{"product_id":"youngzuma_2605-5xx","title":"Young, Neil - Zuma - Hot Stamper","description":"\u003cp\u003eCan any one artist lay claim to \u003cu\u003etwo\u003c\/u\u003e of the best sounding rock albums ever made? Neil Young can!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe better copies of After the Gold Rush and Zuma are Demo Discs and super discs of the highest order, right up there with Tea for the Tillerman and Teaser and the Firecat, the other two albums by a single artist that deserve to be placed on that rarified plane.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe fact that Gold Rush and Zuma both involve Neil Young is doubtless not an accident. I would be very surprised to learn that he was not intimately involved with every aspect of the recording of both Masterpieces, from the miking to the final mix and every step in between.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHot Stampers are all about finding the pressings that present the master tape at its best. Notice I did not say \"represent\" the master tape, because the master tape may have faults that need to be fixed, and the only way to do that is in the mastering.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe presentation of the music is, of course, a matter of taste. We make judgments about the way we think the record \"ought\" to sound, based on what we like or don't like about recordings in general. Audiophiles listen for different things and ascribe to them higher and lower relative values based on their own preferences; we do the same.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat The Best Sides Of Zuma Have To Offer Are 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\u003ch3\u003eRaw and Real\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eZuma captures a kind of garage band purity that makes practically any other studio album you own sound phony in comparison. This is clearly a recording of a bunch of guys playing together live in a room, a room which happens to be a studio but could just as easily have been somebody's garage. It has a kind of loose feel; there's a sense of real communication between the players. Much like great jazz musicians, they're completely in tune with each other. Drop the needle on any song at random and you can tell right away that these guys have been together for a long, long time. This is a real band; this ain't no Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe sound is as raw and as real as it gets. It's about as far from Deja Vu as you can get, except for the one song on that album that really does sound like a band performing live in the studio: \"Almost Cut My Hair,\" which has slowly over the years become my favorite CSNY track, mostly because it really does let them sound like a \u003ci\u003ereal band\u003c\/i\u003e. If you love that sound as much as we do, you will absolutely love Zuma.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat We're Listening For On Neil Young's Amazing Zuma Album\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 originals.\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\u003eTrack Commentary\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe \u003cstrong\u003eTracklist\u003c\/strong\u003e tab above will take you to a select song breakdown for each side, with plenty of What to Listen For advice.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOther records with track breakdowns can be found \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22track-commentary%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ehere\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eA Must Own Rock Masterpiece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe consider this Neil Young album his \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 collection.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOthers that belong in that category can be found \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22core-rock-collection%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ehere\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Young, Neil","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51924091306280,"sku":"youngzuma","price":149.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0257\/3415\/2295\/files\/youngzuma_2006_1412881707_f23503ad-375c-494d-8623-79f301c3331e.jpg?v=1715785352","url":"https:\/\/better-records.com\/products\/youngzuma_2605-5xx","provider":"Better Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}