New Tom Port - Hot Stamper Article In Wired

Damn, I actually quite like that song, or at least it's one of the more memorable ones.

 

I don't think investment means in a literal, financial gain sense. I agree $500 is an eyebrow raiser but without knowing anything about the purchaser its pointless. If I lived overseas / had the income / had no access to my favorite bands records, the equation changes.

 

That's how they act. It happens all over the interwebs. Idiots who think they know everything about a topic.

I did not read the comments section. Any chance that some troll is just using Fremer's name as an ID?

 

Yeah, but he can't buy those 45 RPM records for $3 at Goodwill.

 

Holy crap!!!!!!

Guess I'll shut the hell up about Neil Young and Thom Yorke's pricing strategies.

 

HEY! I got three of 'em, and they were money well spent. But they're not for everyone and there's a formula for getting one that works for you.

 

We can all find "hot stampers" when we go shopping for second hand records. He doesn't own a hot stamper record magnet. I have plenty of great sounding records.

 

How can he find all his stock of classic rock albums at 3 dollars nowadays ? If the used market is like in my country, all his records would be trashed hot stampers.

 

Yup. Hot stamper is a catch phrase Tom came up with to designate better sounding masterings/pressings that we all have equal access to. There was a time when he was a head of the curve on understanding the importance of mastering and collecting a data base of better mastered LPs. I suspect that with the shared knowledge of audiophiles on forums like this one he is no longer ahead of the curve and given his blanket denial of the excellence of just about any audiophile reissue post dating the early 90s he may very well be quite behind that curve at this point.

 

Nah, it's definitely him. Maybe he hit the bottle a little while before posting, as rsrich suggested...

 

Agreed! I would go further and say "hot stamper" info should be public knowledge. That's why this forum is great. We can all share information on best pressings, matrix and stamper markings to get the best sounding versions of our favorite records. Tom Port might be useful for those with very deep pockets who don't want to put in the effort to look for "hot stampers". But there's no reason for most of us to pay silly money for good-sounding records. Besides, the search is half the fun. It's a matter of knowing what you're searching for.

 

This guy reminds me of the baseball card dealers in the 80's and 90's who would rip open packs of baseball cards, pull out the inserts and rookie cards, and re-seal them with a heat gun. I can understand putting some original pressings in really nice condition at a higher price, but charging $750 for a copy of DSOTM is ridiculous, but not as ridiculous as actually paying that.

 

This is why I prefer the compact disc. Is vinyl better? Sometimes. But then again, earlier pressings of some cds (im not taking loudness/remastered in consideration here) might sound better. Most of us say Japanese pressings are better that some Columbia House version.

 

Yeah, and then out of business necessity he becomes dishonest and comes up with a disingenuous scheme to keep the money coming in from the suckers. Classic.

 

FWIW, and obviously, YMMV, but I've heard Hot Stampers, I own a couple Hot Stampers, they exist.
Some copies do sound waaaay better than others that share matrix information.
It's not some made up bullsh*t IMHO. If you've ever had multiple copies of an album, it's easy to find your own Hot Stamper.
I've never bought from TP, but if the market will bear his prices than power to him.
I think it's a great service for those who can afford it.
$150(ish) is my cost ceiling for LPs, but that's just me.

 

I think we all have some (Hot Stampers) in our collection, like it or not>

sean

 

If you're sooo busy that you don't have time to hunt for your own pressings when we have eBay, Discogs and Hoffman Forums to do so easily, then you're probably also too busy to really clean your records. I think he primarily cleans the heck out of the pressings he has and looks for the quiet ones.

What I'd love to do is have a few people buy the same pressing from him and then do a shootout to see if there are any noticeable differences between his own ratings.

 

That reminds me.... I don't like mine.

 

I know that people like to say that cables don't make a difference. But I've realized that they just haven't gotten a "Hot Braid". There really is a huge difference between runs of the same cables. Some are just wired more magically than others. Truth. I spend all day listening to cables in my totally neutral room so you don't have to.

Sure, you could spend $10,000 on that cable. But do you really wanna risk not getting a "Hot Braid". For only $17,000, you can get that exact same cable from me and rest assured that the braid is as hot as possible. Now, if you're the kinda of guy who really deserves only the VERY best, White Hot braids start at just $22,000.

 

I'm telling you, this audiophile stuff is gold.

 

Well there is certainly a potential conflict of interest in that.

I'm not always enamored with all reissues. Some are lousy (4 Men With Beards and AP 45rpm of Dusty in Memphis - each for different reasons), and some are great (the AP Nat King Cole 45s and the Music Matters Blue Note reissues). Each have to be listened to with both ears and mind wide open.

 

Then it's not the stamper, itself, that is "hot". It's a matter of luck whether or not you caught a well pressed copy. There's no dead wax info you can find that will tell you whether you have a great copy or not. To make an assumption that if you got a 2B stamper copy which sounds great, it doesn't mean that all 2B copies of that record will sound great.

 

I have absolutely nothing against him making $800 from "hot stampers". If he has happy costumers then so be it.

I found the Steve Hoffman forums years ago when I was searching online about Beatles records, before this new vinyl craze. I owe a lot to this website helping me to find out what pressings are what and how they sound and I never came close to spending the big bucks that a hot stamper goes for.

 

Do you think a hot stamper might be a pressing that was in just long enough?

 

That's what I like about the US. There are still places that can be found that aren't picked over, that still have clean records and that aren't super expensive.