The quest for the hot stamper or is it a myth

Kent Duncan was a mastering engineer, he didn't press records. I think better US pressings of that Fleetwood Mac album were done by Columbia's Santa Maria plant, before Warner-Reprise shifted to Capitol for pressing. Also FWIW, that Discogs link miller carbon posted is a little wacky- it shows a US pressing by Orlake- which was a British plant. Some early Island pink labels were made by Orlake- they are very visceral sounding- tend to be noisier than the Polydors or later EMI pressed copies. 

Seems like they should possibly consider rebranding to hot grooves, perhaps as many as several songs....

I think it is safe to say if they are charging $500 for a record, they probably spent $300 worth of records and time finding this one $500 record.
Would they buy my -1A/-1A records for $200 and I save them some work?? Prolly not..
...Buying 50 records for $40 and finding a VG++/NM copy and cleaning the krapp out of it and charging $400 for it is the better model.

IF I wasn’t drinking and playing Vinyl, I would put all that statistics and design of experiments education to work but as I stare into the deep well of Noir, my hunch is that n = 30 ain’t going to cut it for finding anything white hot, except within the same stamping lot.... 

Got out my White Hot Stamper of Fleetwood Mac and played it again last night. Only the second time its been played. They give you 30 days to return, no questions asked, and I was actually thinking of doing that. I mean, $300 for a record! One record! Come on!

Playing it again last night, sad to say I'm actually a lot more impressed the second time around. First time, expectations were impossibly high. This time instead of getting all caught up in a direct head to head I just played a few sides of some really good records. More like a normal session. Lot more relaxed. Damn this thing sounds good.

Even the first side, which I know does not sound as good as the second. Side 2 is just otherworldly. 

Still I was thinking of returning it. They have another one, Side 1 is better but has a tick, so less money. But then instead of a great Side 2 I'd have a great Side 1. And a tick.

They just got in a Super Hot Stamper of Peter Gabriel So. Great album. Don't have one. Went looking on Discogs. Where absolutely unknown SQ runs $20 and up. Or $99 for a known Super Hot. Which they say, in addition to Super Hot SQ is pretty quiet.

Hate to say it, but these things sure seem to be fairly priced. The Super Hot So is on the way...