Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Mozart Available Now
On most copies the strings are slightly drier and more harsh and steely than one would want, occasionally turning strident in the louder passages.
As always, proper VTA adjustment — by ear — is critical to getting the strings to sound their best.
More advice on setting your VTA.
An extended top end helps the harmonics of the stringed instruments immensely.
Here are some other records that are good for testing string tone and texture.
The more resolving copies will show you more of the hall, which greatly adds to the sense that you are listening to live music, not a record.
Is It Live?
It sounds very much like live music, or at least what you imagine this music would sound like live. Of course, live classical music is shocking in its clarity and freedom from artificiality, and no recording I have ever heard duplicates that sound with perfect fidelity.
But when the pressing is as clear and transparent and natural as this one, your ability to suspend disbelief seems to require no effort at all. Close your eyes. Your brain, search as it will, can find nothing in the recording to interfere with the appreciation of even the most subtle nuances of the score. This is the mark of a very fine record indeed.
This is precisely what careful shootouts and critical listening are all about.
If you like Heavy Vinyl, what exactly is your frame of reference? How many good early pressings could you possibly own, and how were they cleaned?
Without the best pressings around to compare, Heavy Vinyl can sound fine. It’s only when you have something better that its many faults come into focus.
We, of course, have something much, much better, and we like to call them Hot Stampers.
Can we really be hearing all these things that nobody else seems to be hearing?
Like what, you ask? Like:
- Opacity on Decca recordings from the 60s and 70s
- Shrillness on EMI recordings from the 70s
- Smear on violin concerto records
Not to mention the fact that we have played and reviewed a great many vintage classical records with weak sound quality.
If audiophiles and audiophile reviewers are hearing these things on the records they review, in magazines and audiophile forums, why aren’t they discussing them?
Side One
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
Divertimento No. 1
Side Two
A Musical Joke
Further Reading