Month: August 2020

Letter of the Week – “It blows away my first pressing that I had heretofore revered.”

More of the Music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Mozart

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:

Hey Tom,     

The Mozart is wonderful. It blows away my first pressing, flat edge hardboard cover opy that I had heretofore revered. Love it. A brilliant recording.

Phil

Phil,

Glad to hear it! We sold our original close to ten years ago [closer to 15 by now] so it’s good to know the later pressing that won our shootout can beat it. Those originals with the different cover are hard to find. We haven’t seen a clean copy in years.

Best, TP

Further Reading

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Mozart / Symphony Nos. 32 & 38 – Were We Wrong?

More of the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Many years ago we wrote the following review for CS 6107:

An exceptionally QUIET copy for an early Blueback pressing. The sound is old-fashioned Decca, which seems to suit this music quite well. The hall is reverberant, as it would have been in Mozart’s day, and the perspective is mid-hall. The string tone is excellent. Some of the louder passages might be a bit strained, but overall the sound is correct for this music. 

Maag and the LSO are of course Mozart experts and the performances here do not disappoint. A rare title and a lovely one.

More recently we got in a nice pressing that sounded OK, nothing special, even after a good cleaning.

Were we wrong years ago? Hard to say. That copy from many years ago is gone.

Three things we always keep in mind when a pressing doesn’t sound like we remember it did, or think it should:

  1. Our standards are quite a bit higher now, having spent decades critically listening to vintage classical pressings by the hundreds.
  2. Our stereo is dramatically more revealing and more accurate than it used to be.
  3. Since no two records sound the same, maybe the one from long ago actually did sound as good as we thought at the time.

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Joan Baez – Joan Baez in Concert

More Pure Folk Recordings

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Joan Baez

  • Joan’s live release from 1962 makes its Hot Stamper debut here with outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER from start to finish
  • We just did a big shootout for this album, compiled from different shows Baez performed in 1962, and we’re pleased to report that the sound was SUPERB on both sides of this early stereo Vanguard pressing
  • So transparent, open, and spacious – nuances and subtleties that may have gone unnoticed are now revealed as never before
  • 4 stars: “In Concert, Pt. 1 captures the undisputed queen of folk music at the onset of her fabled career… The exhaustive selection of material represents her diverse influences… Baez’s performances still retain freshness and vitality after four [make that five] decades.”

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An Amazing 45 RPM Discovery from 2015

More of the music of Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)

PLEASE NOTE:

We no longer give Four Pluses out as a matter of policy, but that doesn’t mean we don’t come across records that deserve them from time to time.

We award this copy our very special Four Plus A++++ grade, which is strictly limited to pressings (really, individual sides of pressings) that take a given recording to a level we’ve never experienced before and had no idea could even exist. We estimate that about one per cent of the Hot Stamper pressings we come across in our shootouts earn this grade. You can’t get much more rare than that.

This Japanese 45 RPM remastering of our favorite recording of Prokofiev’s wonderful Lt. Kije Suite has DEMONSTRATION QUALITY SOUND. For starters, there are very few records with dynamics comparable to these. Since this is my favorite performance of all time, I can’t recommend the record any more highly.   

Most of what’s “bad” about a DG recording from 1978 is ameliorated with this pressing. The bass drum (drums?) here must be heard to be believed. We know of no Golden Age recording with as believable a presentation of the instrument as this.

When a particular pressing we’re auditioning takes the recording to a level significantly higher than our expectations, it gets our attention, big time. This can only happen with a record we know well. We thought we knew how good Lt. Kije on Japanese 45 could sound but we were wrong — this pressing is clearly better than the copy we would be proud to call White Hot, which means this one deserves an impossible sonic rating of eleven on a scale of one to ten.

Forget the logic. It’s not about that, it’s about the sound and the music, and we make no apologies for calling this copy Beyond White Hot. It blew our minds.

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Rimsky-Korsakov / Capriccio Espagnol & Le Coq D’Or / Danon

Hot Stamper Pressings of Orchestral Spectaculars Available Now

 

  • White Hot Stamper sound for Capriccio Espagnol, with a tremendously exciting performance
  • Big stage, great ENERGY, lots of hall ambience and solid orchestral weight – hard to fault!
  • Orchestral music doesn’t get much more EXCITING or COLORFUL than Capriccio Espagnol
  • If you like Reiner’s Scheherazade – and who doesn’t? – you are sure to be knocked out by this recording

For your listening pleasure, we proudly offer our music loving fans a SUPERB sounding White Hot Capriccio Espagnol, performed with passion and precision by the Royal Philharmonic under the direction of Oscar Danon. This is only the second disc from a Reader’s Digest box set to make it to the site, but what a disc it is — orchestral music doesn’t get much more EXCITING or COLORFUL than Capriccio Espagnol. It’s truly a knockout on this pressing: White Hot Stamper As Good As It Gets sound.

This is what we mean by DEMO DISC sound. Records do not get much more spacious, open, transparent, rich or sweet. Kenneth Wilkinson was the man behind the board for many of these RDG recordings, this very one in fact, and as you will hear, he was pretty much in a league of his own as a engineer in the early days of stereo. This record is proof positive of his uncanny recording skills. 

Play it against the best of the RCAs, Londons and Mercs from the period and you will see what I mean. And of course it will completely DESTROY any pressing you may have on Heavy Vinyl, from any label, at any playback speed, of any music. (more…)

Bach / Three Organ Concerti After Vivaldi / Noehren

  • This rare Urania recording has superb sound on both sides
  • Both sides are rich and Tubey Magical, yet clear and transparent
  • This is the right sound for these well known works for the organ
  • The performance is lively; Noehren plays these pieces with gusto

A wonderful recording of Bach concerti for the organ. Very natural sound from this vintage recording.

Side One

A+++, hard to fault really.

Side Two

A+++, with a big and very solid bottom end. (more…)

Gary Burton Quartet – In Concert

  • This sensational jazz album boasts outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER from first note to last
  • Captured live at Carnegie Hall, this recording eloquently communicates the space of the concert hall with stereo precision
  • Big, rich, and Tubey Magical, this pressing lets us hear Burton’s quartet with the energy and clarity these classic jazz performances deserve
  • 4 stars: ” The material (by Mike Gibbs, Burton, Coryell and Bob Dylan) is quite strong, and there are some hints of the avant-garde. “

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Joe Williams – Sings About You

  • KILLER sound throughout with both sides earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades
  • We have a devil of a time finding good sounding Joe Williams records – discovering that this title was so well recorded was a very pleasant surprise, and this copy takes the record about as far as we think it can go, hence the very high sonic grades
  • “Joe Williams was the last great big-band singer, a smooth baritone who graced the rejuvenated Count Basie Orchestra during the 1950s and captivated audiences well into the ’90s.” – All Music, Biography

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Stan Getz – What The World Needs Now

More Stan Getz

More Bossa Nova

  • This 1968 jazz classic boasts outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last
  • Stan interprets these songs beautifully – for those who don’t mind a bit of easy listening from time to time, this is music worth playing
  • Another top jazz recording from Rudy Van Gelder – big, bold and lively, just the right sound for this music
  • “Forget those snobs who dismiss this album, Getz does a wonderful job interpreting some of Bacharach’s hits. He ‘jazzes’ up ‘A House is not a Home’ with a nice upbeat tempo and ‘Alfie’ is lush with his wonderful tenor sax.”

As expected, if you clean and play enough copies of a standard domestic major label album like this Verve, sooner or later you will stumble upon a good one. The best copies are filled with studio ambience, with every instrument occupying its own space in the mix and surrounded by air. On those pressings, there is not a trace of grain, just the silky sweet highs we’ve come to expect from analog done right.

This is, of course, the premise behind Hot Stampers themselves. They are out there to be stumbled upon. You can’t tell what pressing, from what era, from what country is going to be The One (Keanu, are you listening?) until you actually sit down, clean and play a big pile of them.

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Bill Evans – At Town Hall, Volume 1

More Bill Evans

  • This superb Piano Trio recording has KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or very close to it throughout
  • Both sides are doing just about everything right — you get real weight to the piano, tons of energy, incredible immediacy, real separation between the instruments and natural live imaging — you really get a sense of where each of the players is on the stage
  • “This LP is a superior effort by Bill Evans and his trio in early 1966… The most memorable piece is the 13-and-a-half-minute “Solo: In Memory of His Father,” an extensive unaccompanied exploration by Evans that partly uses a theme that became “Turn Out the Stars.” – All Music, 4 Stars

It is insanely difficult to find great sounding Bill Evans records. This copy has two sides that are nothing short of Demo Quality. It’s one of the better sounding Piano Trio records we’ll find this year (along of course with any killer copies of The Three that hit the site).

Everything you could ask for from this music is here. You get real weight to the piano, tons of energy, incredible immediacy, real separation between the instruments and natural live imaging — you really get a sense of where each of the players is on the stage. The sound is cleaner and clearer than we heard elsewhere, with more extension up top and more weight down low. The bass sounds JUST RIGHT. Most copies we’ve played weren’t nearly this rich, warm and full-bodied. I don’t think you could find a better sounding copy no matter what you did. (more…)