Hot Stamper Classical and Orchestral Pressings Available Now
The sound of this 1959 Mercury release, SR 90156, is terrible. It’s crude and hot like an “old record,” a sound we find on far too many vintage pressings. The world is full of old records that just sound like old records. We’ve suffered through them by the tens of thousands.
Our website, as well as this blog, are devoted to helping audiophiles find pressings that don’t sound anything like the millions of run-of-the-mill LPs that have been stamped out over the last seven decades.
Even a million dollar stereo can’t make the average record sound good, and the more accurate and revealing the system, the more limited and lifeless the average record will show itself to be.
There are quite a number of others that we’ve run into over the years with similar shortcomings. Here they are, broken down by label.
- London/Decca records with weak sound or performances
- Mercury records with weak sound or performances
- RCA records with weak sound or performances
I would say Mercury’s track record during the 50s and 60s is a pretty good one, offering (potentially) excellent sound for at least one out of every three titles or so.
And when I say “excellent sound,” in some cases I am being much too conservative. Astonishingly good sound is possible if you are willing to clean and play enough copies.
But one out of three means the odds are good there would be a lot of dogs in their catalog. This is definitely one of them.
Mercury is a label we know well, having played more than a hundred to date. To see the Living Presence classical titles we’ve reviewed on this blog, click here.
1959 just happens to be one of the all time great years for recording in analog. If you have any doubt, check out this amazing group of albums, all recorded or released that year.
Our Pledge of Service to You, the Discriminating Audiophile
We play mediocre-to-bad sounding pressings so that you don’t have to, a free service from your record-loving friends at Better Records.
You can find this one in our hall of shame, along with others that — in our opinion — are best avoided by audiophiles looking for hi-fidelity sound. Some of these records may have passable sonics, but the music is weak. These are also titles you can safely avoid.
We also have an audiophile hall of shame for records that were marketed to audiophiles with claims of superior sound. If you’ve spent much time on this blog, you know that these records are some of the worst sounding pressings we have ever had the misfortune to play.
We routinely put them in our Hot Stamper shootouts, head to head with the vintage records we offer. We are often more than a little surprised at just how bad an “audiophile record” can sound and still be considered an “audiophile record.”
If you own any of these so-called audiophile pressings, let us send you one of our Hot Stamper LPs so that you can hear it for yourself in your own home, on your own system. Every one of our records is guaranteed to be the best sounding copy of the album you have ever heard or you get your money back.
