{"product_id":"eagleselft_2609","title":"Eagles - Self-Titled - Super Hot Stamper","description":"\u003cp\u003eVintage covers for this album are hard to find in exceptionally clean shape. Most of the will have at least some amount of ringwear, seam wear and edge wear. We guarantee that the cover we supply with this Hot Stamper is at least VG.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt won't take the lucky owner of this record long to recognize what we’ve known for years: the Eagles' first album is clearly and inarguably one of the best sounding rock recordings ever made. Almost all the qualities we look for on this album can be found on this very copy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Eagles first album is without a doubt Glyn Johns's Masterpiece -- rock records simply do not sound any better in our experience. It's exactly the kind of record that makes virtually \u003ci\u003eany\u003c\/i\u003e audiophile pressing pale in comparison. Everything you could ask for as an audiophile is here, and more.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe've been up on our soapbox for years telling people how amazing this record can be, and here's a copy that backs up our position from start to finish.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat The Best Sides Of The Eagles' Debut 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:%221972%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e1972\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\u003eOff the Charts Tubey Magical Analog Sound\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22tubey-magical-acoustic-guitars%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTubey Magical acoustic guitar\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e reproduction is superb on the better copies of this recording. Simply phenomenal amounts of Tubey Magic can be heard on every strum, along with richness, body and harmonic coherency that have all but disappeared from modern recordings (and especially from modern remasterings).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNeed a refresher course in Tubey Magic after playing too many modern recordings or remasterings? These Asylum White Label original pressings are overflowing with it. Rich, smooth, sweet, full of ambience, dead-on correct tonality -- everything that we listen for in a great record is here.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis record is the very definition of Tubey Magic. No recordings will ever be made that sound like this again, and no CD will ever capture what is in the grooves of this record. There is of course a CD of this album, quite a few of them I would guess, but those of us with a good turntable could care less. (And the CDs are all made from sub-generation tapes.)\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 We're Listening For On Eagles\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\u003eA Top Ten Title\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYou may have seen our Top 100 list of the best sounding rock records elsewhere on the site. We picked out a \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22top-ten-title%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTop Ten\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e from that list and you will not be surprised to learn that this record made the cut. (Top Two or Three is more like it.)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt one time this was my single favorite Demo Disc. A customer who bought one of these one time told me it was the best-sounding record he had ever heard in his life. I don't doubt it for a minute. It's certainly as good as any rock record I have ever heard, and I've heard some awfully good ones.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere's an interesting story behind this album, which I won't belabor too much here. Suffice it to say, one listen to some of the later reissues or -- god forbid -- a Heavy Vinyl pressing or Greatest Hits album and you'll know I speak the truth when I say that the tape used to cut this pressing was not the same one that was used to cut those. It does not exist. It was lost a long time ago. Most copies of this album are mediocre at best, and positively painful to listen to once you've heard the real thing, an early pressing cut from the actual master tape.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eVinyl Condition\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMint 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.)\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\u003eTrack Commentary\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe \u003cstrong\u003eTracklist\u003c\/strong\u003e 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 \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22track-commentary%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ehere\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eAn Absolute Must Own Rock Record\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Eagles' debut LP is their undisputed \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22rock-masterpiece%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMasterpiece\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e. It's a Demo Disc quality recording that demands 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":52408424825128,"sku":"eagleselft","price":499.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0257\/3415\/2295\/files\/eagleselft.jpg?v=1754409141","url":"https:\/\/better-records.com\/products\/eagleselft_2609","provider":"Better Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}