More of the music of Leo Delibes (1836-1891)
More Coppelia / Ansermet
A distinguished member of the Better Records Orchestral Music Hall of Fame.
[This is a very old commentary so take it for what it’s worth.]
DEMO QUALITY SOUND for this early London Mono pressing.
Side one of this record sounds incredible! The sound is absolutely top notch. Check out the brass — it has the solid weight of the real thing.
This is the kind of record that the mono cartridge owners of the world worship. And for good reason. But you don’t need to have a mono cartridge to hear how good — in fact, how much BETTER — this copy sounds than the stereo pressing.
I found out about mono classical records one day when I got a mono copy of The Power Of The Orchestra, VCS 2659. It sounded better than any stereo recording of that work I had ever heard. All the instruments were so much more solid sounding, so palpable, so free from distortion, that it made me recognize for the first time what the mono record lovers of the world were talking about. That was ten years ago. Since then many high end mono cartridges have come on the market, specifically to bring out that sound.
But I don’t have a mono cartridge, and I sure don’t need one to hear how good this record sounds! Everything is right on the money. And of course with Ansermet, ballet conducter extraordinaire, you can be sure the performance is of the highest calibre. A top recommendation from Better Records.
(Side two is a little thin and bright compared to side one. Side one is the side you might want to demonstrate your stereo with. It’s that good.)
By the way, there’s a good reason why London makes such good mono records. They ran a separate microphone feed into a monophonic tape recorder for their mono recordings, well into the stereo era in fact. Mercury did also, which is why many Mercury monos have excellent sound. RCA, on the other hand, frequently took the three-track master tape and simply mixed it to mono for their mono releases, which explains why a minority of RCA monos have good sound. London knew how to do it right and the results speak for themselves.