"And to this day, I don't know how I made it out of high school,."
Statute of limitations has likely expired by now.
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
Frank, I think of John Williams as the very best classical guitarist. I prefer him to Segovia and others. Perhaps, you could make a list of your truly favourite records and tell everyone not to sell or give them away unless under extraordinary circumstances. Someone in the family is going to appear at some point in time who will continue your audiophile journey. We are forever. |
oregonpapa, "That’s what I look back on with satisfaction knowing that I’ll be leaving this earthly place better off than how I found it. :-)" If you have been collecting records for 70 years, you were likely born when Earth was an unpleasant mess. Major wars, economic crises, something must have been around during those times. |
inna ...
I totally agree with you. I affectionately call John Williams "Mister Perfection." I even have his very first album. Interesting how I discovered him. I was driving in my car back in the early 70s listening to the local jazz station. The DJ came on and said: "Okay folks, I’m going to play something really special, so get your tape decks ready." He qued up John William playing a beautiful rendition of Concierto de Aranjuez. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I was so emotionally taken that I had to pull the car to the curb. When it was over, the DJ announced what we had just heard. I wrote it down, and drove directly to the record store and bought it. That was my introduction to the classical guitar. That concerto is one of the most beautiful guitar pieces ever written. I actually heard John Williams in a live concert at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbV9t6U2IIg&ab_channel=Zigeunerbaron glupson ... Yes, Times were rough. My folks had just recovered from the Great Depression and we were facing fascism in Italy and Nazi Germany, and Imperialism in Japan. When I was born (1938), Hitler had just taken over Romania and Czechoslovakia in order to take their oil and other resources. Three years later, on December 7th, 1941, we entered WWII. I lived through all of the rationing and hard times. The sound of air raid sirens is still fresh in my mind. I watched my parent’s friends leave in uniform never to return. I saw the Gold Star flags in the windows. There was a positive side to America in those days though. Growing up in the 40s and 50s, was when we still had a truly free country. Children were safe roaming the streets. The central government was still small and the power rested with each individual state. Can you imagine a time when young boys could carry their rifles through the streets, in order to get to places where rabbit hunting was good? No one batted an eye. Can you imagine a sixth-grade teacher who insisted that every boy carry a pocket knife on him at all times, then taught us how to use the oil-stone in the corner of the classroom to hone it to razor sharpness? Can you imagine a time when our currency was backed by precious metal ... with the effects of curbing inflation and stifling the creation of a welfare state? I lived it. We’ve come a long way, glupson ... and in my opinion, a long way back toward revisiting the grievances expressed by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. Please guys ... if you are under the age of 75, watch the movie "Saving Private Ryan." It will give you a real appreciation for the sacrifices made during those tough times. Frank |
- 441 posts total