Top Artists – Phil Manzanera

801 Live – None Rocks Harder

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Brian Eno Available Now

I listened to this album from start to finish just yesterday (5/31/2024), so I thought it only fitting that I share my enthusiasm for this absolutely amazing record with those who read this blog.

The best Island copies of this album rock harder than practically any record we’ve ever played. If you have the system for it, this amazing Rhett Davies recording will bring a live art rock concert right into your living room.

This is a big speaker record. It requires a pair of speakers that can move air with authority below 250 cycles and play at fairly loud levels. If you don’t own speakers that can do that, this record will never really sound the way it should.

It’s right at the top of the list of my favorite rock albums — a desert island disc if ever there was one. I stumbled across it more forty years ago and I’ve loved it ever since. It all started when a college buddy played me the wildly original Tomorrow Never Knows from the album and asked me to name the tune before the vocals kicked in. Eno’s take is so different from The Beatles version that I confess it took me an embarrassingly long while to catch on.

Demo Disc Quality Sound

This is a true Demo Disc in the areas of sound reproduction listed below. Other records with these important qualities can be seen by clicking on any of these links.

Adventures in Music and Sound

Phil Manzanera and Brian Eno were founding members of Roxy Music. AMG calls Roxy Music the “most adventurous rock band of the early ’70s” and I’m inclined to agree with them.

Those who played in Roxy Music are certainly some of the most influential and important artists in my growth as a music lover and audiophile, joining the ranks of 10cc, Steely Dan, Yes, James Taylor, Peter Gabriel, David Bowie, America, Fleetwood Mac, Supertramp, Eno, Talking Heads, The Doors, Jethro Tull, Elton John, The Beatles, Santana, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Little Feat, Traffic, Nilsson, Elvis Costello, Sergio Mendes, Neil Young, The Eagles, Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd, Joni Mitchell, The Cars, Peter Frampton, Led Zeppelin, Cat Stevens and countless others.

These musicians and bands were clearly dedicated to making high quality recordings, recordings that could only come to life in the homes of those with the most advanced audio equipment.

My system was forced to evolve in order to reproduce the scores of challenging recordings issued by these groups in the 60s and 70s.

The love you have for your favorite music has to be the strongest driving force if you actually want to be successful in this hobby.

Some of the records that did the most to help me advance in audio can be found here.

Want to find your own top quality copy?

Consider taking our moderately helpful advice concerning the pressings that tend to win our shootouts.

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Roxy Music – Flesh + Blood

More Roxy Music

More Art Rock Records

  • With outstanding Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them from top to bottom, you’ll have a hard time finding a copy that sounds remotely as good as this original British pressing (one of only a handful of copies to hit the site in three years)
  • Believe it or not, no copies in our most recent shootout, aside from the two shootout winners, had even Super Hot stampers on both sides, which was surprising since we know the right stampers and there were plenty of them in the shootout
  • If you need top quality sound, and assuming it takes as long to get our next shootout going as it did this last one, please check back with us in 2027
  • No domestic LP or import from any other country has ever been better than passable – we should know, we’ve been cleaning and playing every kind of pressing we could find for this title for forty years
  • Credit as always goes to the brilliant engineering of Roxy’s go-to guy, Rhett Davies
  • Flesh + Blood is the precursor to Avalon, with much the same style and sound – some of Roxy’s best material and biggest hits are here

Best Tracks

This is a transitional album. Some of it sounds like Avalon (“Oh Yeah,” “Over You,” etc) and some of it sounds more like their earlier material. It may not be as consistent as Avalon but it’s well worth owning for its best songs (listed below) and highly recommended for fans of the band.

Standout tracks on side one include In the Midnight Hour / Oh Yeah / My Only Love

Standout tracks on side two include Over You / Eight Miles High / Rain, Rain, Rain

Adventures in Music and Sound

AMG calls Roxy Music the “most adventurous rock band of the early 70s” and I’m inclined to agree with them. Roxy are certainly one of the most influential and important bands in my growth as a music lover and audiophile, joining the ranks of Supertramp, Ambrosia, 10cc, Steely Dan, Yes, Bowie and countless others, musicians and bands who seemed to me dedicated to exploring and exploding the conventions of popular music.

My equipment was forced to evolve in order to be able to play the scores of challenging recordings issued by these groups in the 70s.

You could say that the albums of Roxy Music and others informed not only my taste in music but the actual stereo I play that music on. I’ve had large scale dynamic speakers for the last four decades, precisely in order to play records like this, the kind of music I fell in love with more than forty years ago.

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Diamond Head – Astonishingly Good Sound on the Right Island Pressing

More of the Music of Phil Manzanera

When it comes to blockbuster audiophile sound that jumps out of the speakers, the wind is at your back with Diamond Head because this is one seriously well-recorded album. If this record doesn’t wake up your stereo, nothing will.

Like its brother, 801 Live, this album is an amazing sonic blockbuster, with sound that positively leaps out of the speakers. Why shouldn’t it? It was engineered by the superbly talented Rhett Davies at Island, the genius behind Taking Tiger Mountain, the aforementioned 801 Live, Avalon, Dire Straits’ first album and many many more.

If we could regularly find copies of this audiophile blockbuster (and frankly if more people appreciated the album) it would definitely go on our rock and pop Top 100 list. In fact, it would easily make the Top Twenty from that list, it’s that good.

Looking for Tubey Magic? Rhett Davies is your man. Just think about the sound of the first Dire Straits album or Taking Tiger Mountain. The best pressings of those albums — those with truly Hot Stampers — are swimming in it.

Big Speakers Wanted Needed

This isn’t known as an audiophile album but it should be — the sound is GLORIOUS — wall to wall, floor to ceiling, and as rich and dynamic as it gets.

The best pressings of this album, played on big speakers at loud levels, are Demo Discs of the highest order.

Play this one as loud as you can. (801 Live is exactly the same way and needs high volumes to work its magic.)

A Personal Favorite

This album basically became the set list for 801 Live, the concert collaboration between Eno, Manzanera and their fellow travelers. That album is one of my all time favorites too, and a Must Own for anyone who likes British Art Rock from the ’70s.

What both of these albums share is amazing guitar work. Manzanera was the guitarist for Roxy Music, and this album can be enjoyed simply as an exercise in hearing every possible kind of sound the guitar can make. It also helps to have Eno doing electronic treatments for the instrument and coming up with a whole new sound.

One listen to a song like Diamond Head is all it should take to make you a fan. If that song doesn’t do it for you, the rest of the album won’t either, but I can’t imagine how that could be.

The best copies of this album excel in every area we prize.

It’s energetic, dynamic, the sound just jumps out of the speakers, there’s tons of bass, it’s smooth — in short, it’s doing it all.

What’s Good?

Domestic pressings suck.

German pressings too.

Don’t waste your money. We’ve never heard a good one. (And most of the British pressings you can find won’t hold a candle to this one.)

To see more reviews and commentaries for titles that we think sound their best on imported vinyl, please click here.

Want to avoid having to pay our admittedly high prices and find a top quality copy for yourself?

Consider taking our moderately helpful advice concerning the pressings that most often win our shootouts.

In the case of Diamond Head, we like it best this way:

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801 – 801 Live

More Brian Eno

More Live Recordings of Interest

  • 801 Live rocks as hard as ever on this original UK Island copy boasting outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER from start to finish – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • We shot out a number of other imports and this one had the presence, bass, and dynamics that were missing from most of what we played, not to mention that live rock and roll energy that old records have and new records don’t
  • Recorded at Queen Elisabeth Hall in September 1976 – one of only three gigs the group (a side project of Roxy Music’s Phil Manzanera) did over a two-month period
  • 4 1/2 stars: “This album marks probably one of the last times that Eno rocked out in such an un-self-consciously fun fashion, but that’s not the only reason to buy it: 801 Live is a cohesive document of an unlikely crew who had fun and took chances. Listeners will never know what else they might have done if their schedules had been less crowded, but this album’s a good reminder.”
  • If you’re an Eno fan, or perhaps more a fan of mid-70s Art Rock, this title from 1976 is surely a Must Own.

801 Live has some of the biggest, boldest sound we have ever heard. It may not be seen as an audiophile album but it should be, if you have the system to play it. The sound is glorious — wall to wall, floor to ceiling, and as rich and dynamic as it gets.

It’s clearly a big speaker demo disc. Play this one as loud as you can. The louder you play it, the better it sounds.

It’s also transparent, with a large, deep soundfield that really allows you to hear into the music and the space of the venue in which it was recorded.

The real kicker is the amount of energy and musical drive that these two sides have going for them.

This is what the master tape is really capable of — mind bogglingly good sound.

Top of the List

801 Live ranks near the top of the list of my All Time Favorite Albums — a desert island disc if ever there was one.

I stumbled across it decades ago and have loved it ever since. (It started when a college buddy played me the wildly original “Tomorrow Never Knows” from the album and asked me to name the tune. Eno’s take is so different from The Beatles version that I confess it took me an embarrassingly long while to catch on.)

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Before and After Science – Rules Are Made to Be Broken

Hot Stamper Pressings of Art Rock Recordings Available Now

The domestic pressings of Before And After Science are typically grainy, low-rez and hard sounding — they’re simply not competitive with the smoother British Polydors.

But our best Hot Stamper pressing isn’t an import; it was made right here in the good old US of A.

Say what? Yes, it’s true. We were SHOCKED to find such hot stamper sound lurking in the grooves of a domestic Eno LP. It’s the One and Only.

In thirty plus years of record playing I can’t think of any domestic Eno LP that ever sounded this good.

Now hold on just a minute. The British pressings of Eno’s albums are always the best, aren’t they?

For the first three albums, absolutely. But rules were made to be broken. This pressing has the knockout sound we associate with the best British originals of Eno’s albums, not the flat, cardboardy qualities of the typical domestic reissue.

Kinda Blind Testing

Since the person listening and making notes during the shootouts has no idea what the label or the pressing of the record is that he is evaluating — this is after all a quasi-scientific enterprise, with blind testing being the order of the day — when that domestic later label showed up at the top of the heap, our jaws hit the floor.

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Taking Tiger Mountain – A Big Speaker Tour De Force

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Brian Eno Available Now

If you have a big speaker and the kind of high quality playback capable of unraveling the most complex musical creations, with all the weight and power of live music, this is the record that will make all your audio effort and expense worthwhile.

Repeat As Necessary

Like Roxy Music’s first album, Taking Tiger Mountain is a powerhouse that not only rewards repeated listenings but requires them. Music like this simply cannot be digested at one sitting. Like the Beatles said, It’s All Too Much. But the more you hear it the more you will be able to understand it and appreciate it and, if you’re like me, really start to love it (I hope).

I’ve been listening to this album since the mid-70s and in all that time I have never tired of it. To me it’s the very definition of a Desert Island Disc: a record that knocks me out every time I play it and never wears out its welcome. It’s still fresh and “cutting edge” (if I can use that term) forty odd years after its release. (801 Live from 1976 is the same way.)

The Sound

This album is all about sound, pure sound itself if you will: the sound of the instruments, their textures, and the textures of the soundscape Eno has created for them. Much of that information is lost or perverted on the LP reissues and of course the CD. Only these British originals sound like they are made from fresh master tapes on rich, sweet tubey-magical, super high resolution cutting equipment.

With the subtle harmonics of Eno’s treated sounds captured onto vinyl intact, the magic of the experience far exceeds just another batch of catchy songs with clever arrangements. It truly becomes an immersive experience; sounds you’ve never heard in quite that way draw you into their world, each more interesting than the next.

Brian Eno and other Art Rockers of the period were clearly dedicated to making higher quality recordings, recordings that could only come to life in the homes of those with the most advanced audio equipment. Credit the work of the amazing Rhett Davies for some of the best albums of the 70s: this one, 801 Live, Diamond Head, Dire Straits’ first album, and more.

My system was forced to evolve in order to reproduce the scores of challenging recordings issued by Eno in the 70s. The love you have for your favorite music has to be the driving force of your progress in audio if you want to achieve world class sound.

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Clarity Was Never the Point

Hot Stamper Pressings of Live Recordings Available Now

Some audiophiles spend their time listening for details in their favorite recordings. I should know; I was as guilty as anyone of that behavior.

But is that where the music is – in the details? Lots of details come out when one copy is brighter than another.

Brighter ain’t necessarily better. Most of the time it’s just brighter. 

Listening for the details in a recording can be a trap, one that is very easy to fall into if you are not careful or don’t know where these kinds of pitfalls lie.

801 Live isn’t about clarity. It’s about the sound of a rock concert.

It’s about the raw power of one of the most phenomenal rhythm sections ever captured in performance on analog tape.

That’s what makes it a good test disc. When you play the hardest rocking tracks, the harder they rock, the better.

Next time you try out some audiophile wire or a new tweak, play this record to make sure you haven’t lost the essential energy, weight and power of the sound. This album doesn’t care about your love of detail. It wants you to feel the energy of the band pulling out all the stops. If the new wire or the new tweak can’t get that right, it’s not right and it’s got to go.

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Bryan Ferry – Let’s Stick Together (on Polydor)

More of the Music of Bryan Ferry

  • Boasting two very good Hot Stamper sides, this UK Polydor pressing will be hard to beat
  • It’s richer, fuller and with more presence than the average copy, and that’s especially true for whatever godawful Heavy Vinyl pressing is currently being foisted on an unsuspecting record buying public
  • This is true of even our lowest-priced, lowest-graded copies – they are guaranteed to sound much better than any pressing you can find on the market today, as well as any pressing you may already own
  • For material and sound, we consider this to be the best of Bryan Ferry’s solo albums – it’s a blast from start to finish
  • 4 stars: “The title track itself scored Ferry a deserved British hit single, with great sax work from Chris Mercer and Mel Collins and a driving, full band performance. Ferry’s delivery is one of his best, right down to the yelps, and the whole thing chugs with post-glam power.”
  • If you’re a Roxy Music fan, this title from 1976 is surely a Must Own
  • 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. Bryan Ferry’s third solo album is a good example of a record many audiophiles may not know well but should get to know better.

Ferry covers some early Roxy songs here (brilliantly I might add); Beatles and Everly Bros. tunes; and even old R&B tracks like “Shame, Shame, Shame.” Every song on this album is good, and I don’t think that can be said for any of his other solo projects. Five stars in my book.

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Listening in Depth to Avalon

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Roxy Music Available Now

The best British original Super De Luxe pressings of Avalon are sweet and silky, big and lively, with the kind of sound that drives us audiophiles wild — which of course is the main reason this album was on Extra Heavy Rotation at most stereo stores back in the day.

It’s records like this that get people (otherwise known as audiophiles) to spend wads and wads of money in pursuit of expensive analog equipment good enough to bring this wonderful music to life.

This album rewards a stereo with the qualities that audiophiles prize most highly when selecting equipment — spaciousness, transparency, clarity, detail, depth, soundstaging, speed, high frequency extension, and the like. Those qualities are important but not enough for big speaker rock and roll guys like us here at Better Records, but on this record they are key to reproducing the best of what Avalon has to offer.

We would add to that list presence and energy, along with warmth, fullness and lack of smear on the transients. Whomp and rock and roll power do not seem to play much part in separating the best from the rest, although it’s nice when the bottom end is big and solid.

That said, the copies that are exceptionally open, clear and big are the ones that do a better job of presenting this music the way we think it was meant to be heard.

The mix is as dense as any we know. Only the best copies have the ability to show you everything that’s on the tape. Credit must go to the amazingly talented Rhett Davies for creating the space in which so many instruments and sounds can fit comfortably.

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Listening in Depth to Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Brian Eno Available Now

Presenting another entry in our extensive listening in depth series with advice on what to listen for as you critically evaluate your copy of Taking Tiger Mountain.

Here are some albums currently on our site with similar track by track breakdowns.

Taking Tiger Mountain is all about sound, pure sound itself if you will: the sound of the instruments, their textures, and the textures of the soundscape Eno has created for them.

With the subtle harmonics of Eno’s treated sounds captured on to vinyl intact, the magic of the experience far exceeds just another batch of catchy songs with clever arrangements. It truly becomes an immersive experience; sounds you’ve never heard in quite that way draw you into their world, each sound more interesting than the next.

Only these British originals sound like they are made from fresh master tapes on rich, sweet tubey-magical, super high resolution cutting equipment.

Side One

(Which, by the way, is BRILLIANT from the opening guitars of Burning Airlines to the never-ending chirping crickets of The Great Pretender. I mean that literally: on these early British pressings the run-out groove has the sound of the crickets embedded in it so that the crickets chirp until you pick up the arm, much in the same way that Sgt. Pepper has sound in the run-out groove at the end of A Day In The Life.)

Burning Airlines Give You So Much More

Pure Pop for Now People. Listen to all those multi-layered harmonies! They’re sweet as honey, and only the best British copies get them to sound that way. You can make out practically every voice. This is what we mean by Midrange Magic.

Back in Judy’s Jungle

This track has a BIG BASS DRUM that will rattle the walls and threaten to bring your house crashing to the ground if you are not careful with the volume. Love that whistling too — genius!

The Fat Lady of Limbourg

This song is so good I found the lyrics on the web and have included them for your edification below. Once you fit the words to the melody you will no doubt be as convinced as I am as to the brilliance of Eno’s songwriting skills.

Mother Whale Eyeless

The high pitched chorus about the man without his raincoat in the body of the whale can be a bit much on the copies that are not cut cleanly. Those kinds of high frequencies at loud levels are hard to cut and hard for your arm/cart to track.

The Great Pretender

Pure Eno magic to finish out the side on a high point; it doesn’t get much better than this! Listen to those sustained lower piano notes — on the best copies they are deep and powerful and keep resonating seemingly forever. It’s one of the most interesting sounds on an album that’s full of NOTHING BUT interesting sounds.

Side Two

Note that on most copies side two is cut a db or two lower than side one. Please increase your volume level accordingly when playing side two.

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