Collecting UHQR records: limited editions of great albums

What makes a UHQR different

The idea has a history: JVC pressed the first UHQRs in Japan in the early 1980s. Analogue Productions brought them back and builds every UHQR as a complete package – from the tape to the box.

• Clarity Vinyl. Black records get their colour from carbon black. Clarity Vinyl leaves it out – according to Analogue Productions, this rules out noise caused by carbon black particles.
• Flat profile. The record is completely flat from the lead-in to the run-out groove. According to Analogue Productions, this lets the stylus track the groove at a right angle across the entire side.
• Inspected by hand. The records are pressed at Quality Record Pressings in Salina, Kansas. Every record is then inspected by hand; according to the manufacturer, only flawless copies go on sale.
• Made for collecting. Tip-on jackets by Stoughton Printing and, depending on the title, a clamshell box (Who’s Next) or a slipcase with a wooden spine (Gaucho).

The UHQRs are mastered from the original tapes – Who’s Next, for example, by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering – or, in the case of Gaucho, from an analogue tape copy. Analogue Productions chooses the best source album by album.

Limited editions

Every UHQR is pressed in a fixed quantity: 25,000 copies of Kind of Blue (45 RPM), 20,000 numbered copies of Gaucho (45 RPM), 7,500 numbered copies of Who’s Next (33⅓ RPM), 5,000 numbered copies of Tres Hombres (45 RPM), 4,500 each of Burnin’ and Natty Dread by Bob Marley and The Wailers (33⅓ RPM), and only 3,500 numbered copies of Tommy (33⅓ RPM).

A collection of truly great albums

The UHQR series reads like a list of the albums that made music history:

• Jazz. Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme and Ballads, Waltz for Debby and Sunday at the Village Vanguard by the Bill Evans Trio, Sonny Rollins’ Way Out West, Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section and A Charlie Brown Christmas.
• Rock. Who’s Next and Tommy by The Who, Are You Experienced and Axis: Bold As Love by The Jimi Hendrix Experience, L.A. Woman by The Doors, Tres Hombres by ZZ Top, Elephant by The White Stripes and Steely Dan from Can’t Buy a Thrill to Gaucho.
• Reggae. Bob Marley and The Wailers from Catch a Fire to Exodus.

Album by album, you build a shelf where every record is a milestone – each in the most lavish edition Analogue Productions makes.

“This larger amount of detail … even helps to get into the original vibe of the music. It supports it.”Michael 45 on the UHQR of Bob Marley’s Burnin’ compared with the Jamaican pressing · read the listening comparison

What about standard pressings?

The choice comes up less often than you might think: only a few UHQR albums are currently also available from Analogue Productions in another edition. One exception is Kind of Blue, available both as a UHQR at 45 RPM and as a Corrected Speed edition on 180 g black vinyl.

33⅓ or 45 RPM?

UHQRs come at both speeds – Kind of Blue and Tres Hombres, for example, at 45 RPM on two LPs, Who’s Next and the 33⅓ edition of Burnin’ on a single LP. At 45 RPM each second of music gets more groove length; at 33⅓ you have fewer sides to turn. Find out more on our UHQR page.

Storing and cleaning your UHQRs

For the UHQR box there is a dedicated outer sleeve: our box set outer sleeve for boxes up to 34 mm thick. The records themselves fit our 12-inch rice paper inner sleeves. Our sleeve buying guide explains which sleeve suits which record. And if you like, we’ll clean your UHQR on our Klaudio ultrasonic machine before it ships.

“It’s dead silent. Of course, I cleaned it with my Klaudio, but now it’s dead silence,” Michael says of his Marley UHQRs on Clarity Vinyl.