_Composers – Khachaturian

Bose Salutes the Sound Of Mercury Records (and Some Audio Lessons Learned Long Ago)

Hot Stamper Pressings of Mercury Recordings Available Now

This Bose / Mercury Demonstration LP is autographed by none other than Amar G. Bose. The autograph reads “To EMI, with regards and best wishes, Amar G. Bose.”

Bose may not have ever made very good speakers, but they sure knew good recordings when they heard them. This LP has excerpts from some of the top Mercury titles, including music by Copland (El Salon Mexico), Kodaly (Hary Janos Suite), Mussorgsky/ Ravel (Pictures At An Exhibition), and Rimsky-Korsakov (Russian Easter Overture).

I played one of these Bose records years ago and was surprised at how good it sounded. The transfers of the Mercury tapes were excellent. I guess that makes sense — if you want to show off your speakers you had better use a well-mastered record for the demonstration.

I was duped into buying my first real audiophile speaker, Infinity Monitors, when the clever salesman played Sheffield’s S9 through them. I bought them on the spot. It was only later when I got home that none of my other records sounded as good, or even good for that matter. That was my first exposure to a Direct to Disc recording.

To this day I can still picture the room the Infinity’s were playing in. It was a watershed moment in my audiophile life.

And of course I couldn’t wait to get rid of them once I’d heard them in my own system with my own records. I quickly traded them in for a pair of RTR 280-DRs. Now that was a great speaker! A 15 panel RTR Electrostatic unit for the highs; lots of woofers and mids and even a piezo tweeter for the rest. More than 5 feet tall and well over 100 pounds each, that speaker ROCKED.

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Rimsky-Korsakoff, Saint-Saens, Prokofieff – Destination Stereo

More Classical and Orchestral Recordings

  • Boasting two STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) Living Stereo sides, this original Shaded Dog pressing is the BEST we have ever heard
  • 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
  • Explosive dynamics, huge space and size, unerringly correct tonality, this is a Demo Disc like no other
  • Shockingly real – proof positive that the cutting systems of the day are capable of much better sound than some audiophiles might think – if more evidence of that fact is what you’re after, see here and here
  • It has all the Living Stereo magic one could ask for, as well as the bass and dynamics that are missing from other Golden Age records
  • If you’re a fan of orchestral showpieces such as these, this Living Stereo from 1959 belongs in your collection.

This record is designed to show off the Living Stereo sound at its best and it succeeds magnificently. The full range of colors of the orchestra are presented here with remarkable clarity, dynamic contrast, spaciousness, sweetness, and timbral accuracy.

If you want to demonstrate to a novice listener why modern recordings are unsatisfactory, all you have to do is play this record for them. No CD ever sounded like this.

Just play “Gnomus” to hear The Power of the Orchestra, Living Stereo style.

The fourth and fifth movements of “Capriccio Espagnol,” the second track on side one, sound superb, clearly better here than on the Shaded Dog pressings we played a few years ago (which were terrible and never made it to the site. Great performance but bad mastering of what obviously was a very good master tape).

You can also hear the Living Stereo sound especially well on the excerpt from “The Fourth of July” performed by Morton Gould. It’s one of the best sounding tracks here.

When “in-the-know” audiophiles discuss three-dimensionality, soundstaging and depth, they should be talking about a record that sounds like this.

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Khachaturian Conducts Spartacus – Not As Good As We Thought

Hot Stamper Pressings of Orchestral Spectaculars Available Now

Probably more than ten years ago we had written the following about CS 6322:

The famous TAS list recording. The Decca 180 gram version is very good, but those of you who appreciate the qualities of the original mastering will want to have this one. 

Now jump ahead five years to five years ago. We played three or four copies of the album and none of them really worked for us.

The sound was a bit opaque, a bit dry, and not nearly as tubey as we would have liked. (Many Decca recordings suffer from dry strings, a shortcoming that is apparently rarely noticed by audiophiles and the reviewers who write for them.)

A good record, not a great one, and for that reason really not worth cleaning up and doing a shootout for.  The best copy would not pay for the labor to discover it.

Seems we got this one wrong. Live and learn is our motto, for precisely this reason.

There are quite a number of others that we’ve run into over the years with similar shortcomings. Here they are, broken down by label.

  • London/Decca records with weak sound or performances
  • Mercury records with weak sound or performances
  • RCA records with weak sound or performances

To this day, some of the records on the TAS list seem to me better suited to the old school audio systems of the 60s and 70s than the modern systems of today. These kinds of records used to sound good on those older systems, and I should know, I had an old school stereo and some of the records I used to think sounded good back in the day don’t sound too good to me anymore.

For a more complete list of those records, not just the ones on the TAS List, click here.

The following three things are best kept in mind when a pressing doesn’t sound like we remember it did, or think it should:

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Destination Stereo – A Living Stereo Demo Disc

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Titles Available Now

Your Destination — Stereo!

“Your passport to great music in new sound by the world’s greatest artists.”

This review was written about ten years ago.

This reasonably quiet RCA Shaded Dog LP has DEMONSTRATION QUALITY SOUND on BOTH sides. It is without a doubt THE best sounding copy we have ever heard*.

Side one is White Hot, with some of the best 1959 Living Stereo we’ve ever heard. Explosive dynamics, HUGE space and size, with unerringly correct tonality, this is a Demo Disc like no other.

When “in-the-know” audiophiles discuss three-dimensionality, soundstaging and depth, they should be talking about a record that sounds like this.

Shockingly real – proof positive that the cutting systems of the day are capable of much better sound than many might think. 

(We admit that we have made the mistake of wrongthink in this regard.)

This record is designed to show off the Living Stereo sound at its best and it succeeds magnificently. The full range of colors of the orchestra are here presented with remarkable clarity, dynamic contrast, spaciousness, sweetness, and timbral accuracy.

If you want to demonstrate to a novice listener why modern recordings are unsatisfactory, all you have to do is play this record for them. No CD ever sounded like this.

Just play Gnomus to hear The Power of the Orchestra, Living Stereo style.

The fourth and fifth movements of Capriccio Espagnol, the second track on side one, sound superb, CLEARLY better here than on the Shaded Dog pressings of the original album we played about a year ago (which were terrible and never made it to the site. Great performance but bad mastering of what obviously was a very good master tape).

You can also hear the Living Stereo sound especially well on the excerpt from “The Fourth of July” performed by Morton Gould. It’s one of the best sounding tracks here.

I don’t think the RCA engineers can cut this record much better — it has all the Living Stereo magic one could ask for, as well as the bass and dynamics that are missing from so many other vintage Golden Age records.

This is as good as it gets, folks.

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Compromised Recordings and the Rapture of the Purely Musical Experience

Hot Stamper Classical and Orchestral Pressings Available Now

The best classical recordings of the ’50s and ’60s, like the wonderful Mercury you see pictured, were compromised in every imaginable way.

Yet somehow they manage to stand head and shoulders above virtually anything that has come after them. How is that possible?

Well, having taken advantage of scores of revolutionary changes in audio that have come to pass since those days, finally we can hear them in all their glory on the kind of high quality playback equipment that exists today.

The music lives and breathes on those old LPs. Playing them you find yourself in the Living Presence of the musicians. You become lost in the performances captured in the grooves of these old records.

Whatever the limitations of the medium, they seem to fade quickly from consciousness. What remains is the rapture of the musical experience.

That’s what happens when a good record meets a good turntable.

We live for records like these. It’s the reason we all get up in the morning and come to work, to find and play good records. It’s what this site is all about — offering the audiophile music lover recordings that provide real musical satisfaction. It’s hard work — so hard that nobody else seems to want to do it — but the payoff makes it all worthwhile. To us anyway. Hope you feel the same.

The One Out of Ten Rule

If you have too many classical records taking up too much space and need to winnow them down to a more manageable size, pick a composer and play half a dozen of his works.

Most classical records display an irredeemable mediocrity right from the start; it doesn’t take a pair of golden ears to hear it.

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Khachaturian / Masquerade Suite / Kondrashin

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Titles Available Now

EXCELLENT SOUND for this TAS List Shaded Dog, with each side earning an A++ grade and playing relatively quietly.

This is a BIG one folks, as most of you probably know already. It is not easy to find copies of this album with excellent sound and fairly quiet surfaces on both sides, and if you don’t believe me, I encourage you to try.

The violin is sweet and full of rosiny texture here. The whole string section is full of Living Stereo magic. The soundstage is wide and deep, the overall sound rich and warm. The midrange is nothing short of magical.

This is the kind of Golden Age recording that makes us audiophiles lose it. It’s one of the few legitimate reasons to take the TAS Super Disc List seriously in the first place. HP put records like this on the audiophile map and we owe him a debt of gratitude for having done so. Our musical lives are remarkably richer for it.

UPDATE 2022

Our current favorite recordings for sound and performance of The Comedians is this one.

These are the comments about a previous copy we had on the website (2001), many of which apply to this copy as well.

DEMO QUALITY. ONE OF THE BEST CLASSICAL RECORDINGS I HAVE EVER HEARD.

This recording is so natural it’s FREAKISH. You get swept up in the music completely because the sound allows you to forget it’s even a recording at all. All the normal adjectives apply; I won’t bother to repeat them here. If I ever make a list of the greatest recordings of all time, as Harry does with his “Best of the Bunch” dozen, you can bet that this record will be on it.

[I can’t say that I would be nearly as enthusiastic about this title nowadays as I was back then. Our playback system has gone through a lot of changes since 2001. The stereo I had back then (all tube, richer, darker and less revealing) no doubt was a better match for the best pressings of this recording than the one I have now.

Note also that we gave the record a Double Plus sonic grade, not the full Three Pluses a top copy would earn if it were as “freakishly good” as I thought at the time.]

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Khachaturian and Kabalevsky – Suites from Gayne and The Comedians / Golschmann

More Orchestral Spectaculars

  • With two Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides, we guarantee you’ve never heard either of these works sound remotely as good as they do here
  • Yes, these are not the performances audiophiles have long known about from their inclusion on the TAS Super Disc List – these are actually BETTER performances, with better sound in almost every possible way
  • The Comedians in Living Stereo may have more hall, but the performance is lackluster and stilted compared to the energy and precision Golschmann brings to the work
  • The TAS List Khachaturian on London/Decca is a good record, but frankly it has never impressed us as much as it impressed HP, and now with this Vanguard you can hear just how good this exciting, glorious music can sound, with a performance that is every bit as good or better than the composer’s own

There is an interesting story behind this album.

I collected this title for a decade or more after hearing a really good sounding copy a long time ago, probably fifteen or twenty years ago now that I think about it.

I then proceeded to pick them up whenever I saw them in my local shops. I might have found one every two to three years in audiophile playing condition.

After having them cleaned, one day a few years back I sat down and played them all.

To my chagrin only one copy had the White Hot Stamper sound I knew was on the record, the copy I had played so long ago.

The others were good, probably Super Hot, but the real thing takes the recording to another level.

Only one had the right stampers, and all the rest of the also-rans had different stampers.

And when I went looking online I could find no copies with the stampers I knew to be the best.

This is that copy. There is nothing else like it. Not sure when we will ever see its like again. (more…)

Tchaikovsky / Romeo & Juliet – On the Orange Label?

Hot Stamper Pressings of Classical Masterpieces Available Now

UPDATE 2025

This is a very old review from from way back in 2011 which we think is wildly off the mark.

I can’t remember when was the last time we played an Mercury Orange Label pressing that had sound competitive with the best earlier pressings.

Back in 2011 we liked reissue pressings of Golden Age recordings a lot more than we do now, so take the review below with a huge grain of salt. Only the advent of top quality cleaning equipment and much improved playback made it possible for us to hear the earlier pressings in all their glory.

A lot of records that I used to like because they were cleaner and brighter — later Red Seal Living Stereos, some OJC jazz, some reissues of rock — sounded much better when my system was darker and less revealing.

There are plenty of live and learn entries about these records. This one from 14+ years ago could (probably, the record is long gone and not around to be played) not be more wrong.

Our advice in 2025 would be to avoid any pressing on the Orange Mercury label.

We played an Orange label late reissue of this title a while back and had this to say about it:

DEMO QUALITY thanks to superb low distortion mastering. Another very exciting Mercury recording. Some of these Orange Label pressings, which are cut with much better cutting equipment than was available when the original album was released, can show you just how good the master tape really is.

This kind of sound is not easy to cut, and it appears that the amplifiers of the day just weren’t up to it. This copy gets rid of all the cutter-head distortion and coloration and allows you to hear what the Mercury engineers accomplished.

Dorati breathes fire into the famous Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet on side 2. Unfortunately, the mastering on this copy is not very good. The sound is bright and dry.

This work frequently is recorded with harsh sound; the orchestration must be difficult to capture on tape. But Mercury here seems to have managed a feat few others can claim. I’m guessing the earlier pressings have too much cutter distortion to get this one right; I don’t recall the other copies I’ve heard sounding this good.

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12s Is Killer on Fiedler’s Gaite Parisienne from 1959

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Recordings Available Now

UPDATE 2026

This listing for a 12s/12s pressing is from 2008. In 2004, we liked 11s/10s quite a bit.

Our favorite performance of Gaite Parisienne is the one from Readers Digest. (Don’t bother to look for it on our site. We never have any stock as it is too hard to find and usually too noisy for most audiophiles.)

12s Hot stampers. The best sounding copy I’ve ever heard.

Jim Mitchell is famous for pointing out that many of the RCA’s that were re-recorded a few years later are inferior to their earlier counterparts.

This record is no exception.

LSC 1817 is an amazing record.

This record is merely good, with depth, soundstaging, nice string tone, etc., but not the kind of sonic fireworks to be found on the 1954 2-track recording that RCA first did of the work.

A very good Sabre Dance as a bonus, check it out. It’s the lead off track on Destination Stereo (LSC 2307) for good reason: it sounds great.

Click on this link to read more reviews and commentaries for Gaite Parisienne.

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