This Bose / Mercury Demonstration LP is autographed by none other than Amar G. Bose. The autograph reads “To EMI, with regards and best wishes, Amar G. Bose.”
Bose may not have ever made very good speakers, but they sure knew good recordings when they heard them. This LP has excerpts from some of the top Mercury titles, including music by Copland (El Salon Mexico), Kodaly (Hary Janos Suite), Mussorgsky/ Ravel (Pictures At An Exhibition), and Rimsky-Korsakov (Russian Easter Overture).
I played one of these Bose records years ago and was surprised at how good it sounded. The transfers of the Mercury tapes were excellent. I guess that makes sense — if you want to show off your speakers you had better use a well-mastered record for the demonstration.
I was duped into buying my first real audiophile speaker, Infinity Monitors, when the clever salesman played Sheffield’s S9 through them. I bought them on the spot. It was only later when I got home that none of my other records sounded as good, or even good for that matter. That was my first exposure to a Direct to Disc recording.
To this day I can still picture the room the Infinity’s were playing in. It was a watershed moment in my audiophile life.
And of course I couldn’t wait to get rid of them once I’d heard them in my own system with my own records. I quickly traded them in for a pair of RTR 280-DRs. Now that was a great speaker! A 15 panel RTR Electrostatic unit for the highs; lots of woofers and mids and even a piezo tweeter for the rest. More than 5 feet tall and well over 100 pounds each, that speaker ROCKED.
Especially if you enjoy playing orchestral spectaculars like those found on our site.
Small speakers just can’t move enough air to bring orchestral music to life in any way that gives meaning to the term Hi-Fidelity.
This record is so amazing it can even make a pair of Bose 901’s sound good!
A1 Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra– Hary Janos Suite
Composed By – Kodaly*
Conductor – Antal Dorati
A2 London Symphony Orchestra*– Piano Conc. #5
Composed By – Beethoven
Conductor – Stanislaw Skrowaczewski
Piano – Gina Bachauer
A3 Eastman Wind Ensemble– Armenian Dance #2
Composed By – Khachaturian
Conductor – Frederick Fennell
A4 Eastman Rochester Orchestra*– Gold And The Senor Commandante
Composed By – Bergsma
Conductor – Howard Hanson
A5 Eastman Rochester Orchestra*– Pictures At An Exhibition
Composed By – Mussorgsky
Conductor – Howard Hanson
Orchestrated By – Ravel*
A6 Eastman Wind Ensemble– Celebration (From Symphonic Dances)
Composed By – Bennett
Conductor – Frederick Fennell
B1 London Symphony Orchestra*– Love For Three Oranges
Composed By – Prokofiev
Conductor – Antal Dorati
B2 Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra– El Salon Mexico
Composed By – Copland
Conductor – Antal Dorati
B3 Eastman Wind Ensemble– Japanese Sword Dance
Composed By – Rogers
Conductor – Frederick Fennell
B4 London Symphony Orchestra– Russian Easter Overture
Composed By – Rimsky-Korsakov
Conductor – Antal Dorati
B5 Eastman Rochester Orchestra*– Campo Di Flori
Composed By – Kennan
Conductor – Howard Hanson