{"product_id":"procobroke_2601_3x_","title":"Procol Harum - Broken Barricades - White Hot Stamper (With Issues)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e*NOTE:\u003c\/strong\u003e There is a swoosh that plays 15 times lightly at the start of track 1 on side 1, \"Simple Sister.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe \u003cu\u003eloved\u003c\/u\u003e playing this album, both for the music and the sound. These guys don't get the respect they deserve among audiophiles, but we're doing our best to try to change that.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSide one kicks off with the hit track \"Simple Sister,\" and you won't believe how hard it rocks. Some copies are overly clean -- they have the kind of clarity you might hope to find, but lacked the richness and fullness that makes 70s analog so involving. Those 'clean' copies simply do not earn very high grades from us. We leave that sound to the Heavy Vinyl and CD crowd; they seem to like it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat The Best Sides Of Broken Barricades 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\u003ePunter and Thomas\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22john-punter%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJohn Punter\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e engineered and \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22chris-thomas%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eChris Thomas\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e produced. They have worked on many of our favorite -- and best-sounding -- albums by British artists.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eTubey Magic Is Key\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis early British pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn't showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to \"see\" the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It's what vintage all analog recordings are known for -- \u003ci\u003ethis sound\u003c\/i\u003e.\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 Broken Barricades\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\u003eDomestic Vinyl\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLast time around we wrote:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003eHere's a free tip for those of you who want to try to find a great sounding copy of this one on their own: avoid the domestics at all costs. We played a bunch of them and they were all dogs.\u003c\/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003eThis time around we actually played a domestic copy that was pretty good. It was clearly made from a dub tape -- they probably all are -- but it was \u003ci\u003every well mastered\u003c\/i\u003e from that dub tape. It surprised us by actually sounding rich and full and Tubey Magical like a good Brit, just a bit more smeary and veiled as you would expect from a copy-tape-mastered record.\u003c\/blockquote\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 Rock Masterpiece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe consider this Procol Harum album their 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","brand":"Procol Harum","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51328649691432,"sku":"procobroke","price":299.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0257\/3415\/2295\/products\/procobroke.jpg?v=1753200823","url":"https:\/\/better-records.com\/products\/procobroke_2601_3x_","provider":"Better Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}