Half speed masters. Are they worth the extra scratch?

Gotta admit you had me going there for a while I never heard it called "The White Album" before. Coulda sworn that was the Beatles. But yeah, I have Fleetwood Mac. Got an old original and a White Hot Stamper as well.

Tom Port got after me about some of the misinformation above. No, not mine. Others. He has a point. But the parts I explained are perfectly clear, and true. 

Rather than try and set the record straight let me just say not everything claimed to be from the original master, or half speed mastered, or whatever, actually is as claimed.   

For example, an "Original Master Recording" from MoFi so hilariously obviously NOT from the original master- Al Stewart Year of the Cat - was so bad it did not even have the piano in the beginning of On the Border, at all. By "at all" I mean "at all". Not buried deep down in the mix. Not muffled hard to make out. "AT ALL!" 

This particular pressing was so bad I sent it to Tom just to play, to show anyone just how truly awful a reissue can be. I have a very normal beat up and played a lot average vintage copy that is light years better than this MoFi. Tom sold me a White Hot Stamper and you better believe it is light years better than my average vintage copy.  

There are so many steps in the chain, so many opportunities for dreck to creep in, it is a miracle there are any good records out there at all. In any format. With LP, add to that the challenge of squishing plastic into grooves the size of a organic molecule. No wonder the only way to know for sure is to drop the needle and listen. 

That is what Tom Port does every day. If you really care about sound quality that is what you will do too. Or pay Tom to do it for you. That you can rely on. Labels that say half speed mastered, audiophile, original master, etc, those you cannot rely on. At all. 

socalml528-

Ok, just purchased my first better-records.com "hot-stamper" records.

Time to put my ears, brain and equipment to the test. Can’t wait to start listening when the needle drops...

Congratulations! You are in for a surprise! What did you get?

Wait till you see how they are packaged. Easily the most secure shipping I have ever seen.

Ok just looked up better-records.com. Thanks to maestro MC.

Could not agree with them more; too many variables with vinyl and the only way to tell if a recording is superior is to play it. But, ouch those prices; although it does make sense if you account for the many hours they must spend finding and selecting recordings.

Not only the prices, but also the only reason for buying one is sound quality. They are not dead quiet. They are all used. Sometimes they are quite noisy. But, the sound! This is where we separate the men from the boys. The wanna-bees will listen and say there is hardly any difference. This tells me far more about their system and/or their listening ability than anything. Because I have more than a dozen of these now and every single one is head and shoulders better than anything else I have, vintage or reissue or otherwise. Only rare exceptions like Patricia Barber 1Step, while it is dead quiet and an amazing recording still it is not quite the pressing level of a White Hot Stamper.  

This is where it is so important to be able to understand and keep separate all the different aspects and areas that contribute to, or detract from, a great pressing. There is the recording, as in what is on the master tape. Then there is the mastering, which can be done different ways from the same original master tape. Then there is the pressing run, which is all the records produced from any given stamper. (And even this is sidestepping some steps- many stampers can be made.) Finally there is the pressing, the individual LP you hold in your hand. Each and every one of these is unique and individual. This is why if you understand all this it almost makes no sense even to ask questions like is the 45, or the half-speed mastered, or whatever worth it. You will learn the answer one way only, and that is to be listening when the needle drops.

So why do they call him Dirty Harry?  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cplLe1R1v4

The fundamental concept behind half speed mastering is bandwidth. Normally with most things the faster the better. 15ips is better than 7.5ips, 30 ips is better than 15. 45 is better than 33. 78 is better than 45.

Why? Because the information can only be laid down so fast, and so the faster the medium the greater the information density per unit time. It is spread out over a greater amount of medium (tape or vinyl) but the same amount of time.

Sorry if that is too technical. What happens with cutting is the same only different. Instead of going faster you go slower. The cutter head only has so much power to cut the dynamic swings into the vinyl. The slower you go the more time it has, and this has the effect of increasing the cutter head effective power. Very simply, it allows the cutter head to cut much more precisely the input signal.

This is totally a huge advantage. But notice, this is only one small item on a very long chain of events in making a really good sounding record. All things being equal, half speed mastering is better. But all things seldom are equal.

I have on my shelf 4 different copies of Fleetwood Mac Rumours: one original vintage vinyl, one Nautilus half speed mastered "audiophile" pressing, one 45RPM audiophile reissue, and one White Hot Stamper.

The worst one of them all is the Nautilus half speed mastered "audiophile"! Not even close. Why? Not because half speed mastered! It was "digitally remastered".

The 45 sounds great, but the White Hot Stamper sounds so much better than the 45 you can hardly believe it. Even though if you had both of them right here in your hands, my original vintage copy and the White Hot Stamper, you could not for your life tell them apart. They are absolutely identical. Yes hot wax people, even the hot wax. So forget that one.

The point is not to promote Better-records.com, but to get the point across that many, many different factors go into producing a terrific sounding pressing. No one can say buy the half speed mastered it will be better. No one can say buy the vintage, or the 45, or whatever other "audiophile reissue" fantasy story they want to pull over on you.  

(If you want to be assured of the absolute highest sound quality, then you do want the White Hot Stamper. That much we definitely can say for sure.)  

The one you have, BIA45, is one fantastic sounding LP. IF and ONLY IF you get one that is! Because, depending on the pressing run it can also be one of the WORST! One copy I got had dips and skips and freaking pieces of paper melted right into the vinyl. The next copy played almost perfectly.

Suffice to say vinyl is a fickle filly. As Sting would say, "That’s my baby, she can be all four seasons in one day!"

If it is a half-speed mastered 45 then shouldn't it be played back at 22.5?