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
Fact is I get a lot more mileage out of my vinyl by digitizing and tagging it in my music library. It’s at my fingertips to play then wherever I go. Anywhere in the house or outside, in the car via CarPlay via Plexamp streamer or away typically with headphones. It’s a slam dunk. Sound quality is not an issue. I still keep all my records and CDs that I convert. Not getting rid of anything. Just no reason to bother to playa record more than once anymore which the records tell me they approve of. They are not fond of going through the ordeal of being played with that nasty stylus digging in throughout 🙏

They also stay clean longer this way. They are neat freaks you know! Delicate little buggers.

The only down side is it is still a time consuming process to do right but I got it down pretty good. I play both sides and it’s all a wrap within 15 minutes or so after. So many records still to go though. I only bother to convert the best copies.

Maybe I will see if I can stash and share a file somewhere so people interested can give a listen. 
audioguy85-
Digitizing vinyl? Ugh...it defeats the whole purpose of buying vinyl.

Correct. The thing with vinyl, the noise is of a nature that is obvious and easy for anyone to hear. Even the most rudimentary novice audiophile, if the pop is loud enough, they will hear it. The thing with digital, the noise is interwoven right into the signal. This greatly annoys skilled experienced discerning listeners, those who have refined their knowledge base of all the different ways music can sound good or bad. For us digital is far noisier than vinyl. But most have a hard time explaining how, typically falling back on stuff like vinyl is warmer. The disciples of digits then seize on this and say we like it cuz it's colored. Whatever. Point is you digitize records you get the worst of both worlds: obvious surface noise and insidious digital noise. 

Lol, upgrading equipment before looking to upgrade vinyl? Nope! A bad sounding pressing is a bad sounding pressing, no matter what you play it on! Get a pressing that sounds right and its magical!

Exactly. Why I was chasing down the best sounding recordings even as far back as the 1970's. Technics, Kenwood, JBL and lamp cord. Not even a detachable power cord. Because there were none back then. But with the right record we were spellbound. Literally. Friend and I sat up one night listening to the Crime of the Century MoFi and on a rowdy college campus (WSU) for 40 minutes we were in our own little world. 

Imagine if someone told me back then, a guy will come along find ordinary copies that sound ten times better than this MoFi, which frankly is hopelessly stepped on. Would have been every bit as skeptical then as a lot of these guys are now. So I get it. But it's true.

I believe the pressing of 1812 MC is referring to is this one:
SPA 108 - TCHAIKOVSKY - 1812 Overture ALWYN London Symph Orch.
Found copy of it on ebay from a UK seller, in mint condition. Only paid $25. Whether or not it is a hot stamper, too soon to tell, as it has not been played.

Just went and looked to be sure and yes, that's the one. The performance is terrific. Use the Walker Enzyme 4step method to get the most out of it. Then if you like it enough to try a White Hot like mine will blow your mind! For only about 12 times the price too! 😂😂 Damn they are expensive! But then you hear what one does, it is like a whole system upgrade. Beyond a whole system upgrade. Which makes it a bargain, I guess. 
audioguy85, read my post carefully. Bad pressings I get rid of. I meant very slight difference between pressings and huge cost and/or effort often involved. If money is no object - be my guest and do both, there are record dealers that will get you if not anything but most.
I tested the waters of Better Records and bought one of the lower priced offerings and was not really blown away but it does sound quite good. I've been buying original releases from the late 70's on and as others have noted, a lot of these originals sound much better than later releases so it stands to reason that all us old timers have white hot stampers in our collections already. 
I get where you're coming from. In most people's experience the difference between pressings, unless you get a really bad one, the differences in actual sound quality are very slight. That is not what we are talking about here. The difference between what you would consider the best copy you ever heard and a White Hot Stamper is not, "Okay, yes, I think I hear a difference, yes it is slightly better." That is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about, "Wait, you're telling me that's the same record? Let me look at that! No way. No freaking way! That is insane how good that sounds! I never heard anything like that from any record anywhere ever! Where did you get that? Seriously. Tell me the truth!"

Uh, he listens and finds the best.

"No way! I don't believe it! This is not even close!"

The words, "slight difference" never come up. Ever.