Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Neil Young Available Now
Years ago — precisely how many we can’t really say, the old listings for those records have been deleted — we thought the original pressings in the nameless cover you see pictured had the best sound.
We thought the pressings that came in this early cover were the ones that were made from the original mix, the mix that Neil later disowned. (More on that below.)
We had played a number of copies that came in the original cover, and they sounded better to us than the others we had auditioned.
Our mistake was not understanding that pressings made with the first mix and pressings made with the second mix both came in the early cover, and both were pressed on the Reprise Two Tone label.
Here is what we wrote some years ago:
It turns out the remixed pressings we’d been selling for years were not the way to hear this album at its best. Neil wanted his voice to sound clearer and more present than the first mix, but the approach the engineers took to increase the clarity and presence was simply to boost the middle and upper midrange, a boost that seriously compromises the wonderful Tubey Magic found in the rich lower midrange of the original mix.
Neil may have liked the sound of his voice better on the new mix, played back on whatever mediocre-at-best stereo he was using at the time, but we here at Better Records are of a decidedly different opinion. On a modern, highly-resolving system Neil’s voice will not sound the least bit “buried” on the original mix, not on the better pressings anyway. Of course, the better ones are the only ones we sell.
If you want to hear this album sound right, we strongly believe that the original mix is the only way to go. And if you want to hear this album sound really right, better-than-you-ever-thought-possible right, you need a copy that was mastered, pressed and cleaned properly, and that means a Hot Stamper from Better Records.
It turns out the stampers for the pressings we like are the ones made from the remixed tapes.