Very best sounding Vinyl
Now you're enlightened. Perfect excuse to find a Pete Townsend white jumpsuit for bin diving. http://www.citizenthought.net/images/SGandPete.jpg |
So in my role as the OP, I took the Better Records plunge and tried out A Night at the Opera, Super Hot Stamper A++ both sides. Original 1975 pressing. $150. To the OP: You're welcome. To the doubters: Tol' ya so! I won’t be buying many of these but will pick and choose my most favorites for my birthday or other special occasion/gift certificates. And to look out for special pricing, I was told. That's the way to do it. Only problem, depending on what you want it can be almost impossible to do it that way. Many times I have seen mailers with something I wanted and as fast as I can get there its gone. There's one I've been wanting enough I bookmarked the search and would look just about every day. One day I didn't look and the next day there it was- SOLD! Arrgh! Then on the other hand there are plenty of good ones that turn up fairly regularly, you just have to become a watcher over time to realize this. Keep coming back you will notice the titles everyone wants can go for crazy money. There was a better than White Hot (A++++) Pink Floyd DSOTM recently for $800! I post this partly for you, partly because I know it will trigger someone. (And oh how I do love to trigger someone.) Tom makes the argument his nearly White Hots are a great bargain, because they are very close to A+++ but for a lot less. My experience has been when the truly White Hot ones, as expensive as they are, are so good they are totally worth it. Super Hot some dumpster diver can probably scoop one up and after hours cleaning and comparing 20 copies come up with one just as good. White Hot, put down the pipe, you are dreaming. It depends on the recording of course but some of these are absolute jaw-droppers. Never in my life would have dreamed Tom Petty Southern Accents was a freaking demo disk! Always liked the music, never dreamed it was so well recorded. Now its one of my all-time faves. And according to Tom Port its not even the best Petty, that honor goes to Damn the Torpedoes. Both recorded by Shelley Yakus. Which they happen to have in stock right now. Er, did. Heh. |
@millercarbon Can’t see how there are doubters. I have zero hidden agenda other than trying to build a vinyl collection about 35-40 years too late. Lol. And its capitalism supply vs. demand at its most exaggerated level. Now Im sure there are duds and you have 30 days to return no questions asked. I have about 20 other records so far from other popular sites. Of those 20, Joni Mitchell Blue and Norah Jones Come away.. are top notch that i bought elsewhere, the other 18 suck and prob spent $450. Would I much rather have instead 3 reference quality stamper recordings? Yeah maybe, probably. The Queen vinyl is that good and I had it in cd and cassette which wasn’t even close to the realism of this vinyl record. |
I have a TP Damn the Torpedoes on a MCA Masterphile album release (they made a handful of these titles back in the early 80's - I also have Who's Next) and the Petty one is amazing. Not sure if it's "White Hot" but it's up there. Who's next is nice, but I think the original recording just wasn't that great. MFSL Aja has been played so much that the jacket color is gone at certain areas from handling, but the vinyl still sounds great to me. Especially drums and effects on the title track. Signal to noise is kind of low as it is on some of the MFSLs. On the other hand, I have the MFSL of Katy Lied (big collector's item) and it stinks - original tapes must have had some problems. Japanese pressing of Gaucho is amazing, better sounding than Aja (but not as good an album, but still up there). Maybe one of these days I'll consider a Better Records one, but I've never paid more that $50 for a record, so it will take a mind set change. Fagen Morph the Cat could be a consideration - haven't been able to find that. |
aj523, Sound quality on vinyl is very complicated. At first glance the BR concept seems preposterous. Anyone buying vinyl has come across some that are noisier than others, sometimes so bad they get a refund or replacement. Happens a lot. Almost always the replacement seems identical except for surface noise. Reading about Hot Stampers made me curious. There's several dupes in my collection. Never thought to compare them. Sure enough, no two really do sound quite the same. Okay most the difference was slight, but one it was big enough to really make me think there might be something to this. Now with around a dozen I have to say, no duds. Of course, all we can really do is fine exceptionally good pressings. In this respect records are just like everything else. The perfect component does not make the recording sound good. It merely allows the really good recordings to shine through unmolested. The really good pressing is just the same. So the quality depends first and foremost on the underlying recording. That said, it is sometimes shocking to hear how much better the original recording was than we thought. Tom Petty is a good example. Never in my life imagined his recordings were any good. They certainly don't sound great on anything else I ever heard. But the White Hot Stamper of Southern Accents is mind-blowing in its dynamics and sized. I mean its just huge! And Damn the Torpedoes is supposed to be even better??! We will just have to see! |
