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The quest for the hot stamper or is it a myth

I have looked at Better Records and their belief is  they have actually found the holy grail of vinyl geeks. The mysterious hot stamper. A record that has no outside evidence what actual number pressing it is. 1000 records can be pressed from a stamper before it degrades the sound. Some manufacturers go up to 1500. I have a DCC Van Halen # 778 on the record jacket and it sounds phenomenal and it should by DCC. Of course if you have Led Zep II and Bob Ludwig is in the dead wax you have a winner. I bought a Marvin Gaye "What's Going On" this year and its sounds really amazingly good. I have the 2 CD extended set and best of on record and SACD. The record not only slays them but cuts it
them up into little bits pieces and feeds it to the wolves. No contest. The sax is smooth and detailed as silk and the intro to "Inner City Blues" just makes me want to hear that over and over again. Ok I assume it was a well engineered album to begin with. Chime in on the engineering. Does anyone else believe in the hot stamper and do you think you have one in your collection???????
128x128blueranger
tomic601's avatar
tomic601
12,880 posts
 
My interpretation was

KENDUN

but perhaps senility has set in since I long ago read the Davinci code
i am quite certain I cannot read the minute scratching scrawls on my own collection....

thanks Miller Carbon !
whart's avatar
whart
3,020 posts
 
Kent Duncan was a mastering engineer, he didn't press records. I think better US pressings of that Fleetwood Mac album were done by Columbia's Santa Maria plant, before Warner-Reprise shifted to Capitol for pressing. Also FWIW, that Discogs link miller carbon posted is a little wacky- it shows a US pressing by Orlake- which was a British plant. Some early Island pink labels were made by Orlake- they are very visceral sounding- tend to be noisier than the Polydors or later EMI pressed copies. 
tomic601's avatar
tomic601
12,880 posts
 
Seems like they should possibly consider rebranding to hot grooves, perhaps as many as several songs....


catcher10's avatar
catcher10
77 posts
 
I think it is safe to say if they are charging $500 for a record, they probably spent $300 worth of records and time finding this one $500 record.
Would they buy my -1A/-1A records for $200 and I save them some work?? Prolly not..
...Buying 50 records for $40 and finding a VG++/NM copy and cleaning the krapp out of it and charging $400 for it is the better model.
tomic601's avatar
tomic601
12,880 posts
 
IF I wasn’t drinking and playing Vinyl, I would put all that statistics and design of experiments education to work but as I stare into the deep well of Noir, my hunch is that n = 30 ain’t going to cut it for finding anything white hot, except within the same stamping lot.... 
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