{"product_id":"pinkfmeddl_2608-1","title":"Pink Floyd - Meddle - White Hot Stamper (With Issues)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e*NOTE:\u003c\/strong\u003e There is a swoosh that plays \u003cu\u003every\u003c\/u\u003e lightly for approx. the first 2 minutes of side 2, \"Echoes.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis vintage British import has the richness, space, and the effortlessly extended top end that lets Meddle work its experimental proggy magic. With this pressing you will hear that veil upon veil has been lifted. You'll immediately become aware of aspects of the music and the recording that you hadn’t noticed when playing other, inferior copies of Meddle.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAll the elements are \u003cu\u003ethere\u003c\/u\u003e, right in front of you, clearly occupying their own space within the wider stage of the soundfield. Here are the startling dynamics, the deep, well-defined bass, the vocal sweetness, the open spaces -- in short, here is exactly the kind of sound that the band would bring to the recording of Dark Side of the Moon.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis album is proof that they already had it in them in 1971.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat The Best Sides Of Meddle 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:%221971%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e1971\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\u003ePink Floyd's Recordings\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith amazing sound like this you can finally appreciate the music in all its ANALOG glory. This is music that's as fresh today as when it was recorded more than fifty years ago.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMeddle is good enough to take its place among the best sounding records Floyd or anybody else ever recorded, filled with all the analog magic that makes Pink Floyd one of the best-recorded bands of All Time. Besides The Beatles, who else even comes close?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMusically this record has really grown on us over the course of the last decade. There's not a bad cut on it, and most of them have not been played to death like most everything else by the band has. Play \"Fearless\" to hear Pink Floyd at their best, and I mean their best from \u003ci\u003eany\u003c\/i\u003e album.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you're the kind of guy who gets a thrill from hearing Pink Floyd bangin' out one of their heaviest psych jams with mind-blowing sound, this copy is guaranteed to knock you out. Drop the needle on \"One Of These Days\" and listen to how HUGE the soundfield is -- it’s so wide and deep and three-dimensional you should have no trouble whatsoever getting lost in the music.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLike many of the Hottest Stamper pressings we sell, with a copy that sounds as good as this one the experience of listening to the album is nothing less than \u003ci\u003e immersive\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat We're Listening For On Meddle\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\u003eSize and Space\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSome copies of the album just sound small -- they don't extend all the way to the outside edges of the speakers, and they don't seem to take up all the space from the floor to the ceiling. In addition, the sound can often be recessed, with a lack of presence and immediacy in the center.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOther copies -- my notes for these copies often read \"BIG and BOLD\" -- create a huge soundfield, with the music positively jumping out of the speakers. They're not brighter, they're not more aggressive, they're not hyped-up in any way, they're just \u003ci\u003ebigger\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eclearer\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe often have to go back and downgrade the copies that we were initially impressed with in light of such a standout pressing. Who knew the recording could be that huge, spacious and three-dimensional? We sure didn't, not until we played the copy that had those qualities, and that copy might have been number 8 or 9 in the rotation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThink about it: if you had only seven copies, you might not have ever gotten to hear a copy that sounded that open and clear. And how many even dedicated audiophiles would have more than one of two clean vintage British copies with which to do a shootout? These records are expensive and hard to come by in good shape. Believe us, we know whereof we speak.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne further point needs to be made: most of the time these very special pressings just plain \u003ci\u003erock harder\u003c\/i\u003e. When you hear a copy do what this copy can, it's an entirely different - and dare I say unforgettable -- listening experience.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eVinyl Condition\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe recording has a lot of very quiet passages on both sides, especially in the intro to Echoes, so Mint Minus Minus is about as quiet a copy as we can find. (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 later 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 that is a key part of the appeal 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","brand":"Pink Floyd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52260743414056,"sku":"pinkfmeddl","price":1199.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0257\/3415\/2295\/files\/pinkfmeddl.jpg?v=1761068590","url":"https:\/\/better-records.com\/products\/pinkfmeddl_2608-1","provider":"Better Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}