{"product_id":"supercrisi_2606-1","title":"Supertramp - Crisis? What Crisis? (UK Vinyl) - White Hot Stamper (With Issues)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e*NOTE:\u003c\/strong\u003e On side 1, there is a swoosh that plays 10 times lightly during the intro to track 1, \"Easy Does It.\" On side 2, there is a visible mark that plays lightly and intermittently throughout the first 1\/2 (approx.) of track 3, \"Just A Normal Day.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e*NOTE:\u003c\/strong\u003e Side 2 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 vintage UK pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can 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 The Best Sides Of Crisis? What Crisis? 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:%221975%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e1975\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\u003cp\u003eIn a previous commentary we noted:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\u003ci\u003eWe’d love to get you some great sounding quiet British copies, but we can’t find any.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e(This copy being one of the rare and notable exceptions, of course....)\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\u003ci\u003eThey either sound bad (most of them) or they’re noisy (the rest). It is our belief that the best Hot Stamper pressings of this Half-Speed give you the kind of sound on Crisis? What Crisis? you can’t find any other way, not without investing hundreds of dollars and scores of hours of your time in the effort. Wouldn’t you just rather listen to the record?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhy did we think Jack Hunt’s mastering approach for the A\u0026amp;M Half Speed was the right one?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\u003ci\u003eSimple. Our man Jack here is the only guy that seems to know how to master this record in America. His cutting sounds just like the amazing British copy we keep as a reference, the only British copy I’ve ever liked by the way: it’s so rich and Tubey Magical you can hardly believe it. But this is Ken Scott behind the board, the man who recorded Ziggy Stardust, Honky Chateau, Crime of the Century, A Salty Dog, Magical Mystery Tour, America and more. He knows a thing or two about Tubey Magic! The best copies of this album have the richest, ripest keyboard sound you have ever heard.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\u003ci\u003eBut the domestic engineers practically erase that sound from the record! They lean out the lower midrange \/ upper-bass until all that wonderful richness is just a shadow of the sound we know. Then they brighten up the upper midrange and add some top end, the result of which is an earbleed-inducing assault in the most sensitive range of the spectrum, of the most unpleasant kind imaginable. You think CDs are bright and harsh? Play a domestic copy of this record to hear how bright and harsh bad analog can sound.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\u003ci\u003eAnd the crazy thing is that all of the above is true, except for the last line. If you amend the last line to read original domestic pressing, then it too is true. It’s the original pressings that are bright and harsh, and the worst offenders are the early stampers that start with an M. All the white label promos I’ve ever seen are either M1 or M2, and they are godawful.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOriginal is better? Don’t get me started. That kind of thinking is best left to the hearing-challenged record collectors of the world and their Technics turntables, not we audiophiles.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo the best copies are the reissues, which, unless you know your A\u0026amp;M stampers well are going to be very hard to spot. And of course most of the reissues are awful as well; you really need to have just the right ones. No surprise there, right?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhich is precisely what we have to offer on this very copy -- the right stampers, pressed right and cleaned right. No clean copy fared better and we had more than twenty five to start with. (Lucky for us the domestic pressings are fairly cheap and plentiful.)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat We're Listening For On Crisis? What Crisis?\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\u003eThat Big, Bold Supertramp Sound\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe overall sound is as big and bold as it gets, with huge amounts of difficult-to-control, or perhaps we should say \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22difficulty-of-reproduction%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003edifficult-to-reproduce\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e, upper midrange musical information. Layer upon layer of multi-tracked guitars, voices, keyboards, percussion instruments and more build up in the loudest and most dynamic passages. The good copies keep it all clean, separate and undistorted, and the bad copies make a hash of it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd, boy, does this record get LOUD when it wants to. One pop record out of a hundred has dynamics like those found on the best pressings of CWC. Dark Side of the Moon has them. Blood Sweat and Tears has them. Thick as a Brick too. We love that sound but we sure don’t hear it that often. When we do we sit up and pay attention!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd when it gets this loud, it had better be mastered and pressed right or it will tear your head off. Only the best copies get better as they get louder.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eThe Music\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI am a huge fan of this album. It was the first Supertramp record I ever bought and I promptly went overboard and played it every day back in 1975 shortly after its release. It’s produced and engineered by Ken Scott, one of the all time greats. He also did Crime Of The Century, if that tells you anything, and I hope it does -- that one-two punch is hard to beat. This was the last album he made with Supertramp, which is a shame because nothing they did after this sounded as good, and one could even make a case that the music went downhill as well.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere are really only two Must Own Supertramp albums that are brilliant from first note to last, this one and Crime of the Century. Breakfast in America we can all agree is excellent and a lot of fun, but it’s not nearly as powerful nor as consistent as the two we would rank above it as their best.\u003c\/p\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 Must Own Pop Record\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCrisis? What Crisis? is a recording that belongs in any serious popular music collection. Others that belong in that category can be found \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22core-pop-collection%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ehere\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Supertramp","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52028329853224,"sku":"supercrisi","price":499.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0257\/3415\/2295\/files\/supercrisi.jpg?v=1782154682","url":"https:\/\/better-records.com\/products\/supercrisi_2606-1","provider":"Better Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}