Top Artists – Superrtramp

Supertramp – P & M Stampers Let Us Down This Time

More of the Music of Supertramp

More Vinyl Arcana to Help You Find Better Sounding Records

After discovering killer Hot Stampers for this forgotten classic, we feel the album can hold its own with any of Supertramp’s 70s releases, from Crime of the Century all the way through to Breakfast in America.

The UK-pressed White Hot Stamper pressings from our recent shootouts showed us some of the best Supertramp sound we have ever heard on any of their albums, which is saying a lot. Supertramp is one of the most well-recorded bands in the history of pop music. Geoff Emerick took over most of the recording duties after the band decided to work with a different engineer for this, their 1977 album.

KEN SCOTT recorded the two albums that came before this one, Crime and Crisis, and as has been well documented on this very site, he knocked both of them out of the park.

As I’m sure you know, both these gentleman famously engineered The Beatles.

What we didn’t know, not until 2015 anyway, was how amazingly well recorded this album was.

In 2005 we noted that we had basically given up on ever finding a good sounding copy of Even in the Quietest Moments. It’s now ten years later. Having gone gone through more copies than we care to remember we think we’ve got EITQM’s ticket. We think we know which stampers have the potential to sound good as well as the ones to avoid. Finding the right stampers (which are not the original ones for those of you who know the earliest stampers for A&M records) has been a positive boon.

Once we discovered the right stampers we were in a much better position to hear just how well recorded the album is. Now we know beyond all doubt that this recording — the first without Ken Scott producing and engineering for this iteration of the band — is of the highest quality, in league with the best.

Until recently we would never have made such a bold statement. Now it’s nothing less than obvious.

Some Remarkable High Points

Lover Boy is a Demo Quality Track on the best copies. It can be huge, spacious and lively. Getting the strings to sound harmonically rich without sliding into shrillness may not be easy but some copies manage to do it. On the biggest, richest copies the breakdown at about 2:20 is a lot of fun.

On side two the recording quality of the solo piano at the start of the second track From Now On is nothing short of breathtaking.

No piano on any Supertramp album sounds as good, and only the White Hot Stamper pressing reproduced it perfectly.

Credit must go to the engineers assisting Geoff Emerick: Peter Henderson and Russel Pope.

(more…)

Supertramp and Your 1977 Ears – There’s No Going Back

supereveni_1506_1x

More of the Music of Supertramp

Reviews and Commentaries for Even in the Quietest Moments

I grew up on this album. By 1977 I was a huge fan. Played their albums all the time.

The first Supertramp album I ever bought was Crime of the Century on Mobile Fidelity. Every audiophile bought that one; MoFi sold over a hundred thousand of them. And why not? The sound was killer on the systems of the day. Lots of slam down low (but not really that low, although it seemed plenty low at the time), lots of extra top up high, lots of phony detail, just what the old school stereos of the day, like mine, needed.

Crisis? What Crisis?, followed in 1975. It was the Supertramp album that sent me over the top. I played that album relentlessly. Before long Art Rock was at the top of my list anytime I wanted to have an immersive musical experience, and that, for an obsessive audiophile like myself, meant almost every day.

Roxy Music, 10cc, Eno, Crack the Sky, ELO, Bowie – it’s all I wanted to listen to back then, and it encouraged me to keep upgrading my equipment whenever I had the money, although I admit to being completely clueless about all of that at the time. More on that subject here.

A year and a half later EITQM followed. It too became a staple of my musical diet. Man, I played that record till the grooves were worn smooth.

I thought the sound of my domestic pressing was killer at the time, too. Crisis was a demo disc at my house and this was right up there with it. Now the obvious question is, did I have a good sounding copy, or did my stereo not reveal to me the shortcomings of my LP? Or maybe my ears were not well enough trained to hear what was wrong.

Those of you who have been doing this for a long time know the answer: any or all of the above, probably all, and nobody can know just how much of each.

And there is no way to find out because you are not that person anymore.

Your 1977 Ears… and Mine

Even if you could recreate your old stereo and room, and find your original copy, there’s one thing you can’t do, and that’s listen to it with your 1977 ears. Every time you play a record and listen to it critically, your ears get better at their job.

If you do a lot of critical listening, your ears should be very good by now. You no doubt listen for things you never listened for before. This is simply the way it works. You don’t really have to try that hard to get better. It happens quite naturally.

So now the half-speed sucks when it used to sound good. (Such is the case with practically all audiophile records; the better you get at listening, the more obvious their shortcomings.)

And now, with your better stereo and better ears, when you drop the needle on some copy you picked up of Even in the Quietest Moments, expecting to hear the glorious sound you remember from your youth, it’s a huge letdown — so grainy, thin, and edgy, with blurry bass.

On top of that the whole sordid mess is stuck somewhere back behind the speakers, like the sound you hear from a cassette.

It’s not the record you remember, that’s for sure.

The Good News

The good news is that ten years later and more copies than we care to remember we think we’ve got EITQM’s ticket. We now know which stampers have the potential to sound good as well as the ones to avoid. Finding the right stampers (which are not the original ones for those of you who know what the original stampers for A&M records are) has been a positive boon.

[UPDATE: We used to prefer the right domestic pressings of this album, but for years now the better imports have been winning our shootouts. We think this state of affairs is unlikely to change. We have a link to other records like this one, in which the imports win the shootouts but the best domestic pressings still do well, earning grades somewhere in the range of Two Pluses.]

Once we figured the stampers out we were in a much better position to hear just how well recorded the album is. Now we know beyond all doubt that this recording — the first without Ken Scott producing and engineering for this iteration of the band — is of the highest quality, in league with the best.

Until recently we would never have made such a bold statement. Now it’s nothing less than obvious.

Further Reading

(more…)

Supertramp on MoFi – Listen to the Vocals at the End of Dreamer

More of the Music of Supertramp

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Supertramp

This commentary was written about 2000, when the Speakers Corner pressing had just come out. We liked it back then, but I doubt we would care much for it now.

Listen to the vocals at the end of Dreamer. If they are too bright, the bells at the end of the song sound super-extended and harmonically clear and clean.

But at what price? Now the vocals are TOO BRIGHT. Which is more important, good vocals or good bells?

There has to be balance. This is something audiophiles and audiophile labels, who should obviously know better, seem to have difficulty appreciating.

We used to get these MoFis in on a regular basis, and they usually sound as phony and wrong as can be. They’re the perfect example of a hyped-up audiophile record that appeals to people with lifeless stereos, the kind that need amped-up records to get them to come to life.

I’ve been telling people for years that the MoFi was junk, and that they should get rid of their copy and replace it with a tonally correct version, easily done since there is a very good sounding Speakers Corner 180g reissue currently in print which does not suffer from the ridiculously boosted top end and bloated bass that characterizes the typical MoFi COTC pressing.

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 lesson by now, expensive and embarrassing as such lessons so often turn out to be.

If your system is dull, dull, deadly dull, the way many of our older systems tended to be, this record has the hyped-up sound to bring it to life in a hurry.

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.

(more…)

Supertramp – Crime of the Century

More Supertramp

Reviews and Commentaries for Crime of the Century

  • With two stunning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sides, this early British pressing of the band’s Masterpiece is close to the BEST we have heard, right up there with our Shootout Winner
  • Ken Scott engineered this one to have Cinerama-sized height, width and depth to rival the best rock albums you’ve ever heard
  • Clearly their Magnum Opus, a great leap forward and a permanent member of our Rock & Pop Top 100 Album List
  • “The tuneful, tightly played songs, pristine clarity of sound, and myriad imaginative sound effects, helped create an album that Sounds magazine likened to ‘Genesis, The Beach Boys…a smattering of [Pink] Floyd.'”

This is engineer Ken Scott‘s (and the band’s) MASTERPIECE, but the average copy sure can’t get your blood pumping the way this one will. We’ve long recognized that Crime of the Century is a true Demo Disc in the world of rock recordings; a member of our Rock & Pop Top 100 list right from the get go.

When you hear the guitars come jumping out of your speakers on “School” or “Bloody Well Right,” you can be sure that you’re playing a very special pressing of a very special recording indeed. (Yes, you need both. That’s why we’re here.)

(more…)

Supertramp – An A&M Half-Speed Mastered Disaster

More of the Music of Supertramp

Hot Stamper Pressings of Breakfast in America Available Now

Sonic Grade: F

An Audiophile Hall of Shame pressing and a Half-Speed Mastered Disaster if there ever was one. If this isn’t the perfect example of a Pass/Not-Yet record, I can’t imagine what would be.

It is just awful. So washed out, brittle, thin and lifeless, it practically defies understanding that anyone with two working ears ever considered calling this piece of crap an “audiophile” record.

Is it the worst version of the album ever made? Hard to imagine it would have much competition.

If you don’t think the major labels had anything but contempt for audiophiles, play this pressing and see for yourself the kind of garbage they were happy to pawn off on an unsuspecting audiophile “community.”

The audiophile community? Was there ever such a thing?

There is now of course, Hoffman’s being the most popular. On his forum you will find self-described audiophiles Defending the Indefensible at every turn. I am happy to report that threads mentioning — sorry, I meant to say bashing — Hot Stampers are some of the most popular.

Further Reading on Half-Speed Mastering

If you are buying these modern pressings, take the advice of some of our customers and stop throwing your money away on Heavy Vinyl Pressings and Half-Speed Mastered Records.

People have been known to ask us:

At the very least let us send you a Hot Stamper pressing — of any album you choose — that can show you what is wrong with your Half-Speed mastered pressing.

And if for some reason you disagree that our record sounds better than yours, we will happily give you all your money back and wish you the best.

To learn more about records that sound dramatically better than any Half-Speed ever made (with one exception, John Klemmer’s Touch), please go here:

Below you will find our breakdown of the best and worst Half-Speed mastered records we have auditioned over the years.

New to the site? Start here.

(more…)

Supertramp – Ken Scott’s Producing / Engineering Masterpiece

More of the Music of Supertramp

Reviews and Commentaries for Crime of the Century

[This commentary is well over ten years old, so take it with a grain or two of salt.]

AMAZING White Hot Stampers for the greatest Ken Scott production in history. This is his (and the band’s) MASTERPIECE, and now we have a pressing that allows us to revel in the GLORY that is Crime of the Century! 

We played a KILLER MoFi pressing many years ago. (Yes, we admit it. As much as we dislike most of their records, the truth is the truth. Some can actually sound good. You can count them on the fingers of one hand, but they do exist.) This bit of commentary from the Hot Stamper MoFi shootout we had done previously discusses some of its characteristic traits:

How About the Brit Copies?

If one were to pick some nits, one could say that it’s still a tiny bit hot around 6k. The reason I know that is because the early British pressings have a smoother midrange compared to practically anything else out there. You may have noticed that good British copies never make it to the site, and there’s a simple explanation for that. Most early British copies (and later ones too) just do not sound good. On top of that, they are rarely quiet enough to play and enjoy. I can’t tell you how many British COTC pressings I’ve heard in the last 5 years that didn’t sound good or were noisy and groove damaged. But it’s a lot.

We get these MOFIs in on a regular basis, and they usually sound as phony and wrong as can be. They’re the perfect example of a hyped-up audiophile record that appeals to people with lifeless stereos, the kind that need amped-up records to get them going.

Listen to the vocals at the end of Dreamer. If they are bright, the bells at the end of the song sound super-extended and harmonically rich. But at what price? The vocals are TOO BRIGHT. Which is more important: good vocals or good bells? There has to be a BALANCE. This is something audiophiles and audiophile labels — even worse, they should know better — often have trouble understanding.

Things Have Changed

As we never tire of saying, in audio, if you’re doing it right, things change. With better cleaning technologies, better playback, better all the other stuff we talk about on the site, records that used to be practically impossible to get to sound right can suddenly — if a year or two of hard work and experimentation can be considered “sudden” — start to come alive and show us the MAGIC that’s been locked away for all this time inside their grooves.

To Quote The Rutles, Let’s Be Natural

Case in point: The vocals here sound AMAZING — natural and correct with lots of texture. Even the best MoFi copies are going to sound a bit phony when played against a killer copy such as this. Of course it’s a high-definition, high-resolution sound cut with super low distortion; it has to be to sound this good. Folks, this is the copy that lets you appreciate every last detail of the recording without hitting you over the head with “sonic effects”. It’s musical in a way that no audiophile pressing ever seems to be.

And of course the bass is AWESOME. Loud levels and big woofers will have your house quaking. Add to that the kind of ENERGY that the best pressings have in their grooves and you have an album that is guaranteed to bring the average audiophile system to its knees, begging for mercy. This is The Audio Challenge before you. If you don’t have a system designed to play records with this kind of SONIC POWER, steer clear of Crime of the Century. It wants to rock your world, and that’s exactly what Hot Stamper pressings like this one are here to do.

It’s ALIVE! It has BIG, PUNCHY sound that will fill up your living room and then some. It’s exceptionally transparent with superb clarity and lots of extension on the top end. (The typical Brit copy is dull, and that quality just takes all the magic out of the recording. The three dimensional space and clarity of the recording rely heavily on the quality of the top end. The MoFi, on the best copies, shows you what is missing from the typical Brit, domestic or other import LP. This is what impressed me back in the ’70s when I bought my MoFi. It was only years later that I realized what was missing and what was wrong.)

Last time around the best copies were British. That was NOT the case this time except on side two, where one British copy was competitive, but not better than, our best domestic pressing.

Side One

White Hot A Triple Plus Sound! BIG and BOLD like crazy. When track one finishes you will ask yourself, as we did, “how can it get any better?”

The answer will come quickly enough. Track two has a bit of edge to the vocals in some places, but with MONSTROUS size and energy, and prodigious bass power, we still had to call it A+++. It’s not perfect but it is so amazing that picking nits simply misses the point. This side is ALIVE.

Side Two

Side two gets rid of any edge problems in the vocals — the sound is exceptionally full and rich, with HUGE and solid drums like practically none you have ever heard. (Ken Scott can record toms like nobody else in the studio. If you have the system to play it, this album is all the proof you will ever need.)

Huge amounts of space, the MOST top end extension and the LEAST phony sound of any copy we played make this a side two that simply cannot be beat. One Brit copy was as good, albeit in different ways of course, but no copy was better.

The Most Successful Rock Concept Album of All Time

We consider Crime of the Century one of the most incredible musical and sonic journeys your audio system can take you on. It’s the Most Successful Concept Album of all time. Dark Side of the Moon or The Yes Album are two other productions that rise to this level, and as much as I love those albums, I actually think this is the best of the three, if for no other reason than that the tragedy of the story here is more emotionally compelling.

It’s also AN AUDIOPHILE’S DREAM COME TRUE (to quote the motto of a famous audiophile label). The creation here of a huge Cinerama-like soundscape is on a scale that few recording engineers would ever attempt, let alone achieve with such success. This is a Big Speaker record if ever there was one.

Those of you who’ve watched the site for ages know this, but it bears mentioning — we almost NEVER have Hot Stamper copies of this album available. The first and only White Hot Stamper copy went up back in 2007 (!). Here’s what we wrote in 2007 about COTC:

We actually attempted an all-day shootout late in 2007 that we had to abandon after every copy we played — without exception mind you — either sounded bad or was too noisy to sell. We must have tried at least ten good looking British pressings only to come up empty handed at the end of the day. The Speakers Corner pressing beats the average original, I can tell you that without fear of contradiction. (Of course all SC copies are going to sound different; perhaps our review copy is one of the Hot ones.)

(The bit about the Speakers Corner pressings sounding different has now been proven beyond any doubt; the copy we cracked open for this shootout didn’t sound nearly as good as the one we played in 2007.)

Ken Scott

In 2008 I had the opportunity to hear Ken Scott speak at an AES meeting here in Los Angeles. This is the man who recorded some of the All Time Great Rock Albums, the likes of Ziggy Stardust, The White Album, Tumbleweed Connection, All Things Must Pass, Son Of Schmilsson, America’s debut … this is one seriously talented guy! (I won’t bore you by trying to recap his talk, but if it ever comes out on youtube or the like, you should definitely check it out. The Behind-The-Scenes discussion of these artists and their recordings was a thrill for someone like me who has been playing and enjoying the hell out of most of his recordings for almost fifty years.)

Supertramp – Even In The Quietest Moments

More Supertramp

Reviews and Commentaries for Even in the Quietest Moments

  • This original A&M import pressing was doing practically everything right, earning INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them from start to finish
  • The bottom end is big and punchy, the top is smooth and sweet, and the vocals are present and breathy
  • On a transparent copy such as this, the drums really punch through the dense mixes clearly, giving the music more life and energy
  • “…it’s a transitional album, bridging the gap between Crime of the Century and the forthcoming Breakfast in America… [it] has plenty of fine moments aside from ‘Give A Little Bit,’ including the music hall shuffle of ‘Loverboy,’ the Euro-artiness of ‘From Now On,’ and the ‘Fool on a Hill’ allusions on ‘Fool’s Overture.'”
  • If you’re a Supertramp fan like me, this art rock classic from 1977 belongs in your collection

What To Listen For

The piano on “Give A Little Bit” can get buried in the dense mix. Side ones that are rich and tubey and smooth with a clear piano did very well in our shootout.

“Lover Boy” is a Demo Quality Track on the better copies. It can be huge, spacious and lively. Getting the strings to sound harmonically rich without sliding into shrillness may not be easy but some copies manage it. On the biggest, richest copies the breakdown at about 2:20 is a lot of fun.

On side two, the recording quality of the solo piano at the start of the second track is nothing short of breathtaking. No piano on any Supertramp album sounds as good.

(more…)

Supertramp – Breakfast In America

More Supertramp

More Reviews and Commentaries for Breakfast in America

  • A truly superb recording with huge, powerful, dynamic sound – the Tubey Magical richness of these sides will have your jaw on the floor
  • A Top 100 title and True Demo Disc – turn it up and this recording gets LOUD like few rock records we’ve ever played
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The majority of the album consisted of tightly written, catchy, well-constructed pop songs, like the hits ‘The Logical Song,’ ‘Take the Long Way Home,’ and ‘Goodbye Stranger.'”

Turn it up good and loud and you will be amazed at how dynamic some of the guitar solos are.

And the choruses! The richness, sweetness and freedom from artificiality is most apparent on Breakfast in America where you most always hear it on a pop record: in the biggest, loudest, densest, climactic choruses.

We set the playback volume so that the loudest parts of the record are as huge and powerful as they can possibly grow to be without crossing the line into distortion or congestion.

On some records, Dark Side of the Moon comes instantly to mind, the guitar solos on Money are the loudest thing on the record. On Breakfast in America the sax toward the end of The Logical Song is the biggest and loudest element in the mix, louder even than Roger Hodgson’s near-hysterical multi-track screaming “Who I am” about three quarters of the way through the track.

Those are clearly exceptions though. Usually it’s the final chorus that gets bigger and louder than anything else.

A pop song is usually structured so as to build more and more power as it works its way through its verses and choruses, past the bridge, coming back around to make one final push, releasing all its energy in the final chorus, the climax of the song.

On a good recording — one with real dynamics — that part should be very loud and very powerful. If this is a quality you are interested in pursuing further in the records you buy, we can help.

We’ve just concluded another big shootout for Breakfast, the band’s biggest charting success, and once again we were blown away by just how good the best copies can sound – huge, spacious, punchy sound we can never get enough of around here. If you have big speakers, a great copy will blow your mind, and it will probably blow your mind even if you don’t.

We are not the least bit ashamed to say that we LOVE this album here at Better Records, and a copy like this will certainly help to show you why. Drop the needle on Gone Hollywood, The Logical Song or Take The Long Way Home to hear how powerful this music can sound when you have a great pressing.

Most copies of this record are grainy, thin, shrill and aggressive. When you get a Hot Stamper like this one, the highs are sweet and silky. This recording has plenty of top end, so if the highs aren’t correct it pretty much ruins the sound of the record. (more…)

Supertramp – Crisis? What Crisis?

More Supertramp

More Arty Rock Albums

  • This UK import copy was doing just about everything right, earning superb Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides
  • Most pressings are painfully thin and harsh, but this one had much more of the richness and smoothness we were looking for, miles away from the painfully bad original domestic pressings we know to avoid
  • Credit the man behind the board, Ken Scott (Ziggy Stardust, Honky Chateau, Crime of the Century, A Salty Dog, Magical Mystery Tour, America and more), a man who knows a thing or two about Tubey Magic
  • A desert island disc for TP, from all the way back in 1975 when I first gave it a spin on my Ariston RD 11 turntable
  • “Even simple tracks like ‘Lady’ and ‘Just a Normal Day blend in nicely with the album’s warm personality and charmingly subtle mood. Although the tracks aren’t overly contagious or hook laden, there’s still a work-in-process type of appeal spread through the cuts, which do grow on you over time.”

(more…)

Supertramp – In 2012 We Finally Beat the Audiophile Pressing We Used to Like

More of the Music of Supertramp

More Breakthrough Pressing Discoveries

This listing is from 2012. Since that time we have been able to find and play a great many British pressings of the album, and they tend to win our shootouts.

But the domestic pressings can also do very well, just not well enough to win shootouts these days, a clear case of Live and Learn.

Our Understanding from 2012

TWO AMAZING SIDES, including an A+++ SIDE ONE! It’s not the A&M Half Speed, and it’s not a British pressing either. It’s domestic folks, your standard plain-as-day A&M pressing, and we’re as shocked as you are. Hearing this copy (as well as an amazing Brit; they can be every bit as good, in their own way of course) was a THRILL, a thrill that’s a step up in “thrillingness” over our previous favorite pressing, the A&M Half Speed.

The best of the best domestics and Brits are bigger, livelier, punchier, more clear and just more REAL than the audiophile pressing something we knew had to be the case if ever a properly mastered non-Half Speed could be found. And now it has. Let the rejoicing begin!

This is only the second White Hot Stamper copy of Crisis to come to the site, and it’s not the A&M Half Speed. It’s an AMAZING sounding British copy. The only other copy that we have ever heard sound this good was the domestic copy we put up a few weeks back.

The best of the best domestics and Brits are bigger, livelier, punchier, more clear and just more REAL than the audiophile pressing — something we knew had to be the case if ever a properly mastered non-Half Speed could be found.

Our previous commentary for our domestic pressings noted:

We’d love to get you some great sounding quiet British copies, but we can’t find any. They either sound bad (most of them) or they’re noisy (the rest). It is our belief that the best Hot Stamper pressings of this Half-Speed give you the kind of sound on Crisis? What Crisis? you can’t find any other way, not without investing hundreds of dollars and scores of hours of your time in the effort. Wouldn’t you just rather listen to the record?

Why did we think Jack Hunt‘s mastering approach for the A&M Half Speed was the right one?

(more…)