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Yes – The Yes Album

More of the Music of Yes

  • You haven’t begun to hear the weight, energy and space of Yes’s brilliant third album until you’ve played one of our killer Hot Stamper copies
  • On the right system, at the right volume (very loud), this very record is an immersive experience like practically no other (also particularly on side two)
  • A Top 100 Album and the band’s best sounding record if you ask us (although Fragile can sound absolutely amazing too, just not as smooth and rich)
  • “Organist Tony Kaye, guitarist Steve Howe and bass player Chris Squire play as though of one mind, complementing each other’s work as a knowledgeable band should.”
  • This Prog Rock Masterpiece from 1971 is one that we feel belongs in every audiophile’s collection
  • The Yes Album (along with Fragile and Close to the Edge) is also one of those albums that helped us dramatically improve our playback quality

Drop the needle on this bad boy and you will find yourself on a Yes journey the likes of which you have never known. And that’s what I’m in this audiophile game for. The Heavy Vinyl crowd can have their dead-as-a-doornail, wake-me-when-it’s-over pressings that play quietly. I couldn’t sit through one with a gun to my head.

With the amazing Eddie Offord at the board, as well as the best batch of songs ever to appear on a single Yes album, they produced both their sonic and musical masterpiece — good news for audiophiles with Big Speakers who like to play their records loud.

These guys — and by that I mean this particular iteration of the band, the actual players that were involved in the making of this album — came together for the first time and created the sound of Yes on this very album, rather aptly titled when you think about it. (more…)

Yes – 90125

More Yes

  • A vintage Atco import pressing that was giving us the big and bold sound we were looking for, earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them from top to bottom – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • This side one is spacious, solid and dynamic with huge bass and analog richness that’s hard to find on this album, and side two is not far behind in all those areas
  • There’s an abundance of life and energy here, and the vocals sound just right (particularly on side one)
  • 4 1/2 stars: “A stunning self-reinvention by a band that many had given up for dead, 90125 is the album that introduced a whole new generation of listeners to Yes… there’s nary a duff track on the album.”

I’m pleased to report that we can now add 90125 to our small list of 80s albums that can sound excellent on the right pressing. Drop the needle on “Owner Of A Lonely Heart” and we bet you’ll agree!

So many copies we played were full of that digital grit and grain that we hear on so many records from the era. This one is an entirely different story. It has wonderful analog qualities, with more richness and smoothness than most pressings.

The recording itself is outstanding: punchy and lively with an especially beefy bottom end, the kind a good rock record needs. But you would never know it by playing the average pressing you might pick up for five bucks at your local used record store. The typical copy of this record is pretty average sounding. Let’s face it: every mastering mistake that can be made will be made sooner or later with mass-produced vinyl like this.

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Yes – Close To The Edge

More of the Music of Yes

  • Close To The Edge returns to the site for only the second time in fourteen months, here with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close it throughout his vintage copy
  • An incredibly complex recording, with huge organs, light-speed changes and an abundance of multi-tracked parts – these early pressings are the only ones that can make sense of this challenging music
  • On such a dynamic recording, with so many quiet passages, finding reasonably quiet surfaces is a dubious proposition for even the most committed audiophile, as is the case here, sad to say
  • But on the bright side, once you hear just how amazing sounding side one of this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting ticks and pops and just be swept away by the music
  • If any pressing will let you do that, it’s this one!
  • 5 stars: “Close to the Edge comprised just three tracks, the epic ‘And You and I’ and ‘Siberian Khatru,’ plus a side-long title track that represented the musical, lyrical, and sonic culmination of all that Yes had worked toward over the past five years.”
  • This album is a Must Own from 1972, one that deserves a place in any audiophile’s collection
  • Close to the Edge is an album with one set of very special stampers that have consistently been winning shootout after shootout for years now

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Yes – Fragile

More Yes

More Prog Rock

  • Fragile is FINALLY back on the site after a two year hiatus, here with excellent Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish
  • Both of these sides boast superb clarity and astonishing transparency thanks to the brilliant engineering of Eddie Offord
  • Bigger and bolder, with more bass, more energy, and more of the “you-are-there-immediacy” of ANALOG that sets the better vintage pressings apart from reissues, CDs, and whatever else you care to name
  • If all you know is the mediocre Heavy Vinyl pressing from years back, you are in for a real treat with this Hot Stamper
  • AMG 5 stars, our Top 100, and the second of the band’s three Must Own Prog Rock Masterpieces (the other two, of course, being The Yes Album and Close to the Edge)
  • “Fragile was Yes’ breakthrough album… it also marked the point where all of the elements of the music (and more) that would define their success for more than a decade fell into place fully formed.”

We doubt you’ve heard too many (if any) rock records that sound as amazing as this one. It’s dynamic, punchy and powerful, with the kind of super-low distortion sound that lets you really crank the levels, the louder the better. How many Yes records will let you do that? This one will. That’s what you get for your money — the kind of sound that can blow your mind over and over again for as long as you live, or at least as long as your hearing holds out.

Both sides are smooth and sweet with virtually no smearing up top or distortion on the piano. The overall sound is airy, open, spacious, and three-dimensional. The grit, grain and spit that characterize most copies are nowhere to be found here.

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Yes – Time And A Word

More Yes

More Prog Rock

  • You’ll find outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound throughout this vintage UK pressing – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Some of the best High Production Value rock music of the ’60s and ’70s, thanks to the band and a Mr. Eddie Offord
  • If you’ve ever heard one of our Yes Album or Fragile Hot Stampers, you’ll know what to expect here – huge and powerful sound
  • “…the group was developing a much tauter ensemble than was evident on their first LP, so there’s no lack of visceral excitement. ‘No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed’ was a bold opening [and] ‘Everydays’ is highlighted by Anderson’s ethereal vocals and Kaye’s dueting with the orchestra.”

On the better copies of Yes’s second album, the cymbal crashes are big and powerful with correct high frequency extension. The sound of the organs and synths is huge, immediate and — above all — real.

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Yes’s First Album on Plum and Orange

More of the Music of Yes

Hot Stamper Prog Rock Albums Available Now

  • Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on both sides and the first to hit the site in many years
  • This UK Original Plum and Orange pressing is by far the best way to hear the album, but finding a clean one was no walk in the park
  • “In an era when psychedelic meanderings were the order of the day, Yes delivered a surprisingly focused and exciting record that covered lots of bases…” – All Music

Consider taking the following Moderately Helpful Advice concerning the pressings that have the best sound, to wit:

Although the UK first label originals will always win our shootouts, the early UK reissues on the Red and Green label can still sound quite good on the right pressing.

Skip all domestic copies of this album, as well as the next one. They are clearly made from dubbed tapes.

I wish I could say that this was the sonic (or musical) equivalent of Fragile of The Yes Album — or even the second album, Time and a Word — but that’s simply not the case. Still, there’s a lot to like here and it’s fun to hear the band developing their style and growing into the pop-prog behemoth they would become with their third release.

What shootout winning sides such as these 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 in 1969
  • Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
  • Natural tonality in the midrange — with all the instruments (and effects!) 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 of course the only way to hear all of the above. (more…)