Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Traffic Available Now
For our newest take on the sound of the various labels and stampers for Mr. Fantasy, please click here.
A long, long time ago, probably at the start of the 2000s, we put up this early UK pressing on the Island pink label.
Charged good money for it, too, justified by the fact that the early pink label pressing would be assumed to have the best sound for audiophiles in search of higher fidelity.
Back then we didn’t know what we know now, which is that the right reissues are dramatically better sounding.
In fact, they handily win our shootouts, something they have been doing for at least the last ten years or so.
The pink label pressing we review below is very unlikely to earn a grade high enough to qualify for Hot Stamper status.
Our Old Listing
This pink label original Island pressing has amazingly sweet, open, extended and transparent mids and highs.
It has two major shortcomings: a lack of bass, and a fair amount of surface noise.
If you can add a few — let’s say three — dB around 50 cycles and can put up with some surface noise and scratches, you are guaranteed to hear some wonderful sound in the best tubey Island tradition.
Side two sounds better than side one. It has more bass and is more tonally correct overall.
Live and learn is our motto, and progress in audio is a feature, not a bug, of record collecting at the most advanced levels. (“Advanced” is a code word for having little to no interest in any remastered pressing marketed to the audiophile community. If you want to avoid the worst of them, we are happy to help you do that.)