This website is essentially a labor of love – the love of analog audio and all its wonders. I don’t get paid to write up and post this content. If anything, The Broken Record is an expense for me. Leaving aside the significant time I put into writing and posting these articles, I also buy records that I wouldn’t otherwise buy so I can play them and write about them. Not that I’m complaining, but just sayin’!
Fortunately, this side gig is not without its perks. Sometimes I get to borrow records that I would have a hard time getting to play any other way. Sometimes I even get to borrow Hot Stampers, even White Hots!
Recently, Tom Port of Better Records offered me the chance to listen to some of their most expensive offerings, and I was left to decide which ones to start with. I chose The Eagles debut, a record I know pretty well and one that I’ve heard several copies of and, of which, I happen to own a good one. At least that’s what I thought before I borrowed Tom’s copy.
Any audiophile knows this hobby is all about relative improvements. We can appreciate the improvement one piece of equipment or tweak makes only when we hear the change in sound relative to how our system sounded before. The key is to keep making the changes that take us in the direction of better sound. And the same rule applies for records.
How many times over the years, listening to my system, have I thought to myself “how can this sound any better?” More than I’d care to count, and only to find out later exactly how much better my system actually could sound. After several such revelations, I’ve started asking myself a different question – “how good can it sound?”
It turns out, better than I ever even thought was possible. As I’ve pushed the sound of my system further and further forward, I’ve discovered quite a few things which I’ve shared with you here. Those high priced power cords? Don’t bother. Expensive garden hose speaker cables? You can do better with much cheaper wire. That high priced tube electronics? Easily beatable by the right vintage unit. And that killer pressing you have of “such and such” that you think is unbeatable? Think again.
I have a friend who is a fellow audiophile with a system that FAR surpasses my own in terms of cost. His speakers are Wilson Alexias. He has the E.A.R. 324 phono preamp and a tweaked out VPI with a Graham 2.0 tonearm and Dynavector 17dx cartridge. To go along with these he owns a fairly substantial pile of Hot Stampers, as well as some very good pressings that I’ve found for him. IOW, he’s got some solid analog components along with some excellent sounding records to play on them, arguably a winning combination.
But my friend also has electronics and wires that follow the more conventional, “bigger and badder is better” approach to audio, an approach that I’ve thankfully managed to move away from. I’ve encouraged him to try out some of what I’ve done – simple changes that will net him BIG improvements, but so far he hasn’t bitten. I’ve even offered to go to his house and help him make some of these changes. After all, when I’m there I listen to his system and I’d like it enjoy it! Alas, he appears content for now to stay where he’s at. Fair enough.
Only where he’s at is nowhere near where he could be as far as analog is concerned. The sound of his system is loaded with glare and edginess and woefully lacking in naturalness and transparency. Sure it sounds BIG and BADASS and POWERFUL with some eye popping flourishes that are momentarily exciting, but only serve to hide the fact that the sound is not open, nor natural, nor REAL sounding. In fact, it’s a sound that’s really not all that pleasant to listen to.
And he has some great gear! The E.A.R. 324, the phono preamp that Better Records uses and swears by, is a heck of a phono preamp. He loaned it to me once and I tried it out in my system (now I have my own). His turntable is not perfect, but with the Graham 2.0 and the Dynavector 17dx (the 17dx is also used by BR) it can certainly show what’s on a good record. The Wilson Alexia are great speakers. Each has two BIG drivers that can deliver DEEP bass and they are highly resolving and more than capable of delivering the goods when those goods are delivered to them in the right package. It’s just that everything in between his E.A.R. and his speakers is screwing up that package, and it’s not because he’s got cheap gear in there!
The problems with my friend’s system are certainly fixable, but someone has to do the job of fixing them. So far my friend, now settling into his retirement and the blur between weekday and weekend, has not yet managed to find the time in his empty schedule to do it. You can lead a horse to water and all of that.
Sorry J.! I don’t mean to pick on you! I like you a lot and I enjoy spending time with you. In fact, I’d like to help you, because the place you’re at in audio, a place I’ve been and I expect a lot of other audiophiles are, is a place I know you’ll be glad to have behind you. It is the place where you’ve spent A LOT of money that ought to to have gotten you into analog Valhalla, but you’re still wallowing in audio purgatory – only you don’t know it! You can throw a hot stamper onto your rig and hear that it sounds better than your crappy “audiophile” 180g reissue, but when you compare it to your high res digital file you’re not quite sure which one you like better.
The digital vs. analog debate, perhaps the most enduring in all of audio, IMO persists because only a handful of audiophiles have truly realized the potential of analog in their systems. You may be reading this thinking “hey whud’ya mean! My analog system sound great!.” And it very well may sound great, but I thought and still think that my copy of Eagles sounds great, and let me tell you, the white hot stamper is a WHOLE new platter of wax!
The tubey jangle of the guitars, the room filling weight of the drums and bass, the airy, spacious, luscious vocal harmonies, and every last sumptuous element of the mix, unmoored, liberated from obscuration so completely that the music, freed from every conceivable resolution constraint, SOARS to life in the listening room. That’s what this white hot stamper of Eagles sounds like, and that’s what analog is ALL ABOUT!
This record, The Dude be damned, is one of my all time favorites. It’s a delicious recording on an even a decent copy. My current copy, which bested several others, was competitive on side 1 but laid to waste by the White Hot on the second, and that was the side I thought mine had NAILED! Eagles lives and dies by the vocal harmonies, and when the backing vocals are as clear and present and alive as the lead vocal is on most other records then you know you’re hearing a very special copy.
Regrettably, I’ll have to send this copy back, but I’m grateful for the opportunity to hear in on many levels. For starters, even though my copy of Eagles may not reach the stratospheric heights that this one does, it’s wonderful to know what the recording is capable of delivering on the best copies. Eagles is such a great recording that it’s hard to tell from the average copy how good it can actually sound. Now I know and am thrilled to see the bar can be set so high.
I’m also pleased to say that, while my copy of Eagles will now fall from my list of demo discs, I’ve got quite a few other records that I can still count on. Hearing what a great sounding record can do is THE ONLY WAY to know what is possible in analog, and this helps us see the relative strengths and weaknesses of the records in our collections. I’ve got quite a few hot stampers in my collection now, but I’ve also got quite a few records I’ve found on my own that can show me just as well what my system is capable of.
At least for the moment, I can enjoy the fact that I’ve done enough of my homework to even allow this copy Eagles to show itself the way it does. The very qualities is has: weight, openness, spaciousness, naturalness, lushness, clarity, transparency and musicality, these are the qualities that my system now has, and it’s rewarding to know that. Even six months ago I wouldn’t have been able to fully appreciated the differences between this White Hot copy and mine.
Would I like to keep this copy of Eagles? Certainly I would, but the price tag puts it a little beyond what I’m willing to spend on a record that I love but that I’d probably play a few times and shelve away while I turn my fickle attention others. Can we have TOO many great sounding records? I’m starting to wonder.
But what I don’t wonder about is this – having a copy of Eagles that sounds like this one means much less to me than having a stereo that can play it and do it justice. For the moment it appears I have that, or at the very least I’m on my way there, and there’s no other place I’d rather be.