Top Artists – King Crimson

In the Court of the Crimson King – A Very Good Pressing from Mobile Fidelity

Hot Stamper Pressings of Progressive Rock Albums Available Now

The MoFi pressing shown here is surely one of their best.

Unfortunately, these days we have little tolerance for the dynamic compression, overall lifelessness and wonky bass heard on practically every record they ever mastered. Including this one.

One of the reasons your MoFi might not sound wrong to you is that it isn’t really “wrong.” It’s doing most things right, and it will probably beat most of what you can find to throw at it. A quick survey:

If you have the Atlantic pressing, from any era, you have never begun to hear this record at its best. It was cleary mastered from copy tapes, which is where its dubby sound comes from.

UK Polydor reissue? Passable, not really worth the labor to put them in a shootout just to have them earn mediocre grades.

The same can be said for some of the earliest UK Pink Label Island pressings.

None of them has ever won a shootout and probably none ever will. As a rule, we don’t buy them, for two related reasons:

  1. They are quite expensive in clean condition, and
  2. Their sound quality does not justify paying the premium price sellers typically ask.

We leave them to the record collectors who like to collect originals.

We and our customers are audiophiles. We like to collect records with good sound.

If we have our heads on straight, we don’t care what pressing we buy as long as it’s the one with the best sound. 

Back to the MoFi

It’s lacking some important qualities, and a listen to one of our Hot Stampers will allow you to hear exactly what you’re not getting when you play an audiophile pressing, any audiophile pressing, even one as good as MoFi’s.

Side by side the comparison will surely be striking. How much energy, size, power and passion is missing from the record you own?

There’s only one way to find out, and it’s by playing a better copy of the album.  (more…)

King Crimson / In The Wake Of Poseidon – Heavy on the Mellotron

More of the Music of King Crimson

  • Boasting two solid Double Plus (A++) or BETTER sides, this copy of King Crimson’s sophomore studio album is doing pretty much everything right – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • This original UK Island Pink label pressing is big and tubey, with clear, breathy vocals, especially critical to the success of the a capella opening track, “Peace – A Beginning”
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Their second album – largely composed of Robert Fripp’s songwriting and material from their stage repertory – is actually better produced and better sounding than their first. Surprisingly, Fripp’s guitar is not the dominant instrument here: The Mellotron, taken over by Fripp – and played even better than before – still remains the band’s signature.”

If you love the sound of a vintage All Tube recording of the mellotron — whether by Led Zeppelin or The Moody Blues — you will find that Robin Thompson has got hold of a very good sounding one here. Thompson is of course the engineer for the first King Crimson album, so his recording skills as regards the instrument are well established.

Note that the British Island pressings for this album as well as the first are by far the best sounding, assuming you have a good one. What is interesting about early Island LPs is just how bad some of them are. And let me tell you, we’ve paid the price in time and money to find out just how bad some Island Pink Labels can sound. (more…)

King Crimson – In The Court Of The Crimson King

More King Crimson

  • Superb Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER brings the band’s Prog Rock Masterpiece to life on this vintage import copy
  • Side two was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be shocked at how big and powerful the sound is
  • We had a wide variety of Islands (Pink and Sunray) and UK Polydor pressings, and only two of those labels can have Hot Stampers based on the many shootouts we’ve done over the years
  • On a pressing as good as this one, turned up to seriously loud levels, the horns blasting away on “21st Century Schizoid Man” are guaranteed to blow your mind
  • As is sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs, there are marks that play – those on “I Talk To The Wind” and “Moonchild” are especially bad – but if you can tough those out, this copy is going to blow your mind
  • 5 stars: “The group’s definitive album, and one of the most daring debut albums ever …. it blew all of the progressive/psychedelic competition out of the running, although it was almost too good for the band’s own good — it took King Crimson nearly four years to come up with a record as strong or concise.”
  • 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 of an accent on morbidity and more on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. In the Court of the Crimson King is a good example of a record many audiophiles may not know well but should get to know better

In the Court of the Crimson King is an album we think we know well, one that checks off a number of important boxes for us here at Better Records:

Over the many years of doing shootouts for this album, we’ve listened to a lot of different pressings. Right from the start we could hear that no domestic pressing was, or was ever likely to be, remotely competitive with the best Brits.

Most later reissues — domestic or import — were as flat and lifeless as a cassette, although we admit that some were clearly better than others.

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In the Court of the Crimson King – An Overview

Hot Stamper Pressings of Progressive Rock Albums Available Now

If you have the Atlantic pressing, from any era, you have not yet begun to hear this record at its best.

The domestic original was cleary mastered from copy tapes, which results in its dubby sound. It’s such a well recorded album that even its second-generation sound quality is still better than much of what came out in 1969.

UK Polydor reissue? Passable, not really worth the labor to put them in a shootout just to have them earn mediocre-at-best grades.

The same can be said for some of the earliest UK Pink Label Island pressings.

None of them has ever won a shootout and probably none of them ever will.

(A number of Pink Label Island pressings that never win shootouts can be found here.)

As a rule, we don’t buy them, for two reasons:

  1. They are expensive to buy in clean condition, and
  2. Their sound quality does not justify paying the premium price sellers typically ask.

We leave them to the record collectors who like to collect originals.

The Mobile Fidelity pressing is surprisingly good, one of their best.

Rumor has it that they stopped making their version when Editions EG came out with a Half-Speed mastered pressing of their own, which, like most Editions EG records in our experience, sounds about as awful as any copy of the album can.

We and our customers are audiophiles. We like to collect records with good sound. If we have our heads on straight, we don’t care what pressing we buy as long as it’s the one with the best sound.

Of course, not everybody agrees with us about that, but enough of you out there do, such that our business is sure to continue to prosper in the years to come.

In the Court of the Crimson King is an album we think we know well, one that checks off a number of important boxes for us here at Better Records:

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Letter of the Week – “WOW! I heard the hotness of the pressing!”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of King Crimson Available Now

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

Hey Tom,   

Finally got the thoroughly sit down an carefully listen to the Poseidon LP.

WOW! I heard the hotness of the pressing!

Great condition to for a vintage UK LP.

I also read about and purchased The Prelude Record Cleaning supplies. Great system!

Will be on the lookout for other hot stampers as they become available.

Lastly, it is great that you include the play grade of the vinyl too or at least note if it is exceptionally quiet.

This helps make an informed decision on what to expect.

Matt

Matt,

Thanks for your letter, glad you enjoyed your King Crimson Hot Stamper pressing!

If you want your records to sound their best and play as quietly as they are capable of playing, the Prelude Record Cleaning System is the only way to do.

It’s one of the reasons that a fifty year old King Crimson record can sound that good and play that quietly. For more help with the basics of record cleaning, please click here.

Best, TP

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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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King Crimson / Red – Our First Shootout Winner Since 2009

More King Crimson

More Prog Rock

  • An original UK Island pressing that was giving us the big and bold sound we were looking for, earning KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides
  • We shot out a number of other imports and the presence, bass, and dynamics on this outstanding copy placed it head and shoulders above the competition
  • For those of you who like more adventurous Prog Rock, this might just be the ticket
  • 4 1/2 stars: “… the truth is that few intact groups could have gotten an album as good as Red together. The fact that it was put together by a band in its death throes makes it all the more impressive an achievement.”

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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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King Crimson – The Young Persons’ Guide To King Crimson

More King Crimson

More Prog Rock

  • Forget the Polydor and EG reissues (and anything that’s come along lately) – these early British pressings are the only way to hear this album sound the way it should
  • Contains the rare pre-Crimson Robert Fripp demo of I Talk To The Wind, recorded with a female lead vocalist [which can be found at the end of side one]
  • 4 1/2 stars: “…rounded up an excellent, if somewhat idiosyncratic, survey of the group’s seven years together, its contents ranging from the unimpeachable classics to unimaginable rarities… the definitive study of the original King Crimson.”

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Letter of the Week – “This is worth every dollar. I’m extremely pleased.”

Progressive Rock Albums with Hot Stampers

More Debut Albums of Interest

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

Hey Tom, 

I played McDonald & Giles last night

WOW!

Massive improvement over my US first pressing I bought new back in the day. I could tell it was produced with care but I was pleasantly surprised just how nice it is.

This is worth every dollar. I’m extremely pleased.

I hope you can find a better cover for me.

A question: I have pressings of Ziggy and Aladinsane. Also a very nice UK RCA 1st pressing of Pinups.

They are much better than the US versions I have played since the early 1970’s (yes, still in great shape as I’ve always had decent playback equipment)

Sonically these 3 are not at the same level as McDonald & Giles. Do your white stampers of these titles have the warmth, detail and impact of that one?

Happy listening

Greg

Greg,

Ziggy has the potential to sound better than M and G, but that’s what good cleaning and shootouts are for, to find the best copies.

All you can do is keep buying them and improving your cleaning technology, eventually you should find something better, maybe even much better.

And the next top quality Ziggy we find will sell for $1000 or more.

So there is probably not much we can do for you there, sorry!

TP

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