Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Supertramp Available Now
A hall of shame pressing and a Half-Speed Mastered disaster if there ever was one.
We’re big fans of this album here at Better Records and consider it to be one of Supertramp’s best. That said, this Half-Speed is a disgrace.
There is absolutely no presence to the sound of the copy we played. The guitars, which on some cuts are double tracked, each coming directly out of the speaker hard right and hard left, are so dull it sounds like the speaker is facing the back wall!
I think I know why — there is quite a bit of processing distortion and grit on the vocals. The Audiophile Masterminds at Sweet Thunder thought the best way to deal with it was to suck the hell out of the presence region (3 to 6k), which takes off some of the edge on the vocals but throws a thick blanket over the acoustic guitars.
On the opening track of side one, the big hit off the album, it takes all the energy out of the one element that really drives the music — the guitars.
This is truly one of the worst Half-Speed mastered records we have ever had the displeasure of hearing.
Shame on you, Sweet Thunder.
This link will take you to some other exceptionally bad records that were marketed to audiophiles for their supposedly superior sound. On today’s modern systems, it should be obvious that they have nothing of the kind and that, in fact, they offer only the reverse: junk sound for bad stereos.
Further Reading
- More records that lack midrange presence
- More on the subject of Half-Speed mastering
- Record collecting advice for audiophiles from A to Z
If you are still buying these remastered pressings, making the same mistakes that I was making before I knew better, take the advice of some of our customers and stop throwing your money away on Heavy Vinyl and Half-Speed mastered LPs.
At the very least let us send you a Hot Stamper pressing — of any album you choose — that can show you what is lacking on your copy of the album.
And if for some reason you disagree with us that our record sounds better than yours, we will happily give you all your money back and wish you the very best.