We had TWICE tried to shootout this album and gave up both times with little to show for it. The one great sounding, reasonably quiet copy we found had a nasty edge warp that obliterated the first track on both sides. So we knew that great copies of this album must be out there, but where? We had OVER THIRTY COPIES of this record on our shelves and none of them were worth listing. The warped copy sounded so much better than any of the rest, and we felt it was wrong to call even the best of the rest a Hot Stamper.
We kept looking for clean copies with the magic stamper numbers, and kept coming up empty. When we did manage to find one, it was usually too noisy. Finding a copy that played even Mint Minus Minus was a tough enough task, but finding one that sounded amazing looked like it might be impossible -- even to us!
Fast forward to the present. We had a few new copies on our shelf to evaluate, and gave them a good scrubbing. With the help of the Walker Audio Active Enzyme Cleaning System and a whole lot of good luck, we were finally able to find a few copies that passed our Pepsi Challenge. This is the KING of them all. Folks, if you're looking for an amazing copy of this album, we don't think you can do any better than this.
The Captain We've Been Looking For
We were positively OVERJOYED when we dropped the needle on this side one and heard the sound we had hoped for. It's very sweet and open up top, and there's lots of deep, tight bass. Long Train Runnin' and China Grove sound SUPERB -- tubey magical with a meaty bottom end and LOADS of energy. The sound is clean, clear, lively, musical, and correct.
Imagine our surprise when we flipped this baby over and heard even better sound on side two! Note-like bass, clear transients on everything, incredible energy, richness, sweetness. ambience -- you name it, this one's got it. A+++ all the way!
These Don't Come Quiet
As mentioned above, about 9 copies out of 10 we come across are thrashed beyond playing condition. This one plays between Mint Minus and Mint Minus Minus on side one and a bit noisier for the last song. Side two is close to Mint Minus throughout. Not too shabby!
The Nautilus Can Be Good
We had a few Nautilus copies of this album that we included in our shootout. Some sounded like junk, but the best of the bunch was actually quite nice -- natural and lively, but lacking some of the tubey magic found on our Hottest Stamper.
Newrv03-07-01-FRED070109
