Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Mozart Available Now
Neither the sound nor the performance of this 1960 Living Stereo are impressive.
LSC 2287 might be passable on an old school system, but it was too unpleasant to be played on the high quality modern equipment we use.
There are quite a number of other records that we’ve run into over the years with similar shortcomings. Here are some of them, a very small fraction of what we’ve played, broken down by label.
More of the music of Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
About 30 years ago I got hold of a Japanese pressing of Marriner conducting The Toy Symphony and was blown away by the quality of the sound. When listing the record for sale, I raved:
“DEMO QUALITY SOUND! This is the best sounding Toy Symphony you will ever hear!”
Now we know definitely that this is clearly not true.
We did the shootout in 2022 and found out that the best of the original EMI pressings are quite a bit better, a classic case of live and learn.
I believe I had at least one or two UK EMI pressings to play against the Japanese ones, but all the details of how I came to this conclusion — a proto-shootout, carried out long before I knew how to do a real one — are lost to the mists of time.
My stereo was dramatically less revealing back then, I had not learned how to clean records properly, and those two facts, combined with the underdeveloped listening skills that go with them, helped me to arrive at the wrong conclusion.
No, the Japanese pressing, specifically targeted to audiophiles, or “soundphiles” if you like, is not superior to a properly mastered and pressed UK LP.
If you have more than a handful of Japanese pressings in your collection, you can be sure that there is still plenty of room for improvement in your audio system.
Hot Stamper Classical and Orchestral Imports on Decca & London
We were impressed with the Speakers Corner pressing of this album when it came out back in 1994. We wrote at the time:
Probably the best sound and performance of the Eine Kleine available — highly recommended!
We haven’t played a copy in years, 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.
Our Hot Stamper classical pressings will be dramatically more transparent, open, clear and just plain REAL sounding, because these are all the areas in which heavy vinyl pressings tend to fall short in in our experience.
This vintage pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound.
This is a Very Rare Ark LP. The piece by Mozart on side one has a 16 cycle note. Since it has virtually no overtones, the note is more often than not completely undetectable; few stereos in my experience have ever been able to reproduce it. If you have a full-range system, this record will allow you to hear deep bass you may have never heard before.
Let me warn you that these records require extremely transparent, full-bandwidth, neutral stereo systems to sound their best. Most records are “goosed up” in various ways to play on any stereo, regardless of quality. These Fulton records have the opposite of that sound.
From my admittedly prejudiced point of view, tubes are an absolute must for the magic of these live recordings to come through. (Or so I thought in 2006. Now, not so much.)
If your system leans more toward the budget side, these Ark records will leave you wondering what in the world that Tom Port character was talking about.
And of course organ records require good deep bass, the hardest part of the frequency range to reproduce in the typical living room. With this organ record at least you’ll know what the goal should be.
This original plum label Victrola pressing from 1965 has SUPERB sound on both sides. The Bach piece is a rich tapestry of strings spread across the stage and clearly separated left to right. There’s not much depth but that seems of little consequence; all the instruments are heard in their proper space and location. The tonality is right on the money throughout.
The Mozart concerto starts out sounding a bit opaque, but about an inch or so into the side it opens up wonderfully, with sweet, spacious, natural sound from there on out. Jaime Laredo plays both works superbly, and the Living Stereo quality sound brings his playing to life in a way that few recordings can.
Although never released as a real LSC, this Victrola pressing is every bit the equal of most of the better Living Stereo pressings. (more…)