Hot Stamper Pressings of Recordings by Decca Available Now
We tried the pressings of CS 6019 mastered by Stan Goodall first, but they turned out to have sound that was disappointing.
Nothing surprising there. Happens all the time.
In the spirit of adventure, we thought we would take another crack at the album after learning that Tony Hawkins had also cut some pressings. Maybe he did a better job.
You never know, right?
No dice. Both were at best passable. In our world, the world of Hot Stamper pressings with exceptionally good sound, that’s a death sentence. We don’t sell passable sounding records, not at the prices we charge. Audiophiles can find those on their own.
If you like this Beethoven piano concerto, consider trying some copies of the recording Rubinstein made for RCA. (Stick with the Shaded Dog pressings for best results.)
In General
If more vintage Londons had sound like the copies of CS 6019 we played, we would happily admit that going the Heavy Vinyl route might actually be a good idea (assuming there were a modern pressing of the album).
And there are certainly a lot of bad vintage pressings — we should know, we’ve played them by the hundreds — but the number of bad Heavy Vinyl pressings would more than give them a run for their money.
And quite a number of others that we’ve run into over the years with sonic 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
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.
We also have an audiophile record 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.
Further Reading