I have ZERO interest in acquiring a really really good copy of any recording. The actual music and performance are what speak to me.
If I had a "best" copy I would just get sick of it quicker.
But supply and demand, you buy now.
Buy buy.
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.
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.
- ...
- 444 posts total
My experience buying from Better Records: Great: customer service. Really top-notch in terms of response time, packaging, mailing, and return policy. Which for the purchase prices, it should be. Mixed Bag: the value propostion. Re. the half dozen titles I bought, 1/2 were modestly better than the good pressings I already had of those albums (ok, that’s something), and 1/2 were about the same (the latter half therefore returned). Given the high costs, I don’t expect to buy from them again (though I wouldn’t rule it out entirely). I’d say if you have particularly deep pockets and not the time or motivation to hunt down good alternatives; or (as in my case) are having trouble finding one or a few beloved titles in a good/better quality copy and are willing to lay out for it/them, then in either case it could be worth it to you. But that brings me to the not-so-great, which really sorta kills off the likelihood of my buying from BR again. Not-so-great (Lousy IMO): tom port’s intense focus on convincing you that you must be greatly missing out if you don’t buy from him; and in particular, his propagation of the notion that nearly all audiophile LP reissues are crap. While certainly some are bad, and many are questionable, there are also very many that sonically match or exceed better older pressings that in any case may now be hard to find or of exorbitant cost. One case in point- AP’s UHQRs of Steely Dan, with the exception of Pretzel Logic, beat or even slay the originals- but I’m sure Tom Port doesn’t like them. And to be clear, the UHQRs are expensive, but there are so many AP releases in the $40-$60 range that have been excellent as well. Other labels like Rhino High Fidelity, Speakers Corner, ORG, and the like, even many MOFI reissues, are quite good (though MOFI has its issues with other titles, which of course are widely discussed- and many will reject any title of theirs that had a digital stage [which in recent years is all of them]- which I don’t, though I really prefer AAA if possible). IME to find good or great audiophille reissues, knowing the history of the label releasing them and doing some online research about particular title reissues will usually steer you right. Yes, many audiophile reissues may lack some air/subtle definition on top as the original tapes age, but for others (from better-preserved tapes) the difference is quite modest, and on many reissues, the strengths they bring in clarity, extension, balance, and the like more than make up for any losses when the tapes are well-preserved. Based on my experience with BR, I really think that Port exaggerates the differences brought by "hot stampers," and his outlook on audiophile reissues strikes me as fairly absurd. I’m also not buying into the notion of his sound setup being the ne plus ultra that reveals what everyone else except his followers are missing. The value his service may offer to buyers is clouded by his dogma. |
@aubullience - of course he's exaggerating the differences in his 'hot stampers' - he's running a business and he wants you to try out his product; if you like, he's probably got a return customer - if you don't like, you can return. Seems totally fair. |
I bought a Stevie Nix record from "Better"-not one of of the most expensive ones, but still pricey. I just wanted to see if it matched the hype. It is a very good pressing-sounds great, but to me not great enough to justify the price. OTOH, if money wasn't a factor for me, I'd buy a lot of his records-they do sound good. |
- 444 posts total