Speakers Corner -All

Speakers Corner – All Titles

This Speakers Corner Pressing Had Us Fooled

More of the Music of Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66

We were very impressed with the Speakers Corner pressing of this album when it came out on Heavy Vinyl in 2001. We simply could not find a vintage pressing that could beat it. I actually took it over to a good customer’s house so that he could hear how much better the album sounded on Heavy Vinyl when played head to head with whatever vintage pressing he might have had in his collection.

I’m sure you can see where this is going. I could not have been more wrong.

His copy smoked mine right from the get-go. I wiped the egg off my face, wrote down the stamper numbers for his copy, and proceeded to get hold of some good early pressings so that I could find a copy that sounded the way his did — which was awesome, the best it had ever sounded, even on a system (Infinity speakers, Audio Research electronics) that I had never much cared for. (His system is set up in a basement with a low ceiling, a problem that cannot be solved with good equipment, room treatements or anything else for that matter.)

Eventually — eventually in this case being at least five years and maybe more —  we felt we had this album’s number and knew which pressings tended to have the goods and which ones didn’t. All that was left was to do  was to clean up the stock we had and do the shootout so that we could actually be sure, or sure enough, keeping in mind that all knowledge about records is provisional.

This would have been about 2010, and we would learn a lot, but we would keep learning more about the album with every subsequent shootouts, close to ten by now I should think.

Live and Learn

These kinds of Heavy Vinyl pressings used to sound good on older systems, and I should know, I had an old school stereo even into the 90s.

Some of the records that sounded good to me back in the day don’t sound too good to me anymore.

The Speakers Corner pressing is decent, not bad, but by no stretch of the imagination would it ever be able to compete with any Hot Stamper pressing you might see on our site.

Problem Solved?

(more…)

Albeniz / Suite Espanola – Speakers Corner Reviewed

More of the music of Isaac Albeniz (1860-1909)

Years ago we wrote the review you see below. Not sure we would still find the record as good sounding as we did back then, in the ’90s, so take it for what it’s worth. (What I couldn’t hear on my system back in those days may be of interest to some of you.)

If you can pick one up for cheap, it’s probably a good record for the price.

One of the better Speakers Corner Deccas! Excellent sound and lovely music. This pressing also sounds much better than the Super Analogue pressing of the same music.

When you get the right original pressing — London or Decca — they’re even better, but they sure are hard to find on quiet vinyl.

That last part we definitely agree with.

(more…)

If You Can’t Make a Good Record, Why Make Any Record At All?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Steely Dan Available Now

This Speakers Corner Heavy Vinyl pressing has to be one of the worst sounding versions of the album ever pressed.

You think the average ABC or MCA pressing is opaque, flat and lifeless, not to mention compromised at both ends of the frequency spectrum?

You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!

As bad as the typical copy of this album is, the Speakers Corner Heavy Vinyl is even worse, with not a single redeeming quality to its credit.

If this is what passes for an Audiophile Record these days, and it is, it’s just one more nail in the coffin for Heavy Vinyl.

But that’s not the half of it.

Go to Acoustic Sounds’ website and read all the positive customer reviews — they love it! Is there any heavy vinyl pressing on the planet that a sizable contingent of audiophiles won’t say something nice about, no matter how bad it sounds? I can’t think of one.

To sum up, this record is nothing less than an affront to analog itself. I guarantee you the CD is better, if you get a good one. I own four or five and the best of them has far more musical energy than this thick, dull, opaque and boring piece of audiophile analog trash.

It was probably made from a digital copy of the master, or more likely a digital copy of an analog dub of the master — three generations, that’s sure what it sounds like — but that’s no excuse.

If you can’t make a good record, don’t make any record at all. Shelve the project. The audiophile vinyl world is drowning in bad sounding pressings; we don’t need any more, thank you very much.

(more…)

Sassy on Speakers Corner Vinyl

Hot Stamper Pressings of Pop and Jazz Vocal Albums Available Now

Sonic Grade: F

An Audiophile Hall of Shame pressing, recorded in 1956 and remastered, badly, in 1999.

The Speakers Corner version of this record is awful. It’s bright and GRAINY.

If you want a good Sarah Vaughan record, try the album just called Sarah Vaughan that Speakers Corner put out in 2004. 

Further Reading

Oscar Peterson on Speakers Corner Heavy Vinyl

More of the Music of Oscar Peterson

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Oscar Peterson

Sonic Grade: F

More vinyl dreck from Speakers Corner. I played this record back in the ’90s and was astonished at how bad the sound was.

They eventually realized that the tapes they had available to them should never have been used. The newer version has been remixed from the three-track masters. It may be fine, it may not, we will never bother to get one in and play it, but if you do decide to buy one, make sure to have a return guarantee.

Nothing this label does can be trusted.

It’s an Audiophile Hall of Shame pressing and yet another Disastrous Heavy Vinyl release that proves this label had no shame.

Is it the worst version of the album ever made? Hard to imagine it would have much competition. The CD I have is dramatically better.

If you put your faith in what Speakers Corner said about their process and bought this crappy remaster, I hope you learned at least one lesson from your mistake: never believe anything an audiophile label has to say about anything. 

Cut from original master tapes, pure analog mastering on Neumann VMS 80

Superior sound quality

(more…)

Schubert / The Trout Quintet – Speakers Corner Heavy Vinyl

Hot Stamper Pressings of Recordings by Decca Available Now

Sonic Grade: B?

One of the better Speakers Corner Deccas. We were impressed with the Speakers Corner pressing when it came out back in the day. We’ve come to learn that it is such an exceptional recording that even their second rate remastering of it was still capable of resulting in a very good sounding record. 

One of the ways you can tell how great a recording this is is simply this: as soon as the needle hits the groove you are immediately involved in the music, listening to each of the lines created by the five preternaturally gifted players, all the while marveling at Schubert’s compositional skills.

(more…)

Dvorak / Symphony No. 9 – Probably a Good Speakers Corner Release

More of the music of Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904)

The one recording of this work that seemed to us to have the best balance of sound and performance was conducted by Istvan Kertesz. His recording with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1961, his debut for Decca as a matter of fact, is the one that ended up winning our shootout of a dozen pressings or so.

You may be aware that Speakers Corner remastered this recording  in the ’90s. We carried it and recommended it highly at the time.

Now that we have much better equipment and much higher standards than we did then, we probably would not like it as well. Still, if you can pick one up for cheap, something close to the thirty bucks we used to charge, it might not be such a bad deal.

I will be happy to give Speakers Corner credit for knowing which recording of the work was most deserving of remastering. They make a lot of mistakes, but this is not one of them.

Unsurprisingly, we prefer a later mastering of the recording, not the original.

Here are more reviews of music conducted by Kertesz, a man whose work we very much admire.

(more…)

1812 Overture on Speakers Corner

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Tchaikovsky Available Now

Our catalog from the 90s recommended this Heavy Vinyl Decca pressing from Speakers Corner.

We haven’t played a copy of this record in years, but back in the day we liked it, so let’s call it a “B” with the caveat that the older the review, the more likely we are to have changed our minds. Not sure if we would still agree with what we wrote back in the ’90s when this record came out, but here it is anyway.

Excellent, one of the best of the Deccas. Better sound by far than the Classic with Reiner, although of course the original of that record is quite good [actually it is not].

You may get better results if you reverse your polarity when playing this record. It’s been a while since I did it so better to check it yourself and see how you like it each way.

Years ago we wrote the review you see above. Doubtful that we would still find the record as good sounding as we did back then, in the 90s, so take it for what it’s worth. (What I couldn’t hear on my system back in those days may be of interest to some of you.)

If you can pick one up for cheap, it’s probably a good record for the price.

What to Listen For

As a general rule, this Heavy Vinyl pressing will fall short in some or all of the following areas when played head to head against the vintage pressings we offer:

(more…)

Stravinsky / Le Sacre du Printemps – Speakers Corner Reviewed

More of the music of Igor Stravinsky

We used to think this was one of the better Speakers Corner Deccas.

Having recently played the London pressing of the same performance (CS 6885), cut by Decca of course, we think we are almost certainly wrong about the quality of the sound, but who knows? Maybe Speakers Corner remastered the record properly and fixed its shortcomings.

Hah, just joking. In our experience that has never happened and we think it is very unlikely that it ever will.

Years ago we wrote the following:

Wow! What a performance! What dynamic full bodied sound! To be fair, I pulled out my original London, one of those awful mid-’70s English pressings that are never quiet, and yes, some of the ambience on the original is missing here on the new version, but everything else seems right: dynamics, tonality, the frequency extremes (including some pretty awesome deep bass).

Some of the above could be right, the parts about the tonality and such. Speakers Corner could have added some bass and lower midrange to make the sound less thin, and taken out some of the upper midrange to make the loud passages less blary, but it certainly doesn’t solve the most serious issues we had with the recording, which is the fact that it is opaque and flat, two qualities that are the death of orchestral music on vinyl.

Here are the notes we made for the London.

The two paragraphs you see reproduced below are also full of bad advice we had given out in the past:

1. Can’t be sure we would still feel that way but I’m guessing this is a good record if you can pick one up at a cheap price. 

2. If you have a quiet original, great, consider yourself lucky. As few of you have any copy at all, I recommend this one. The alternative is to miss Solti’s energetic performance and the precision of the Chicago Symphony, one of the few orchestras capable of making sense out of this complex and infuriating work. (At least it used to infuriate audiences. Now our modern ears can take a difficult work like this and appreciate the complex rhythms and atonality as the expression of a truly original mind.

This paragraph we would still agree with wholeheartedly:

This is not music to play while you are having dinner. This is music to engage the mind fully. It belongs in any collection. Yours in fact. Unless you have small speakers, in which case you would be wasting your money, as small speakers cannot begin to reproduce the power of this work in the hands of Solti and the CSO [or anybody else for that matter].

Two Reviews of Child Is Father to the Man – Fremer Vs. Better Records

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Blood, Sweat and Tears Available Now

In 2010 MF reviewed both the Sundazed and Speakers Corner Heavy Vinyl pressings of the album.

I think his review is mistaken on a number of counts, and mostly unhelpful. The commentary below will discuss his errors in more detail, in the hopes that you, dear reader, will not make the same mistakes yourself. 

He talks about his history with the album for a while, and then notes:

Anyway, the original “360 Sound” edition of this record sounds fantastic. It’s a high quality Columbia studio recording, with vivid harmonics, impressive transparency and dynamics, shimmering highs and tight extended bass. The soundstage is expansive and the images tightly presented. I’m not sure it can get much better than the original given how well-pressed Columbia records were in those days, especially if you have a clean original.

We, however, seem to hold precisely the opposite view. I quote from our review:

Why did it take us so long [to do a Hot Stamper shootout]? Let me ask you this: have you ever played this album? The average copy of this record is a sonic MESS. Even the best copies have problems.

We then go on to discuss in detail what most copies do wrong and what to listen for in order to find a copy that gets it right. (More on that later.)

Shortcomings? What Shortcomings?

Fremer continues:

There are two reissues of this. One is from Sundazed and there’s a far more expensive one from Speakers Corner…

The Speakers Corner reissue, which uses the wrong label art is pressed at Pallas and consequently it’s quieter and better finished overall. However, the Sundazed copy I got was very well finished and reasonably quiet, but not as quiet.

On the other hand the Speakers Corner version was somewhat more hyped up at the frequency extremes and cut somewhat hotter, but not objectionably so. The Sundazed sounds somewhat closer to the original overall, so for half the price, you do the math.

“Somewhat hyped up”? We liked it a whole lot less than Mr. Fremer apparently did. Early last year I gave it a big fat F for failure, writing at the time:

(more…)