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.
128x128millercarbon
I play records only once these days.......to convert to digital for future playback while I listen.  
Some records are just too valuable to put through the ringer of being replayed repeatedly and risk of damage.

Does that make me a bad audiophile?

Once properly tagged the files link to a myriad of related information on the internet. I learn a lot about what I am listening to that way.

I can usually tell which version of a release I have several copies of is which by listening even when streaming off my music server.  
Never dreamed these things would be possible back as a kid. 
The fun in searching yourself for the original ones you want is unsurpassed. I have my list of wanted,  with all required info, matrix, wax, manufacturing and so on (information found relatively easy).
I have learned what to expect from honest grading and country of origin, UK, German & Japaneese pressings are higher on my list and do not care that much for their sonic signature, if any. A good clean with Walker Prelude and they sound fresh and real.
Throughout these years i have collected same titles up to five times and i can say that i enjoy all of them for their uniqueness. 
I even chase some quadrophonic lp's for their different information portrayal.
Now listening to ELP-Trilogy original UK that sounds better than the MFSL from 1995.

G





"I play records only once these days.......to convert to digital for future playback while I listen."

I used to do that and then I read somewhere, probably on Audiogon, that I should play it two times. First pass to remove whatever minuscle debris is left from stamping, then clean the stylus, and only then play the record for posterity. Not that I can hear the difference, but it makes me feel knowledgeable. Finally.
Maybe easier and cheaper to upgrade the equipment than spending so much time and money hunting for a slightly better sounding pressing ?
But there are really bad sounding pressings that are not acceptable.
I have a few Japanese pressings from 70s and 80s, they don't sound like arizonabob described. Jazz rock. and couple of acoustic music. 
Glupson almost every record I own or buy is used and played but yes sometimes NEW vinyl historically may require a few plays to be their quietest. It depends.

I do clean most used records thoroughly before the big play unless on inspection it looks and then sounds like it is clean to start with.  I hate when my digitized vinyl includes noise from the vinyl. It’s the only dead giveaway what the source was. 
Then it’s always interesting to see if my Picard auto tagging software is able to scan and recognize the track I digitized and auto tag it.  Sometimes yes sometimes no. Often I have to resort to other means like drag and drop to get things autotagged