Very best sounding Vinyl

The most commonly available, accessible, and affordable awesome sounding vinyl I know is the Dire Straits Brothers in Arms MoFi 45.

Very close, Jennifer Warnes comes in with The Well and Famous Blue Raincoat, both on 45. But really there’s a whole slew of them could fill the bill, all around the same general level of sound quality. Michael Ruff Speaking in Melodies on Sheffield is certainly in there.

On the subject of the "very best sounding vinyl" this will trigger a few but I must say the very best sounding vinyl is always going to be a White Hot Stamper from Better Records. Anything Super Hot will blow out any and all reissues- yes including even the BIA45. A White Hot Stamper is so good its almost impossible to describe, except to say its like I would imagine maybe the actual master tape would be.  

I had a guest one time requested to hear for himself. Played him my second best copy of Rumours, the reissue 45. Sounds great. He said, "That is gonna be awful hard to beat." Then my nearly WHS. He agreed its no contest.

Yes they are used. Yes they are expensive. Very, very expensive. They are also "the very best sounding vinyl."

The whole premise and business model for the "white hot stamper" is simply too incredulous to be taken seriously.

IMHO of course.......

Yes. That’s what I thought too. But their 30 day no excuses guarantee is plastered all over the site. So I tried one. Really wanted to send it back. I mean, who really wants to pay $350 for a record? A record you already have three copies of?!?! Not me! So I emailed Tom Port. Sorry Tom, I mean its good and all, but not $350 good.

Fine. No problem. Send it back. Okay I will.

Only funny thing. Instead of shipping it just sat there in the box all ready to ship. What is wrong with you Miller? Send it back! Okay, but one more listen, just to be sure.

And after that one more listen I knew the truth. That it sounds so much better its hard to believe. That I not only cannot send it back, I want more!

Peter Gabriel So is incredible. Tom Petty Southern Accents is out of this world. Tom Petty! Never in my life would have believed Tom Petty had a bona fide genuine demo disk. Neil Diamond Taproot Manuscript, Nilsson Schmilsson! Coconut is a stop the presses DEMO DISK!!!

Every time I say something about this a bunch of people who have no idea what I’m talking about nevertheless opine on how I don’t know what I’m talking about. All I can say, buy one, play one, then get back to me.

The absolute best sounding vinyl recording I own is the MFSL One-Step version of Yes Fragile.  Nothing else I have comes close.  It's also one of the nicest in terms of presentation - the box and contents are first class, well worth the asking price.

All of the Dire Straits MFSL 45 RPM releases are fantastic and I love the Cars S/T and Heartbeat City MFSL releases.

A friend gave me a copy of Hall & Oates Abandoned Luncheonette that was a Hot Stamper from Better Records.  I was really disappointed.  It had a fair amount of surface noise and the sleeve wasn't terrible, but was a bit worn.  All I could think was how mad I would have been had I actually spent big money on that record.

Some time later, I decided to give it another listen and compare it to some of the other copies I have, including a MFSL.  I was surprised to notice that while it was a little noisy, it certainly did have much better sonics and dynamics than the other pressings I owned. 

I can appreciate that the business model requires the purchase of multiple copies of a pressing and time spent listening to them all.  Taken in that context, the prices are not really that high.  It all comes down to what it's worth to you to have the best listening experience.  I bought 10 copies of Fly Like an Eagle trying to find one that sounded great and got close to great with one the MFSL copies I found.  It would have been easier and probably not have cost a lot more to just buy one from Better Records. 

I still haven't been able to bring myself to actually buy anything from Better Records, but I wouldn't just dismiss what they're doing out of hand.