Reviews and Commentaries for Close to the Edge
One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:
Hey Tom,
BTW, Close to the edge is amazing. I have never heard this album sound so big with such deep and solid bass! It is really a “tell all” about my setup as you stated in your write up. Jon’s vocal’s can be a bit bright in the title track when turned up loud, so I know where to focus my attention on my setup.
There are are so many things that make playback of the record tricky, your room, electricity, equipment, everything. The better you can play that record, good and loud, the more progress you are making! Thanks again and I am sure I will write again soon.
Rob,
Thanks, looking forward to it.
TP
P.S.
We talk a lot about these kinds of challenging records all over the site. This commentary goes into the subject in detail.
Here is another typical excerpt you may see on listings of records that present a challenge to the audiophile no matter how advanced:
This Demo Disc Quality recording should be part of any serious Rock Collection. Others that belong in that category can be found here.
It also ranks fairly high on our Difficulty of Reproduction Scale. Do not attempt to play it using any but the best equipment.
Unless your system is firing on all cylinders, even our hottest Hot Stamper copies — the Super Hot and White Hot pressings with the biggest, most dynamic, clearest, and least distorted sound — can have problems .
Your system should be thoroughly warmed up, your electricity should be clean and cooking, you’ve got to be using the right room treatments, and we also highly recommend using a demagnetizer such as the Walker Talisman on the record, your cables (power, interconnect and speaker) as well as the individual drivers of your speakers.
This is a record that’s going to demand a lot from the audio enthusiast, and we want to make sure that you feel you’re up to the challenge. If you don’t mind putting in a little hard work, here’s a record that will reward your time and effort many times over, and probably teach you a thing or two about tweaking your gear in the process.
Further Reading