More of the music of Edvard Grieg (1843-1907)
More Vinyl Arcana to Help You Find Better Records
One set of stampers for the Shaded Dogs we played in our most recent shootout sounded consistently subpar, 12s/12s.
The sound was blary on both sides. (More records with blary sound here.)
Although the Shaded Dog originals with the right stampers will always win our shootouts, the White Dog reissues still sound quite good to us, just not as good.
This Shaded Dog might be passable on an old school audio system, but it was too unpleasant to be played on the high quality modern equipment we use.
There are quite a number of other vintage classical releases that we’ve run into over the years with similar shortcomings. For fans of vintage Living Stereo pressings, here are some to avoid.
Some audiophiles may be impressed by the average Shaded Dog pressing, but I can assure you that we here at Better Records are decidedly not of that persuasion.
Something in the range of five to ten per cent of the major label Golden Age recordings we play will eventually make it to the site. The vast majority just don’t sound all that good to us. (Many have second- and third-rate performances and those get tossed without ever making it to a shootout.)
Our Pledge of Service to You, the Discriminating Audiophile
We play mediocre-to-bad sounding pressings so that you don’t have to, a free service from your record-loving friends at Better Records.
You can find this one in our hall of shame, along with others that — in our opinion — are best avoided by audiophiles looking for hi-fidelity sound. Some of these records may have passable sonics, but the music is weak. These are also titles you can safely avoid.
We also have an audiophile hall of shame for records that were marketed to audiophiles with claims of superior sound. If you’ve spent much time on this blog, you know that these records are some of the worst sounding pressings we have ever had the misfortune to play.
We routinely put them in our Hot Stamper shootouts, head to head with the vintage records we offer. We are often more than a little surprised at just how bad an “audiophile record” can sound and still be considered an “audiophile record.”
If you own any of these so-called audiophile pressings, let us send you one of our Hot Stamper LPs so that you can hear it for yourself in your own home, on your own system. Every one of our records is guaranteed to be the best sounding copy of the album you have ever heard or you get your money back.
Further Reading
- New to the blog? Start here
- Reviews and commentaries for the music of Edvard Grieg
- Hot Stamper classical and orchestral pressings available now
