Here's my 2 cents in random order. I have never bought a "hot stamper" from Tom (and don't intend to, as I do the hunting myself) - though I have bought a few other lp's and accessories from him:
1. I have spoken to him on the phone and he seems genuinely interested, knowledgeable, and customer service was excellent.
2. His musings in the descriptions of lp's on his website have much useful info worth reading through.
3. That being said, he IS a master of "marketing" bordering on hype - a la Sharper Image, or the DAK catalog (remember Drew A. Kaplan - yuk! gag!)
4. "Hot stampers" are real - but of course "Hot" is in the ear of the beholder and how the sonics fit your particular system too. I have done many stamper shootouts myself (which drives my wife nuts), and there's no question that some are way better than others.
5. Doing stamper shootouts is not quick or cheap. You have to first Find and Buy the lp's, then Clean the lp's, then listen to them over and over and over. Then, in Tom's case, he has to write a blurb, take photos, post to the website, etc. Having done all this myself, I don't think Tom's prices on Hot Stampers are quite as ridiculous as they look. He is performing a service and deserves reasonable compensation. In CA, our cleaning woman gets $20 an hour and up - so what's reasonable markup for a hot stamper??? There are probably lots of rich guys out there to whom time is worth infinitely more than money and they just want the best sounding copy of The Doobie Brothers Greatest Hits that exists - WhAtEVeR!!!...... it's a big world, and hats off to Tom for finding this niche, and making a living doing something he enjoys.
6. THAT being said, IMO, his prices for "ordinary" lp's, Direct Disk lp's and similar are waaaaaaay high. He's got the right to charge what he wants, but I find them kind of an insult - so it's really a disincentive for me to look at his inventory. But again, like the Audiogon auctions prove - there are obviously lp buyers who are not plugged in to Ebay nor aware of "real world" pricing and availability - and probably they don't want to be and don't care. They don't have time to chatter on Audiogon, they just want good lp's. And capitalism will allocate resources toward those buyers.
7. One thing that turned me off to Better Records is the constant hyping of Disk Doctor cleaning supplies, which he is a dealer for. I use DD, and have used the others, and also mix my own. There is nothing so magical about DD, but Tom's hype level re: the stuff rings alarm bells for me - that, giving the benefit of the doubt, he may have a vivid imagination - I'll leave it at that.
8. In short, it's a mixed bag for me personally - but there's certainly nothing immoral about charging high prices after you've done the work to develop a completely new market as Tom has.
