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When the record is not only doing what it’s supposed to do, but doing more than you ever expected it could do, with more energy, more dynamics, more bass, more clarity, on a stage that’s wider, taller and deeper than you thought it could be, that’s when you know you have reached the highest level of sound. When you find yourself lost in the music of Madman because the copy playing has the right sound, it shouldn’t be all that hard to recognize it. Having said all that, it has been our experience that one copy in the shootout will make clear what the ideal blend of all the elements is - the right balance of Tubey Magic, clarity, space, weight, top end and much, much more. There is always a balance to be struck between richness and clarity, with no copy able to show us the maximum amounts of both that we know are possible. It’s the rare copy that will do well in all these areas, and even our best Shootout Winning sides will have to compromise somewhere. Achieving just the right balance of Tubey Magical Madman Sound with other qualities we prize such as space, clarity, transparency and presence is no mean feat. The rich copies can’t be too rich, to the point of being murky and muddy. Lushness isn’t the only thing to listen for of course. This is the one quality that separates the winners of the shootout from the copies that came in second or third. They are simply not as rich, tubey, and LUSH as the best that we’ve played. The problem is that most British copies - the only ones that have any hope of sounding good in our experience - don’t have all the Tubey Magic that can be heard on the best copies.
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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 the album. You don’t need tube equipment to hear the prodigious amounts of Tubey Magic that exist on the best copies of Madman. Of course, as it turns out, recording technology only got worse as the decade wore on, and during the ’80s the sound of most Big Rock records went off a cliff. 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. This is some of the best high production value rock music of the ’70s.
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The amount of effort that went into the recording of this album is comparable to that of the engineers and producers of bands like Supertramp, Yes, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd, The Beatles (of course) and far too many others to list. It certainly blew ours.Ī ridiculously tough album to find with the right sound and reasonably quiet surfaces - which is why we never have them on the site. This Madman is guaranteed to blow your mind. Shockingly good sound, the best sound for any copy that has ever made it to the site. More Elton John More Madman Across The Water