Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Recordings Available Now
The size and power of a large orchestra in Living Stereo sound. Maybe it’s the gorgeous Living Stereo strings and hall acoustics that let us forget about the possibility of compromises occurring in other areas.
So open and spacious, with gorgeous, richly textured strings — this is the VIVID sound we love from the Golden Age. The hall is huge, the brass solid and powerful, the top and bottom extends properly, the stage is wide and clear — what more can you ask for?
Here are the notes from our shootout winning copy from our last go around for the RCA.
Side One
- Big and tubey brass and bass
- Very lively and transparent and spacious
- So sweet and tubey
Side Two
- Huge and tubey and lively
- So big and 3-D
- Deep rich bass
- Huge peak is the least distorted
That last point is a good one. There is distortion at the climax of the work on side two. It is there on every copy. On some copies it will be worse than on other copies.
You want a pressing with the least amount of distortion on that peak but one that is also dynamic and lively.
This is the reason we do shootouts. We’re listening for how each pressing handles that problem in the recording and then using that metric, along with many others, to grade them.
The copy that had the best sound on side two was the most dynamic and the least distorted, as well as having all the other good qualities we noted.
That is what you are paying for when you buy a White Hot Stamper pressing. You’re not buying a perfect record, there’s no such thing.
Rather, it’s the one that comes closest to perfection as can be found.
Another amazing recording from the 60s, brought to you by your vinyl-loving friends at Better Records.
- The three-dimensional space and Tubey Magic are jaw-dropping on this copy.
- An amazing Living Stereo all analog recording from 1960 – nothing else sounds like it.
- When you’ve played as many Living Stereo titles as we have (250+ and counting), you’re bound to run into this kind of Demo Disc sound from time to time – it’s what makes record collecting fun.
- It’s an amazing find, the kind of record we live for here at Better Records.
Here It Comes
You know what’s unusual about these notes?
They’re the kind of notes we’ve never written for any Heavy Vinyl reissue, even for the one that won our shootout not long ago.
They are the kind of notes that make it clear to us what a sham the modern Heavy Vinyl pressing tends to be, even those that are done right.
No modern record we’ve ever played has ever had anything even approaching this kind of big as life sound, and we doubt one ever will.
Records like this vintage vinyl pressing are thrilling in a way that very, very few records ever are.
Surprisingly, many of the most thrilling records we’ve ever played came from the same decade this record came from: the 60s.
Once you hear sound like this, you are not likely to forget it.
It sets a standard that modern remastered records simply cannot meet.
Further Reading