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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.
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.
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- 441 posts total
oregonpapa- I’ve heard plenty of Better Records’ "White Hot Stampers." As MC says, they are simply amazing. When played back on a highly resolving system, there is nothing like them. These recordings go back a long way, back into the early 1940s mono era, to the great modern stereo recordings that we are all familiar with. Once you hear them, especially on a highly resolving system, you will be on the hunt for them yourself. That’s what happened with Mike when he came up from Portland the first time. Played his favorite tracks from Fleetwood Mac Rumours first on the 45 and then my White Hot Stamper. He was seriously impressed with the 45. "That’s gonna be hard to beat," he said. Before this I had been telling him how the Better-records.com experience has changed my point of view. I used to think the smart thing to do was put all the emphasis on making the system sound great, because then everything sounds better. Which is true. But listen to a few White Hot Stampers, it is a game changer. Now the question becomes, Why put all this time and effort into a great system only to play mediocre recordings? Why indeed. Now I feel like, why would I want to waste my time on crap when I can be listening to treasure? Of course it is one thing to talk, quite another to actually experience. After hearing his same two tracks on my White Hot Stamper he said, "Well, you were right. Definitely worth the money." It’s not just a better record. It’s a better system. More to the point, it’s a better musical experience. The one I got from your friend, Steve Miller Book of Dreams, it was supposed to be Hot Stamper quality level. I’m not complaining, it is a little better than my other random Steve Miller pressing. Once I cleaned it up real good. Put it in a proper sleeve. Then with a better cover it would be pretty close to Hot Stamper level. Like I said, not complaining. I didn’t pay Hot Stamper price either. Just giving a fair Assessment. Because until you hear one it is pretty much impossible to explain. Here we have a guy who lives for this kind of thing, has even sold some to Tom, so for sure he knows quality. Yet still there is a big gap between what he thinks is a Hot Stamper and what you actually get with the real deal. Besides off the charts sound quality they are also impeccably clean, in a new high end sleeve, with a cover that is at least mint (one of them was still in the original shrink wrap!) and the whole thing in a heavy vinyl sleeve, along with their business card with the A+++ ratings on it. For each side. That is another thing that blew my mind. I never dreamed the album covers would be so minty perfect! But of course as you said, a highly resolving system helps. As we both know, thanks to Krissy neither of us has any problem there! 😉😍 |
@millercarbon; Not all preowned copies are 'used'. Just recently I sold a Kinks LP that I purchased used because when I removed the disc from the sleeve it was still sealed in a clear perforated plastic inner sleeve (thought it may have been a contracted Columbia pressing). The plastic inner sleeve (bad idea BTW) full size @ top perforation with a rounded bottom. Many of the items in my collection have only been played once (so many records, so little time). Clean all new vinyl regardless if it looks clean or not. The disc release debris is present. However at times I do play them right out of the jacket to drag the grooves (if you call 1.4g dragging) and then clean stylus and disc. In summary, there are thousands of gradients for a 'used' record, they must be played! |
@millercarbon & audioguy85; Couldn't agree more. Why bother acquiring a AAA recording only to convert it to AAD (please see 'loaf of bread' analogy)?? Sure, streaming is convenient but not for "listening to music". For background noise at a party or driving or jogging yes. @mapman; No, playing an LP only once for digital copying does not make you a bad audophile. You're preserving them for a future someone to get a NEAR MINT copy. 'Digital conversion' would come under bad audiophile description if that what you're using for "listening purposes". |
A lot of my early audiophile years were spent needlessly worrying about my oh so fragile vinyl. So all my records were dubbed to open reel tape. At 7.5ips my Pioneer RT-1011L was very good, but if you sat and listened in a quiet room it was still pretty impressive how much better the record sounded. Tape is good. Records? Spellbinding. Dubbing was nice. It allowed me to listen to more music with fewer interruptions, and kept my valuable records safe from harm at wild parties, of which there were quite a few back then. One guy shattered my turntable dust cover when he nearly passed out after a big bong hit. So it’s not like there’s no value in dubbing to tape. But, digital? To quote Brando https://youtu.be/VKcAYMb5uk4?t=8 Seriously though, all these people worrying about record wear, this is like not driving a new GT3 for fear of rock chips. Reality check: it was made to drive. Records are made to play. So play them. Over and over again. |
- 441 posts total