{"product_id":"who_tommy_2611","title":"Who, The - Tommy - Nearly White Hot Stamper","description":"\u003cp\u003eThese \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/nearly-white-hot\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNearly White Hot Stamper\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e pressings have top-quality sound that's often surprisingly close to our White Hots, but they sell at substantial discounts to our Shootout Winners, making them a relative bargain in the world of Hot Stampers (\"relative\" meaning relative considering the prices we charge). We feel you get what you pay for here at Better Records, and if ever you don't agree, please feel free to return the record for a full \u003ca href=\"\/pages\/money-back-guarantee\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003erefund\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e, no questions asked.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI know of no other Who album with such consistently good sound -- song to song, not copy to copy, of course. Just about every song on here can sound wonderful on the right pressing. If you're lucky enough to get a Hot Stamper copy, you're going to be blown away by the Tubey Magical guitars, the rock-solid bottom end, the jumpin'-out-of-the-speakers presence and dynamics, and the silky vocals and top end.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUsually the best we can give you for The Who is \"big and rockin,\" but on Tommy, we can give you 60s analog magic that will all but disappear in the decades to follow.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22tubey-magical-acoustic-guitars%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAcoustic guitar reproduction\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e is key to this recording, and on the better copies the harmonic coherency, the richness, the body and the phenomenal amounts of Tubey Magic can be heard in every strum.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat The Best Sides Of Tommy 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:%221969%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e1969\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 these records 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 pressings that sound as good as these two do.\u003c\/p\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 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\u003eBig Production Tubey Magical British Rock \u0026amp; Roll just doesn't get much better than Tommy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat We're Listening For On Tommy\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\u003eThe Tubey Magic Top Ten\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYou don't need tube equipment to hear the prodigious amounts of Tubey Magic that exist on this recording. For those of you who've experienced top quality analog pressings of Meddle or Dark Side of the Moon, or practically any jazz album on Contemporary, whether played through tubes or transistors, that's the luscious sound of Tubey Magic, and it is all over Tommy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRanked strictly in terms of Tubey Magic I would have to put this album on our list of Most Tubey Magical Rock Recordings of All Time, right up there with, and in no particular order:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSgt. Pepper (1967)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMeddle (1971)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDark Side of the Moon (1973)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Eagles (1972)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTommy (1969)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDire Straits (1977, and clearly the outlier in this group)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Doors (1967)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eZiggy Stardust (1972)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTumbleweed Connection (1970)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA Space in Time (1970)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e... and a handful of others to be named later.\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 Who Album\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe consider this concept album a \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22rock-masterpiece%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMasterpiece\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e. It's a recording that belongs in any serious rock music collection.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOthers that belong in that category can he found \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22core-rock-collection%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ehere\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Who, The","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":68140362596648,"sku":"who_tommy","price":849.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0257\/3415\/2295\/files\/who_tommy.jpg?v=1794163894","url":"https:\/\/better-records.com\/products\/who_tommy_2611","provider":"Better Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}