Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
So Far

*NOTE: There is an indent in the vinyl that plays as 14 thuds (9 moderate, 5 light) at the start of track 2 on side 2, "Our House."

These Nearly White Hot Stamper pressings have top-quality sound that's often surprisingly close to our White Hots, but they sell at substantial discounts to our Shootout Winners, making them a relative bargain in the world of Hot Stampers ("relative" meaning relative considering the prices we charge). We feel you get what you pay for here at Better Records, and if ever you don't agree, please feel free to return the record for a full refund, no questions asked.

When you get hold of a pressing as good as this one, the sound is so correct it makes a mockery of the phony EQ and just plain bad mastering and pressing of the Heavy Vinyl and Half-Speed Mastered versions.

The MoFi and the Classic 200g LP are both clearly wrong in fundamentally important ways. This record will make it clear exactly what's wrong with them, assuming you have the critical listening skills to recognize the differences and the stereo to reproduce the record accurately. If you are on this site chances are pretty good you do.

Once you hear this copy you will never be able to enjoy those audiophile pressings again, of that we are quite confident.

This vintage Atlantic Stereo pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records rarely even 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, this is the record for you. It's what vintage all analog recordings are known for -- this sound.

If 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.

What The Best Sides Of So Far 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 1974
• Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
• Natural tonality in the midrange -- with all the instruments 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 the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.

Hey Guys, What's With All the Bad Sounding Pressings?

This is a very difficult record to find with proper mastering (and good vinyl, ouch!). It seems that all of Crosby, Stills and Nash's albums are that way. The average domestic pressing rarely even hints at how well recorded this band really was (and the imports are even worse -- we've never heard one that didn't sound dubby, veiled and compressed).

In my experience not even one out of ten LPs sounds right; I put the figure at one out of twenty. Most of them are shrill, dull, grainy, flat, opaque, harsh and in varying degrees suffer from every other mastering and pressing malady known to man.

But the better ones have some tracks in superb sound. When you hear the Hot Stampers for records like this you will simply be amazed. If you've ever heard a really good If Only I Could Remember My Name, an album that can be found with proper mastering, that should give you some idea of how good the first two albums can sound.

What We're Listening For On So Far

• Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
• Then: presence and immediacy. The vocals aren't "back there" somewhere, lost in the mix. They're front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt would put them.
• The Big Sound comes next -- wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
• Then transient information -- fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.
• Tight punchy bass -- which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.
• Next: transparency -- the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.
• Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing -- an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.

A Waste of Money?

The All Music Guide considers this record to be a waste of money on CD because it was a slapped together effort to capitalize on CSN's success, combining material from only two albums and then adding two unreleased tracks. Their attitude is that the first two records are essential, so why buy this album for two songs?

I'll tell you why. Because finding clean good sounding pressings of either of the first two albums is incredibly hard. I mean that literally: as a practical matter, it is hard and getting harder by the day to find Hot Stamper versions of the first two albums that aren't in beat condition.

Vinyl Condition

Mint Minus Minus 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.)

Those 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.

If 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.

Track Commentary

The Tracklist tab above will take you to a select song breakdown for each side, with plenty of What to Listen For advice. Other records with track breakdowns can be found here.

Side One

• Déjà Vu

When you get a good copy of this album, this song sounds like it was lifted right off of a Hot Stamper copy of Deja Vu itself. It's so rich and Tubey Magical you'd swear it couldn't get any better. Huge amounts of deep bass. Acoustic guitars that ring for days. Midrange magic to die for. Not many of them sound this way, unfortunately.

If I could indulge in some more MoFi and Half-Speed bashing for a moment, the bass "solo" at the end of this song is a great test for bass definition. The notes are relatively high, and it's easy for them to sound blurred and wooly. The MoFi, like virtually all Half-Speed mastered records, has a problem with bass definition. If you own the MoFi, listen for how clearly defined the notes are at the end of this track. Then play any other copy, either of So Far or Deja Vu. It's a pretty safe bet that the bass will be much more articulate. I know how bad the MOFI is in this respect. Rarely do "normal" records have bass that bad.

Stephen Barncard Does It Again

Listen to this song and compare it to anything on the Barncard-engineered first solo LP by David Crosby. That is the sound of Barncard's engineering -- open, spacious, rich, sweet; tons of deep bass; absolutely no trace of phony eq on vocals; acoustic guitars that ring for days -- the man is a genius. Thank god he was involved with music of this quality. If only more of the LP pressings did a better job of revealing the exquisite beauty of the recordings themselves. (I suppose that burden must be carried by the few Hot Stamper copies we can dig up.)

• Helplessly Hoping

This is a wonderful song that has a lot of energy in the midrange and upper midrange area which is difficult to get right. Just today (4/25/05) I was playing around with VTA, and this song showed me exactly how to get the VTA right.

VTA is all about balance. The reason this song is so good for adjusting VTA is that the guitar at the opening is a little smooth and the harmony vocals that come in after the intro can be a little bright. Finding the balance between these two elements is key to getting the VTA adjusted properly.

When the arm is too far down in the back, the guitar at the opening will lose its transparency and become dull and thick. Too high in the back and the vocals sound thin and shrill, especially when the boys all really push their harmony parts. The slightest change in VTA will noticeably affect that balance and allow you to tune it in just right.

To be successful, however, there are also other conditions that need to be met. The system has to be sounding right, which in my world means good electricity, so make sure you do this in the evening or on a weekend when the electricity is better.

That's the easy part. The hard part is that you need a good pressing of this song, and those don't grow on trees. The vast majority of CSN's first album and the vast majority of So Far's are junk. Trying to get them to sound right is impossible, because they weren't mastered right in the first place. But if you're one of the lucky few who has a good pressing of Helplessly Hoping, try tweaking your VTA adjustment and see if you aren't able to dial it in even better than before.

Since the Classic heavy vinyl version is also excellent, it too can be used to set VTA. But of course you are setting VTA for a thicker record, which means you will need to note where the setting is for thick and thin vinyl respectively and make sure that the VTA is correct for each.

As good as the Classic Record is, the guitar at the opening of Helplessly Hoping tells you everything you need to know about what's missing. The guitar on the Hot Stamper domestic copies has a transparency that cannot be found on Classic's version. The Classic gets the tonal balance right, but their guitar doesn't have the subtlety and harmonic resolution of the real thing.

(I'm laboring mightily to avoid the word detail, since many audiophiles like bright, phony sound because of all the wonderful "details" it allows them to hear in the music. The MoFi guys and the CD guys usually fall into this trap. Get the sound tonally balanced first, then see how much detail you have left. Detail can never be the end-all and be-all of audio. Those who think it is usually have systems that make my head hurt.)

But most people will never know what they're missing on Helplessly Hoping, because they will never have an amazing sounding copy of this song. The hot copies are just too rare.

Note that only the best of the best copies can get this song right. Even a "good" pressing can be beaten by the Classic. The Classic 200 gram pressing is fairly sweet and present in the midrange, with less strain in the loud harmonies. A White Hot or Super Hot Stamper will of course positively decimate anything Classic ever did. It would be no contest, take my word for it. Better yet, don't take my word for it, or anybody else's for that matter; buy a Hot Stamper and hear it for yourself!

• Wooden Ships
• Teach Your Children
• Ohio

This is a tough one; very few copies of So Far reveal how good sounding this song can be. On most copies this song is distorted and congested. But on the better copies it has many of the same qualities as Almost Cut My Hair from Deja Vu. We wrote:

This is the one and only time when Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young actually sounds like a rock and roll band. Supposedly (according to Stephen Barncard) this was recorded live in the studio. It sure sounds like it. The amount of energy this band stirs up on this track exceeds all the energy of the first album put together.

And the reason this is such a tough test is because it has to be mastered perfectly in order to make you want to turn it up as loud as your stereo will play. This song is not for sipping wine and smoking cigars. This is a song that demands to be played at realistic volume levels on big speakers. Nothing less will do.

• Find the Cost of Freedom

The better copies of So Far have Demo Disc Quality Sound on this track. You could say everything that needs to be said about the beauty of analog with this one track alone. It's not even two minutes long, but it's two really wonderful minutes of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young at the height of their powers.

The voices should sound as sweet and as silky as any CSN three part harmony you have ever heard. This song rivals Helplessly Hoping for vocal blend. Good pressings of this song have midrange magic to die for.

As this is the last track on side one, closest to the inner groove, most copies are going to have some trace of tracking distortion (or even cutting distortion). The better your arm and cartridge, the less this should present a problem for you. (My Dynavector 17d3/ Triplanar combo tracks the best copies perfectly.) For most weekend warrior audiophiles, it's never going to vanish completely.

Anti-Skate Testing Too!

That having been said, this track is a wonderful test for anti-skate adjustment. With the anti-skate set right there should be less harmonic distortion in the voices. A correct setting will also bring out dynamics in the vocals as well.

Of course, the problem is, if you start playing this song again and again and making small adjustments to the anti-skate, you're probably going to end up damaging the track. So find a cheap used copy to play with, not one of these wonderful Hot Stampers.

Side Two

• Woodstock

Here's how you can tell when you have a good pressing of side two: you want to turn it up and rock out! CSN didn't really rock much -- Almost Cut My Hair is where they got it all together and lifted off into outer space -- but this song gets going pretty good and ranks second in their Real Rock Song pantheon. Properly mastered copies with low distortion and lots of bass make you want to turn it up good and loud and sing along at the top of your lungs!

On the better copies, there is a prodigious amount of deep deep bass. I'm guessing it's something in the 20-25 cycle range. It's the kind of bass that you often hear in another room, wherever your deepest bass tends to go.

Note the raw distortion in that opening guitar -- if your copy is fully present, not smeared and dull, that guitar will sound amazing. It's a key test for the side; if that guitar doesn't cut it, you won't like what follows.

• Our House
• Helpless

On the better copies, Neil Young's voice will sound clear, present and completely free of artificiality, with lovely ambience around both his voice and the guitars. Also, only the better copies will get the background vocals in the chorus right; they can have a wonderfully smooth and silky quality.

• Guinnevere
• Suite: Judy Blue Eyes

What's magical about Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young? Their voices of course. It's not a trick question. They revolutionized rock music with their genius for harmony. The above four songs must sound believable on their voices or they will have no value whatsoever.

A CSN record with bad midrange -- like most of them -- is a worthless record. Why do we have such animus for the Classic pressing of Deja Vu? It ruins their voices! If you can't hear that -- Hello Michael Fremer -- what on earth are you listening for?

About the Album

So Far is the fourth album by Crosby, Stills & Nash, their third as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and the first compilation album released by the group. Shipping as a gold record and peaking at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart, it was the band's third chart-topping album in a row. It has been certified six times platinum by the RIAA, and is the second best-selling album by any configuration of the quartet in tandem after their 1970 studio album, Déjà Vu.

The album contains five of the band's six singles to date, omitting "Marrakesh Express," all of which had reached the Top 40. It is the first release on long-playing album of the single "Ohio" as well as its b-side "Find the Cost of Freedom," and the only place both can be found on one compact disc. The other five tracks were taken from the band's two studio albums, Crosby, Stills & Nash and Déjà Vu, although the other singles appear here in their album-length versions and mixes.

The album's 11 studio tracks derived from a group that had only issued 22 to date. Graham Nash later insisted that the group was against the album's release, calling the concoction of a greatest-hits album from two LPs and one non-LP single "absurd." Atlantic Records wished to capitalize on the highly publicized and anticipated reunion tour of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in 1974, however, and such was the demand for any new product by the quartet that So Far topped the charts anyway and went gold immediately.

Young appears on only four of the album's 11 songs: "Ohio," "Find the Cost of Freedom," "Woodstock," and "Helpless." He had only appeared on half the tracks of the Déjà Vu LP. The remaining songs without Young, with the exception of "Déjà Vu," also appear on Crosby, Stills & Nash's Greatest Hits compact disc of 2005.

The cover art was painted by the group's friend and colleague Joni Mitchell. The album was reissued on compact disc in 1988 and again in 1995 after being remastered by Joe Gastwirt at Ocean View Digital using the original master tapes. It was reissued yet again, with no apparent additional remastering, on September 30, 2008. The album has been rendered relatively superfluous with the appearance of the Crosby, Stills & Nash box set in 1991, which contains all of these tracks with the exceptions of "Helplessly Hoping," "Woodstock," "Guinnevere," and "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," which are in either different versions or different mixes.

-Wikipedia