{"product_id":"beatlwhite_2607-1","title":"Beatles, The - The White Album - Super Hot Stamper (Quiet Vinyl)","description":"\u003cp\u003eOur White Album Hot Stampers have always been a big hit with the folks who've been lucky enough to snare them. If you're ready for a high-quality copy of The White Album that's sure to massacre all the pressings you've heard up until now, you should jump right on this bad boy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese vintage UK Apple pressings have the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn't showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to \"see\" the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, these are the records for you. It's what vintage all analog recordings are known for -- \u003ci\u003ethis sound\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it -- not often, and certainly not always -- but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat The Best Sides Of The White Album Have To Offer Is Not Hard To Hear\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe most Tubey Magic, without which you have \u003ci\u003ealmost\u003c\/i\u003e 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 \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%221968%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e1968\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNatural tonality in the midrange -- with all the instruments having the correct timbre\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTransparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo doubt there's more but we hope that should do for now. \u003ci\u003ePlaying these records is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above,\u003c\/i\u003e and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find pressings that sound as good as these two do.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNow, this is obviously a ridiculous amount of money to drop on a single album, even a single double album. Consider it a reward for all the time, effort and money it took to get your stereo to where it is today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI'd be shocked if twenty audiophile pressings could bring you the kind of satisfaction and joy that just one side of this killer White Album is going to. Like every Hot Stamper, we back this one with a 100% Money Back Guarantee, so there's nothing to lose... and amazing White Album sound for the rest of your life to gain.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat We're Listening For On The White Album\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eEnergy\u003c\/strong\u003e for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThen: \u003cstrong\u003epresence and immediacy\u003c\/strong\u003e. The vocals aren't \"back there\" somewhere, lost in the mix. They're front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt -- \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22chris-thomas%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eChris Thomas, \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22geoff-emerick%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGeoff Emerick\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e and \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22ken-scott%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eKen Scott\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e in this case -- would put them.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe Big Sound\u003c\/strong\u003e comes next -- wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThen \u003cstrong\u003etransient information\u003c\/strong\u003e -- fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eTight punchy bass\u003c\/strong\u003e -- which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNext: \u003cstrong\u003etransparency\u003c\/strong\u003e -- the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eExtend the top and bottom\u003c\/strong\u003e and \u003ci\u003evoila\u003c\/i\u003e, you have The Real Thing -- an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eThe Toughest One?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt's exceedingly difficult to find audiophile quality sound on The White Album. Other than Yellow Submarine, side two of which almost never sounds good, The White Album is surely one of the toughest nuts to crack in The Beatles canon.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Beatles were breaking apart, often recording independently of each other, with their own favorite engineers as enablers, and George Martin nowhere to be found most of the time. They were also experimenting more and more, pushing the boundaries of recorded sound. These new approaches and added complexity cause a loss of \"purity\" in the sound. Let's face it, most audiophiles like simplicity: A female vocal, a solo guitar -- these things are easy to reproduce and often result in lovely sound, the kind of sound that doesn't take a lot of money or effort to achieve.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDense mixes with wacky EQ are difficult to reproduce (our famous DOR scale comes into play here), and the White Album is full of both, taking a break for songs like \"Blackbird\" and \"Julia.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is my favorite Beatles album, a \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22desert-island-disc%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDesert Island Disc\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e if there ever was one, and nothing less than a work of \u003cu\u003egenius\u003c\/u\u003e. If some songs could have been recorded better, so what? They're as good as they are going to get, and on a Hot Stamper pressing like this one, that means awfully good.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eVinyl Condition\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMint Minus Minus and maybe a bit better is about as quiet as any vintage pressing will play, and since only the right vintage pressings have any hope of sounding good on this album, that will most often be the playing condition of the copies we sell. (The copies that are even a bit noisier get listed on the site are seriously reduced prices or traded back in to the local record stores we shop at.)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThose of you looking for quiet vinyl will have to settle for the sound of other pressings and Heavy Vinyl reissues, purchased elsewhere of course as we have no interest in selling records that don't have the vintage analog magic of these wonderful recordings.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you want to make the trade-off between bad sound and quiet surfaces with whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing might be available, well, that's certainly your prerogative, but we can't imagine losing what's good about this music -- the size, the energy, the presence, the clarity, the weight -- just to hear it with less background noise.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eExtensive Track Commentary\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe really spent some quality time on the \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22track-commentary%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003etrack commentary\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e for this one, so make sure you refer to it while comparing what we are saying to what you are hearing at home, using whatever copy you own.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you end up with one of our Hot Stampers, listen carefully for the effects we describe. \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22difficulty-of-reproduction%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThis is not an easy record to reproduce\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e -- everything has to be working in tip-top form to even begin to get this complicated music sounding the way it should -- but if you've done your homework and gotten your system really cooking, you will hear the Beatles' \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22pop-masterpiece%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMasterpiece\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e sounding better than it ever has before, and by a long shot.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis album should be part of any serious rock collection. Others that belong in that category can be found \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22core-rock-collection%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ehere\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Beatles, The","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52108365594920,"sku":"beatlwhite","price":799.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0257\/3415\/2295\/files\/beatlwhite.jpg?v=1752597489","url":"https:\/\/better-records.com\/products\/beatlwhite_2607-1","provider":"Better Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}