Led Zeppelin II on vinyl

@tablejockey 

Thanks to all this RL hype, a decent copy will now be $1500? Stamper guy has sharpened his writing skills since 2015. Now he can REALLY sell the sizzle for that steak!

The last time I heard about any RL / SS pressings selling, they were $2,000+.

The price is based on sound quality and rarity.

Only 200,000 RL / SS pressings were made.  That was 57 years ago.

Considering that teenagers were buying them, playing them to death, with misaligned and not good cartridges, and mishandling them, not too many survived in excellent condition.

"Stamper guy" (Tom Port) offers them for sale, when he finds one, which is, at most, one per year.  And they are not always in high grade condition (and his grading is by ear -- how it sounds -- he plays them to grade them).

No one is being strong-armed.  You have 30 days to return any purchase -- no questions asked.

No one has to pay his prices.  Anyone is free to find one somewhere else.

@chrisoshea 

Tom provides a service to lazy audiophiles.

Many people are too busy to even spend time with their families, let alone go record hunting, and sound quality evaluating, etc.

Many people come home from work, exhausted.

Tom's service is helpful to a lot of very busy (not lazy) people.  It takes the guess work out of record hunting.

Also, without knowing which stamper codes to seek, and which stamper codes to avoid, your miss vs. hit ratio will be terrible.  Tom has a database of such stamper codes (his trade secret), which took him years of purchases (good and band) and also the labor of listening and keeping notes to achieve his knowledge on so many album titles.

He also keeps detailed notes on every pressing that he sells.

Have you compared any of his White Hot pressings to your own purchases?

I have the MFSL as well. Should relisten.

@audphile1 

On Discogs I have a 1969 Terre Haute pressing for sale:

https://www.discogs.com/release/3473070-Led-Zeppelin-Led-Zeppelin-II?redirected=true

If you read one of the long comments about this pressing (on the bottom of the page), you'll find a letter from Robert Ludwig stating that this pressing is the same as his with the RL logo.

I'm selling because I have one of the MFSL copies of the album, and their boosting of the bass really works on this LP!

@audphile1 

when is this event in November? I may be able to stop by.

They have not yet posted it.  But it is usually at the end of November, and always on a Saturday.

The last one is still listed on their site.  It was held on November 22, 2025, from 12 PM to 5 PM.

But all bets are off if Richard Vandersteen is not able to make it.  For the past several years, he has been their November guest.  Sometimes an additional guest is there, too.

Someone told me that they sometimes have an event mid-year.  I do not check their site often enough to have noticed.

Note that they have two locations.  The main entrance is the address that they list on their site.  Their lower priced (and very good) systems are at that address.

Right around the corner, and across the street, they have two more listening rooms (and the guests usually spend their time there).  Those two listening rooms have their best systems.

In their "big room", they have their flagship system, where they play only vinyl.  They have Aesthetix and MSB digital gear in that room.  But for the event, they stick to vinyl.

I have been a good customer.  So they let me play digital, but I rarely do.  I do not think that they want people to be bringing in CDs.  They are careful about what they play.  They want their flagship system to sound great, and not be brought to its knees with not-so-good sounding songs.

I bring a few rock and pop albums, because they mostly play classical and vocal selections (most of which I never heard of).  They sometimes play hit songs, but not too many.  Such songs are hard to find with amazing sound quality.

At the last event, I brought along the RL / SS pressing, a couple of Beatles pressings, a Beach Boys pressing, a Madonna pressing, a Lipps, Inc pressing, and a Yazoo pressing.  They all sounded great.  But not all songs on those pressings.  For example, on Rubber Soul, only the first 3 songs on side one sound amazing.

And the host usually plays all of his own pressings, before anyone else’s pressings.  I wait for him to ask me what I brought with me.