As luck will have it, my friend has a Mobile Fidelity record cleaning solution and brush. I doubt he has ever used it before, though. Maybe I had bought it for him at some point in life.
We, eventually, settled on Soundsmith Othello and Technics EPC-207 as the best of the cartridge bunch we had available. No clear winner between those two. I am sorry if that disappoints anyone. We tried all the cartridges with a few other records to decide what to leave for our experiment.
We (actually I) cleaned old records to the best of our ability. We did not touch the White Hot Stamper. Manually. Made it wet, waited, distilled water, whole eight and a half yards. How good it was may be debatable, but it was the best we could do. All the records looked clean afterwards. German one still looked almost mint while Italian and U.S.A. ones looked clean but obviously used. No real scratches of any kind, just did not look as good as the German one.
Quick screening of those three old records was simple. German copy did sound better. Do not ask me for poetry in explanation. Basically, other two seemed to have narrower range, much less details. Almost like, although not to such a dramatic extent, like having a ball of dust on the stylus. No, stylus was clean. We discarded those two from further comparison as the whole thing needed getting up, playing, getting up, changing, etc. Life is too short for that. The one clearly the best out of three was enough.
White Hot Stamper, looking pristine, was still surprising. There were still, not that loud, crackles between the songs. Not noticeable during the music playing, but they were there. I guess it is inherent to the medium. Going back to how well our records were cleaned under our imperfect conditions, all three of them had about the same level of those crackles as the White Hot Stamper. I guess that cleaning did work somehow and that I take better care of my records than one would expect. Again, with similar level of this minor crackling, German record was much better.
We played the German record first and in its entirety. It was good, you should not ask for much more than that, I think. In particular because this was the Rolling Stones from the pop/disco era. It was not a chamber orchestra. As I had mentioned earlier, it was about real life, real circumstances, real music, real everything. It was not to be a laboratory grade experiment. For that, I recommend Mike Lavigne’s recommendation Dameronia with strings.
Being perfectly satisfied with the old German record from early eighties that had been played in its time quite a bit, we switched to the star of the show.
White Hot Stamper was from the beginning really more of sounds, more of impact, more of bass, more details. Not more of a singer’s voice, but that is how it was recorded/mixed and it probably has nothing to do with the record itself. I cannot say it was night and day and the other record could be called garbage, but comparatively this one was better. Better as in "yes, this one is more" sort of thing. Without direct comparison, one after another, the difference would have probably not been that noticeable. Partly because of the recorded material, I believe. Having a task to compare them so close, White Hot Stamper was overall more impactful.
As a bonus, we compared it to an early CD and we definitely preferred the sound of the record, either of them, to CD. Which is not to say that CD would have not worked in any other scenario. As I said, we preferred. I am not going into which one was supposedly and semi-objectively better.
Both of us had similar objection, though, and it is more about psychology than about objectiveness. We felt that White Hot Stamper crossed from our usual expectation of that particular record into a sharper image that felt unusual. It was better in every sense of that word, we thought, but it did not align with our long memory of how (imperfect) we have learned that record to be. We did listen to it a few more times since then and it started sinking in. Not there yet, but it is getting there so I am considering digitizing it and having that digital copy for a regular use.
As a conclusion, if I were a vinyl fan and I found some dear album at better-records.com, I would give it a shot again. Had there not been pops and clicks advertised, I would have already picked another one there. Of course, my sample has so far been so small that it may be close to irrelevant as a recommendation, but I am saying what I would do. Others have already reported variations in quality of Stampers so one may need to risk and learn.
As far as "is it worth it" goes, in this particular case, I cannot say that the difference was so phenomenal that I would want to replace everything I have with White Hot Stampers. As I said, based on this experience, I would easily add a few more favorite records to the list. Double that if I were a real vinyl junkie. However, I am not a die-hard vinyl fan. Keep in mind, for an average person, prices can add up so one may need to rationalize a bit. That part is impossible to elaborate on.
Another White Hot Stamper detail unrelated to the better-records.com purchase was happily amusing. After the tested record, I put a recent acquisition of The Boomtown Rats Diamond Smiles single on. Now, that must be some Scorching White Hot Stamper. I guess I just got lucky. No crackling, sounded richer than I have ever dreamed it would, beyond perfect. In my friend’s words (he did not know what I was putting on and was not expecting anything): "Wow, now this is something." It cost maybe $5-10 on discogs.com and it came from half the world away. If you have time, will, interest, etc., you could obviously find White Hot Stampers by yourself. For added hundred, two, or three, if not more, Better Records does it for you, it seems. It depends how you like to play your hobby.
After writing all this boring recap, I cannot resist mentioning that comparing records, and even listening to them properly, is a bit of a chore. Server/streamer is way more convenient. I doubt I will put a record on a turntable any time soon again. However, if it makes you feel good, you definitely should.
EDIT: I forgot to mention, but this tested White Hot Stamper appears to be Made in U.S.A.
We, eventually, settled on Soundsmith Othello and Technics EPC-207 as the best of the cartridge bunch we had available. No clear winner between those two. I am sorry if that disappoints anyone. We tried all the cartridges with a few other records to decide what to leave for our experiment.
We (actually I) cleaned old records to the best of our ability. We did not touch the White Hot Stamper. Manually. Made it wet, waited, distilled water, whole eight and a half yards. How good it was may be debatable, but it was the best we could do. All the records looked clean afterwards. German one still looked almost mint while Italian and U.S.A. ones looked clean but obviously used. No real scratches of any kind, just did not look as good as the German one.
Quick screening of those three old records was simple. German copy did sound better. Do not ask me for poetry in explanation. Basically, other two seemed to have narrower range, much less details. Almost like, although not to such a dramatic extent, like having a ball of dust on the stylus. No, stylus was clean. We discarded those two from further comparison as the whole thing needed getting up, playing, getting up, changing, etc. Life is too short for that. The one clearly the best out of three was enough.
White Hot Stamper, looking pristine, was still surprising. There were still, not that loud, crackles between the songs. Not noticeable during the music playing, but they were there. I guess it is inherent to the medium. Going back to how well our records were cleaned under our imperfect conditions, all three of them had about the same level of those crackles as the White Hot Stamper. I guess that cleaning did work somehow and that I take better care of my records than one would expect. Again, with similar level of this minor crackling, German record was much better.
We played the German record first and in its entirety. It was good, you should not ask for much more than that, I think. In particular because this was the Rolling Stones from the pop/disco era. It was not a chamber orchestra. As I had mentioned earlier, it was about real life, real circumstances, real music, real everything. It was not to be a laboratory grade experiment. For that, I recommend Mike Lavigne’s recommendation Dameronia with strings.
Being perfectly satisfied with the old German record from early eighties that had been played in its time quite a bit, we switched to the star of the show.
White Hot Stamper was from the beginning really more of sounds, more of impact, more of bass, more details. Not more of a singer’s voice, but that is how it was recorded/mixed and it probably has nothing to do with the record itself. I cannot say it was night and day and the other record could be called garbage, but comparatively this one was better. Better as in "yes, this one is more" sort of thing. Without direct comparison, one after another, the difference would have probably not been that noticeable. Partly because of the recorded material, I believe. Having a task to compare them so close, White Hot Stamper was overall more impactful.
As a bonus, we compared it to an early CD and we definitely preferred the sound of the record, either of them, to CD. Which is not to say that CD would have not worked in any other scenario. As I said, we preferred. I am not going into which one was supposedly and semi-objectively better.
Both of us had similar objection, though, and it is more about psychology than about objectiveness. We felt that White Hot Stamper crossed from our usual expectation of that particular record into a sharper image that felt unusual. It was better in every sense of that word, we thought, but it did not align with our long memory of how (imperfect) we have learned that record to be. We did listen to it a few more times since then and it started sinking in. Not there yet, but it is getting there so I am considering digitizing it and having that digital copy for a regular use.
As a conclusion, if I were a vinyl fan and I found some dear album at better-records.com, I would give it a shot again. Had there not been pops and clicks advertised, I would have already picked another one there. Of course, my sample has so far been so small that it may be close to irrelevant as a recommendation, but I am saying what I would do. Others have already reported variations in quality of Stampers so one may need to risk and learn.
As far as "is it worth it" goes, in this particular case, I cannot say that the difference was so phenomenal that I would want to replace everything I have with White Hot Stampers. As I said, based on this experience, I would easily add a few more favorite records to the list. Double that if I were a real vinyl junkie. However, I am not a die-hard vinyl fan. Keep in mind, for an average person, prices can add up so one may need to rationalize a bit. That part is impossible to elaborate on.
Another White Hot Stamper detail unrelated to the better-records.com purchase was happily amusing. After the tested record, I put a recent acquisition of The Boomtown Rats Diamond Smiles single on. Now, that must be some Scorching White Hot Stamper. I guess I just got lucky. No crackling, sounded richer than I have ever dreamed it would, beyond perfect. In my friend’s words (he did not know what I was putting on and was not expecting anything): "Wow, now this is something." It cost maybe $5-10 on discogs.com and it came from half the world away. If you have time, will, interest, etc., you could obviously find White Hot Stampers by yourself. For added hundred, two, or three, if not more, Better Records does it for you, it seems. It depends how you like to play your hobby.
After writing all this boring recap, I cannot resist mentioning that comparing records, and even listening to them properly, is a bit of a chore. Server/streamer is way more convenient. I doubt I will put a record on a turntable any time soon again. However, if it makes you feel good, you definitely should.
EDIT: I forgot to mention, but this tested White Hot Stamper appears to be Made in U.S.A.