{"product_id":"frampwindo_2605-1","title":"Frampton, Peter - Wind of Change - Super Hot Stamper (With Issues)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e*NOTE:\u003c\/strong\u003e There is a mark that plays 25 times at a light to moderate to loud level at the end of track 1 on side 2, \"All I Wanna Be (Is by Your Side)\" \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e*NOTE:\u003c\/strong\u003e Side 1 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\u003eThis is some of the best high-production-value rock music of the 60s and 70s. The amount of effort that went into the recording of this album is comparable to that expended by the engineers and producers of bands like Supertramp, Yes, Jethro Tull, Ambrosia, Pink Floyd, Elton John and too many others to list. It seems that no effort or cost was spared in making the home listening experience as compelling as the recording technology of the day permitted.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe best song Peter Frampton ever wrote (and performed) is on this very record, in Super Hot Stamper sound no less: \"All I Wanna Be (Is by Your Side).\" It has the Tubey Magical sound we \u003cu\u003elove\u003c\/u\u003e here at Better Records.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHowever, the richness that makes British recordings from the era so good can easily go over the edge, turning the sound into a thick, mucky stew in which the individual sonic components become difficult to separate out. Think of the typically dull Who’s Next or early Genesis or Jethro Tull albums and you’ll know exactly what I mean.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOnly a select group of pressings are able to strike the right balance between Tubey Magic and clarity. This is one of those.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd as far as we can tell, it’s the only version of the album that’s pressed from the master tape. The domestic A\u0026amp;M LPs are clearly made from dub tapes. They are flat, small, smeary, veiled and as opaque as any Heavy Vinyl pressing being made today, and we long ago gave up on them (i.e., domestic pressings of this album and Heavy Vinyl in general).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat The Best Sides Of Wind of Change 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\u003eThe Best Copies Rock\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe best copies keep what’s good about the sound -- leaner and cleaner they are not -- while letting us hear into the soundfield. They have the most transparency and the least amount of smear.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eExtension up top is also key to the better copies, as well as the least amount of compression. There is some compression on these tracks -- it is, after all, where some of the Tubey Magic comes from: tube compressors as opposed to the solid state kind.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe best copies balance all these elements in a way that allows the energy and power of this music to come through wonderfully.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat We're Listening For On Wind of Change\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-kimsey%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eChris Kimsey\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e in this case -- would have 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\u003eGlorious Big Speaker Sound\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA while back we discussed the kind of sound that Glyn Johns managed to get for the likes of Humble Pie and The Who:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e“But oh what a glorious sound it is when it’s working. There’s not a trace of anything phony up top, down low or anywhere in-between. This means it has a quality sorely at odds with the vast majority of audiophile pressiings, new and old, as well as practically anything recorded in the last twenty years, and it is simply this: The louder you play it, the better it gets.“\u003c\/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is without a doubt a \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22big-speaker%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ebig speaker\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e record, one that requires the highest-resolution, lowest-distortion components to bring out its best qualities. If you have a system like that, you should find much to like here.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI bought my first copy in 1972 when I was still in high school and it quickly became one of my favorite records. All these years later it still is. It’s records like this that shaped my audio purchases and pursuits. It takes a monster system to even begin to play this record right and that’s the kind of stereo I’ve always been drawn to.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA stereo that can’t play this record, or The Beatles, or Ambrosia, or Yes, or the hundreds of other amazing recordings we put up on the site every year, is not one I would ever want to own.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eSome Famous Players\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePeter Frampton – guitar, organ, keyboards, drums, percussion, dulcimer, harmonium\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMick Jones – rhythm guitar on “All I Want To Be (Is By Your Side)”\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAndy Bown – bass, organ, electric piano, mellotron, percussion, backing vocals\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eKlaus Voorman – bass on “Alright”\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBilly Preston – piano, organ on “Alright”\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eRingo Starr – drums, percussion on “Alright” and “The Lodger”\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDel Newman – strings, arrangements, flute, marimba\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eJim Price – brass on “The Lodger”\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\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\u003eA Must Own Rock Record\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe consider this album Peter Frampton's \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 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":"Frampton, Peter","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51802399080744,"sku":"frampwindo","price":149.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0257\/3415\/2295\/products\/frampwindo.jpg?v=1765305042","url":"https:\/\/better-records.com\/products\/frampwindo_2605-1","provider":"Better Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}