Prog Rock – Reviews and Commentaries

Brain Salad Surgery on Shout Heavy Vinyl

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Emerson, Lake and Palmer Available Now

If you’re a fan of Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s fifth album, and you know, or at least suspect, that the British original pressings are more than likely to be better sounding than most, you might find yourself in a bit of a quandary, pocketbook-wise.

Early British pressings in audiophile playing condition aren’t easy to find, and they don’t tend to be cheap when you do find them.

Ah, but there is a fairly cheap and exceptionally easy solution: just buy the Shout Heavy Vinyl reissue from 2008.

It says it’s made from the master tape, it has a replica of the original packaging, and even comes with a poster.

What could go wrong?

The sound could be shit — NFG in our shorthand — that’s what could go wrong.

  • The top end could be overly-textured, tizzy and hot, the kind that constantly calls attention to itself.
  • The bass could be smeary and thick.
  • And the overall presentation of the music could be veiled and recessed.

Alas, the money you thought you were saving buying this potentially wonderful flat, quiet pressing made from the master tapes ends up flushed down the tubes. Now what?

Now you have to do what you should have done to begin with: find yourself a real British pressing.

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On King Crimson’s Red Album, How Good Are the Polydor Pressings?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of King Crimson Available Now

Harsh and congested.

Not remotely competitive with the British originals.

Clean copies on the UK Island label may be hard to find, but they are the only game in town if you are serious about sound.

Want to find your own killer copy?

Consider taking the following moderately helpful advice.

As of 2024, shootouts for this album should be carried out:

How else can you expect to hear the record sound its best?

Based on our experience, Red sounds better:

That’s about it. They are neither easy nor cheap to find, but they are definitely the best sounding.

There’s more collecting help where that came from. Click on the top link below to learn about the pressings that win shootouts.

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Yes, We’re Getting Awfully Close To The Edge…

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Yes Available Now

On the difficulty of reproduction scale, this record ranks well above most of the albums we play, in the top few percent without a doubt.

You need lots of Tubey Magic and freedom from distortion, the kind of distortion-free sound I rarely hear on any but the most heavily tweaked systems — the kind of systems that guys like me have been slaving over for more than forty years.

If you’re a weekend warrior when it comes to working on your stereo, this is not the record for you.

It took a long time to get to the point where we could clean the record properly, twenty years or so, and about the same amount of time to get the stereo to the level it needed to be, involving, you guessed it, many of the revolutionary changes in audio we tout so obsessively.

It’s also not easy to find a pressing with the low end whomp factor, midrange energy and overall dynamic power that this music needs, and it takes one helluva stereo to play one too.

If you have the kind of big system that a record like this demands, when you drop the needle on the best of our Hot Stamper pressings, you are going to hear some astonishingly good sound.

Unless your system is firing on all cylinders, even our Hottest Stamper copies can be difficult. Your electricity has got to be cooking, you’ve got to be using the right room treatments, and ideally you should be using a demagnetizer such as the Talisman on the record itself, 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 listener, and we want to make sure that you’re up to the challenge. If you don’t mind putting in the hard work, here’s a record that will reward you many times over, and probably teach you a thing or two about tweaking your gear in the process.

We’d started and abandoned this shootout multiple times before breaking through in 2008. The typical copy was just too painful to listen to, and the better pressings weren’t sounding the way we’d hoped they would.

Where was the Tubey Magical analog sound with the HUGE whomp factor that we’d been hearing on the best copies of Fragile and The Yes Album?

We just could not find that sound on Close to the Edge.

As futile as our previous attempts were, we decided in 2008 that we would take another stab at it. After all, there had been quite a few changes around here that had the stereo working really well —  the addition of the Odyssey Record Cleaning Machine and Prelude Record Cleaning System to our cleaning process, the Talisman Magnetic Optimizer, the third pair of Hallographs we added years back, tons of smaller tweaks, and a few other tricks that we’re going to leave hidden up our sleeves for now.

The Planets Align

Think about it: This is a highly COMPLEX recording, with HUGE organs, light-speed changes, lots of multi-tracking, and what amounts to an OVERLOAD of musical information. Can you imagine how irritating that would sound on a third-rate copy? We didn’t have to imagine it — we lived through it!

But that’s exactly what made the shootout so rewarding. We had finally gotten the sound we were searching for from Close To The Edge, although it was anything but easy. The toughest peaks to climb are the ones you feel the best standing at the top of, and I have no doubt that many of you will be able to get there, just as we did, as long as you’re willing to work for it. (We humbly suggest you follow our lead.)

We put a lot of time and energy into getting everything just right for our shootouts, and to hear the album sound amazing you’re going to have to do the same. If it doesn’t all come together and our Hot Stamper Close to the Edge leaves you cold, feel free to send it back for a full refund. That’s always our policy, but we wanted to stress it in regards to this album, because it is VERY difficult to reproduce. (Big speakers are pretty much a must on this one as well.)

And it should be noted that there is distortion on the tape. It’s on every LP copy and it’s on the CD too. There are cacophonous passages that have what sounds like board overload, mic preamp overload, tape saturation or some combination of all three.

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Close to the Edge – A MoFi Winner, Or Was It? We’ll Never Really Know

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Yes Available Now

Sonic Grade: Side One: B to B+ / Side Two: C

Many, many years ago (2005?) we wrote the commentary you see below. We can’t say if we would still agree with the sentiments expressed, so take what you read with a grain of salt, and remember that no two records sound the same. If your copy is better or worse on either side, it will not come as a surprise to us here at Better Records.

This is a great MOFI! (On side one anyway.) I have to admit I was partly wrong about this pressing. I used to think it was mud. Either the copy I have here is much better than the copy I played years ago, or my stereo has changed. I’m going to guess that it’s the stereo that has changed. I used to like the original American copies of this album and now I hear that they are upper midrangy and aggressive. [*] So my stereo must have been too forgiving in that area, which in turn would have made this MOFI sound too dull. [**]

Side one is as good as I’ve ever heard it outside of the best British originals. [We don’t even buy those anymore. Maybe that’s the problem with this comparison.] Since almost none of those have survived in clean enough condition to be played on modern audiophile turntables, there isn’t much of an alternative to this pressing.

And it should be noted that there is distortion on the tape. It’s on every LP copy and it’s on the CD too. There are cacophonous passages that have what sounds like board overload, mike preamp overload, tape saturation or something of the kind.

Eddie Offord, the recording engineer, is famous for complaining that the boys in the band were totally out of control when it came to adding layer upon layer and track upon track to their recordings, running the risk of creating such a dense mix that nothing would be heard above the din. He was always fighting a losing battle trying to rein them in. Although he did his best, it appears his efforts failed in some of the musical passages on this album.

So here’s a MOFI I like, but I only really like side one. Side two, although it’s decent enough, errs a little on the smooth, dull side. I have copies in which the guitars have wonderfully extended harmonics and sweeter tone. Some of them are even domestic pressings! On the MOFI there is a “blunting” of the acoustic guitar transients.

[*] Some pressings are indeed bright and aggressive, but that just shows how little I knew about the album in 2005. The later domestic pressings, and even some of the 4 digit catalog pressings, can indeed sound that way. Eventually I would figure out what the good stampers were and then I would no longer be as ignorant as I so clearly was when I wrote this. As for more stuff we’ve gotten wrong, you can find some of it here, under the heading: live and learn.

[**] My stereo was indeed too dark and forgiving back in those days. The way I know that is that records that are too bright and upper-midrangy to play now played just fine twenty years ago.

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Pictures At An Exhibition and its Gigantic Organ Sound

More of the Music of Emerson, Lake and Palmer

Listen to that GIGANTIC organ that plays the fanfare opening of the work.

Honestly, I have never heard a rock album with an organ that stretched from wall to wall and sounds like it’s seventy five feet tall.

No, I take that back. The first ELP album has an organ that sounds about that big, but that’s a studio album. How did they manage to get that kind of organ sound in a live setting without actually having to build one inside the concert hall? I have no idea.

Pictures At An Exhibition has some of the biggest, boldest sound we have ever heard.

It’s clearly a Demo Disc for big speakers that play at loud levels.

Play this one as loud as you can. The louder you play it, the better it sounds.

The hottest Hot Stamper pressings of Pictures are Demo Discs in two other areas as well, bass and size and space, along with the titles linked below:

Please note that many of our Hot Stamper pressings are only available as imports. It has been our experience that the domestic pressings of these albums are simply not competitive with the better imports.

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.

Pictures at an Exhibition should sound its best this way:

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Two of Robin Black’s Engineering Masterpieces

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Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Jethro Tull Available Now

Thick As A Brick is quite possibly the BEST SOUNDING ALBUM Jethro Tull ever made. It’s dynamic; has really solid, deep punchy bass; transparency and sweetness in the midrange; Tubey Magical acoustic guitars and flutes; in other words, the record has EVERYTHING that we go crazy for here at Better Records. I can guarantee you there is no CD on the planet that could ever do this recording justice. The Hot Stamper pressings have a kind of MAGIC that just can’t be captured on one of them there silvery discs.

A Real Gem

When we do these shootouts we play quite a few original copies of the record (the reissues are not worth the vinyl they’re stamped on) and let me tell you, the sound and the music are so good we can’t get enough of it. Until about 2007 this was the undiscovered gem (by TP anyway) in the Tull catalog. The pressings we had heard up until then were nothing special, and of course the average pressing of this album is exactly that: no great shakes.

With the advent of better record cleaning fluids and much better tables, phono stages, room treatments and the like, some copies of Thick As A Brick have shown themselves to be simply amazing sounding. Even the All Music Guide could hear how well-engineered it was. At one time this was our go-to record for testing and tweaking the system.

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Letter of the Week – “It feels like you are at the concert.”

More of the Music of Emerson, Lake and Palmer

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:

Hey Tom, 

One of my favorite albums growing up was pictures at an exhibition, but just for the music not the sound. I sold my domestic copy years ago but recall it was a muddy mess and always the worst sounding of all my ELP albums.

Fast forward decades later and I am totally blown away at what an amazing sounding album this really can be! Now the quality of the music matches the quality of the sound. The tonal balance is superb with just the right amount of weight down low. I never thought this record could sound this good. The wall of Organ sound as you put it when cranked to the lush acoustic guitar and tenderness of Greg’s vocals. It feels like you are at the concert.

That is why I am so impressed with all the hot stamper live albums I own. It shows a concert experience can be replicated with the right equipment but, most importantly, with the right pressing!

An amazing album and a great price to boot.

Thank you!!

Rob

Rob,

Fantastic to hear, thanks for your letter.

The “muddy mess” you refer to was no doubt the result of many things, but one of the main problems with your old copy was that it was the domestic pressing, which is made from second generation masters and therefore hopelessly outclassed by the right early Island pressings, which are of course the only ones we sell.

Even if you were lucky enough to have the right Island pressing, you would have had to know how to clean it using the right machines and fluids.

Not many audiophiles have either, and nobody had them back in the day, because they hadn’t been invented yet!

Your experience is what good records are all about, and we are gratified to have played a part in helping to bring that music to life in your very own listening room.

You can be at the concert as often as you want now. How could anyone put a price on that?

Oh, some folks find a way.

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Yes, The Best Plum and Orange Pressing Will Win Every Shootout

Hot Stamper Pressings of Prog Rock Albums Available Now

Our rare, original Plum and Orange UK original here put every other pressing to shame. This is some of the best High Production Value rock music of the ’70s, thanks to the band and a Mr Eddie Offord.

If you’ve ever heard one of our Yes Album Hot Stampers, you’ll know what to expect here – HUGE and POWERFUL sound.

Although the UK first label originals will always win our shootouts, the early UK reissues on the Red and Green label can still sound quite good on the right pressing.

Skip all domestic copies of this album, as well as the first one. They are clearly made from dubbed tapes.

Amazing Acoustic Guitars

Acoustic guitar reproduction is superb on the better copies of this recording. The harmonic coherency, the richness, the body and the phenomenal amounts of Tubey Magic can be heard on every strum.

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Point of Know Return – CBS Half-Speed Reviewed

Hot Stamper Pressings of Proggy Rock Albums Available Now

Both this album and Leftoverture are way too bright and thin.

What were the engineers thinking — that brighter equals better?

In the case of these two titles it most definitely does not. It’s the sound that most audiophiles are fooled by to this day.

Brighter and more detailed is rarely better. Most of the time it’s just brighter. Not many half-speed mastered audiophile records are dull. They’re bright because the audiophiles who bought them preferred that sound. I did too, a couple of decades ago [make that four decades ago].

Hopefully we’ve all learned our lessons by now, expensive and embarrassing as such lessons usually turn out to be. 

Waking Up a Dull Stereo

If your system is dull, dull, deadly dull, the way older systems tend to be, this record has the hyped-up sound to bring it to life in no time.

There are scores of commentaries on the site about the huge improvements in audio available to the discerning (and well-healed) audiophile. It’s the reason Hot Stampers can and do sound dramatically better than their Heavy Vinyl or Audiophile counterparts: because your stereo is good enough to show you the difference.

With an old school system you will continue to be fooled by bad records, just as I and all my audio buds were fooled thirty and forty years ago. Audio has improved immensely in that time. If you’re still playing Heavy Vinyl and Audiophile pressings, there’s a world of sound you’re missing. We discussed the issue in this commentary:

My advice is to get better equipment and that will allow you to do a better job of recognizing bad records when you play them.

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McDonald and Giles – A Sleeper Prog Album from 1970

Hot Stamper Pressings of Prog Rock Albums Available Now

More Recordings Engineered by Brian Humphries

Brian Humphries engineered the album, and although you may not be familiar with that name, if you’re an audiophile you should get to know his work better, as this guy recorded some amazing sounding albums.

Take a gander at this group:

  • Black Sabbath – Paranoid
  • Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here
  • Traffic – John Barleycorn Must Die
  • Traffic – The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys 

Two are of course on our Top 100 Rock and Pop List, and all four — five if you count McDonald And Giles — qualify as State of the Art Rock Recordings from the era.

Demo Disc Quality Sound

If you’re looking to demonstrate just how good the best early Island Label recordings can sound, this killer copy should do the trick.

This UK pressing is super spacious, sweet and positively dripping with ambience. Talk about Tubey Magic, the liquidity of the sound here is positively uncanny. This is vintage analog at its best, so full-bodied and relaxed you’ll wonder how it ever came to be that anyone seriously contemplated trying to improve it.

This IS the sound of Tubey Magic. No recordings will ever be made like this again, and no CD will ever capture what is in the grooves of this record. There may well be a CD of this album, but those of us in possession of a working turntable and a good collection of vintage vinyl could care less.

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