More of the music of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
This RCA White Dog pressing of the Quartet in C-Sharp Minor contains what many consider to be Beethoven’s greatest string quartet, with SUPERB better than Super Hot Stamper sound on BOTH sides, each of which rated grades of A++ to A+++.
The reason we held back on the full Three Plus White Hot Stamper designation is simple: each side had slightly more of a fairly important quality that the other side lacked. When you play this record at home see if you don’t agree with us that this is an AMAZING sounding chamber music record, with minor, albeit recognizable and appreciable differences in its strengths on each side.
We’ve always found it odd that reviewers of audiophile records (and records in general for that matter) never seem to notice these sonic differences from side to side. The differences seem quite obvious to us, as I’m sure they do to you, dear reader, or you wouldn’t be on this site.
After all, most of the records we offer have different grades for their two (or four or six and sometimes even eight) sides, different sonic grades as well as different surface grades. From our point of view nothing could be more obvious.
Side One
A++ to A+++, with sound that is as relaxed and as natural as the best analog we’ve heard. Full, rarely shrill, with an especially sweet top end, the only area in which we felt there was room for improvement was in the area of transparency. Side two had more of it, therefore side one was docked half a plus — nearly perfect, but not quite.
Side Two
A++ to A+++, now with more transparency, but at the expense of some of the fullness and solidity that made side one so remarkable. We see them as opposite sides of the same coin. Depending on your system you may prefer one to the other; to us both are wonderful, each in its own way.