Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Emerson, Lake and Palmer Available Now
To be clear, audiophiles who buy a shootout winning White Hot Stamper pressing from us don’t have to dream, but practically everyone else does, because copies that sound as good as this one are few and far between.
It’s an amazing find, the kind of record we live for here at Better Records.
We described the sound of our most recent shootout winning copy this way:
This original UK Island pressing was doing everything right, earning killer Triple Plus (A+++) grades from top to bottom.
Our recent monster shootout produced this incredible sounding British pressing on Island (the only way we offer the title) and it is stone guaranteed to rock your world.
Eddie Offord‘s trademark Tubey Magic, energy, resolution, whomp factor and dynamics are all over this phenomenal recording, and this pressing captured it all.
Here are the notes that back up everything we said, and more. We can’t put all the qualities we rave about into every listing. Who would believe us?
No other copy offered this kind of sound. It’s what we used to call AGAIG — As Good As It Gets.
3+/3+ records like this one go in our Top Shelf section, which currently holds 32 titles.
Records with at least one 3+ side go in this section, and there are 143 of those as of today, almost five times as many.
Eddie Is The Man
Tarkus is clearly a Demo Disc for big speakers that can play at loud levels.
The organ captured here by Eddie Offord (of Yes engineering fame, we’re his biggest fans) and then transferred so well onto our Hot Stamper pressings will rattle the foundation of your house if you’re not careful. This music really needs that kind of megawatt reproduction to make sense. It’s Big Bombastic Prog that wants desperately to rock your world. At moderate levels it just sounds overblown and silly. At loud levels it actually will rock your world.
All but the best Brit pressings have a tendency to be a bit turgid and many of them lack the bottom end weight that music like this absolutely must have to work its magic. There are some good domestic copies — not in a league with the best Brits at all — but most of them have sub-generation sound that robs the instruments of their immediacy and texture (much the same way that Heavy Vinyl does, truth be told).
Advice
Want to avoid paying our admittedly high prices and find a top quality copy for yourself?
Consider taking our moderately helpful advice concerning the pressings that tend to win our shootouts.
Tarkus should sound its best this way:
Further Reading