Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Tchaikovsky Available Now
Some audiophiles buy albums based on their labels. For example, this pressing from the Golden Age of Living Stereo might appeal to a certain kind of audiophile who treasures LSC’s with the original Shaded Dog label.
More than that, he might limit himself to 1S Indianapolis pressings. Hoorah! What could be better?
However, many records from this era simply do not sound good, and this is one of them. We have never heard a good sounding copy of LSC 2216, and we’ve played quite a number of them over the decades we’ve been in the business of selling Golden Age classical records.
A copy came in just last week so I figured it was time to give it a spin and see if there was any reason to change my opinion. Hey, maybe this one had Hot Stampers! Can’t say it wouldn’t be possible. Unlikely, yes, impossible, no.
So here’s what I heard. No real top above 6k, hardly any bottom, dry and thin, but with a very wide stage – the textbook definition of “boxy sound.”
If you are a fan of Living Stereo pressings, have you noticed that many of them – this one for example – don’t sound good?
If you’re an audiophile with good equipment, you should have. But did you? Or did you buy into the hype surrounding these rare LSC pressings and just ignore the problems with the sound?
I would say RCA’s track record during the 50s and 60s is a good one, with (potentially) excellent sound on roughly one out of every three titles or so.
But that means that odds are there would be a lot of dogs in their catalog. This is definitely one of them.
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