_Composers – Stravinsky

Stravinsky / Petrushka / Mehta – Just Not Good Enough

Hot Stamper Pressings of Orchestral Imports on Decca & London

Reviews and Commentaries for Recordings by Decca

We’re big fans of Decca/London Records in general, but in this case the sound and the performances of this album are simply not good enough. 

We had three original UK pressed copies of CS 6554 and none of them sounded right to us.

What’s worse, Mehta and the Los Angeles Phil play the work poorly. How this album got released in 1967 I have no idea.

This London might be passable on an old school system, but it was too unpleasant to be played on the high quality modern equipment we (and we hope our customers) use.

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

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.

You can find this one in our hall of shame, along with others that — in our opinion — are best avoided by audiophiles looking for hi-fidelity sound. Some of these records may have passable, but the music is weak.  These are also records you can safely avoid.

We also have an audiophile record hall of shame for records that were marketed to audiophiles with claims of superior sound. If you’ve spent much time on this blog, you know that these records are some of the worst sounding pressings we have ever had the misfortune to play.

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Stravinsky / The Firebird – Dorati

More of the music of Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

Reviews and Commentaries for The Firebird

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  • One listen to either side of this pressing and you’ll see why this is one of the Top Mercury Titles of All Time
  • The Heavy Vinyl reissues – at 45 or 33, on one disc or four, makes no difference – barely begin to capture the energy and drive Dorati brings to the work
  • “The magic lies in the elaborate orchestration and the excitingly uneven rhythmic writing. Stravinsky changes the orchestration of his themes at each repetition, breaks them down into their constituent parts, pushes their accents across the bar-line, and moves them out of sync with their own accompaniments.”
  • There are about 150 orchestral recordings we’ve awarded the honor of offering the Best Performances with the Highest Quality Sound, and this record certainly deserve a place on that list.
  • 1960 was a great year for classical recordings – other Must Own Orchestral releases can be found here.

Neither side has peak distortion or Inner Groove Distortion of any kind, which is rare for this exceptionally dynamic title in our experience.

Both sides are so clear, ALIVE, and transparent, with huge hall space extending wall to wall and floor to ceiling. Zero compression.

This pressing boasts rich, sweet strings, especially for a Mercury. Both sides really get quiet in places, a sure sign that all the dynamics of the master tape were protected in the mastering of this copy. (more…)

Stravinsky / The Rite of Spring – The Ultimate Recording of the Work

More of the music of Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

More music conducted by Pierre Monteux

  • An outstanding Shaded Dog pressing with superb sound from start to finish
  • Perhaps the greatest performance ever, certainly our favorite for performance and sound – this is not an easy piece of music to record judging by how many awful sounding versions exist — we should know, we played them
  • Monteux knows the work as well as anyone — he himself conducted the premier in 1913!
  • Mind boggling in its power to move the listener – a classic Decca Tree recording from 1956 by the master, Mr. Kenneth Wilkinson
  • There are about 150 orchestral recordings we’ve awarded the honor of having the Best Performances with Top Quality Sound, and this recording certainly deserve a place on that list, close to the top I would think

It takes us three years — and a lot of hard work and a fair amount of luck — to get a shootout like this going.

The tympani and bass drum on this recording have few equals in our experience. This is the way HUGE and POWERFUL drums sound in concert. Those of you who go to classical concerts regularly will recognize that sound immediately. You probably also know that finding Golden Age recordings with this kind of deep bass is unusual to say the least.

The space and dynamic power of these sides are really something to hear on this groundbreaking work. Lush when quiet, clear and undistorted when loud, not many copies of Rite of Spring can do what these two sides can.

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Classic Records 45 RPM Recut – This Is Your Idea of a Great Firebird?

More of the music of Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

Reviews and Commentaries for The Firebird

Sonic Grade: D

Many years ago, a customer alerted me to a review Wayne Garcia wrote about various VPI platters and the rim drive, and this is what I wrote back to him:

Steve, after starting to read Wayne’s take on the platters, I came across this:

That mind-blowing epiphany that I hadn’t quite reached with the Rim Drive/Super Platter happened within seconds after I lowered the stylus onto the “Infernal Dance” episode of Stravinsky’s Firebird (45 rpm single-sided Classic Records reissue of the incomparable Dorati/LSO Mercury Living Presence recording).

That is one of my half-dozen or so favorite orchestral recordings, and I have played it countless times.

This is why I have so little faith in reviewers. I played that very record not two weeks ago (04/2010) against a good original and the recut was at best passable in comparison. If a reviewer cannot hear such an obvious difference in quality, why believe anything he has to say?

The reason we say that no reviewer can be trusted is that you cannot find a reviewer who does not say good things about demonstrably mediocre and even just plain awful records. It’s the only real evidence we have for their credibility, and the evidence is almost always damning.

I want a reviewer who knows better than to play such an underwhelming pressing and then waste my time telling me about it. He should tell us what a good record sounds like with this equipment mod. Then I might give more credence to what he has to say.

Reviewer malpractice? We’ve been writing about it for more than 25 years.

P.S.

This is one of the Classic Records titles on Harry Pearson’s TAS List of Super Discs (!).

P.P.S.

Allow me to quote a writer with his own website devoted to explaining and judging classical recordings of all kinds. His initials are A.S. for those of you who have been to his site.

Classic Records Reissues (both 33 and 45 RPM) – These are, by far, the best sounding Mercury pressings. Unfortunately, only six records were ever released by Classic. Three of them (Ravel, Prokofiev and Stravinsky) are among the very finest sounding records ever made by anyone. Every audiophile (with a turntable) should have these “big three”.

Obviously we could not disagree more. I’ve played all six of the Classic Mercury’s. The Chabrier, Ravel and Prokofiev titles are actually even worse than the Stravinsky we reviewed.

This same reviewer raved about a record we thought had godawful sound, Romantic Russia on MoFi, a label that never met an orchestral string section it didn’t think needed brightening.

Find me a Mobile Fidelity classical record with that little SR/2 in the dead wax that does not have bright string tone. I have yet to hear one.

What is it with audiophile record reviewers? They seem to be taken in by the most unnatural sounding pressings. The world is full of wonderful vintage pressings that have no such problems. If you are an audiophile who feels himself qualified to write about records, shouldn’t you at least be able to hear the difference between a phony audiophile pressing and the vintage pressings it supposedly improved?

The Absolute Sound is a good example of this kind of malpractice. Most of the records on the old list were vintage pressings, and most of the classical titles set a high standard (the popular titles not so much). Now it’s full of second- and third-rate heavy vinyl recuts that are about as far from Super Discs as you can get.

We went to some pains to show the audiophile community exactly what is wrong with this famous audiophile favorite, and how they could learn to spot one of its most objectionable shortcomings.

The fact that one of the “bad” versions of the album is on the TAS List, side by side with the Living Stereo, is a sign that the standards currently in effect over there have fallen about as far as they can fall.

One of the greatest piano concertos ever recorded is on the list, but so is this unbelievably bad Heavy Vinyl repress of it. Surely somebody at The Absolute Sound can hear the difference. It’s not subtle.

But maybe it is to them. And that’s a sign that they should stop promoting the equipment they write about. Judging by their inability to tell a good record from a bad one, it can’t be very good.

Further Reading

Below you will find our reviews of the more than 200 Heavy Vinyl pressings we’ve played over the years. Feel free to pick your poison.

And finally,

A Confession

Even as recently as the early 2000s, we were still impressed with many of the better Heavy Vinyl pressings. If we’d 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 seem impressed by.

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 sound so bad, I was pissed off enough to create a special list for them.

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.

Hovhaness / Mysterious Mountain / Reiner

More of the music of Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000)

More of the music of Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

  • Boasting two stunning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) Living Stereo sides, this vintage Shaded Dog pressing is close to the BEST we have ever heard, right up there with our Shootout Winner
  • Tons of energy, loads of rich detail and texture, superb transparency and excellent clarity – the very definition of Demo Disc sound
  • This record will have you asking why so few Living Stereo pressings actually do what this one does.
  • The more critical listeners among you will recognize that this is a very special copy indeed. Everyone else will just enjoy the hell out of it.
  • We’ve reviewed most of the famous recordings Fritz Reiner did for RCA, and those reviews can be found here
  • With the advent of the stereo LP, RCA produced a large number of album titles using the wonderful Living Stereo banner across the top of the jacket. The link above will take you to titles either recorded or released in 1958.

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Stravinsky / Song Of the Nightingale / Reiner

More of the music of Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)

More of the music of Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

  • A vintage Shaded Dog pressing of these popular 20th century works featuring superb Double Plus (A++) Living Stereo sound from first note to last
  • The orchestra is wide, tall, and the dynamics and transparency of this copy are first rate
  • Spacious, rich and smooth – only vintage analog seems capable of reproducing all three of these qualities without sacrificing resolution, staging, imaging or presence

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Stravinsky / Song of the Nightingale / Ansermet

More of the Music of Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

Hot Stamper Classical and Orchestral Imports on Decca & London

  • This vintage London stereo pressing of the L’Orchestre De La Suisse Romande‘s performance of Stravinsky’s symphonic poems earned STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades throughout
  • 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 of these sides are BIGGER and RICHER than all of what we played – they’re super clean and clear, tonally correct from top to bottom, and have all of the weight of the orchestra down low
  • Tons of energy, loads of detail and texture, superb transparency and excellent clarity – the very definition of demo disc sound
  • There are about 150 orchestral recordings we think offer the best performance coupled with the highest quality sound. This record has earned a place on that list.
  • More entries in our core collection of well recorded classical albums.

“Song of the Nightingale” is far more enjoyable in Ansermet’s hands than in Reiner’s or Dorati’s. The sound is significantly better on this pressing than on the Stereo Treasury, the RCA, and the Mercury versions.

Once past the obvious saturation that opens this recording, the sound is perfection. The percussion leaps off of this LP like it does with a good Direct To Disc recording.

The strength of this LP is “Song of the Nightingale.” The “Pulcinella Suite” never sounds as good. But what does?

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The Said and the Unsaid – The Firebird on Mercury

More of the music of Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

More Reviews and Commentaries of The Firebird

For our shootout years ago of The Firebird we had three minty, potentially hot copies of the Mercury with Dorati, as well as our noisy ref. (We have a noisy reference copy for just about every major title now. We have been doing these shootouts for a very long time. After thirty years in the record business we have accumulated a World Class collection of great sounding records that are just too noisy to sell.)

[UPDATE: as of 2024 this is no longer true. Our customers seem to be able to put up with surface noise on the records we offer if the price is low enough. Not actually low, just low enough. We have a section for records with condition issues, and there are 175 entries in it as of today, which turns out to be more than a quarter of all the Hot Stamper pressings on the site as a matter of fact.] 

We had one FR pressing and two of the later pressings with the lighter label, the ones that most often come with Philips M2 stampers. This is how we described the winner:

So clear and ALIVE. Transparent, with huge hall space extending wall to wall and floor to ceiling. Zero compression.

Lifelike, immediate, front row center sound like few records you have ever heard.

Rich, sweet strings, especially for a Mercury. This side really gets quiet in places, a sure sign that all the dynamics of the master tape were protected in the mastering of this copy.

What we didn’t say — and what we never say in the listings — is what the second tier copies didn’t do as well as the shootout winner.

We used to. When you read the older entries, most of the time they mention the shortcomings that caused one side or another to be downgraded by some amount, usually something like a half to a full plus.

Not all the top end, not all the bass, not as present, slightly smeary, slightly congested — the list of potential faults for any given pressing is long indeed. These are all the problems we listen for and it’s the rare copy that doesn’t suffer from one or more of them.

We decided years ago that it was better just to let you hear the two sides of the record for yourself and make your own judgments about the sound, rather than make clear to you what areas we felt needed improvement.

Consider this example. If on our system the bass was lacking compared to the very best, perhaps on your system the bass was fine, not an issue, good enough. Without the top copy to compare yours to, how would you know how much better the bass could possibly be?

A classic case of “compared to what?”

Shootouts are the only way to answer that question, which, as we never tire of saying, is THE most important question in all of audio. This is why we do shootouts, and why you must do them too, if owning the highest quality pressings is important to you.

Click on the following link to see more records for which we’ve detailed the strengths and weaknesses of a specific copy.

What We Heard on The Firebird

With all that in mind, only the Triple Plus (A+++) copy, as described above, did everything right.

There were two Double Plus (A++) copies, and each of them fell short in different ways.

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Boy, Was We Ever Wrong About Solti’s Rite of Spring

More of the music of Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Stravinsky

This is a VERY old and somewhat embarrassing commentary providing the evidence for just how wrong we were about the sound of Solti’s 1974 recording for Decca.

Here is what we had to say about the album in 2008:

This is an amazing recording, DEMO QUALITY SOUND, far better than the Decca heavy vinyl reissue that came out in the 2000s. [That part is no doubt true.]

This record is extremely dynamic; full of ambience; tonally correct; with tons of deep bass. Because it’s a more modern recording, it doesn’t have the Tubey Magic of some Golden Age originals, but it compensates for that shortcoming by being less distorted and “clean.” Some people may consider that more accurate. To be honest with you, I don’t know if that is in fact the case.

However, this record should not disappoint sonically and the performance is every bit as exciting and powerful as any you will find. The Chicago Symphony has the orchestral chops to make a work of this complexity sound effortless.

Skip forward to the present, roughly ten years later. We had three or four copies on hand to audition when we surveyed the work a couple of years ago in preparation for a big shootout.

The Solti did not make the cut. It was not even in the ballpark.

Our reasons are laid out in the post-it note you see to the left. We had three or four copies and even the best one still had the shortcomings you see listed, just to a lesser degree. (For more on the subject of opacity on record, click here and here.)

So in the eleven or twelve years from the time we played a pile of copies in 2008, to 2020 or thereabouts when we auditioned a new batch, this recording seems to have gotten a lot worse.

But that’s not what happened.

We’re under no illusions now that the album did not always have these sonic shortcomings, shortcomings that existed from the day copies came off the presses in England, some with London labels, others with Decca labels.

We simply did not have the cleaning system or the playback system capable of showing us what was wrong with their sound, and how much better other recordings were than they were.

And Harry Pearson was fooled as well. The Decca (SXL 6691) is on the TAS List to this day. Other records that have no business being on anything called a Super Disc List can be found here. Our list of Demonstration Quality Orchestral Recordings can be found here.

You may be aware that Speakers Corner remastered this recording  in the ’90s. We carried it and recommended it highly back in the day when we offered those kinds of records. At some point, 2007 to be exact, we wised up. We asked ourselves why we were selling mediocre records instead of Better Records. Since we didn’t have a good answer, we stopped ordering them and proceeded to sell off our remaining stock.

In 2008 I had been seriously involved with audio for more than 30 years. I had been an audiophile record dealer for more than twenty.

I thought I knew what good sound was.

Clearly I had a lot to learn.

This is, once again, what progress in audio in all about. As your stereo improves, some records should get better, some should get worse. It’s the nature of the game for those of us who constantly strive to improve the quality of our cleaning and playback.

And we’re still at it. With this much money on the line, we had better be able to deliver the goods every time out.

Our customers seem to like the records they’ve been getting. They’ve written us hundreds of letters telling us so.

And we especially like the letters they write to us once they’ve compared our Hot Stamper pressings to the copies they owned that were Half-Speed mastered or pressed on Heavy Vinyl, or both!

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Stravinsky / The Firebird Suite on Speakers Corner

More on The Firebird

More of the music of Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

This is probably one of the better Speakers Corner Deccas.

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 sound with a wonderful performance from Ansermet.”

Currently our favorite Firebird is the original pressing on Mercury with Dorati conducting. Our opinion is very unlikely to change concerning the best combination of sound and performance. The record is simply a monster on the right pressing.

We have never heard an especially good sounding London or Decca of Ansermet’s performance, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. We tend to avoid judging records we have not played and we encourage the audiophile community to do the same.

As a general rule, this Heavy Vinyl pressing will fall short in most of the following areas:

Ambience, Size and Space

Compression 

Energy

Smear

Transparency

FURTHER READING

The sonic signature of the modern Heavy Vinyl Classical Reissue in Four Words: Diffuse, Washed Out, Veiled, and Vague.

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