Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Claude Debussy Available Now
UPDATE 2026
This is a very old review, one which we ourselves may no longer agree with. If you see this record in the bins for cheap, give it a try, but don’t pay a high price for it on our say-so.
The record that contains our current favorite performance with top quality sound for La Mer was conducted by Ansermet for Decca in 1955. We rarely have it in stock
For Don Juan we like Haitink’s recording for Philips from 1975.
Note that classical and orchestral records made from 1955 to 1975 make up practically all of our offerings of this kind of music. In the 70s things went downhill, and quickly.
One reason among many:
A mediocre Decca recording from 1972 was remastered in 1981 by an audiophile label trying to “improve” it. Sure enough, with their ridiculously misguided mastering decisions and wacky cutting system they made it even worse.
This is an oft-told tale here at The Skeptical Audiophile. We’ve published hundreds of commentaries just like it in the hopes that audiophiles will avoid flushing their hard-earned cash down the toilet by not buying records that have very little hope of sounding good.
This is an exceptionally good sounding copy, full of that RCA Living Stereo magic.
Excellent performance from Reiner as well. On a work like La Mer the timbre of the instruments is critical to the enjoyment of the piece, as they often play solo and in small groupings. This record captures those qualities perfectly.
This record also includes Strauss’ Don Juan, which never sounds good on this title and is best left unplayed.
This is an older classical/orchestral review
Most of the older reviews you see are for records that did not go through the shootout process, the revolutionary approach to finding better sounding pressings we started developing in the early 2000s and have since turned into a veritable science.
We found the records you see in these older listings by cleaning and playing a pressing or two of the album, which we then described and priced based on how good the sound and surfaces were. (For out Hot Stamper listings, the sonic grades and vinyl playgrades are listed separately.)
We were often wrong back in those days, something we have no reason to hide. Audio equipment and record cleaning technologies have come a long way since those darker days, a subject we discuss here.
Currently, 99% (or more!) of the records we sell are cleaned, then auditioned under rigorously controlled conditions, up against a number of other pressings. We award them sonic grades, and then condition check them for surface noise.
As you may imagine, this approach requires a great deal of time, effort and skill, which is why we currently have a highly trained staff of about ten. No individual or business without the aid of such a committed group could possibly dig as deep into the sound of records as we have, and it is unlikely that anyone besides us will ever come along to do the kind of work we do.
The term “Hot Stampers” gets thrown around a lot these days, but to us it means only one thing: a record that has been through the shootout process and found to be of exceptionally high quality.
The result of our labor is the hundreds of titles seen here, every one of which is unique and guaranteed to be the best sounding copy of the album you have ever heard or you get your money back.
Further Reading