Many copies suffer from harsh, digital-sounding highs.
Pull out your old copy and listen to the beginning of side two and you’ll quickly hear what we’re on about.
Compare that to the silkier, sweeter top end on a top quality Hot Stamper and it’s unlikely you’ll find yourself going back.
Our Older Hot Stamper Commentary
Both sides of this bad boy are SUPERB. Drop the needle on So Far Away — it’s airy, open, and spacious, yet incredibly rich and full-bodied. The bottom end really delivers the goods — it’s punchy and meaty with healthy amounts of deep, tight bass.
The vocals are tonally Right On The Money — full-bodied, with breathy texture, surrounded by the lovely ambience of the studio.
The 3-D quality to the soundfield here is something that most copies simply cannot reproduce.
The overall sound is lively, dynamic, and relatively natural.
Want to find your own top quality copy?
Consider taking our moderately helpful advice concerning the pressings that tend to win our shootouts.
In our experience, this record sounds best this way:
Side One
So Far Away
Money for Nothing
During the recording of “Money for Nothing”, the signature sound of Knopfler’s guitar may have been enhanced by a “happy accident” of microphone placement. Knopfler was using his Gibson Les Paul going through a Laney amplifier. While setting up the guitar amplifier microphones in an effort to get the “ZZ Top sound” that Knopfler was after, guitar tech Ron Eve, who was in the control room, heard the “amazing” sound before Dorfsman was finished arranging the mics.
“One mic was pointing down at the floor,” Dorfsman remembered, “another was not quite on the speaker, another was somewhere else, and it wasn’t how I would want to set things up—it was probably just left from the night before, when I’d been preparing things for the next day and had not really finished the setup.” What they heard was exactly what ended up on the record; no additional processing or effects were used during the mix. – Wikipedia
Walk of Life
Your Latest Trick
Why Worry
Side Two
Ride Across the River
The Man’s Too Strong
One World
Brothers in Arms