Eagles - Hotel California

Released in 1976, "Hotel California" became one of the most successful albums in music history ever. After five triumphant years of record sales and energy-sapping tours, the Eagles' lightheartedness was gone. Instead, Don Henley, Don Felder, Glenn Frey, Randy Meisner and Joe Walsh undertook a journey through the darker side of L.A., the dazzling metropolis on the West Coast, where dream and nightmare lie so close together.

The fascination with the Beverly Hills Hotel, the myth of Hollywood set in stone, moved the band to research hotels in general. The result was an iconic song whose exegesis continues to this day. "Hotel California" became a worldwide phenomenon that continues to appeal to music fans of all generations with its picturesque melodies, narrative depth and simplicity. 

MFSL's one-step LP boxes are the measure of all things in the field of audiophile re-issues and can be placed qualitatively even above the other productions of the probably most famous remastering studio in the world. The original analog tape was transferred by the MFSL sound engineers into a 4xDSD file after an individual adjustment of the track position of the tape and the bias setting for each individual title. This was then used to create the lacquer cut in the Sebastopol studio. What's special about the LPs is not only a new vinyl granule without carbon colorants used at RTI in Camarillo, but more importantly the one-step process of LP manufacturing. The only place you can get closer to the sound of the master tape is at MFSL's studio in California.

By this is meant the following: In normal LP productions, the lacquer cut is turned into an initial "father stamp with inverted groove structure." From this, a "mother stamp" with correct groove structure is then created. From this, the actual press stamp with inverted groove structure is then created and consumed for pressing the actual LP with correct groove structure. This approach allows almost any number of LPs to be pressed with just one coating cut.

In the One-Step process, this is all done much more simply. The actual coating cut itself is converted directly to the press die used to make the LP. So two steps of mechanical conversion are eliminated. Unfortunately, each coating cut can only produce a limited number of LPs. So if more than a few hundred LPs are to be produced, several lacquer cuts are needed. MFSL has issued the motto that a new set of press stamps should be used every 500 copies. This means that for a run of 7,500 copies, fifteen sets of the four lacquer cuts are used. However, since things sometimes go wrong in production, 18 sets are usually created at once. That means 72 lacquer cuts are made for the double LP. By hand, one after the other. Every day, the created lacquer cuts are flown by express to RTI for reworking and then a test pressing must be created for each side and also listened to in MFSL's studio. A time-consuming and also expensive process, resulting in an expensive product and high collector demand. The delivery is made in an elaborate box. The serial number is entered by hand on the back. MFSL states that there will be no further re-pressings.

This edition is limited to 17,500 copies.