JACKSON BROWNE, Running on Empty UK NIMBUS SUPERCUT AUDIOPHILE NEAR MINT LP

	£		183
	$		243

IRELAND NIMBUS SUPERCUT VINYL LP WITH INNERS.

Jackson's biggest selling album, 7 million copies shifted and rising. So, it's real easy to pick up a half-decent playing copy for a few dolalrs of this cracker of a live set, on CD or vinyl (the overly compressed CD really does sound appalling though, half the bottom end is missing and David Lindley's high end slide guitar sounds like a strangled cat). So, why pay a King's ransom for this copy? Well, it might well be the best ever pressing of this Browne classic, a limited edition (about 1,000 copies were pressed) virgin vinyl bonifide Supercut. We have compared this pressing to USA first standard issue pressings (nearly all of which come on noisy bargain-basement vinyl), a USA white label promo (the best of the non-Nimbus bunch but still rather noisy vinyl) and a UK first issue (sadly, clean sounding but a rather dry and muffled mastering) - so, this may well be the best pressing of this title ever released, it is most definately a shoot-out with the white label promo, and the white label has noisey vinyl (old car tires, re-melted non-selling albums, the odd bit of label paper - you know what we're talkign about...) This UK Nimbus supercut is on pristine high quality near-silent vinyl, it is certainly the quietest and finest quality vinyl we have ever heard (all the Supercuts are excellent pressings), the dynamics are stunning and the bass is finally where it should be: sat firmly in the groove. These Nimbus pressings definately managed to achieve something in the lower end that no other mastering does - so, like all things in life, it may well ultimately be a matter of personal taste, but one thing is for sure, this is a mighty fine audiophile pressing that is one of the Holy Grails of Nimbus Supercuts (the other being the Eagles' Desperado, which we will also be listing on eBay any day now). These albums are increasingly hard to find at any price.

The limited edition UK Nimbus Supercut Records were mail-order only audiophile vinyl LPs, pressed & mastered for readers of 'Hi-Fi Today' and 'Practical Hi-Fi' magazines. Gerald Reynolds, the owner of Nimbus Record Company, said to the English magazine 'Hi-Fi News & Record Review' (July, 2010): "One of the hi-fi magazines in the 1970s, Practical Hi-Fi did a wonderful job in getting the original master tapes for LPs, from artists like Supertramp and Joan Armatrading, and we cut and pressed them as supercuts. Although we archived one of everything, we did not keep stocks - which is a real pity because they now change hands at hundreds of pounds a time ".

Nimbus Records have somewhat legendary status within the audiophile circle for their 'Supercut' releases; they mastered each release from the original master tapes using the best available mastering processes, employing many techniques for each release that were not commonly used. For example, generally when bass moves from channel to channel on an LP, groove modulation is employed to reduce the movement of the stylus and this results in this bass being centered more over both channels. Most audiophiles would argue that this - and in fact anything, which changes the original recording should be avoided although this is common practice on most LPs. For example, the release of 'Joan Armatrading' had bass moving from channel to channel in several places, but Nimbus did not limit this, resulting in an outstanding pressing.

Nimbus also had the ICI company produce an extremely pure vinyl for the LPs, which has amazing frequency reproduction and is virtually noise free - similar in quality to the 'super vinyl' used on earlier Mofi pressings. Due to their rarity and small pressing quantities, they are often more expensive than audiophile LPs from other labels, but the sums paid can be justified by the outstanding quality of the pressings, and the fact that they tend to rise in value over time and as such are deemed investments by some audiophiles. Of course, it might be better to put them in the safe under lock and key, but they are records, and they are designed to be listened to...

MATRIX NUMBERS IN RUN-OFF GROOVES: SIDE A: NIMBUS ENGLAND K53070-A M2 JWG 3 MPT V JH / SIDE B: NIMBUS ENGLAND K53018-B1 MR JWG 3 MPT V JH

SLEEVE: EXCELLENT MINUS, BARELY ANY WEAR EXCEPT A SMALL HALF INCH SEAM SPLIT MIDDLE TOP, MINIMAL CORNER WEAR, OTHERWISE NICE CLEAN SLEEVE.

DISC: NEAR MINT. THIS ALBUM WAS BOUGHT NEW IN THE EARLY 1980s IN A NEW-OLD-STOCK VINYL SALE AT AN AUDIOPHILE DEALERS STORE. BELIEVE IT OR NOT, THESE DISCS DID NOT SELL THAT WELL AT THE TIME AND MANY COULD BE FOUND FOR A FEW QUID BRAND NEW IN THE LATE '70s AND EARLY '80s - HARD TO BELIEVE NOW, AND THOSE DAYS ARE LONG-GONE, ONLY A BACK TO THE FUTURE DELOREAN WILL SOLVE YOUR HAD-TO-BE-THERE PROBLEM IN THIS RESPECT NOW. THIS DISC HAS BEEN PLAYED TWICE BY THIS ONE OWNER ON A TOP END HI FI, IT HAS NO MARKS OR SCRATCHES, NO SPINDLE WEAR, AND PLAYS AND SOUNDS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING.

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