Hot Stamper Pressings Engineered by Robert Ludwig Available Now
A lovely solo piano recording from Athena, which is certainly not a label we have ever associated with good sound. Just the opposite in fact.
But they did a great job on this album (or at least I thought so many years ago when I last played it. For purposes of this commentary, let’s assume the sound still holds up).
This is how to make a good audiophile record.
Yes, there is such a thing. They may be rare but they do exist. We have a few of them for sale as a matter of fact.
Take a good tape, hire someone who knows his way around a normal-speed cutting lathe (with 5800+ credits on Discogs, I would hope he knows what he’s doing) as well as classical music (he cut a huge number of records for Nonesuch back in the day), press it on good vinyl and let the audiophiles of the world enjoy it.
The Connoisseur Society original may in fact be better, but where are you going to find one?
Robert, Bernie and Doug – An Honest Comparison
In another listing for an audiophile record that Robert Ludwig cut, we noted:
I suspect that if Ludwig hadn’t stopped cutting records years ago, we would not be complaining nearly as much about the questionable sound of the modern Heavy Vinyl pressings currently inundating the market.
Bernie and Doug really started letting the record lovers of the world down, beginning as far back as the 90s. See here and here.
The muddy messes Doug Sax cut for Analogue Productions and the awful Living Stereo records Bernie cut for Classic Records were sad chapters in both men’s body of work. Here are two of the All Time Greats. Their fall was precipitous and painful for those of us who care about sound quality and never gave up on analog.
In those dark days, they were mastering one bad record after another, all of them so unlike the amazing sounding records they had been making by the score in the 70s and well into the 80s.
We have nothing personal against either one of them, of course. We just haven’t liked the sound of very many of the records they’ve mastered for the last thirty years, and we don’t know of any reason why we shouldn’t say so.
Reissued from Connoisseur Society CS-2010
Recorded November 21st-24th 1967
Pressed on 100% premium quality virgin vinyl.
Unlike other remastering companies, Athena Records always uses the ORIGINAL ANALOG MASTER SESSION TAPES. In this case, The Master Lacquers were cut directly by Robert Ludwig at Masterdisc [sic] so you know it will sound superb.
A1 Jardins Sous La Pluie (Estampes) 3:45
Composed By – Debussy*
Suite – Pour Le Piano (13:25)
Composed By – Debussy*
A2.1 Prelude
A2.2 Sarabande
A2.3 Toccata
B1 La Puerto Del Vino 3:06
Composed By – Debussy*
B2 Ondine 3:51
Composed By – Debussy*
B3 Feuilles Mortes 3:31
Composed By – Debussy*
Sonatine (11:35)
Composed By – Ravel*
B4.1 Modere
B4.2 Mouv De Menuet
B4.3 Anime
Tom, sometimes I use your blog to just go buy the records/pressings you recommend, either at my shop or on discogs. For this title, I’ve never noticed it on your site (maybe it’s been there, but I just glanced at it and moved on) and not knowing the music, I wasn’t sure I’d want to pay hot stamper prices for it, even if one did come around. I can attest that it indeed sounds fantastic, based on the copy I found on discogs. Piano is clear and strong. Not really weighty, but that could be the music rather than the recording or pressing. However, my copy does have some distortion in one channel on one side. That either means I should be changing my cartridge slightly for each record I play, now that I have incredible resolution, or that this copy is actually a little flawed.
Aaron,
You should hear a problem like that on maybe one out of five hundred records, and practically never on an audiophile record that was not played much, which is the condition that most of them can be found in. You need to look to your cartridge and arm for that distortion. It’s extremely unlikely it is the fault of the record.
TP