The quest for the hot stamper or is it a myth

Silly old me, I thought that how a record had been played, how it had been cleaned, and how it had been cared for, all made a difference.

@bdp24 Funny how what you observed is fairly common even today. There are a bunch of folks who are self proclaimed ‘experts’, who are using very ...shall we say...’marginal systems’ to determine the value of their findings.
Having stated that, I think a great piece of gear, or recording, is going to shine through regardless of the quality of the playback system. OTOH, I well remember a certain reviewer at Stereophile who gave a rave review of a POS, leading me to unfortunately buy into this piece. Result, was I heard all of its faults and had to dump it at a loss. My fault...as I should have realized that this particular reviewer had no way of really hearing what this POS sounded like. Stereophiles fault for allowing such a rave review from a guy who had absolutely no business reviewing anything with his system and frankly...with his abilities!

I bought 2 of the 2nd best sounding records they sell--not the White Hot Stampers, but the next ones. I can’t remember what they’re called. I had regular copies of the exact albums from when I was in college in 1970-75. Yes--Close to the Edge and Steely Dan--Aja were the albums. I had good friend over and we listened to them both. Without a doubt, both of my albums sounded much more live and clear and more dynamic than either the Better Records ones did. Back to BR went the records and I can’t see myself buying another one from them in the future unless they drop their prices to about 1/5 of what they are now. Almost all the MF albums I have sound very good and BR says they generally suck. All my albums have been cleaned with a brush and some fluid, then LAST applied to each side. None of them have been cleaned on a machine. Sue me! Either my copies are better or the LAST is making them so. It really wasn’t a contest at all. I was surprised and disappointed at the results. The albums I bought from BR were about $140 each on a good sale ($199 normally). This happened about 4 years ago.

My analog portion of the system is Super Lenco rebuild with most of Jean Nantais’ upgrades, Pete Riggle Woody arm, Benz Micro Ruby 3, and Whest 3.0 RDT SE phono pre. I have VMPS RM40 BCSE MLS speakers, Nuforce Ref 9 V3 SE mono amps with TDSS level 3 upgrades, TRL DUDE preamp and upper mid cabling that sounds very good with the system.  The ICs are double Teo GCs and many of there PCs are Core Power Equi=Core 150s.  The SCs are Cerious Technologies Graphene Extreme plus their jumpers.   All contacts now have the PPTC on them and there are 5 SR Blue fuses in the components.  Everything is one 2 Sistrum racks and have RTS couplers clamping them to each platform.  It sounds pretty darn good.

I believe there as really great copies of most albums.  Are you lucky enough to get one of these?  Of course, all of my direct-to-disc albums sound fantastic, but I have copies of many others that are at least their equal.  The DTD albums are not necessarily the music I want to hear on a regular basis, however. 

Bob

The fact is, finding great sounding copies of a particular title is not as easy as it may seem. This is the reason we have companies like MoFi and Analogue Productions. Companies such as these are trying to give audiophile record buyers what they really want, a reliable source for good sounding vinyl.
The trouble is, these companies fail more often than they succeed, and this leaves collectors that are serious about finding good sounding copies looking for better options.
Tom Port and the folks at Better Record are essentially saying, "let us do the work for you and we will deliver," which they do. And make no mistake, it is a ton of work to do shoot outs and find truly great sounding records. Who else plays so many different pressings of the same title? And if anyone does, who does shoot outs of so many different titles? No-one.
So many titles have a ridiculous number of releases and dead wax variations. Furthermore listings are so often not accurate, or a given listing may have several runout variations requiring many emails to grumpy record sellers with very few answers. IOW, even if you know the pressing that will likely sound good, it can be a big challenge just to get a hold of one, not to mention one that is graded properly!
The long and short of it is, you may or may not want to pay the premium that Better Records charges for their Hot Stampers, but I challenge anyone to make a strong case that the folks at BR are not earning every penny.

I agree, they earn good money, but too much. I apparently don't agree with their conclusions, or they hear differently than I do.