Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Graham Nash Available Now
What hurts so many pressings of this album is a generally lifeless quality and a lack of presence in the midrange.
Were the stampers a bit worn for those copies, or no good to start with, or was it bad vinyl that couldn’t hold the energy of the stamper, or perhaps some stampers just weren’t cut right?
Maybe it’s something as simple as the pressing plates going out of alignment at some point in the cycle?
Don’t ask us. We sure don’t know. And one thing we’ve learned over the years is not to pretend to.
These are record mysteries, and they are mysteries that will always be mysteries, if for no other reason than the number of production variables hopelessly intertwined at the moment of a pressing’s creation can never be teased apart no matter how smart you are.
As we never tire of saying, thinking is really not much help with regard to finding better sounding records.
Not surprisingly, we’ve found that cleaning and playing them seems to work fairly well.
Those two things work fairly well because nothing else works at all.
What Happens?
What happens when you clean and play a bunch of copies?
You come to recognize what the best ones are doing and what the average ones aren’t.
The effect of that understanding on this particular title was simply to recognize the nature of this project, that these are a bunch of well-crafted songs played with energy and enthusiasm by a very talented group of top-flight musicians, totally in sync with each other.
It’s no grand musical statement like Nash’s first solo album, because it never wanted to be one.
(Nash’s first album got me deeper into audio, and for that I will always be grateful.)
Like that first album, no one pays much attention to this music nowadays, but Better Records is trying to remedy that situation by making available to the audiophile public superb copies of this album, every one of which is guaranteed to turn you into a fan.
This is not new music, but it may be new music to you, so “discovering” it will be every bit as much fun for you in 2025 as it was for me in 1973.
This is not an audiophile record. It ain’t never going to make the TAS List or get a mention by anyone in the audiophile press.
This is a record for music lovers who care about good sound.
If you’re reading this, that’s you. Us too, and glad of it.
From one audiophile to another, this is a great record that belongs in your collection.
Further Reading