{"product_id":"nicksbella_2604","title":"Nicks, Stevie - Bella Donna - Super Hot Stamper (With Issues)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e*NOTE:\u003c\/strong\u003e On side 1, there is a mark that plays 4 times lightly at the end of track 4, \"Think About It.\" There is also a mark that plays 6 times lightly at the start of the last track, \"After The Glitter Fades.\" On side 2, there is a mark that plays 7 times lightly at the start of track 3, \"Leather and Lace,\" and then continues lightly and intermittently for approx. 45 seconds.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\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's easy to hear what the good pressings are doing. They're big and rich, never thin nor harsh. They open up on the top end and go down deeper on the bottom. They're smooth and full-bodied in the midrange. Stevie's vocals are breathy and present. The energy of her performance drives the music the way you want it to.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn short, the better copies demonstrate the sound one could expect on a good Tom Petty album. Nothing surprising there; this album, like Petty's, was produced and engineered by the same team, \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22jimmy-iovine%20%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJimmy Iovine \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e and Shelly Yakus. They've made some great records together, Damn the Torpedoes being the best of the bunch for sonics.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBella Donna may not reach those exalted heights, but it's still quite good, especially for 1981. As the decade wore on things went south very quickly, sonically and musically, so we must be thankful that this record came out early in the decade and not much later.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat The Best Sides Of Bella Donna 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 even as late as \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%221981%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e1981\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\u003eSpeculate Shmeculate\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe sound of the typical copy can be summed up in three words: thin, hard and bright. When the sound is thin or hard or bright the fun factor of this mainstream rock drops to zero. \"Stop Draggin' My Heart Around\" and \"Leather And Lace\" both sound great on the radio, why not on Warner vinyl?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe can't blame Sheffield Labs, the original cutting house: all the copies we played -- good, bad, and otherwise -- were originals and mastered by them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCould it be the vinyl? It could. It could be a lot of things, but speculating about them doesn't really get us (and that includes you) anywhere, so I'm going to stop doing it and just say we played a big pile of records and heard a lot of unpleasant sound. If you have the record you probably heard it too.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut some copies can sound good, and this is definitely one of them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat We're Listening For On Bella Donna\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\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 Rock Masterpiece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe consider this Stevie Nicks album her Masterpiece. Others that belong in that category can be found \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22rock-masterpiece%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ehere\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eA Tough Record to Play\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBella Donna is a \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22difficulty-of-reproduction%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003edifficult record to reproduce\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e. Do not attempt to play it using anything other than the highest quality equipment.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUnless your system is firing on all cylinders, even our hottest Hot Stamper copies -- the Super Hot and White Hot pressings with the biggest, most dynamic, clearest, and least distorted sound -- can have problems. Your system should be thoroughly warmed up, your electricity should be clean and cooking, you've got to be using the right room treatments, and we also highly recommend using a demagnetizer such as the Walker Talisman on the record, your cables (power, interconnect and speaker) as well as the individual drivers of your speakers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a record that's going to demand a lot from the listener, and we want to make sure that you feel you're up to the challenge. If you don't mind putting in a little hard work, here's a record that will reward your time and effort many times over, and probably teach you a thing or two about tweaking your gear in the process (especially your VTA adjustment, just to pick an obvious area many audiophiles neglect).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Nicks, Stevie","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51739888877864,"sku":"nicksbella","price":99.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0257\/3415\/2295\/files\/nicksbella.jpg?v=1751385929","url":"https:\/\/better-records.com\/products\/nicksbella_2604","provider":"Better Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}