Okay. Except the more you write the more its clear its not clear to you at all. Because in spite of being aware of Mr. Port's business, and even after reading my post, you still don't get that there is no such thing as a hot stamper, generic or otherwise. There are no "hot stampers". There are only Hot Stampers. Capiche? |
an10490413 Is there a digital (CD) equivalent of a so called “hot stamper”? Its not "so called". Hot Stamper is an actual product name. Tom Port runs Better Records where they sell Hot Stampers. They are even graded: Hot Stamper (A+), Super Hot Stamper (A++) and White Hot Stamper (A+++). https://www.better-records.com/search_adv.aspx?option=s_name&min_price=1&max_price=&manu... So you can lose the scare quotes ("hot stamper") because its a proper name, and proper names are capitalized: Hot Stamper. Now as to the idea there are (were) individual stampers responsible for some pressings sounding incredibly far better than average, that's at best only partly true. Its true in the sense there are some stampers from which more pressings tend to be crap, and others from which more pressings came out really good. But its a crap shoot. Full disclosure, I've bought about half a dozen Hot Stampers ranging from Super Hot to White Hot this year. In addition to a good deal of time searching and reading up on the subject. And, direct correspondence with Tom Port. With whom I have no business interest beyond wanting to get my hands on as many Hot Stampers as I can. Which incidentally is at odds with informing people, since the more people know the more people buy which drives up price and worsens an already scarce supply situation making it harder for me to get more. Oh well. Truth uber alles. So back to the stampers. You just can't go by the stampers. Very first one I got, Fleetwood Mac Fleetwood Mac, first thing I did was scrutinize and compare with my own original copy. They were and are identical. Exact same scribbles in the wax. They came from the same stamper. But they did not sound even nearly the same! The Super Hot Stamper is just leagues better, in exactly all the ways Better Records says, which I will not repeat because if you really care about this at all you will go and read about it yourself. The point in explaining all this is to dispel the nonsense that all you have to do is track down a source (CD or LP stamper) and buy whatever came off that source. This is wrong. This is a waste of time. This will not work. You aren't even asking the right question! The question to be asking is: Does every copy of a CD sound the same as every other copy? The only way to answer that question is what Tom has done: play them side by side in a shoot-off and see. |
