Top Artists – The Eagles

Letter of the Week – “Un******believable that any record could sound that good.”

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of America

Reviews and Commentaries for The Eagles’ Debut

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

Hey Tom, 

I want to tell you I bought America’s 1st LP from you some couple of years back. White Hot designation at that time. I don’t know if you have found one better since then. Paid big dollars and I still cannot believe the sound. Worth every penny. 

When I play that LP, I cannot avoid getting goose bumps or getting totally enveloped with the music. The guitars and vocals are flat out surreal.

It is just as amazing as the Eagles 1st LP Hot Stamper. Un******believable that any record could sound that good.

Bill 

Bill,

Thanks for your letter. I know exactly what you mean. In 1971 or 1972 I got my first copy of America and it quickly became a record I could not get enough of.

I didn’t discover how hot the first Eagles album could sound until about 2000. That’s how long it took me to stumble upon the original white label Asylum pressing.

Before then all I had heard were the blue label reissues, and most of those are unimpressive to say the least.

Further Reading

2-Packs – The Best Case for Dramatic Pressing Variations

More of the Music of The Eagles

Hot Stamper 2-packs Available Now

Presenting another entry in our series of Big Picture observations concerning records and audio.

Just today (3/16/15) we put up a White Hot Stamper 2-pack of the Eagles’ First Album. One of the two pressings that made up the 2-pack had a killer side two, practically As Good As It Gets. 

What was interesting about that particular record was how bad side one was. Side one of that copy — on the white label, with stampers that are usually killer — was terrible. The vocals were hard, shrill and spitty. My notes say “CD sound.”

When a record sounds like a CD it goes in the trade-in pile, not on our site.

We encouraged the lucky owner to play the bad side for himself, just to hear how awful it is. Yet surprisingly, one might even say shockingly, it has exactly the qualities that audiophiles and collectors are most often satisfied with: the right label, and, in this case, even the right stampers (assuming anyone besides us would know what the right stampers are).

The problem was it didn’t have the right sound.

I know our customers can hear the difference, but can the rest of the audio world? Most of my reading on the internet makes me doubt that they can. When some people say that the differences between pressings can’t be all that big, I only wish they could have played the two sides of this copy. Or  had higher quality reproduction so that these differences become less ignorable.

Our 2-pack sets combine two copies of the same album, with at least a Super Hot Stamper sonic grade on the better of each “good” side, which simply means you now have a pair of records that offers superb sound for the entire album.

Audiophiles are often surprised when they hear that an LP can sound amazing on one side and mediocre on the other, but since each side is pressed from different metalwork, aligned independently, and perhaps even cut by different mastering engineers from tapes of sometimes wildly differing quality, in our experience it happens all the time.

In fact, it’s much more common for a record to earn different sonic grades for its two sides than it is to rate the same grade.

That’s just the way it goes in analog, where there’s no way to know how a any given side of a record sounds until you play it, and, more importantly, in the world of sound everything is relative.

Since each of the copies in the 2-pack will have one good side and one noticeably weaker or at best more run-of-the-mill side, you’ll be able to compare them on your own to hear just what it is that the Hot Stamper sides give you. This has the added benefit of helping you to improve your critical listening skills. We’ll clearly mark which copy is Hot for each side, so if you don’t want to bother with the other sides, you certainly won’t have to.

Further Reading

(more…)

The Eagles / The Long Run

More Eagles

More Joe Walsh

  • A vintage copy with a rockin’ “Long Run” like you have never heard, earning killer Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades on both sides, just shy of our Shootout Winner – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • The sound is full, rich and vibrant with impressive punch down low and nice extension up top
  • The best songs prove that the Eagles were still at the height of their powers, at least some of the time…
  • The first two songs on both sides are practically as good as it gets for mainstream rock from this era – they’re playlist staples of Classic Rock stations from coast to coast to this day
  • “The Long Run is a chilling and altogether brilliant evocation of Hollywood’s nightly Witching Hour, that nocturnal feeding frenzy first detailed by Warren Zevon on his haunting Asylum debut (Warren Zevon, 1976) and the equally powerful Excitable Boy.” – Rolling Stone

The last song on side two, “The Sad Cafe,” is also standout. Others, as they used to say in school, ‘need improvement.’

But five Killer Eagles songs is nothing to sneeze at. This is an album that belongs in your collection, even if you choose to only listen to the best material on it.

(more…)

The Eagles / The Long Run – The True Test for Side One

More of the Music of The Eagles

More Records with Specific Advice on What to Listen For

Want to know if you have a good side one on your copy? Here’s an easy test.

Timothy B Schmit’s vocal on I Can’t Tell You Why rarely sounds right.

Most of the time he’s muffled, pretty far back in the soundstage, and the booth he’s in has practically no ambience.

On the good copies, he’s not exactly jumping out of the speakers, but he’s clear, focused, and his voice is breathy and full of emotional subtleties that make the song the heartbreaking powerhouse it is.

This is why you need a Hot Stamper. Most copies don’t let you FEEL the song.

And the rest of the band is cookin’ here as well. From the big, full-bodied bass to the fat, punchy snare, the best sides are doing practically everything we want them to.

Further Reading

(more…)

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

More Eagles

More Country and Country Rock

  • 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

More of the Music of The Eagles

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.

(more…)

The Eagles – One Of These Nights

More Eagles

 More Country and Country Rock

  • On an exceptionally good sounding copy such as this one, the soaring guitar solo of the title track really comes alive – assuming you have it turned up GOOD and LOUD
  • Lyin’ Eyes and Take It To The Limit sound the way they should – we guarantee you have never heard them sound remotely as good as they do here
  • 4 stars: “…a lyrical stance — knowing and disillusioned, but desperately hopeful — had evolved, and the musical arrangements were tighter and more purposeful. The result was the Eagles’ best-realized and most popular album so far.”

Another in the long list of recordings that really comes alive when you Turn Up Your Volume.

This is one of the toughest Eagles albums to find with good sound, which is why only a small handful ever make it to the site. This album may never sound quite as good as Hotel California or the self-titled debut, but there are some wonderful songs here and a Hot Stamper like this brings them to life in a way most pressings cannot begin to do.

The better copies are richer and sweeter. When you turn them up, they really come to life. When you play the better sides at Rock Music Volumes they really ROCK. When a copy is cut really clean, as the best ones are, the louder you play them the better they sound. They’re tonally correct at loud levels and a bit dull at what we would call “audiophile” levels. That’s the way it should be.

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’ve rarely heard in the past.

This is the guitar sound that Bill Szymczyk achieved with the band that Glyn Johns had not. Of course, 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.

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.

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.

(more…)

Eagles – Eagles Live

More Eagles

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

(more…)

The Eagles / Desperado

More Eagles

More Country and Country Rock

  • This STUNNING copy of the band’s sophomore release boasts Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from start to finish
  • This vintage pressing has huge amounts of Tubey Magic, a strong bass foundation, and plenty of space around the guitars and voices – man, that is our sound!
  • This is the second-best sounding Eagles record of all time, no doubt thanks to their brilliant engineer and producer, Glyn Johns
  • “A solid country-rock classic… the music stands the test of time, especially when Desperado is heard in its entirety, from start to finish.”

Acoustic guitar reproduction is key to this recording, and on the best copies the harmonic coherency, the richness, the body and simply phenomenal amounts of Tubey Magic can be heard in every strum.

(more…)

Eagles – Rockin’ Out to Victim of Love

More of the Music of The Eagles

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…)