We recently dropped the needle on a copy of LSC 2601 — the first one we’ve played in years — and found a great deal to fault in the sound. Our copy with 3s/3s stampers was awful sounding.
Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 is a wonderful piano concerto, one that belongs in any serious record collection, but the sound on the pressing we played was definitely not up to our standards.
The piano was cranky, the overall sound a dry mess overall. It just sounded much too much like an old record.
A Shaded Dog pressing such as this might be passable on an old school audio system, but it was too unpleasant to be played on the high quality (mostly) modern equipment we use.
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, but I can 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.)
Further Reading