supercrisi

Supertramp – Crisis? What Crisis?

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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), 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
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these Classic Rock records – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • “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.”

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Supertramp – Finally, in 2012 We 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?

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Crisis? What Crisis? The Exception that Probes the Rule

More of the Music of Supertramp

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Supertramp

This commentary is from more than fifteen years ago, so please take it with an oversized grain of salt. The best domestic and import pressings kill this audiophile record. That said, the better half-speed copies are actually surprisingly good.

This Hot Stamper A&M Half Speed of Supertramp – Crisis? What Crisis? today joins a VERY ELITE GROUP: Half-Speeds that hold their own in a head to head shootout against some of the BEST Hot Stamper Non-Audiophile pressings we can find. There are presently a total of three titles that fit the description: Dark Side of the Moon on MoFi, Crime of the Century on MoFi, and this title on A&M.

Most half-speed mastered records we throw on our table have us scratching our heads and asking, What the hell were they thinking? They SUCK! Tubby bass, recessed mids, phony highs, compression — the list of bad qualities they almost all have in common is a long one. Playing these kinds of records on a properly set-up modern system is positively painful.
(You have to wonder how bad a stereo system has to be to disguise the shortcomings of records that sound as wrong as these. Then again, is Heavy Vinyl any better?) (more…)