White Hot Stamper

Sammy Davis Jr.
The Nat King Cole Song Book

SONIC GRADE: (?)
Side one:
Side two:
VINYL PLAYGRADE:(?)
Side one:	Mint Minus Minus
Side two:	Mint Minus Minus

Tubey Magic Is Key

The best copies have the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records cannot even BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn't showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to "see" the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It's what vintage all analog recordings are known for -- this sound.

If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it -- not often, and certainly not always -- but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.

What to Listen For (WTLF)

Copies with rich lower mids and nice extension up top (to keep the strings from becoming shrill) did the best in our shootout, assuming they weren't veiled or smeary of course. So many things can go wrong on a record! We know, we heard them all.

And we know a fair bit about the man's recordings at this point. As of today, we've done commentaries for more than 21 different Sinatra shootouts, and that's not counting at least another ten titles that either bombed or were sold off years ago.

We've searched high and low for his records and played them by the score over the years. We plan to keep a good supply on to the site in the coming years so watch for new arrivals in the Vocal section (linked to the left).

What do the best Hot Stamper pressing give you?

Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?

The Big Sound comes next -- wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.

Then transient information -- fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.

Tight punchy bass -- which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.

Next: transparency -- the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.

Then: presence and immediacy. The vocals aren't back there somewhere, lost in the mix. They're front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt would have put them.

Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing -- an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.