"Send a "WHITE HOT STAMPER" to the milliercarbon-gratis."
With a nice thank you note.
Better Records White Hot Stampers: Now the Story Can Be Told!
pgueeze- Don't wait, you WILL regret it! The one I saw 6 months ago was only listed a couple days and when I saw it, sold! Then 6 months goes by and NOTHING! Mine is A+++ across both sides. The one listed now is very close to that. I have some just like it, A+++ on one side, A++ and a half on the other. You will never know. But that slight half a + lowers the price considerably! Mine cost $400. This one only $250! Very close, for a lot less. The smooth, rich, deep detail, layers and layers, you won't believe. MoFi is pathetic. Parsons created one of the great recordings of all time. But you will never know it till you hear it. |
I have not tried one of Tom's records but may one day. I do believe in this but not sure the cost is worth it to me. Michael Fremer has a video from a couple years ago at a conference where he explained this. The primary example is for Columbia records and the last part of the runout. If I remember correctly, the letters signify the pressing location as well as the number lacquer. Seems A,B or C would be the first lacquers across the 3 main pressing plants. I have never bought multiple copies of records unless my first copy was simply unlistenable or if a really cool reissue came out of a favorite. I watch most of Fremer's at-home videos and you will notice he will have 15-20 copies of the same album sometimes in the background. I happened to have two copies of Toto IV. I randomly pulled them out a few weeks ago and played the one in the better sleeve as I expected I would have put the better sounding record there. Afterward I pulled out the other record and was like damn!! Not that gain equals quality but it was louder an so much more dynamic. You guessed it, the good one has an A and the other has a Z. Not sure what level stamper I have but it is definitely a special copy or my other is simply a crap copy. Michael explains that this doesn't alway equal better quality because you could then be comparing the first record off lacquer Z to the last record from lacquer A. It is pretty cool just how complicated vinyl can be...or is it maddening...whatever...it's cool! |
Fremer is right, as far as he goes. The way I think of those kind of hot wax stamper things is, you can use it to avoid buying a whole lot of crap that may have come off a crap stamper. A crap stamper will stamp crap from the first pressing until forever. But a really good stamper, one where everything was done right, that still does not guarantee every record pressed is magically A+++ level sound quality. I bet even if you somehow had the first hundred or thousand or whatever copies pressed, even that would be no guarantee. It might well be that the first really good A+++ copy is not #1 or #32 or even #576 but #2389 off that stamper. Might be, then again might not. Point is we just don't know. Would have to be there playing them as they come off in order to know. Never happen. Certainly not gonna happen now, 50 years after the fact. So all we can do is play, listen, evaluate, choose. Yeah it is pretty cool. I was just over at Mike Lavigne's place the other night. Mike has this vast collection of recordings. Some of em on multiple records AND also on tape! One record, he was telling me how the original sounds better than the later reissue because even though the reissue was made with much greater care and attention to detail it was made from a tape that was much older and tape degrades just sitting there not even being played. Records, everyone loves to complain about surface noise but one thing about a record, it does not degrade just sitting there. Look, when the entire human race was sending the first Voyager spacecraft out and knew it would ultimately one day be the first thing to leave the Solar system and who knows maybe encounter extraterrestrial life, and we wanted to communicate, how did we do it? Put a record on it. Because Carl Sagan knew it would not degrade, and anyone anywhere could play it. Cool as cool can be. |
Look, when the entire human race was sending the first Voyager spacecraft.........and we wanted to communicate, how did we do it? Put a record on it. Because Carl Sagan knew it would not degrade, and anyone anywhere could play it. Cool as cool can be. It would have been quite unexpected to put FLAC files on it in 1977. Or a CD, for that matter. "Carl Sagan knew it would not degrade, and anyone anywhere could play it." Carl Sagan must have been hopeful that Martians’ would adjust VTA properly. Even if all of that were true, it seems that Carl Sagan did not believe in non-degradable record technology Mike Lavigne, millercarbon, me, or anyone else, have at home... "The record is constructed of gold-plated copper and is 12 inches (30 cm) in diameter. The record’s cover is aluminum and electroplated upon it is an ultra-pure sample of the isotope uranium-238. Uranium-238 has a half-life of 4.468 billion years." Voyager - Making of the Golden Record (nasa.gov) There are some instructions on the cover, and it does seem that the turntable is included... Voyager - The Golden Record Cover (nasa.gov) "Each record is encased in a protective aluminum jacket, together with a cartridge and a needle. Instructions, in symbolic language, explain the origin of the spacecraft and indicate how the record is to be played. The 115 images are encoded in analog form." "The remainder of the record is in audio, designed to be played at 16-2/3 revolutions per minute." |