Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Recordings Available Now
Below you will see the complete stamper sheet for a shootout we did recently.
Note that the album you see pictured — LSC 2265 — is not the record we did this particular shootout for.
We are not revealing what record had these stampers and earned these grades for the simple reason that we rarely if ever give out the specific information that identifies the best sounding pressing of any album.
As I’m sure you can understand, we want you to buy the copy with the Hottest Stampers from us, not find one on your own! We’re happy to be somwhat helpful, but naturally we find it necessary to draw the line somewhere, and giving out “the shootout winning stampers” are where we choose to draw it.
One set of stampers for the mystery Shaded Dog pressings we played in our most recent shootout sounded consistently subpar.
The sound on 3s was boxy and the violin was dry. This was surprising as the stampers are quite low: 3s/1s.
Many RCA chamber recordings can be dry, and if one owned a nice early stamper pressing of the album with boxy, dry sound, one might conclude that this RCA is just another chamber recording with those shortcomings.
But one would be wrong, because the 1s stamper shootout winner sounded amazing, not dry or boxy in the least.
How Come?
Since, as we discovered recently, 1s wins, and handily, why does 3s/1s do so much worse?
Who knows?
And why is the White Dog barely passable on side one and just awful on side two?
Your guess is as good as mine.
More of the Same
Below you will find links to other records we’ve played that had the same problems as our mystery RCA here.
- This group of pressings tend to have boxy sound
- This group of pressings tend to have dry sound
- This group of pressings tend to have dry string tone
The Shaded Dogs with 3s on side one might be passable on an old school audio system, especially one full of old tube equipment. They are often good at hiding the faults of vintage pressings like this one.
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 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