supercrisi

It Took Us Until 2012 to Finally Beat the Audiophile Pressing We Swore By

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Supertramp Available Now

UPDATED 2026

We have not had very good luck with domestic pressings of this album for quite a few years now. The German pressings are also not very good, earning at most 1.5+ and more often than not a lower grade. (Hey, we had to be sure.)

The Canadian audiophile pressings are comparable, 1.5+ or close to it, not good enough to bother with when the right UK pressings are so much better.

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

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. [!]

(more…)

Crisis? What Crisis? – The Exception that Probes the Rule

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Supertramp Available Now

UPDATE 2026

This commentary was written more than fifteen years ago, so please take it with an oversized grain of salt.

The best import pressings of Crisis? What Crisis? kill this audiophile record.

All those years ago we thought that the Half-Speed copies were surprisingly good, but they’re really not good enough to bother with these days since the UK pressings are just so much better sounding.

We did another shootout for this album in 2026 and here is how the Half-Speed did relative to the other pressings we played.

Two copies, neither of which is good enough to put up on the site as they did not earn our minimum Hot Stamper grade of 1.5+/1.5+. Which makes them passable sounding records, not much more than that, and not really worth the money we paid or the time we wasted cleaning and playing them.

None of the Half-Speeds we mention below are good enough to play in a shootout and there is little chance that will ever change. There is one exception though, and that’s John Klemmer’s Touch album on MoFi, a pressing we have never been able to beat, and believe me, we’ve tried.

(more…)

Supertramp – Crisis? What Crisis?

More of the Music of Supertramp

  • This UK import copy was doing most everything right, earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides
  • Lots of quiet passages make this title one of the most difficult to find in audiophile playing condition, but here one is!
  • 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), 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…)