Top Engineers – Geoff Emerick

Paul McCartney – Unplugged

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More Beatles

  • A true Demo Disc and excellent sounding import pressing that boasts KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • A strikingly intimate document of a live show, fronted by one of the greatest performers in history, Sir Paul McCartney
  • You get more extension up top, more weight down low, and more transparency in the midrange, than on all other copies we played
  • 4 stars: “… it remains one of the most enjoyable records in McCartney’s catalog. McCartney is carefree and charming, making songs like ‘Be-Bop-a-Lula’ and ‘Blue Moon of Kentucky’ sound fresh.”

Stunning sound for this amazing recording! It’s a strikingly intimate document of a live show, one which just happens to be fronted by one of the greatest performers in the history of popular music, Sir Paul McCartney.

On the better copies, the sound is warmer, richer, and sweeter, or in a word, more ANALOG sounding. You get more extension up top, more weight down low, and more transparency in the midrange. It’s surprising how veiled and two-dimensional so many copies can be, considering that this is a live recording (by the legendary Geoff Emerick himself) with not a lot of “messing around” after the fact.

This vintage import pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound.

If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.

What The Best Sides Of Unplugged Have To Offer Is Not Hard To Hear

  • The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
  • The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes even as late as 1991
  • Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
  • Natural tonality in the midrange — with all the instruments having the correct timbre
  • Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space

No doubt there’s more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.

Finding The Best Sound

This isn’t your typical rock record that sounds crappy on eight out of ten copies. Most copies of Unplugged sound pretty good. We did hear quite a few that had a somewhat brittle quality to the top end, with no real extension to speak of. It wasn’t ever a dealbreaker, but the copies with a silky openness up there are much more enjoyable — and, unfortunately, fairly uncommon.

There are copies that lack warmth, copies that never fully come to life, and copies that are a bit dark. Some that we auditioned didn’t seem to get the breath in the vocals, and others lacked weight to the piano. Again — not one of the pressings we played sounded BAD, but many of them definitely sounded dry, boring and lifeless.

Just for fun, check out Linda’s percussion and tambourine work in the right channel of the first track on side one, “Be-Bop-A-Lula.” Since that’s one of our test tracks, we had the opportunity to hear her ‘contribution’ to the song about twenty times or so, and it became a source of — to be charitable — ‘entertainment’ in its own right as the shootout progressed.

What We’re Listening For On Unplugged

  • Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
  • Then: presence and immediacy. The vocals aren’t “back there” somewhere, lost in the mix. They’re front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt would put them.
  • The Big Sound comes next — wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
  • Then transient information — fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.
  • Tight punchy bass — which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.
  • Next: transparency — the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.
  • Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.

It’s Also An Excellent Test Disc

This is a Must-Own LP for testing purposes. When Paul’s voice and the guitars sound right it’s pretty obvious that the system is working. Of course, what makes this a great test disc is that when they sound wrong, it’s just as obvious.

Vinyl Condition

Mint Minus Minus is about as quiet as any vintage pressing will play, and since only the right vintage pressings have any hope of sounding good on this album, that will most often be the playing condition of the copies we sell. (The copies that are even a bit noisier get listed on the site are seriously reduced prices or traded back in to the local record stores we shop at.)

Those of you looking for quiet vinyl will have to settle for the sound of other pressings and Heavy Vinyl reissues, purchased elsewhere of course as we have no interest in selling records that don’t have the vintage analog magic of these wonderful recordings.

If you want to make the trade-off between bad sound and quiet surfaces with whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing might be available, well, that’s certainly your prerogative, but we can’t imagine losing what’s good about this music — the size, the energy, the presence, the clarity, the weight — just to hear it with less background noise.

A Must Own McCartney Record

McCartney Unplugged is a recording that should be part of any serious Popular Music Collection. Others that belong in that category can be found here.

TRACK LISTING

Side One

Be-Bop-A-Lula
I Lost My Girl
Here There And Everywhere
Blue Moon of Kentucky
We Can Work It Out
San Francisco Bay Blues
I’ve Just Seen A Face
Every Night
She’s A Woman

Side Two

Hi-Heel Sneakers
And I Love Her
That Would Be Something
Blackbird Track 

Before this song starts, Paul banters with the audience for a minute or two. He spots a woman in the crowd and jokes with her. If your system is capable of resolving it, you can hear their conversation clearly. The sense of actually being in the room with the audience and the performers is uncanny. All the “messing around” on stage stuff gives the listener plenty of nice ambience cues to listen for.

Also, Paul moves the microphone, scraping it along the floor, which causes a huge wave of bass to envelop the room. I was over at one of my customer’s houses one time, doing a shootout with various electronics and tweaks, and I remember distinctly that the microphone stand was shrunken and lean sounding in a way I had never heard before. Now this customer, whose system was in the $100K range, had no idea what that microphone stand could really do. I did, because I’ve been hearing it do it for years.

Some speakers can’t move enough air down there to reproduce that sound. And some speakers shrink the size of images. These are two things I listen for in a system: if it doesn’t have the bottom end and it doesn’t have correctly sized images for the instruments, that’s a system that is failing in fundamental ways. If you close your eyes, you’re not in the presence of the musicians. That’s the goal, and all the equipment in a system must work to serve that purpose.

That’s why this is a good test disc. The band is RIGHT THERE. To the extent that you can make them sound live in your living room, you are getting the job done. The last tiny bit of resolution is not the point. Full-sized live musicians in your living room is the point. Either Paul and his band are in front of you, or they’re not. When they’re not, it’s time to get to work and find out what part of the system is not doing its job.

Ain’t No Sunshine
Good Rockin’ Tonight
Singing The Blues
Junk

AMG 4 Star Review

… it remains one of the most enjoyable records in McCartney’s catalog. Running through a selection of oldies — not only his own, but Beatles and rock & roll chestnuts — McCartney is carefree and charming, making songs like “Be-Bop-a-Lula” and “Blue Moon of Kentucky” (which finds Paul melding Bill Monroe with Elvis) sound fresh. But the real revelations of the record are the songs McCartney hauls out from his debut — “That Would Be Something,” “Every Night,” and “Junk” — which sound lovely and timeless, restoring them to their proper place in his canon. They help make Unplugged into a thoroughly enjoyable minor gem.

Robin Trower / Bridge of Sighs – A Demo Disc for Size and Space 

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More Psych Rock

  • One of the best copies of Trower’s amazingly well recorded Psych masterpiece to ever hit the site, with a KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side one – remarkably quiet vinyl too
  • This early UK pressing is huge, rich and punchy, with guitar solos that soar like few others you’ve heard
  • The title track is on this killer side one – you have never begun to hear it sound like this!
  • Brilliant engineering by Geoff Emerick at George Martin’s AIR studios – maybe the best sounding album Emerick ever made
  • Top 100 and 4 1/2 stars on AMG: “…his most stunning, representative, and consistent collection of tunes. Bridge of Sighs holds up to repeated listenings as a timeless work, as well as the crown jewel in Trower’s extensive catalog.”
  • If you’re a fan of Robin’s, this has to be seen as a Top Title from 1974 that belongs in your collection
  • It’s without a doubt his best sounding album, and, to our way of thinking, his only essential one

We’d been wandering around in the dark for more than a decade with Bridge of Sighs — that is, until about 2015 when we finally stumbled upon a certain UK Chrysalis pressing in audiophile playing condition.

Now we know just how good this album can sound. How good? Astonishingly good. The three-dimensional space is positively breathtaking on the best UK copies.

There is a substantial amount of Tubey Magic and liquidity on the tape, recalling the kind of hi-rez vintage analog sound that makes the luminous A Space in Time (1971) such a mind-expanding experience. Both albums have the kind of High Production Value sound that we go crazy for here at Better Records.

You can find many of our favorites in our Rock and Pop Top 100, and if we can find more of this title, it will surely be on the list as well. (more…)

Paul McCartney & Wings – Band on the Run

More Paul McCartney

More of The Beatles

  • A stunning British pressing with superb sound from start to finish
  • Another record that rarely can be found with audiophile playing surfaces – those of you who like their vinyl quiet should give this one a serious look, there aren’t many like it
  • The legendary Geoff Emerick engineered the album, a Top 100 title here at Better Records – it’s an impressive recording when it sounds as good as this copy does
  • The title track, “Jet,” “Bluebird,” “Mrs. Vandebilt,” “Let Me Roll It,” “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five” – so many great songs
  • 4 1/2 stars: “…sophisticated, nuanced arrangements and irrepressibly catchy melodic hooks… McCartney’s infallible instinct for popcraft overflows on this excellent release.”

This is a TOUGH album to find with great sound and quiet vinyl but when you come across an excellent copy like this, the record is a MONSTER. The track list includes some of the best McCartney songs of the seventies: the title song, “Jet,” “Bluebird,” “Mrs. Vandebilt,” “Let Me Roll It,” “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five” (my personal favorite on the album) — there’s really not a dog in the bunch.

This is clearly the last consistently good studio album the man recorded.

So many copies we play are either murky or a bit edgy, and it takes a very special copy to strike the ideal tonal balance that will allow all the songs to sound their best.

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The Beatles / Sgt. Peppers – Practical Advice on Pressings to Avoid

beatlessgtHot Stampers of Sgt. Peppers in Stock Now

Letters and Commentaries for Sgt. Peppers

Chris, an erstwhile customer from a very long time ago, sent us a letter describing his search for a good sounding Sgt. Pepper.

The first thing that comes to mind when reading his letter is that many record collecting rules were broken in going about his search the way he did. But then I thought, What rules? Whose rules? Where exactly does one find these rules? If one wants to avoid breaking them they need to be written down someplace, don’t they?

Wikipedia maybe?

Sadly, no, not at Wikipedia, or any place else for that matter — until now. As crazy as it sounds, we are going to try to lay down a few record collecting rules for record loving audiophiles, specifically to aid these individuals in their search for better sounding vinyl pressings. And by “these individuals” we mean you.

See if you can spot the rules that were broken by Chris in his fruitless search for a good sounding Sgt. Pepper. Note that this letter came to us long before the new Beatles CDs and vinyl had been remastered.

Hi Tom

A few months ago, I purchased a new UK import of Sgt Pepper. Too bad it turned out to be digitally remastered. I had been checking your site for this album over the last few months, but only saw two: a sealed MFSL UHQR for $1000, and a hot stamper for $500, both out of my price range. So then I started looking at Ebay, and recently purchased two “sealed” versions of Sgt Pepper – a USA Apple, which cost me $170, and a USA Capitol (original rainbow label) for which I paid $80.

Tonight, I wanted to copy one of the Sgt Pepper’s to Hi-rez (192/24) DVD audio. Both sealed records from Ebay were cleaned with Last RCM record cleaner on a VPI 16.5, and treated with LAST record preservative. (My usual routine)

First I tried the Capitol (rainbow). It even had “mastered by Capitol” stamped on the run-out area, usually a good sign, I thought. The sound was quite good, except for two things:

1) the sound level drops about 3 db in the first track where they sing “We’d love to take you home with us , we’d love to take you home” (3 db drop occurs) followed by “I don’t really want to…” 2) the record has thousands of audible ticks. No kidding, when I recorded it, and looked at the waveform in Adobe Audition, there are really about 20 little ticks per second. If I try to clean it up manually, one click at a time, (my usual routine), it will take an eternity to finish the job. (slight exaggeration) [sic] So I tried the $170 sealed “Apple” purchased from someone named “sealedbeatles”.

This record is a total disaster. It has no high end. It’s like someone turned the treble all the way down (if my system had a treble control). I looked at the spectrum of a few seconds of music, and the level at 8 khz is the same as the level at 60 khz, down about 90 db. (duller than poor AM radio). The record is loaded with surface noise too. The record is totally useless.

Finally I tried the UK digitally remastered Parlophone, purchased probably from Music Direct, or some place like that. It sounds harsher than hell, and oddly has a tone actually recorded on the record at about 70 Khz, which you can “see” poking up from the noise floor in its spectrum.

I’m still looking.

Chris

There is almost no chance Chris would be successful with this approach.

The following would have been my five pieces of advice had he told me in advance what he was planning to do.

1) Avoid Sealed Records

There’s a very high probability that any given sealed record won’t sound especially good. The average record has, by definition, sound that is best described as average. For this reason we do not recommend you buy any sealed record if you expect it to sound especially good; i.e., better than average.

Neither is it likely to play quietly for that matter. A sealed record should play quieter than the average used record, but there is no guarantee that it will. Our Hot Stampers are always 100% guaranteed to satisfy in every way, surfaces included, or your money back.

2) Avoid Half-Speed Mastered Records

Chris saw a UHQR of Sgt. Pepper on our site and wanted it but could not afford it. NOBODY should want that record at that price. It’s not very good, not for that kind of money anyway. {We only sell Hot Stamper pressings we have actually cleaned, played and auditioned ourselves these days, and that has been true for more than a decade. Like I say, this is an old letter.}

3) Avoid Domestic Beatles Records

So Chris went out and bought two domestic Beatles records, which turned out to be awful sounding.

Well of course they did. Have you ever heard a good sounding domestic Beatles record? There are a few out there but they are pretty rare. We know of some; they can sound good but they are not remotely in the same league as our Hot Stampers. We wouldn’t waste our time on them.

4) Avoid Record Cleaning Fluids We Don’t Recommend

We only recommend two: Walker Enzyme Treatment and The Disc Doctor. [Now only one, Walker. Now that Lloyd Walker has passed, we are the exclusive distributors of the Walker fluids and will be making them available as soon as we can get our operation set up to produce them.]

If you’ve tried either or both and still prefer another record cleaning fluid, fine by me. But if you haven’t tried either or both, stop using whatever you are using right now and order one or both. If either of them doesn’t make your records sound better than what you are currently using, send what’s left back to us and we will refund your money. You don’t have much to lose and a great deal to gain.

I am frankly astonished at how poorly most record cleaning fluids on the market today work. More often than not they actually make the records I’ve cleaned sound WORSE — quieter maybe, but worse! Disc Doctor and Walker make your records quieter and they make them sound better. It’s crazy — CRAZY — to use anything else if you haven’t tested what you are currently using against them.

What else? Oh yeah, this one:

5) Avoid Digitally Remastered… Anything

Not much more needs to be said here I’m guessing. We are not big fans of digital remastering at Better Records. We like to say “good digital beats bad analog any day,” but the goal of Better Records is to get you good analog. Bad analog is what those other guys sell.

Final Thoughts

Some approaches to this audio hobby tend to produce better results than others. When your thinking about audio and records does not comport with reality, you are much less likely to achieve the improvements you seek.

Without a good stereo, it is hard to find better records. Without better records, it is hard to improve your stereo.

You need both, and thinking about them the right way, using the results of carefully run experiments — not feelings, opinions, theories, received wisdom or dogma — is surely the best way to acquire better sound.

An empirically-based approach to audio is sure to result in notable improvements to your playback. This will in turn make the job of recognizing high quality pressings — the ones you find for yourself, or the ones we find for you — much, much easier.

I was guilty of a great deal of mistaken audiophile thinking myself starting in the ’70s. (Like many audiophiles I have met over the years, in my early days I found myself in a cult.)

I’ve learned a thing or two in the nearly fifty years I’ve been involved with audio and records, and much of what I’ve learned I’ve written about on this blog. I hope you find some of it useful on your way to better analog sound.

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The Beatles – The White Album

More of The Beatles

Reviews and Commentaries for The White Album

  • With outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER on all FOUR sides, this British pressing is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other White Album you’ve heard – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • This copy of the Beatles’ Masterpiece (my personal favorite of all their albums) is going to thrill and delight the lucky person who snags it
  • If you’ve heard the half-speed and Heavy Vinyl versions of The White Album, then you know how riddled they are with unacceptable flaws
  • They are simply not enjoyable on high-quality equipment, unlike this copy, which is guaranteed to be an unalloyed joy to play
  • “If there is still any doubt that Lennon and McCartney are the greatest song writers since Schubert, then next Friday – with the publication of the new Beatles double LP – should surely see the last vestiges of cultural snobbery and bourgeois prejudice swept away in a deluge of joyful music making…” Right On!

Our Hot Stampers have always been a BIG hit with the folks who’ve been lucky enough to snare them. If you’re ready for a High-Quality copy of The White Album that’s sure to massacre all the pressings you’ve heard until now, you should jump right on this bad boy. (more…)

The Beatles – Yellow Submarine

Hot Stamper Pressings of The Beatles Available Now

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of The Beatles

  • A STUNNING copy of Yellow Submarine, with a Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated with an outstanding Double Plus (A++) side one
  • Without a doubt the hardest single side of any Beatles album to find with good sound is side two of Yellow Submarine, and here’s a copy that is As Good As It Gets
  • This pressing is clean, clear, solid and energetic – just the right sound for this classic Beatles music
  • The only place to find the All-Time Classic Hey Bulldog, as well as All Together Now and It’s All Too Much
  • “All You Need Is Love” debuted in a true stereo mix on LP for this album.”

This is a very difficult album to find good sound for; many pressings are almost unbearably gritty and harsh. Fortunately, these two sides have no such problems. The overall tonality is rich and full-bodied, and there’s plenty of presence and energy as well.  (more…)

Ridiculously Phony and Compressed Sound – The Beatles White Album on MoFi

Hot Stamper Pressings of The White Album Available Now

Reviews and Commentaries for The White Album

Sonic Grade: F

Another MoFi LP reviewed and found seriously wanting.

The last time I played a copy of the MoFi, I could not believe how ridiculously bright, phony and compressed it was.

As sibilant as any Beatles record they ever did. Cry Baby Cry spits like crazy!

And to think I used to like their version when it came out back in the ’80s.

A good example: on Yer Blues, the MFSL pressing positively wreaks havoc with all the added bass and top end The Beatles put on this track. The MoFi version is already too bright, and has sloppy bass to start with, so the result on this track is way too much BAD bass and way too much BAD spitty 10k-boosted treble. The MoFi is nothing like the good imports, which have way too much GOOD bass and treble.

Yer Blues ROCKS! Listen to the big jam at the end of the song, where John’s vocal mic is turned off but his performance is still caught by a room or overheard mic. They obviously did this on purpose, killing his vocal track so that the “leaked” vocal could be heard. (We have since learned from Ken Scott that it was mistake, but one they liked and left in.)

Those crazy Beatles! It’s more than just a cool “effect.” It actually seems to kick the energy and power of the song up a notch. It’s clearly an accident, but an accident that works. I rather doubt George Martin approved. That kind of “throw the rule book out” approach is what makes Beatles recordings so fascinating, and The White Album the most fascinating of them all.

The EQ for this song is also a good example of something The Beatles were experimenting with, as detailed in their recording sessions and later interviews with the engineers. They were pushing the boundaries of normal EQ, of how much bass and treble a track could have. This track has seriously boosted bass, way too much, but somehow it works.
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Paul McCartney & Wings – Venus and Mars

More Paul McCartney

More of The Beatles

  • Venus and Mars returns to the site on this superb British pressing with solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER from start to finish
  • We shot out a number of other vintage UK LPs and this one had the presence, bass, and dynamics that were missing from most other copies we played
  • These sides have real depth to the soundfield, full-bodied, present vocals, plenty of bottom end weight, and lovely analog warmth
  • “Venus and Mars is an interesting mix of musical styles, punctuated by Paul McCartney’s unerring sense of melody and hooky songs.” – Oldies.com

This original UK Capitol pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound. (more…)

Supertramp and 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. 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, lots of extra top up high, 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 my thing. Roxy Music, 10cc, Eno, Crack the Sky, ELO, Bowie – it’s all I wanted to listen to back then.

A year and a half later EITQM followed in 1977. It too became a staple of my musical diet. Man I played that record till the grooves were worn smooth.

I thought the sound 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 worse they tend to sound.)

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 an old 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.

Once we figured them 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.

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Stealers Wheel – British A&M Vinyl Versus Domestic A&M Vinyl

More of the Music of Gerry Rafferty

More Hot Stamper Pressings Only Offered on Import LP

Like so many British bands on the A&M label, when it came time to master the album for the domestic market, the people in charge (whoever they may have been) took the easy way out and simply ordered up a dub of the master tape to cut the album.

Spooky Tooth, Procol Harum, The Police (often but not always), Fairport Convention, my beloved Squeeze and too many others to think about all had their records ruined by sub-generation masters.

But our Hot Stamper pressings are always British-pressed vinyl from the real master tapes, and that makes all the difference in the world.

Engineering

The legendary Geoff Emerick engineered (along with John Mills) at Apple Studio, which explains why the sound is so good on these import pressings. The album went on to receive the European Edison Award for recording excellence, whatever that is).

Our standard boilerplate for these kinds of records follows:

Tubey Magic Is Key

This original British pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records cannot even BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound.

If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.

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