New Tom Port - Hot Stamper Article In Wired

Wow! I like the thrift store early 70s solid state amp that is used to judge if a record is worth $500 or not.

http://www.wired.com/2015/03/hot-stampers/

 

"...20-30 people who spend $100K per year"...
And the Mrs. thought I was over-spending!

 

Good read but hasn't changed my opinion of Better Records which is pretty much summed up in this quote "“He caters to the worst fears and anxieties of audiophile victims" .
Since most of his hot stampers are records I wouldn't add to my collection at any price guess I'm pretty safe.
Still, not a bad way to make a living if you can pull it off.

 

Is it just my eyes or in the picture of his speakers is the bottom left bass driver different from the other three?

 

If he's making six figures a year, he really ought to invest in having a better looking showroom, if that's what the proper term would be...

 

I just need to find these crazy people and sell them Supertramp records!

 

Bump to merge

 

This number is complete BS. That would be $2-3Million. Somewhere else the article says he pulls in "Six Figures". That's not Millions.

 

I've already started a website to sell hot stamper CD's. I don't want to be greedy, so I'm going to sell my white hot stampers for no more than $799.

 

Are we talking gross or net? I'm sure Mr Port has to spend a lot of time and money patrolling garage sales to find his hot stampers

 

For the wealthy audiophile with no time, it may be a good idea to hire someone to do the research. But, for the rest of us, we can't afford that mess! When someone pays $1000 + for a "hot stamper", they are not paying for the record itself, they are paying for the labor, just as when you take your car in to the repair shop.

I say Mr. Port has found a way to make money. Pure entrepreneurship. It works.

 

I read that as the 20-30 'preferred customers' who spend $100k total, not apiece, but I could be wrong. I mean, even at the highest price point of $1000, that's 100 White Hot Scalding Molten Lava Stampers we are talking about per person.

NJB

 

Mmm hmm. Has anyone cornered the market on hot stamper 8 tracks yet? Because I have an idea ...

 

Hey, he may not be all that far off. I very recently had the opportunity to compare two brand new LPs, actually the 1st disc of the Music Matters reissue of Horace Silver's Song For My Father. They have identical stamper information, and as you probably know, Music Matters presses in small quantities. The two copies off of the same stamper sound very different. One sounds like a nice mastering of an older record, the other sounds alive and present, making the musicians sound like they're playing with more urgency. The cymbals on the first sound a bit rounded and muted, and sit behind the speakers. On the other copy, the cymbals sound bright, and even a bit splashy, and appear forward of the speakers.

Both Michael Fremer as well as Steve Hoffman confirmed that time of day, due to water temperature used in the process, as well as other factors, can make what comes off the stamper sound different.

What's interesting is, if two different people were comparing these two copies separately, I could see how one might argue that the reissue sounded a bit bright, while the other might shake their head reading that, and respond that the reissue was a bit dull.

So I don't believe in hot stampers, per se, but I could see him having one copy of a record sounding lights out, while another leaves him a bit tepid.

 

OK, good point and more in line with the "six figures".

 

I think most of us understand that "hot stampers" exist. The question is whether he is actually really taking the time to find them. I theorized in another thread that I suspect he finds pressings known to be good and cleans the hell out of them. This article definitely makes it clear that he is indeed doing the latter. I'd love to see him provide some evidence that he is not actually doing the former. Otherwise I'm going to assume people are paying for a glorified record washing.

 

With all respect, Brian, I would not agree with your assumption that there is general agreement that there are "hot stampers". Since the stampers would be created from the same mother (or different mothers), you can't necessarily theorize that certain stampers are hotter than others, particularly since fewer are generated and may not have the same variances in quality as the records themselves.

 

On reading the passage again I agree with $100K total.
That's still not bad.
Has anyone on the forum ever bought a "HS" from TP?

 

If one stamper can produce 2 (or more) different sounding pressings, how can it be considered 'hot'?

 

I would never pay those kinds of prices for common classic rock titles that everybody has heard a gazillion times before but apparently, others would and he's found those people. I'm sure it's not easy. All the power to him if he really is making six figures from selling records.

 

That is so 2005. I'm gonna sell hot stamper mp3s and make way more money than you.

 

Hot stamper ears would be the ultimate future plastic surgery.

 

The 20 - 30 rich audiophiles spending $100,000 just proves that this whole enterprise is aimed at the few very wealthy who can't be bothered or don't have the time to seek out a good pressing. Stupidly they are missing out on much cheaper and better reissues of some titles while great sounding copies of others are fairly common. Unfortunately this man is making a small fortune out of dogmatic and misleading bull. I suppose most of us can consider ourselves lucky to be poor enough to question these prices. Mainly pretty common records for which the best sounding pressing is easily identifiable with a little research. Then again I am not one who believes each copy from the same stamper sounds different.

 

Hmmm, is Port perhaps speaking of the Sweet Baby James 180-gram LP reissue on Rhino, mastered by Kevin Gray and Steve Hoffman back in 2007?

I thought that reissue sounded pretty good, but then again I've never heard a flea market copy of the original LP.

Craig.

 

What else could it possibly be? He also rags gold CDs.