Is CTFR-1 Dark and Congested, or Flat and Bright?

Hot Stamper Pressings of Mercury Classical Records Available Now

For Mercury classical and orchestral recordings, the original RFR-1 pressings on the plum label are the way to go, right? 

In some cases, yes. The first pressings of Mercury albums often win our shootouts.

And for both sides of a copy to win a shootout, like our gold promo seen in the stamper sheet below, everything about the pressing must be right. We call records that win their shootout, earning 3+ grades on both sides, Top Shelf pressings. They are rare and special enough to have a section of their own on the site (which, as of this writing, has all of 19 records in it.)

What we find to be interesting about this specific shootout, however, is that we had two later pressings, both with the same stampers, and they sounded markedly different from each other. (Note that the stamper numbers you see below belong to a different album than the one shown above.)

If a collector were to tell you that that the CTFR pressings tend to be dark and congested, and you owned one with the exact same stampers, CTFR-1, you might be inclined to agree with this person.

But if you were the owner of the copy we played that was flat and bright, again, with CTFR-1 in the dead wax of both sides, you would think this person was 1.) Out of his mind, or, 2.) Deaf as a post, or, 3.) The owner of some very inaccurate playback equipment.

He could be all three, but in this case, an unusual one to be sure, his copy of the album doesn’t tell you anything about the sound of your copy of the album. They could match, or they could be completely different. Some records are like that. Not all that many, but definitely some.

Sample Sizes and One Man Bands

Those of us who play a variety of pressings of the same album know how easy it is to draw mistaken conclusions about records. CTFR-1 on this title is the perfect example of a record whose stampers don’t tell you much about its sound. (Even RFR-1 on side one of one copy was no better than “good,” quite a long ways from the best.)

Such conclusions are more often than not simply the result of sample sizes that are too small.

If you’re a reviewer operating as a one man band, which, as far as we know, is the only way any of them currently operate, your chances of getting it wrong are fairly high indeed. Here is one obvious example from a long time ago, but there are plenty more to be found right here on the blog under the heading of shootout malpractice.

Just as an aside, please note that many of our customers do their own shootouts and seem to be much better at it than any of the reviewers we are familiar with. Perhaps we can take some credit for showing them the way.

Unfortunately, the reviewers who haven’t adopted our methods and keep getting the same erroneous results we fear are beyond our help. You can’t learn anything if you think you already know it all, and if there was ever a three word definition of an audiophile reviewer, it’s “know it all.”

We however are constantly learning new things, and we very much enjoy sharing that information with those who want to dig deeper into the mysteries of records.

Mercury

I would say Mercury’s track record during the 50s and 60s is a strong one, second only to Decca/London, offering (potentially) excellent sound for roughly one out of every three titles or so. (Here’s an absolutely amazing one.)

But that means the odds are that there would be a lot of dogs in their catalog. And there are.

The elephant in the room: there are lots of dogs in every label’s catalog.

Further Reading

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