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Better Records White Hot Stampers: Now the Story Can Be Told!

Just got shipping notification, so now the story can be told!

  Better-Records.com is a small, incredibly valuable yet little known company run out of Thousand Oaks, CA by Tom Port. The business started out many years ago when Tom Port noticed no two records sound quite the same. Evidently Tom is a sound quality fanatic on a scale maybe even higher than mine, and he started getting together with some of his audio buds doing shoot-outs in a friendly competition to see who has the best sounding copy.   

Over time this evolved into Better-Records.com, where the best of the best of these shoot-outs can be bought by regular guys like me who live for the sound, but just don't have the time or the drive to go through all the work of finding these rare gems.

The difference in quality between your average pressing and a White Hot Stamper is truly incredible. If you don't have the system or the ears of course you may never notice. If you do though then nothing else comes even close.   

Tom will say things like only one in twenty copies is Hot Stamper worthy. This doesn't even come close to conveying the magnitude. Last night for example, wife and I were listening to our White Hot Stamper of Tchaikovsky 1812. Then we played another White Hot Tchaikovsky. Then we played the Tchaikovsky tracks from my copy of Clair deLune.  

Without hearing a White Hot you would think Clair de Lune is about as good as it gets. After two sides of Tom's wonders it was flat, dull, mid-fi. Not even in the same ball park. And yet this is quite honestly a very good record. How many of these he has to clean, play, and compare to find the rare few magical sounding copies, I don't even know!  

Copies of Hot Stamper quality being so hard to find means of course they are not always available. This is not like going to the record store. There are not 50 copies of Year of the Cat just sitting around. Most of the time there are no copies at all. When there are, they get snapped up fast. Especially the popular titles. Fleetwood Mac Rumours, Tom Petty Southern Accents, whole bunch of em like this get sold pretty fast even in spite of the astronomically outrageous prices they command. Then again, since people pay - and fast - maybe not so outrageous after all.   

So I spent months looking, hoping for Year of the Cat to show up. When it did, YES! Click on it and.... Sorry, this copy is SOLD! What the...? It was only up a day! If that!  

Well now this puts me in a bit of a spot. Because, see, besides loving music and being obsessed with sound quality, I'm also enthusiastic about sharing this with others. With most things, no problem. Eric makes an endless supply of Tekton Moabs. Talking up Tekton or Townshend or whatever has no effect on my ability to get mine. With Better-records.com however the supply is so limited the last thing I need is more competition. Bit of a bind.   

Even so, can't keep my big mouth shut. Been telling everyone how great these are. One day someone buys one based on my recommendation, Tom finds out, next thing you know I'm a Good Customer. What does that mean? Well is there anything you're looking for? Year of the Cat. That's a hard one. Tell me about it. Might take a while. Take all the time you need. Just get me one. Please. Okay.  

That was months ago. Other day, hey we're doing a shoot-out. No guarantees but should be able to find you one. So for the last few days I was all Are we there yet? Are we there yet? And now finally, like I said, shipped!  

So now I have my Grail, and the story can be told. Got a nice little collection of Hot Stampers, and will be adding more, but this for me is The One. Might not be for you, but that is the beauty of it all. Many of us have that one special record we love. If you do too, and you want to hear it like listening to the master tape, this is the way to go.
128x128millercarbon
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,868 posts
 
Both I and Michael Fremer have compared our original UK Island Tea For The Tillermann LP’s with the Analogue Productions LP of same, as well as with U.S. A & M pressings (the Island is considerably better than the A & M, by the way). I had long wondered why the Island LP was held in such high regard (including by Harry Pearson, who included it in his Super Disc list), myself finding the sound, while excellent in many regards, odd in others (especially the upper harmonics of the guitar strings and cymbals---both Zildjian and Paiste, the sound of which I am very familiar). Fremer has long cited the LP as one of the best Pop albums he has ever heard.

While the original recording is not the best I have ever heard, that is not the point. The question is: what LP pressing of TFTT sounds "the best". The best may mean different things to different people, but to Chad Kassem---owner of Analogue Productions, Acoustic Sounds, and QRP (Quality Record Pressing, acknowledged in the industry as one of the three best LP pressing plants in the world)---it means which LP sounds closest to the master tape, which he had in his hands.

It was in listening to the master tape that Kassem realized what no one before had: the album was recorded without Dolby noise reduction, and the Island and A & M LP’s were mastered assuming it had. Dolby decoding was engaged in the original mastering process! Try to correct that huge blunder with a White Hot Stamper LP. ;-)

I don’t know anything about whomever/whatever MDS is, or anything about "on the record", so can’t respond to anything related to those two entities. I can tell you what I already did: the Analogue Productions Tea For The Tillerman LP is, by a wide margin, "better" sounding to me than either the U.K. Island or U.S. A & M LP’s.

Michael Fremer was contacted by Chad Kassem after the latter heard the master tape, Chad telling Fremer that he wasn’t so sure audiophiles---long used to the sound of the legendary Island pressing---would like an LP containing the true sound of the recordings. Perhaps it is that to which MDS and ontherecord are reacting. Not to be rude, but I couldn’t care less.

A related matter: Some turntables are made to as-closely-as-possible reproduce the information contained in the LP groove (each LP side has not grooves, but one long, uninterrupted groove), some are designed to "sound good".. My Townshend Audio Rock Elite is amongst the former.
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon OP
12,531 posts
 
Another one sort of like that, Kind of Blue, a search turned up the fact almost all the records and CDs out there are from a tape that was played on a deck with the wrong pinch roller that inadvertently changed the speed and pitch. Everyone is so used to it, but the demo I heard the correct speed remaster did sound better. 

What really intrigues me though is the Townshend Rock Elite. Don't suppose you happen to know where I can get my hands on a Rock?
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,868 posts
 
The Kind Of Blue speed error (side one only) was discovered by Bernie Grundman when he did the remastering of the album for Classic Records in 1997. The speed error was very small, resulting in only a 1/4-tone shift in pitch. By the way, the metal plates created by Grundman in ’97 are the exact same ones he used when doing the new Analogue Productions UHQR mastering.

Those plates were created using the original 3-track masters as the source, NOT a 2-track mixdown tape. Doing it thusly allowed two generations of tape copying to be avoided! It is routine to make a 2-track final mix tape from the multi-track, then from that a number of "production" master tapes (sometimes called "safety" tapes) from which the mothers/stampers/etc. are made. When Grundman was given the 3-track masters in ’97, it was the first time they had been out of the Columbia vault since 1959! He said they were in pristine condition, no sign of aging whatsoever.



The Townshend Rock turntable was the end result of a research project at the Cransfield Technical Institute in England. Max Townshend recognized and appreciated the significance of the design, and bought the rights to manufacture and market a turntable employing the design.

Townshend has produced seven iterations of the Rock, some full-blown SOTA models, some made to a price point. The initial version was a very complex industrial design, not looking like a product made for domestic use. It wasn’t until Townshend introduced the Rock Elite (Mk.2) in the late-80’s that the Rock found a mass audience, including myself. It features not just the patented damping trough (its main claim to fame), but also a plinth fabricated of an upside-down metal "baking pan" filled with bitumen damping pads and plaster-of-Paris---absolutely non-resonant!, an inverted bearing, a platter made of Delrin---my favorite platter material (also used by Harry Weisfeld in his Aries 1 and TNT 1-though-5 models), and three Sorbothane spheres as isolation feet.

The Mk.3 was the one Max introduced while he was operating out of Texas (late-90’s), and was an attempt at a budget model. It has a frosted acrylic platter (blech), and a Seismic Sink (two metal frames separated by an inner tube) built in for isolation. That model I would avoid, unless it’s real cheap (say under $500).

The Mk.5 is a marvel to behold, and is the Rock I dearly lust for. They occasionally show up for $6000-$8000. The Rock Elite Mk.2 comes up for sale once in a while, and sells for under a grand. What a deal! The last available version---the Mk.7---is very cool. A very skeletal frame, with Seismic Pods as feet! There is one on ebay as I speak, priced at just under $2800. I don’t know if the motor needs to be changed for N. American usage. Audiogon member slaw owns a Mk.7.

By the way, Townshend offered the Damping Trough as a separate item, to be installed on non-Rock turntables. I’ve never seen one come up for sale, and I have plans for mine. ;-)
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon OP
12,531 posts
 
Good info, thanks. Also considering Origin Live Sovereign. Mark Baker did an impressive job with my Conqueror arm, figure he probably knows turntables? 😉
emailists
923 posts
 
Just jumping in here. I used to buy a ton of records in the late 80’s early 90’s when people here in NYC were selling their vinyl by the crate full.

I bought tons of promo copies and quite a few Radio station copies (not all were white labels). I’ve never done a shootout with the gold stamped promo copies, but I assume they came from first pressing run, which is why I bought them. 
The radio white labels are often the best pressing of a title I have, sometimes even if they beaten up or overplayed. I have a Springsteen born to run white label that is fantastic, though worn, and a Darkness on the edge of town that is great as well. Friends like to tease me since I have a dozen copies of Born To Run.

Responding to Mapman’s comment From page 1 of this thread about digitizing LP due to wear, there is no inherent reason an LP should wear from play. Tam Henderson from Reference Recordings plays his acetates, which are supposedly only good for a dozen or so plays before they wear, with his Soundsmith Strain Gauge with no degradation of sound quality.
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