More of the music of Franz Liszt (1811-1880)
Our Favorite Recording of the Hungarian Rhapsodies
This RCA Living Stereo LP (LSC 2471) has SUPERB SOUND!
I’m a big fan of this title. The string tone is rich and dark and just wonderful. If you want an exciting record with outstanding Living Stereo sound — dynamic, with strings to die for, and an energetic performance, this is the one!
Don’t let the White Dog fool you. I doubt if the average Shaded Dog is any better.
[I suspect that the Shaded Dog has the potential to be better, but when this review was written I did not.]
This record sounds just right to me. Listen to how clear and correct the triangle is.
I wonder if the Shaded Dog copies would be cut that clean. Without one here to compare there’s no way to know.
[We have since compared them and our Shaded Dogs were slightly better than any of the White Dogs.]
The Classic version sounds fine until you play it next to the real McCoy.
Then you hear how brightening up the strings ruins everything.
Here are some of the other records we’ve discovered that are good for testing string tone and texture.
This record includes
Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2,
Liszt’s Roumanian Rhapsody No. 1 and
Smetana’s The Moldau/ ‘The Bartered Bride’ Overtures.
This is an Older Classical/Orchestral Review
Most of the older reviews you see are for records that did not go through the shootout process, the revolutionary approach to finding better sounding pressings we started developing in the early 2000s and have since turned into a veritable science.
We found the records you see in these older listings by cleaning and playing a pressing or two of the album, which we then described and priced based on how good the sound and surfaces were. (For out Hot Stamper listings, the Sonic Grades and Vinyl Playgrades are listed separately.)
We were often wrong back in those days, something we have no reason to hide. Audio equipment and record cleaning technologies have come a long way since those darker days, a subject we discuss here.
Currently, 99% (or more!) of the records we sell are cleaned, then auditioned under rigorously controlled conditions, up against a number of other pressings. We award them sonic grades, and then condition check them for surface noise.
As you may imagine, this approach requires a great deal of time, effort and skill, which is why we currently have a highly trained staff of about ten. No individual or business without the aid of such a committed group could possibly dig as deep into the sound of records as we have, and it is unlikely that anyone besides us could ever come along to do the kind of work we do.
The term “Hot Stampers” gets thrown around a lot these days, but to us it means only one thing: a record that has been through the shootout process and found to be of exceptionally high quality.
The result of our labor is the hundreds of titles seen here, every one of which is unique and guaranteed to be the best sounding copy of the album you have ever heard or you get your money back.