{"product_id":"eaglehotel_2609","title":"Eagles - Hotel California - Super Hot Stamper (With Issues)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e*NOTE:\u003c\/strong\u003e There is a mark that plays 12 times at a moderate level at the start of track 1 on side 1, \"Hotel California.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e*NOTE:\u003c\/strong\u003e Side 2 of this record was not noisy enough to rate our M-- to EX++ grade, but it's not quite up to our standards for Mint Minus Minus either. If you're looking for quiet vinyl, this is probably not the best copy for you.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe are having a devil of a time finding this album in audiophile playing condition these days, which is why you practically never see them on the site anymore, and copies quieter than Mint Minus Minus are rare indeed\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom first note to last, this pressing has superb, mind-blowing, Demo Disc sound. Drop the needle on any track on either side to hear what we're talking about. The highs are silky and delicate, the bottom end is tight and punchy, and the vocals sound \u003ci\u003eamazing\u003c\/i\u003e. The bass is \u003ci\u003eperfection\u003c\/i\u003e, which really brings out the feel of the song \"Hotel California.\" It's so deep and loping, the effect is practically narcotic.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Life In The Fast Lane\" is possibly the toughest song on the album to get right -- it tends to have that transistory, compressed sound that we've come to expect from \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22bill-szymczyk%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBill Szymczyk\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e. On this copy, it really rocks -- super-punchy with amazing presence and lots of meaty texture to the guitars. It will always sound a bit harsher than ideal on any copy with real presence, texture, and energy; that's just the sound they were going for. It is what it is, which makes it not a good track to judge the first side by.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn side two, one of the better sounding tracks is \"Try And Love Again.\" On a superb copy like this one, it's off the charts. The wonderful clarity and punchy bass here take this song to a whole new level.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat The Best Sides Of Hotel California 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:%221976%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e1976\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 the record 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 a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eThe Best Eagles Sound Ever?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eListen closely to \"Victim of Love\" -- it's the sound of this five-piece tearing it up \u003cu\u003elive in the studio\u003c\/u\u003e. It's also the track where the DCC just falls apart for us. Where did the rock and roll energy go? The DCC makes it sound like the band just doesn't care, which was certainly not our experience when playing any of the killer Hot Stampers we came across. Just the reverse was true; we had them turned up full blast and they rocked our world.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn fact, I would go so far as to say that \"Victim of Love\" is the best sounding track on the whole album. It's punchy, real and \u003ci\u003emusical\u003c\/i\u003e in a way that nothing else on the album is because it's being played by a real band, live. The energy and coherency of the sound are like nothing else you will hear on Hotel California, and possibly on any other Eagles record.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Victim of Love\" is a classic case of yet another in the long list of recordings that really comes alive when you turn up your volume.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eSuch A Lovely Place\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHotel Cali is yet another example of an album that we couldn't fully appreciate until we'd discovered a truly great copy. You may have heard these songs a million times, or what seems like a million times, but you've sure never heard them sound like this. We played copy after copy for our most recent shootout and never grew tired of the music. In fact, we like it better than ever. If you take home one of our Hot Stamper copies, we're pretty sure you'll feel exactly the same way. This album is a classic in the world of Classic Rock. When you can hear it right that fact becomes all the more believable. Until then maybe not so much.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat We're Listening For On Hotel California\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 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 Search For Hotel California\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEven though we're huge Eagles fans at Better Records, we had never tried to do a shootout for this album until about 2008, and that's because the typical copy doesn't even hint at the magic found on the better pressings. After countless gritty, grainy, compressed, lifeless, veiled copies we had almost given up -- until we played one that summer and heard some seriously good sound coming out of our speakers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe checked the dead wax, and with new stamper information to go by, we hit the local stores. Let me tell you, finding any clean copy of this album is not easy. Of the scores of copies, we've picked up, about one in three or four turns out to be quiet enough to sell. Asylum vinyl leaves much to be desired, and the average copy of this album has been played to death, on pretty bad equipment no less.\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\u003eA Must Own Rock Record\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe consider this Eagles album a \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22rock-masterpiece%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMasterpiece\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e. It's a recording that should be part of any serious rock collection.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOthers 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":"Eagles","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52408443961640,"sku":"eaglehotel","price":299.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0257\/3415\/2295\/files\/eaglehotel_372e833e-5e5a-4945-a4d6-118bd2bf760f.jpg?v=1714593660","url":"https:\/\/better-records.com\/products\/eaglehotel_2609","provider":"Better Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}