Hot Stamper Pressings on Decca and London Available Now
UPDATE 2026
Speakers Corner remastered the recording (seen here) in the 90s and we carried it back in the day, which means that the sound had to be acceptable, if not in fact very good, or so we thought.
We played all their releases for sound and only carried the ones that met our standards, standards which have obviously changed radically since then.
I doubt we would care for their Heavy Vinyl LP now, but you never know, that was a long time ago.
When we finally got hold of a real live vintage pressing to audition, we realized that the Heavy Vinyl pressing was mediocre at best. Like so much of what is pressed these days, it’s not much more than a passable reissue best suited to those collectors who need quiet vinyl and can put up with nothing-special sound.
Our Older Review
This is a SUPERB recording, a real sleeper in the world of audiophile pressings. The sound is as BIG, BOLD and DYNAMIC as practically any classical record you can name. And the distortion level is vanishingly small as well.
This British pressing has an AMAZING SIDE ONE (A++) backed with an excellent side two (A+), both on very quiet vinyl.
I’m a fan of this music and here’s a pressing that really delivers. Side one of the album has the complete Suite, and with Super Hot Stamper sound this copy is guaranteed to knock you out.
One of the top Kertesz recordings on London.
Engineering
Kenneth Wilkinson engineered this album for Decca in 1965.
What makes the sound of these recordings so special is the timbral accuracy of the instruments in every section.
This is the kind of record that will make you want to take all your heavy vinyl classical pressings and put them in storage. They cannot begin to sound the way this record sounds. (Before you put them in storage or on Ebay please play them against this pressing so that you can be confident in your decision to rid yourself of their mediocrity.)
Quality record production is a lost art, and it’s been lost for a very long time.
Side One
Hary Janos Suite
1. Prelude — The Fairy Tale Begins
2. Viennese Musical Clock
3. Song
4. The Battle and Defeat of Napoleon
5. Intermezzo
6. Entrance of the Emperor and His Court
Side Two
Dances of Galanta
Arias from Hary Janos
1. Szegeny Vagyok
2. Hej Ket Tikom
Further Reading
Here are some of our reviews and commentaries concerning the many Heavy Vinyl pressings we’ve played over the years, well over 300 at this stage of the game in 2026.
Even as recently as the early 2000s we were still impressed somewhat with the better Heavy Vinyl pressings. If we had never made the progress we’ve worked so hard to make over the course of the last twenty or more years, perhaps we would find more merit in the Heavy Vinyl reissues so many audiophiles are enamored with these days.
We’ll never know of course; that’s a bell that can be unrung. We did the work, we can’t undo it, and the system that resulted from it is merciless in revealing the truth — that these newer pressings are second-rate at best and much more often than not third-rate and even worse.
Some audiophile records have such bad sound that I was pissed off to the point of creating a special sh*t list for them. As of 2025, it contains close to 300 titles. That is a lot of bad sounding audiophile records! I should know, I played an awful lot of them.
Having now retired, I’m pleased to be able to leave that job in the more than capable hands of the listening crew at Better Records. They have been playing many of the newer releases and finding the sound is every bit as bad or worse these days.
Setting higher standards — no, being able to set higher standards — in our minds is a clear mark of progress. Judging by the hundreds of letters we’ve received, especially the ones comparing our records to their Heavy Vinyl and Half-Speed mastered counterparts, we know that our customers see things the same way.