Instead of utilizing the industry-standard three-step lacquer process, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab’s new UltraDisc One-Step (UD1S) uses only one step, bypassing two processes of generational loss. While three-step processing is designed for optimum yield and efficiency, UD1S is created for the ultimate in sound quality. Just as Mobile Fidelity pioneered the UHQR (Ultra High-Quality Record) with JVC in the 1980s, UD1S again represents another state-of-the-art advance in the record-manufacturing process. MFSL engineers begin with the original master tapes and meticulously cut a set of lacquers.

These lacquers are used to create a very fragile, pristine UD1S stamper called a “convert.” Delicate “converts” are then formed into the actual record stampers, producing a final product that literally and figuratively brings you closer to the music. By skipping the additional steps of pulling another positive and an additional negative, as done in the three-step process used in standard pressings, UD1S produces a final LP with the lowest noise floor possible today. The removal of the additional two steps of generational loss in the plating process reveals tremendous amounts of extra musical detail and dynamics, which are otherwise lost due to the standard copying process. The exclusive nature of these very limited pressings guarantees that every UD1S pressing serves as an immaculate replica of the lacquer sourced directly from the original master tape. Every conceivable aspect of vinyl production is optimized to produce the most perfect record album available today.

ON THE BORDER marked a point of transition for the Eagles, a halfway point between their original country-rock sound and the slick pop-rock they would later embrace. The arrival of guitarist Don Felder helped eventuate this shift, even as founding member/multi-instrumentalist Bernie Leadon found himself increasingly alienated by the move away from his rootsier orientation. “Midnight Flyer”, the smash hit “Already Gone”, and Leadon’s “My Man”, an elegy to Eagles influence Gram Parsons, are the remaining traces of the band’s old sound. The title track finds the band flirting with the disco-funk sound they would pursue further on their subsequent album ONE OF THESE NIGHTS. “The Best of My Love” is the kind of flawlessly constructed ’70s radio staple for which the term soft-rock was invented. The band’s cover version of the Tom Waits ballad “Ol’ 55” was perhaps the furthest from its origins any Waits composition would get until Rod Stewart took on “Downtown Train” many years later. In all, ON THE BORDER effectively represents the eclectic but expertly blended mix of styles that pushed the Eagles to the top of the ’70s rock heap.