Top Artists – The Eagles

The Eagles / On The Border – A Must Own Country Rock Classic

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  • An outstanding British SYL copy with solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER on both sides of this criminally underrated California Country Rock Classic
  • If you’ve never heard one of these early pressings, you have simply never heard this album sound the way it should, mastered with the correct polarity, for one thing
  • “You Never Cry Like A Lover” and “The Best Of My Love” (their first No. 1) offer Glyn Johns magically delicious DEMO DISC quality sound
  • We’re HUGE fans of the album here at Better Records; it’s some of the most sophisticated, well-crafted, heartfelt music these guys ever made, and that’s saying a lot coming from us – we’ve been big fans for decades
  • This killer album from 1974 belongs in your collection.
  • We’ve recently compiled a list of records we think every audiophile should get to know better, along the lines of “the 1001 records you need to hear before you die,” but with less accent on morbidity and more on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. On the Border is a good example of a record most audiophiles don’t know well but should.

Many of you have probably forgotten how good this album is (assuming you were ever familiar with it in the first place) probably because the typical domestic copy you would have played back in the day is fairly hard on the ears. Most pressings, even the British ones, barely hint at the kind of sound you’ll hear on this vintage UK pressing (the only kind we sell of course).

The LIFE and ENERGY of this pressing are going to knock you right out of your seat. Most copies leave you with a headache, but this one will have you begging to turn up the volume.

Tubey Magical Acoustic Guitar reproduction is superb on the better copies of this album. Simply phenomenal amounts of Tubey Magic can be heard on every strum, along with richness, body and harmonic coherency that have all but disappeared from modern recordings (and especially from modern remasterings). (more…)

The Eagles / One Of These Nights – We Broke Through in 2016

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Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of The Eagles

This 2-pack contains the best side one we’ve ever heard! The sound is bigger, richer, tubier and livelier than we even thought possible. Side one was so amazing, such an obvious step up over every side of every other copy, we felt it deserved to be awarded our “Four Plus” (A++++) grade. One of These Nights, Too Many Hands and Hollywood Waltz will blow your mind on this side one. 

  • Our lengthy commentary entitled Outliers & Out-of-This-World Sound talks about how rare these kinds of pressings are and how to go about finding them.
  • We no longer give Four Pluses out as a matter of policy, but that doesn’t mean we don’t come across records that deserve them from time to time.
  • Nowadays we most often place them under the general heading of Breakthrough Pressings. These are records that, out of the blue, revealed to us sound of such high quality that it dramatically changed our appreciation of the recording itself.
  • We found ourselves asking “Who knew?” Perhaps a better question would have been “How high is up?”

A Side One Like No Other

My notes read: ‘hi-rez, super tubey, breathy vocals with much less honk.”

Here is the one comment which really gets to the point of the better pressings: “guitar solos rise above.” The big solo on the title track just soars on this copy like we’d never heard before.

This is the guitar sound that Bill Szymczyk achieved with the band that Glyn Johns had not. Of course, it’s only fair to point out that Johns had never tried. He saw them as a Country Rock band. The Eagles saw themselves as a Rock band, it’s as simple as that.

  • Reviews and commentaries for albums with soaring guitars can be found here.

Also note on side one that the loud choruses and huge guitars on the second track, Too Many Hands, hold up on this side one amazingly well. It’s a great test track as well as the first, providing positive confirmation that what you will hear for the song One of These Nights — the size and the power — will carry all the way through this side one.

When you play side two of the first disc, the disc with the Four Plus side one, you may be rather shocked at how small and opaque it is, especially in comparison to the incredible sound of side one.

Side two in general tends to have worse sound than side one on this album by one half to one full grade, if our experience is any guide.

Of course, no one in the audiophile commentariat ever seems to notice side to side differences like these, mostly because no one else does the kind of large scale shootouts that we do. If you play enough copies of the same album, these differences become very clear.

The only solution to the bad sound of side two was to include another disc with a good side two, in this case earning our Double Plus (A++) grade.

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Eagles – Eagles Live

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More Joe Walsh

  • An insanely good copy of the band’s first live album with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or very close to it on all FOUR sides
  • This copy is incredibly spacious, full-bodied and natural, with a nicely extended top end, plenty of space around the instruments and vocals, and few of the problems that plagued many pressings we played (discussed below)
  • The album provides a balanced document of the band’s musical history – five tracks were recorded in 1976, the rest in 1980
  • “When it comes to live music, most bands fail. The Eagles, however, sound even better… Hotel California is iconic, every track on this album is epic. The Eagles, the band that shaped not just one generation but continue to do so. This is a must have for fans of the Eagles…”
  • If you’re a fan of The Eagles, a killer copy of their live album from 1980 belongs in your collection

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Eagles – Rockin’ Out to Victim of Love

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Reviews and Commentaries for Hotel California

This commentary was written more than ten years ago. Wouldn’t change a thing though!

Victim of Love is a classic case of yet another in the long list of recordings that really comes alive when you Turn Up Your Volume.

It’s the sound of this five piece tearing it up LIVE IN THE STUDIO. It’s also the track where the DCC just falls apart for us. Where did the rock and roll energy go? The DCC makes it sound like the band just doesn’t care, which was certainly not our experience when were playing any of the killer Hot Stampers we came across. Just the reverse was true; we had them turned up full blast and they ROCKED.

One reason the Turn Up Your Volume Test is such a great test is that the louder the problem, the problem in this case being the kind of lifeless sound that Heavy Vinyl pressings often suffer from, the harder it is to ignore.

I might go so far as to say that Victim of Love is the best sounding track on the whole album. It’s punchy, real and MUSICAL in a way that nothing else on the album is, because it’s being played by a real band, live. The energy and coherency of the sound is like nothing else you will hear on Hotel California, and possibly on any other Eagles record. (more…)

Listening in Depth to Desperado

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Hot Stamper Pressings of Especially Tubey Magical Recordings Available Now

Presenting another entry in our extensive Listening in Depth series. Here are some albums currently on our site with similar Track by Track breakdowns.

This is the second-best sounding Eagles record of all time, no doubt thanks to the engineering of our man Glyn Johns.

Of course, the best sound on any Eagles record is found on the first album. It’s a Top Ten Rock and Pop title and as Tubey Magical a rock record as you will ever hear.

You don’t need tube equipment to hear the prodigious amounts of Tubey Magic that exist on this recording. For those of you who’ve experienced top quality analog pressings of Meddle or Dark Side of the Moon, or practically any jazz album on Contemporary, whether played through tubes or transistors, that’s the luscious sound of Tubey Magic, and it is all over Desperado.

For whatever reason, the first Eagles album was left off the TAS Super Disc list, even though we feel that both musically and sonically it beats Desperado by a hair. And there is no need to buy the one Harry recommended back in the day, the original British on SYL.

TRACK LISTING

Side One

Doolin-Dalton

This wonderful song is a great test track for side one. Typical pressings of this album tend to be dark and lack extension up top. When you have no real top end, space, detail and resolution suffer greatly. You need to be able to appreciate each of the stringed instruments being played — guitar, banjo, dobro — and the top end needs to be extended and correct for you to be able to do that. (more…)

The Eagles – Hotel California

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More Joe Walsh

  • With superb Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER on both sides, this copy is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other Hotel Cal you’ve heard
  • If you have any modern remastered pressing of the album, PLEASE order this one so you can hear what you have been missing all these years
  • A Better Records Top 100 pick – here’s a copy that’s transparent, and hi-rez, with all the energy and Tubey Magic that can only be found on these original pressings
  • 5 stars: “Hotel California unveiled what seemed almost like a whole new band… The result was the Eagles’ biggest-selling regular album release, and one of the most successful rock albums ever.”

We are having a devil of a time finding this album in audiophile playing condition these days, which is why you practically never see them on the site anymore, and copies quieter than Mint Minus Minus are rare indeed

We just finished a shootout for this title and this bad boy is truly a Demo Disc Quality Classic Rock LP.

From first note to last, this pressing has superb, mind-blowing, Demo Disc Quality Sound. Drop the needle on any track on either side to hear what we’re talking about. The highs are silky and delicate, the bottom end is tight and punchy, and the vocals sound AMAZING. The bass is PERFECTION, which really brings out the feel of the song “Hotel California.” It’s so deep and loping, the effect is practically narcotic.

“Life In The Fast Lane” is possibly the toughest song on the album to get right — it tends to have that transistory, compressed sound that we’ve come to expect from Bill Szymczyk. On this copy, it REALLY ROCKS — super-punchy with amazing presence and lots of meaty texture to the guitars. It will always sound a bit harsher than ideal on any copy with real presence, texture, and energy; that’s just the sound they were going for. It is what it is, which makes it not a good track to judge the first side by.

On side two, one of the better sounding tracks is “Try And Love Again.” On a superb copy like this one, it’s off the charts. The wonderful clarity and punchy bass here take this song to a whole new level.

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Eagles / Hotel California – DCC Reviewed

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Reviews and Commentaries for Hotel California

Sonic Grade: B+/B-

The DCC for this album is not a total disaster. In fact, the first side of the DCC is one of the better DCC sides we’ve played in recent memory. We dropped the needle on a few copies we had in the back (pressing variations exist for audiophile records too, don’t you know) and they averaged about a B+ for sound on side one. Side two was quite a bit too clean for our tastes — no real ambience or meaty texture to the guitars, about a B- for sound.

To flip something we say often: you can do worse, but you can do a LOT better.  

Differing Grading Scales

Note that the grading scale for Hot Stampers is slightly different than the grading scale we all grew up with in school.

The best Hot Stampers receive a grade of A Triple Plus.

This DCC record for side one is three steps down from that.

Three steps down from an A+ grade in school, the highest grade one could earn, would be a B+, hence the B+ grade you see above.

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Don’t Blame Bill Szymczyk If Your Copy of The Long Run Doesn’t Sound Good

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More Records that Are Good for Testing Grit and Grain

Most copies have a smeary, veiled, stuck-in-the-speaker quality that makes for some painful listening. Cardboard drums. Non-existent ambience. No energy.

Unless you get one of the hard, edgy, thin ones — we’re not sure which is more unpleasant to play.

The best copies are a whole different story, with the kind of big, punchy, full-bodied sound this music absolutely demands.

What’s Bill Szymczyk’s problem anyway, you might ask. Can’t the guy record an album any better than this after being in the studio for all these years?

Yes he can. Don’t make the mistake of judging his work by the typical bad pressing of it, the kind that Elektra was churning out by the millions back in the day.

Believe me, the master tape must be AWESOME if the sound of some of the records we played is any indication (which of course it is).

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Letter of the Week – “…as if I were sitting in that Southern California recording studio all those years ago.” 

More of the Music of Carole King

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

Hey Tom, 

First a short thank you. I was slow in ordering a record I needed for an audiophile’s friend’s birthday this week, and you guys got it to me. There is a personal service aspect of your team that just adds to the quality of the product. As to that…..

This morning I went to my record collection looking for the right one to listen to with morning coffee at the start of a beautiful Friday. I came across the very first Hot Stamper I ever purchased from you. A copy of Carol King’s Tapestry. I remember the nervousness I felt when making that first “investment”…. Have to tell you, it sounds even better today. The dynamic range, the lingering cymbal clash, the clarity of James Taylor’s acoustic guitar…as if I were sitting in that Southern California recording studio all those years ago. 

BTW… I had a very cool experience last week. My boss is friends with a guy who’s name is Herb Tobin. Herb bought an ocean front house in a small berg north Miami called Golden Beach back in 1982. He bought it from a Miami recording studio that use to be called Criteria, later changing their name to the current The Hits Factory. My boss arranged for us to have lunch with Mr. Tobin on my birthday. By now, you no doubt have guessed the address….461 Ocean Blvd. Not only did Eric Clapton stay there and was so inspired at the turning point in his life that time meant he named the album, and used the image looking back from the beach at the back of the house in 1974 as the album cover. The Eagles also stayed there while recording Hotel California.

We met Mr. Tobin out for lunch and he told me many stories of all the strange, and some unwelcome visitors he has had since 1982. One most welcomed visitor was in the 1990’s he got a call from Clapton’s agent and Eric wanted to bring his wife by and show her the house. They ended up having lunch out on the back patio, where the palm tree is on the album cover. Eric autographed 10 records for Mr. Tobin that day and he had 4 left plus one he had framed. My boss made arrangements with Mr. Tobin in advance and he gave me one…. I am having it framed. I have always loved that record, since ’74. Not looking for agreement, but I have never been able to warm up to any of the Cream, Derek and the Dominos, etc. and anything after what are for me the 4 best (461; Backless; No Reason to Cry; and There’s One In Every Crowd), is simply not my cup of tea. But 461 for me is not only Clapton’s best work, it is one of my top 10 albums of all time. Something totally authentic about it.

Wanted to share a little with you of the impact all your good work makes. (more…)

The Glorious Sound of the SYL Pressing of On The Border

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Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of The Eagles

This commentary was written about fifteen years ago, prompted by the discovery of an amazingly good sounding British original pressing. We wrote:

‘You Never Cry Like A Lover’ is breathtaking on this copy — Glyn Johns is a genius I tell you!

We’re HUGE fans of the album here at Better Records; it’s some of the most sophisticated, well-crafted, heartfelt music these guys ever made, and that’s saying a lot. Many of you have probably forgotten how good this album is (assuming you were ever familiar with it in the first place) probably because the typical domestic copy you would have played back in the day is fairly hard on the ears. Most pressings, even the British ones, barely hint at the kind of sound you’ll hear on this Hot Stamper LP!

You Never Cry Like A Lover and The Best Of My Love have SUPERB Glyn Johns Demo Disc Sound on this copy. The LIFE and ENERGY of this pressing are going to knock you right out of your seat. Most copies leave you with a headache, but this one will have you begging to turn up the volume!

Let’s talk about the Eagles’ records from an audiophile perspective.

The Last Of The Glyn Johns Eagles Records

For their debut the Eagles recorded what we consider to be one of the Ten Best Sounding Rock Records in the history of recorded media. (We sometimes have some in stock. Click here to see.)

Wait a minute, the Eagles didn’t record anything, Glyn Johns did. He deserves all the credit for turning that first album into a Demo Disc of the highest order. Partway through this album, their third, they fired him. (The British ran Winston Churchill out of office after the war, so go figure.) Johns is credited with only two tracks, and as would be expected, those two are the real Demo Disc tracks on the album.

But as I way playing various copies of these original British SYL pressings (the SYL of Desperado is the one on the TAS List, don’t you know), I could easily recognize the fully-extended, harmonically-rich, super-low distortion, Tubey Magical, Unbelievably Sweet Glyn Johns ANALOG Sound everywhere in the soundfield I happened to look.

Almost every track has some of it.

Some Is Better Than None

Maybe not the full measure you hear on You Never Cry Like a Lover, the standout track from side one, but enough to make you realize that even half of a Glyn Johns recording is quite a bit better than what was to follow.

One of These Nights, recorded by Bill Szymczyk, his replacement, is clearly a step down in sound quality, but it has some very strong material that got played on the radio incessantly. Of course it went right to Number One.

Say what you want about Hotel California — a long in the tooth FM radio staple but not a bad recording by any means — it can’t begin to compete sonically with the likes of the first three Eagles albums that Johns did. (And now that you’re familiar with the two main guys who recorded this band, check the dead wax of your Eagles Greatest Hits pressings for a laugh.)

As good as it may be sonically, Desperado is still a fairly weak concept album that lacks consistency in the songwriting department. With two good songs and lots of filler, the album bombed commercially as well as critically.

Gettin’ It Together

Which was a good thing — it forced the band to pick themselves up off the ground and get their shit together. If they were going to be the Number One Rock Band in the World — their goal at the time — they knew they needed to write and perform a much better batch of songs on their follow-up album, and that’s just what they proceeded to do.

They called it On The Border and it produced their first Number One hit, The Best of My Love.