- Clapton’s 1985 release returns to the site with Nearly Triple Plus (A+++) sound – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
- We guarantee there is dramatically more richness, fullness, vocal presence, and performance energy on this copy than others you’ve heard, and that’s especially true if you made the mistake of buying whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing is currently on the market
- “The level of musicianship is impressive. Additional percussion by Phil Collins and Ray Cooper help to make this one of Clapton’s most rhythmically adventurous projects to date… I recommend it to both casual and serious fans. You cannot go wrong with an album featuring such strong tracks as “She’s Waiting, “See What Love Can Do”, “Same Old Blues”, “Forever Man”, and “Just Like A Prisoner”.”
Top Artists – Eric Clapton, Cream, Blind Faith, etc.
Letter of the Week – Fresh Cream and Wake Of The Flood
One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:
Hey Tom,
Just got the Fresh Cream and Grateful Dead albums….cranked up the rig and they sound WONDERFUL…..no surprise but LOTS of satisfaction! Thanks for your sale to enable this “poor” retired audiophile access to great sound….
Thanks for being such a unique person to have discovered what the audio world never really knew or appreciated or admitted to…and for making it available to others….
Best Regards,
EdZ
Fresh Cream
Wake Of The Flood
Eric Clapton – Money and Cigarettes – Our Shootout Winner from 2011
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A distinguished member of the Better Records Rock and Pop Hall of Fame.
This Minty looking Warner Brothers Duck Promo LP fetures Ry Cooder, Donald Duck Dunn and Albert Lee.
This album has that Master Tape sound. You feel as though you are hearing what the engineer intended. The one real flaw in the recording is the amount of compression the engineer used — it’s a bit heavy handed. This is after all a radio friendly pop album, so no surprise there. I doubt if there are many better sounding copies around than this one. (more…)
Eric Clapton – Slowhand – Our Shootout Winner from 2012
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A distinguished member of the Better Records Rock and Pop Hall of Fame.
Great sound for one of our favorite Clapton albums! There are some excellent songs here, including Cocaine, Wonderful Tonight, and Lay Down Sally. As you may know, it is notoriously difficult to find good sound quality for this album. The typical pressing is just too dull and veiled to enjoy. (more…)
Eric Clapton – Just One Night
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A distinguished member of the Better Records Rock and Pop Hall of Fame.
With so many bad sounding Clapton albums from the mid- to late ’70s out there in the bins, it’s refreshing to hear this material sounding lively and clear for a change. The performances seem to hold up as well. If you like the “Tulsa Time” era, this record is going to be hard to beat.
Many of his best songs are here, including Lay Down Sally, Wonderful Tonight, After Midnight, Blues Power, Cocaine, Further on Up the Road and plenty more. (more…)
Blind Faith – Blind Faith – MoFi Debunked
Sonic Grade: C-
Our latest shootout this time around (07/09) left us with a fairly large serving of egg on our face concerning the commentary we had written for the MoFi pressing of Blind Faith, a textbook example of We Was Wrong.
It’s rich and sweet with SHOCKINGLY GOOD SOUND. MFSL did a masterful job with this one, I’d put it in the top 10 MOFIs of all-time!
I regret to say none of that is true.
Blind Faith has many of the same problems as the later Japanese pressed MoFis like Thick As A Brick and Meddle which we discuss in more detail below.
About Thick As A Brick we wrote:
As we noted last time we listed the MOFI LP:
“This MOFI is super TRANSPARENT and OPEN, and the top end should sound lush and extended. If you prize clarity, this is the one!”
But if you prize clarity at the expense of everything else, you are seriously missing the boat on Thick As A Brick. The MOFI is all mids and highs with almost nothing going on below. This is a rock record, but without bass and dynamics the MOFI can’t rock, so what exactly is it good for?
Like Meddle, one of the last of the MOFI titles to be pressed in Japan, it’s a pale shadow of the real thing. It has no business in the collection of any audiophile worth his salt. If you want to hear this music right, let us get you a Hot Stamper pressing. It’s guaranteed to blow your mind. We’ll even take your MOFI in trade and sell it to some unsuspecting audiophile who still buys into that Half-Speed Mastered Nonsense.
Eric Clapton – Eric Clapton – Our Shootout Winner from 2013
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A distinguished member of the Better Records Rock and Pop Hall of Fame.
TWO AMAZING SIDES RATING AT OR NEAR A+++! Man, what a revelation to hear this old favorite sound so incredibly rich and open. And at Mint Minus on both sides, this one is exceptionally quiet to boot! You’ll have a VERY difficult time finding one that plays this quietly and sounds this good lying around in the bins, that’s for sure.
Both sides here are absolutely stunning, with all the richness and sweetness we could ask for. The clarity, transparency, and presence here far outpace the other sides we heard in our shootout. White Hot Stamper sound all the way! (more…)
Eric Clapton – E.C. Was Here
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E.C. Was Here
- Superb sound for this UK import pressing with both sides earning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades, which means that this LP had some of the best sound for the album we heard in our shootout all day
- Forget the dubby domestic pressings – here is the energy, the dynamic power, the low end whomp, and the Clapton-live-in-your-listening-room presence you’ve never experienced on the album before, guaranteed
- “E.C. Was Here makes it clear that Clapton was and always would be a blues man. The opening cut, “Have You Ever Loved a Woman,” clearly illustrates this, and underlines the fact that Clapton had a firm grasp on his blues guitar ability, with some sterling, emotionally charged and sustained lines and riffs… [the album] remains an excellent document of the period.”
*NOTE: A mark makes 3 moderate pops at the beginning of track 2, Presence of the Lord.
These Nearly White Hot Stamper pressings have top quality sound that’s often surprisingly close to our White Hots, but they sell at substantial discounts to our Shootout Winners, making them a relative bargain in the world of Hot Stampers (“relative” being relative considering the prices we charge). We feel you get what you pay for here at Better Records, and if ever you don’t agree, please feel free to return the record for a full refund, no questions asked.
Two Very Special Tracks
Check out Clapton’s superb arrangements and performances of two of the best songs from his short-lived Blind Faith period: Presence of the Lord and Can’t Find My Way Home. They’re two of the highpoints on an album filled with good material that does not seem to get the credit it is due. I bought this album when it came out in 1975 and never really got into it. Of course I had an inferior domestic pressing and a stereo that couldn’t have done the album justice anyway, but in my defense I would have to say that there really wasn’t any such stereo system on the face of the earth; we still had a long way to go. (more…)
Cream – Wheels Of Fire – Our Shootout Winner from 2007
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A distinguished member of the Better Records Rock and Pop Hall of Fame.
It wasn’t easy, but we’ve cracked one of the toughest nuts around — WHITE HOT STAMPERS FOR WHEELS OF FIRE! Sides one, two, and three on this RSO British LP have SUPERB SOUND AND QUIET VINYL! We’ve never heard White Room sound nearly as amazing as it does here — you aren’t going to believe all the WHOMP! (more…)
Eric Clapton – 461 Ocean Boulevard – Our Shootout Winner from 2012
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A distinguished member of the Better Records Rock and Pop Hall of Fame.
AN AMAZING A+++ SIDE ONE backed with an EXCELLENT A++ SIDE TWO! This is the best sounding pressing of this album to ever hit our site. It is insanely tough to find copies that aren’t murky, overly smooth and/or lifeless, but after years of struggling with this title we finally landed a big one.
If you’re a fan of this music and want to hear it come to life, this copy can do it!
Side One
A+++, As Good As It Gets (AGAIG)! Big, lively and present, this is a far cry from the typical dull, dead copy. The soundfield is deep and transparent, and all the instruments are textured and detailed. It’s hard to imagine this music sounding any better than this! (more…)