_Composers – Brahms

Brahms / Piano Concerto No. 1 – What to Listen For

Hot Stamper Pressings of of the Music of Brahms Available Now

Our general notes for the recording seen below explain why the typical copy in our shootout fell short.

This is an LP with lots of tube compression, and some added brightness.

Without the added brightness, the piano would probably be mud.

The added brightness and compression results in a piano that always sounds rich and natural in the quieter passages.

The average copy also has some veiling or smearing that make the solo piano parts sound like they are coming fom behind a curtain. On these copies, the big peaks can often get strident and very messy.

It’s difficult to find a copy that has all the top end extension and space required to reproduce both a realistic piano and the massive live sound the orchestra is capable of.

All of which adds up to a difficult shootout in which relatively few copies had the sound we were looking for.

Production and Enginneering

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It’s Records Like This that Give Decca Reissues a Bad Reputation

Hot Stamper Pressings of of the Music of Johannes Brahms Available Now

Apparently mastered with no regard to sound quality, this Decca SPA reissue is a mess.

How do we know that? We go out of our way to play every pressing we can get our hands on, even cheap reissues such as this. That’s our job.  We play everything to find the best sounding records so you don’t have to.

And some of these cheap reissues win shootouts!

But you can’t guess which ones will. You have to play them to find out.

And that’s how we know that some of them are good, some of them are mediocre, and some, like this one, are just awful.

Want to be assured of getting good sounding pressings of the greatest classical recordings of all time?

Step right up and order anything classical or orchestral you see here, Every one of them is guaranteed to please.

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Brahms – Piano Concerto No. 1 / Curzon

More of the Music of Johannes Brahms

  • Incredible sound throughout this early London pressing of Curzon and the LSO’s dynamic performance, with a STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side one
  • It’s also fairly quiet at Mint Minus Minus, a grade that even our most well-cared-for vintage classical titles have trouble playing at
  • Both sides boast full brass and an especially clear, solid, present piano, one with practically no trace of smear — the right combination of richness and clarity is what allows the best pressings of this album to sound like live music
  • With huge amounts of hall space, weight and energy, this is a Demo Disc by any standard
  • Some old record collectors (like me) say classical recording quality ain’t what it used to be – here’s all the proof anyone with two working ears and top quality audiophile equipment would need to make that case
  • Speakers Corner did a creditable job remastering the record back in the early days of Heavy Vinyl, but one thing you can be sure of: theirs won’t hold a candle to the Hot Stamper pressings we are offering

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In 2005 We Were (Probably) Way Off the Mark for Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Titles Available Now

UPDATE 2024: This is a very old review. We would no longer agree with the assertion that the White Dog pressings are better sounding than the Shaded Dogs. In our recent shootout, the first one I can remember since 2005 — that was 19 years ago! — the White Dogs did not do nearly as well as the Shaded Dogs we have on hand.

This White Dog pressing is the best sounding copy I’ve ever heard, much better than the earlier pressings. The piano doesn’t break up like it does on those, especially in the second movement.

Finally the piano sounds right – solid and with the correct overtones. It goes without saying that this is an exceptionally good performance as well.

One of the best of the Cliburn recordings which, as you may know, are rarely any good, the worst of them being LSC 2252 and the best of them being, probably, LSC 2507.

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 could ever come along to do the kind of work we do.

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Elgar / Enigma Variations / Monteux

More Classical and Orchestral Recordings

  • A vintage copy (VICS 1107) of two superb performances by Monteux and the London Symphony Orchestra boasting INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from first note to last
  • These sides are richer, fuller and livelier than all others we played, as well as more open and transparent, with notably improved clarity, less smear, and better bass
  • This is a spectacular recording – it’s guaranteed to put to shame any Heavy Vinyl pressing of orchestral music you own
  •  When you hear how good this record sounds, you may have a hard time believing that it’s a budget reissue from 1965, but that’s precisely what it is.
  • Even more extraordinary, the right copies are the ones that win shootouts
  • There are about 150 orchestral recordings we’ve awarded the honor of offering the Best Performances with the Highest Quality Sound, and this recording certainly deserve a place on that list.

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Brahms – Concerto for Violin and Cello on the Masterworks Label

More Recordings Featuring the Violin

More Vintage Columbia Pressings

  • An outstanding reissue of this wonderful Columbia recording with Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • The right reissues can sound quite good, as is the case here – the best early pressings are better, but plenty of early pressings just sound like old records, which simply means that having a clean original is no guarantee of anything in this crazy record world
  • This copy showed us the balance of clarity and sweetness we were looking for in the violin and cello – not many Columbia recordings from this era can do that
  • Some old record collectors (like me) say classical recording quality ain’t what it used to be – here’s the proof
  •  When you hear how good this record sounds, you may have a hard time believing that it’s a budget reissue from the ’70s, but that’s precisely what it is and we don’t mind saying so
  • Even more extraordinary, try wrapping your head around budget reissue pressings for other titles that actually win shootouts, and we’re especially proud of the fact that we’ve discovered quite a number of them

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Brahms / Sonatas Nos. 2 & 3 / Rubinstein and Szeryng – Reviewed in 2010

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Titles Available Now

3S/4S RCA Shaded Dog. Third in a series of masterpieces for violin and piano.

This is one of the pressings we’ve discovered with Reversed Polarity.

The sound is actually quite decent when you INVERT the ABSOLUTE PHASE. If you cannot or will not do that, this record will not sound good — it’s somewhat hard and bright.

This is an Older Classical/Orchestral Review

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Records Like This Give Decca’s Reissues a Bad Reputation

Hot Stamper Pressings of of the Music of Johannes Brahms Available Now

Apparently mastered with no regard to sound quality, this Decca SPA reissue is muddy, dull, congested and full of harmonic distortion in the louder passages.

How do we know that? We go out of our way to play every pressing we can get our hands on, even cheap reissues such as this. That’s our job.  We play everything to find the best sounding records so you don’t have to.

And some of these cheap reissues win shootouts!

But you can’t guess which ones will. You have to play them to find out.

And that’s how we know that some of them are good, some of them are mediocre, and some, like this one, are just awful.

Want to be assured of getting good sounding pressings of the greatest classical recordings of all time?

Step right up and order anything classical or orchestral you see here, Every one of them is guaranteed to please.

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.

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Allow Us to Make the Case that Even CDs Have Better Sound than Classic’s Vinyl

brahmvioli_1903_debunk

Hot Stamper Classical and Orchestral Pressings Available Now

The Classic reissue of LSC 1903 is a disaster: shrill, smeary and profoundly unmusical.

In these four words we can describe the sound of the average Classic Records Living Stereo pressing.

The best Heifetz records on Classic were, if memory serves, LSC 2734 (Glazunov), LSC 2603 (Bruch) and LSC 2769 (Rozsa).

They aren’t nearly as offensive as the others, and one is actually quite good. If you can pick one up for ten or twenty bucks, you might get your money’s worth depending, I suppose, on how critically you listen to your classical records.

The CDs are better for all I know. That’s probably the first place to go, considering Classic’s generally poor track record.

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Brahms – Concerto for Violin and Cello (360 Label)

More Recordings Featuring the Violin

  • An outstanding 360 copy of this wonderful Columbia recording – you’ll find solid Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish on this pressing
  • This copy showed us the balance of clarity and sweetness we were looking for in the violin and cello – not many Columbia recordings from this era can do that
  • This recording is big, clear, transparent and energetic, and is guaranteed to put to shame any Heavy Vinyl classical pressing you own
  • Some old record collectors (like me) say classical recording quality ain’t what it used to be – here’s the proof

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