Awesome Audiophile Snake Oil

yeah, I love that Hot Stamper-types seem obsessed with the most yard sale-y records like Tattoo You and Sweet Baby James. Just buy 100 copies for 2 bucks each if you really want to drop $200 on them.

although supposedly the sound is a bit harder compressed

I don't think this is the case as much today as it was in the mid-00s (the "Loudness Wars"). And some stuff is even being reissued sans-hard compression (e.g., Rush's Vapor Trails).

lol when I got to the Emotional Rescue part of that article I was o_O. brothers in arms is also perfect. picturing those jerks listening to the synth riff of Walk of Life 15 times in a row and then scribbling 'silky bottom end' on a post-it.

and then the dude who spends $250 on it

hot stampers has a snakeoilish scent for sure, but it's also my experience that most reissues (and really most new presses of any record) are terrible, both the cardboard covers but especially the sound - when I started collecting records I never thought I'd obsess over finding a good press, but now I've begun selling those reissues I naively wasted money on 7 years ago to buy proper 60s/70s/80s presses instead.

― niels, Thursday, March 5, 2015 10:02 AM

this is sadly OTM, it's been getting noticeably worse over the last few years

Matador email is also OTM

Love a silky bottom end on my hot stampers

what's the "Matador email"?

But yeah I've been bummed out a few times recently with new vinyl-will probably stick to CDs for new albums, dig around for deals on old LPs. Same as it ever was!

my 180g Remain in Light sounds good, though

this is sadly OTM, it's been getting noticeably worse over the last few years

Matador email is also OTM

― sleeve, Thursday, March 5, 2015 2:22 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I have to wonder, given the decidedly hit-or-miss quality of new vinyl (reissues or otherwise), are we in the middle of an uncanny valley of vinyl production? In 5-10 years, are the reissues/new releases of 2008-2015 going to be piling up in dollar bins (while "proper"/"fixed"/we-goofed-on-that-last-reissue vinyl hits the market)?

hasn't that been an ongoing cycle for about 40 years now?

Yeah, I suppose so. I guess I just meant it specifically in terms of vinyl manufacturing -- potentially fixing physical defects via reissues -- rather than "Here's another Dark Side of the Moon box with a limited-edition sticker!"-type reissues.

Yeah, I know what you're saying - the last few years of reissues could definitely get a bad rep, like some of the first wave of CD's that just sound off when you hear them now

what's the "Matador email"?

regarding the Yo La Tengo 'Painful" reissue, just a bit upthread

thanks - really interesting, pretty amazing for them to be so up front about it.

a couple of quid for a crappy 80s/90s cd being replaced by a newly remastered edition for £10 vs this excess.

no contest.

i.e. i have bought original cd 80s/90s/00s edition and then the remaster has been issued, and the sound quality has rarely been an issue.

no financial excess required for either edition, nor the equipment to actually hear the difference.

i will never ever understand the love of the scratchy groove.

big art work. fun turn tables. cheap stevie wonder records that sound amazing. cheap fleetwood mac records that sound amazing. cheap steely dan records that, etc.

studio productions until the mid 80s, dance music after that, probably rap after that...

cds are totally the hot bargain rn though imo

yeah. early 2000s were amazing for vinyl

and maybe/probably it was better before then. I just wouldn't know.

i get the love.
i have a few old heavy duty 60s albums that sound fantastic.
but the format is just too fragile and susceptible to too many variables as described in the recent article (and £££), that its just not worth the hassle.
give me a well mastered cd, and lack of artwork anyday.

lol when I got to the Emotional Rescue part of that article I was o_O. brothers in arms is also perfect. picturing those jerks listening to the synth riff of Walk of Life 15 times in a row and then scribbling 'silky bottom end' on a post-it.

― you can buy your hair if it won't grow (Sufjan Grafton), Thursday, March 5, 2015 2:18 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I can't stop giggling about this

xp I think cd wallets is where I lost all respect for cds. I wish that I respected cds.

i kind of wish i had the openness of soul to hear what these guys hear

really tho i wish i had the money they spend on these rigs

sadly, the money probably comes along with the ear hubris

ha - yeah i think it's more mid-life crisis than openness of soul but I admire your generosity of spirit towards the hot stamper stans

Hot Stamper Stan's a pr good record store name

Hot Stan

ha - yeah i think it's more mid-life crisis than openness of soul but I admire your generosity of spirit towards the hot stamper stans

― Brio2, Thursday, March 5, 2015 4:54 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well i'm not about to descend to using a /sarc tag

this latest topic is super interesting to me since I work for a housewares company that makes a lot of stuff in plastic, obv, and every part of it makes total sense to me. I mean I don't know what the actual sound quality effect is, but you definitely are supposed to scrap and regrind the first umpteen pieces of a several thousand piece run. That's why our smaller orders of like 1000 pcs have worse quality than our 3000 or 6000 pc orders.

And the small vendors who don't physically have space to stage the work in process properly and have to cut corners on cycle time to keep up... this is like old home week.

http://design-milk.com/stone-ohyeahstudio-nokoanna/

hot stamp, i love you so

lololol

Currently bidding on a original press mono of the first Doors album, fingers crossed it's a hot stamper. On the real though fighting the urge to really go down the mono press rabbit hole on 60s classic albums

in the classic 60s arena, for me the only mono vs stereo battle that mono has lost has been Beatles For Sale. Not by a wide margin, but I do like the stereo better for that.

Never heard of "hot stampers" until that Wired article, the whole thing is just an obvious con.

BUT "Lawry has accumulated about 150 hot stampers since then. Adjusted for inflation, that’s the equivalent of buying a new Mercedes E-Class." - tbh, I'd get much much more out of 150 albums I love than any car ever

imo if you spend any amount of time in a car daily it's not bad for it to be nice

also you can listen to music in it

Earlier this year, Jay Z dropped $56 million to purchase the Swedish technology company Aspiro, owner of two music services for aspirational listeners who appreciate the finer things in life, like lossless file streaming. Whereas shoddy services like Spotify and Rdio are always losing sound from the holes in their hobo file bindles, Aspiro’s high-end providers—WiMP and the newer TIDAL—lovingly fold their audio and ad-free music videos into the velvet purse of 16-bit FLAC files, expertly inserted into the discerning ears and eyes of audiophiles by digital butlers.

http://www.avclub.com/article/jay-zs-streaming-service-isnt-everybody-ie-poors-217109

I just love the illustrative language here.

I tried Tidal, it's ok, nothing special

this is kind of amazing writing:

Spotify and Rdio are always losing sound from the holes in their hobo file bindles

have to say whenever i have tried spotify i have found it very 'shoddy'.
umm .. not.
(and no, i am not a fan, but thats cos of other reasons).
baffles me that someone would put in so much $$$ into such a groove given the dominance of the big players that have clearly wrapped this market up.
tis like the murdoc refunding of myspace to try and take on facebook.
doomed from the start.

i know a couple of people who complained about spotify sound quality, but who had not chosen the high-quality streaming in their preferences

"Excited to contact Sean Scoggin of Stereo Dave's Audio Alternative, I called him to discuss what his modifications were to the Pioneer SW-8MK2 and discovered that they use a proprietary method to influence and speed up the electron flow of the subwoofer's amplifier. Modifying the driver allows the subwoofer to move faster and have better freedom in its excursions for accuracy and speed in its ability to track the low frequencies it is replicating. All the modifications successfully work to quicken the subwoofer and increase its bandwidth/frequency range, making the subwoofer sound faster, more powerful, and deeper while still maintaining bass texture and detail.

i'm not really knowledgable in science...but that sounds like bullshit to me

he sped up the electron flow without making the music out of sync? what a magician

people are generally worried about 'speeding up electrons' when they want to lower a shunt capacitance that will reduce the signal at high frequencies by shorting it to ground. i'm not sure why you'd want to lower capacitance for a subwoofer amplifier. one is generally more commonly concerned with increasing any series capacitance so that you don't have a very high series resistance at low frequencies. so I think it's probably bullshit.

this may or may not be snake oil...but I want one.
https://www.marshallheadphones.com/mh_at_en/london-phone

I already can't tell the difference between my Galaxy s6 DAC/amp and a nice desktop dac/amp connected to my laptop

You can get a ridiculous DAC (120dB SNR, etc.) for under a dollar in volume at this point.

amusing audiophile article inc snake oil content) by ilx's old mate Petridis here: http://www.esquire.co.uk/culture/music/8618/are-the-audiophiles-hearing-something-were-not/