the studies show this one thing alone, minimum wage laws, increases unemployment. The biggest increase is at the lowest end, those with the least skills. They are the ones who wind up unemployable, because they simply are not worth $20/hr. And so just this one example of virtue signaling costs us millions in homelessness. You clearly have never thought this (or anything) through. I got a lot more. Just remember the line from Tropic Thunder: "Never go full libtard." You go there all the time. Just stop. Please. If not for me, do it for your own good. |
I have a home. But since you are shamelessly virtue signaling we have a lot of homeless here in Seattle thanks to all the rampant virtue signaling going on here. If you send me as much as you can spare I will pass it on to the ones I see every day. I know you won't. Virtue signalers never actually do anything but signal. I just enjoy calling them out on their rank hypocrisy. |
Having never heard a Hot Stamper, I would say that, yes, this is excessive. However, I may change my mind once I do hear one. That's the idea. That is why they have a no-questions 100% money back guarantee. My first was Fleetwood Mac Rumours. Already had 3 copies- original release, Nautilus half-speed mastered, and a "audiophile" 45 RPM reissue. When I heard the White Hot Stamper it was so much better it was hard to believe. Still, $300, come on! Let Tom know yeah it is good but not worth $300. No problem, you can return it. Just like that. Only funny thing, could not bring myself to ship it back. Sat there one week, two. Finally, okay, it has to go back. But just one more play first. Then it hit me: no way! No way you are sending this back! Nothing else on the shelf sounds this good! Had a guy up from Portland last year, loves Fleetwood Mac, had me play him 2 tracks from the 45. "That's gonna be hard to beat!" he says. Then we listen to the same 2 from my White Hot Stamper. "Wow. You were right." It had been a while since I played the 45. Was really happy with the sound, it was the best yet- until I got used to the sound of A+++. Playing it for him, was actually hard to take. It is that big a difference. Do you truly believe that out of the hundreds of thousands of records that are pressed of a title, that only a handful are of these magical sounding copies. Yes. Demonstrably true. The Fleetwood Mac A+++ above is head and shoulders better than three other copies, two of them so-called "audiophile" pressings. I have many, many examples now. These records have been scrutinized down to the hot wax and Tom's Stampers are identical. So it definitely is the case that some copies simply sound way, way better than others. Also, one of the first things I did even before ordering was my own shootout of records I had multiple copies of. Sure enough, they were not all the same! Most of them were very close. But there were ones where one copy had way more presence and detail than the other. There were ones where one copy sounded really, really good, except it was spitty with sibilance. So it is absolutely incontrovertibly true that record companies do not stamp out identical copies. So for the most part record companies stamp out nothing but inferior copies and only a few are of high quality and worth listening to. Yea right! This is the logical fallacy of the straw man. Never said most records aren't worth listening to. In fact if you read the OP it clearly says Clair deLune sounds great. Totally worth listening to. Just nowhere near as good as a Hot Stamper. I realize it might be a bit much to get your mind around, but the world is not nearly so cartoony black and white as you make it out to be. I bought a hot stamper from Better Records, Supertramps Breakfast in America. I own a test pressing of the album that sounds better and an original pressing that I purchased when the album was released which sounds just as good as the hot stamper. That's great. But I have to wonder. Most who actually bought one know Hot Stampers are graded. You do not buy a "hot stamper". You buy A+ (Hot Stamper), A++ Super Hot Stamper, or A+++ White Hot Stamper. They are even graded by side. Often times one will be A++ on one side, A+++ on the other. These differences might not be readily apparent. If your system, or ears, are not up to it you might not notice at all. Tom has some great tips scattered around his site. Things like the importance of warming up and demagnetizing. Most of it I already knew about but wasn't doing that often. Now in the last year since Tom made me more aware there is now a whole ritual series undertaken before serious listening sessions. Which with me almost all are serious listening sessions. You might want to review some of this and see if it helps. The reason why Better Records may sound better than the copy you own is because it is cleaned to perfection! Every bit of dirt, gunk, smoke residue or whatever else is found in a record groove has been removed. This is certainly true, to an extent. Tom uses and recommends the Walker Enzyme 4 Step. After hearing how good his Stampers sound I changed to Walker. Sure enough, it is a big improvement over Disc Doctor, or whatever I had before. I'm using the same brushes just changing the cleaning solutions to Walker. The difference is all in the solutions, and the Walker are superior. However, there's a lot more to a Hot Stamper than mere cleaning. The 45 was cleaned the same way. All my records now are cleaned with Walker. I do the full 4 steps, only the final rinse is on a VPI vs what Tom uses. They are pretty darn clean. It is not that simple. |
