_Composers – Bernstein

Rodgers – Slaughter On Tenth Avenue / Fiedler

More Orchestral Spectaculars

  • With two outstanding Double Plus (A++) sides, you’ll have a hard time finding a copy that sounds remotely as good as this vintage Shaded Dog pressing, recorded in All Tube 1959 Living Stereo
  • Boasting two INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides or close to them, this early Shaded Dog pressing, recorded in Living Stereo, is practically as good a copy as we have ever heard
  • It’s also fairly quiet at Mint Minus Minus, which makes it unusual in our experience for a record made in 1959
  • These sides are doing nearly everything right – they’re rich, clear, undistorted, open, spacious, and have depth and transparency to rival the best recordings you may have heard
  • The music flows from the speakers effortlessly – you are there
  • 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.
  • Like many of our favorite orchestral spectaculars, weighty, powerful brass is key to the sound of the best copies like this one
  • 1959 was a phenomenal year for audiophile quality recordings – we’ve auditioned and reviewed more than a hundred and thirty so far, and there are undoubtedly a great many more that we’ve yet to play

Years ago we wrote:

This copy was so good it almost left me speechless. Why is it not one of the most sought-after recordings in the RCA canon? Beats the hell out of me.

But wait just one minute. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I found out just how good this record could sound, so how can I criticize others for not appreciating a record I had never taken the time to appreciate myself?

Which more than anything else prompts the question — why is no one exploring, discovering and then bringing to light the exceptional qualities of these wonderful vintage recordings (besides those of us here, of course)?

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Letter of the Week – “This copy is a completely different musical experience.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Grover Washington, Jr. Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased:

Hey Tom, 

I really liked the Oscar Peterson West Side Story and appreciate the effort you put in to find me a Hot Stamper. This was an album my mother bought for me and I have fond memories of lying on my back under my parents RCA console stereo looking up at the glowing tubes and listening to it. Thank you. Much better than the DCC CD. It now sounds like I remember it.

Mr. Magic was also a surprise. It never sounded that good and was better than I remember it. 

The one that has completely blown me away was the Jackson Browne 3+ side one.

It never sounded like that ever. I had a 1.5 and it was good; kind of like I remember it.

This copy is a completely different musical experience. I enjoy the presentation more and have a much better appreciation of the music. You guys did it again.

Thanks as usual,
Mike H.

Mike,

Thanks for your letter.

A 3+ Jackson Browne first album is a very special record indeed, so rich and smooth.

Would make a great Demo Disc, the opposite of the kind of phony trash they play at audio shows.

Other letters from customers recounting the incredibly powerful experiences they’ve had while playing one of our shootout winning pressings can be found here.

If you think you would enjoy kicking your musical satisfaction up a notch or two, nothing can get you to the next level faster than playing one of our killer Hot Stamper LPs.

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Audiophiles Should Avoid These Stampers on West Side Story

Hot Stamper Pressings of Soundtrack Albums Available Now

None of the 360 Label pressings we played recently were competitive with the Six Eye originals. Some sides earned 2+, but no copy on 360 earned grades of 2+ on both sides.

Stick with the early, stereo pressings in order to have any shot at top quality sound.

As you can see from the notes below for this album, one side was passable, earning our 1.5+ grade. It’s a decent sounding record I suppose, but a long, long, long way from the best.

1.5+ is four grades down from the top copy. That’s a steep dropoff as far as we’re concerned. 1.5+ only hints at how good a recording this can be on the best vintage pressings. To see more records that earned the 1.5+ grade, please click here. For those who might be interested, there’s more on our grading scale here.

Here is what a top quality pressing should sound like:

You’ll find INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides of this original Columbia 6-Eye Stereo pressing.

Spacious, rich and smooth – only vintage analog seems capable of reproducing all three of these qualities without sacrificing resolution, staging, imaging or presence.

Tonality is the hardest thing to get right on this album, and here it is right on the money, because if it were not, it would not have won the shootout.

For those of you who like to do your own shootouts, good luck, you will need a lot of originals to find one that sounds as good as this one does.

5 stars: “The soundtrack of the West Side Story film is deservedly one of the most popular soundtrack recordings of all time, and one of the relatively few to have attained long-term popularity beyond a specialized soundtrack/theatrical musical audience.”

This album is at least five times more common in mono than it is in stereo, and finding enough clean early stereo pressings takes us years nowadays.

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Pros and Cons from a Long-Ago Shootout for Everything But the Beer

Living Stereo Titles Available Now

This shootout was probably done about ten years ago.

This VERY RARE 2 LP Shaded Dog pressing has Super Hot Stamper sound. Much of what’s good about Golden Age recordings is heard here, with side one for example having the sound of a HUGE hall and that Three-Dimensional quality that the best vintage recordings are able to convey so well.

We constantly knock Heavy Vinyl here at Better Records for the simple reason that we play vintage recordings such as this by the score every month and can hear what they do so well.

Unfortunately the huge hall and the 3-D soundstaging they effortlessly reproduce cannot be found on any Heavy Vinyl pressing we know of.

Such qualities allow this record to sound — in some ways, to be sure not all — like live music.

Side One

Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 – Elgar
Mignon Overture – Thomas
Largo from Xerxes – Handel
Prelude to Act III of Lohengrin – Wagner

Sound

A++, with the huge hall and 3-D sound we mentioned above. Very clear, especially when quiet. There’s a big bass drum on one of these tracks that is killer. A little more Tubey Magic would have been nice. As it is, this side sounds REALISTIC, like a real live concert.

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Leonard Bernstein – West Side Story (Original Soundtrack)

More of the music of Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)

More Soundtrack Albums

  • You’ll find INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides of this original Columbia 6-Eye Stereo pressing
  • Spacious, rich and smooth – only vintage analog seems capable of reproducing all three of these qualities without sacrificing resolution, staging, imaging or presence
  • Tonality is the hardest thing to get right on this album, and here it is right on the money, because if it were not, it would not have won the shootout
  • For those of you who like to do your own shootouts, good luck, you will need a lot of originals to find one that sounds as good as this one does
  • The biggest selling album of the ’60s – 54 weeks at Number One (!)
  • Marks and problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these Classic Rock records – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • 5 stars: “The soundtrack of the West Side Story film is deservedly one of the most popular soundtrack recordings of all time, and one of the relatively few to have attained long-term popularity beyond a specialized soundtrack/theatrical musical audience.”

This album is at least five times more common in mono than it is in stereo, and finding enough clean early stereo pressings takes us years nowadays.

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Everything But The Beer / Arthur Fiedler Conducts A Boston Pops Concert

More Classical and Orchestral Recordings

More Living Stereo Recordings

  • These original Shaded Dog pressings boast big, bold, and dynamic Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) Living Stereo sound from first note to last – just shy of our Shootout Winner (side four actually won the shootout)
  • Compared to practically every other copy we played — on all four sides mind you — these sides are richer, fuller, and livelier. They’re also more open and transparent, with notably improved clarity, less smear, and better bass
  • The rich, textured sheen of the strings that Living Stereo made possible in the 50s and early 60s is clearly evident throughout these pieces, something that the Heavy Vinyl crowd will never experience, because that sound just does not exist on modern records
  • We have been trying to do this title for at least ten years – clean originals are hard to find and that is a reality that will not be going away anytime soon

Much of what’s good about Golden Age recordings is here, with these sides having the sound of a huge hall and that Three-Dimensional quality that the best vintage recordings convey so well.

We constantly knock Heavy Vinyl here at Better Records for the simple reason that we play vintage recordings such as these by the score every month and can hear what they do. Unfortunately the huge hall and the 3-D soundstaging they effortlessly reproduce cannot be found on any Heavy Vinyl pressing we know of.

Such qualities allow this record to sound — in some ways, to be sure not all — like live music. 

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Leonard Bernstein – West Side Story

More of the music of Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)

More Soundtrack Recordings of Interest

  • This vintage Columbia 360 Stereo pressing boasts excellent Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it from the first note to the last – remarkably quiet vinyl too
  • Side one is spacious, rich and smooth, and side two is not far behind in all those areas
  • If you want to hear what a healthy dose of Tubey Magic, energy, and full-bodied vocals set on a huge stage (the famed Columbia 30th Street Studio) sounds like, this pressing should do the trick
  • If you’re a fan of Leonard Bernstein’s music, this superb All Tube Recording from 1957 belongs in your collection.
  • The complete list of titles from 1957 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

SUPERB sound can be found on this vintage Columbia 360 stereo pressing of the Broadway Cast recording. This is a huge, spacious, natural, exciting All-Tube Golden Age recording that impressed us to no end here at Better Records.

We heard an amazing sounding copy many years ago, and the only reason we haven’t done the shootout since then is that we just couldn’t find enough clean copies with which to do it. To be clear, we’re not talking quiet vinyl, we’re talking about not beat-to-death, not all-scractched-up vinyl. People loved this music and they played the hell out of it.

Imagine our surprise when the good sound of these copies turned out to not only have superb sound, but reasonably quiet Mint Minus Minus vinyl too! Don’t expect to see another of this quality any time soon. If we can’t find them, who can?

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Letter of the Week – “I assumed that there must be some better sounding pressings out there. Now here they are.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Neil Young Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:

Hey Tom, 

The West Side Story I picked up from you a few months ago was just something else. I was sitting on my couch watching the stage as Tony and Maria sang through the WSS songbook. I mean, there they were. Sure Mono has a particular feel and you can only quiet down an old 6-eye so much, but it was just beautiful.

I was very happy with what I received. All four records sound wonderful and are well worth the outlay. I have had several copies of “El Rayo-X” and “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere”.

They sounded quite good but I assumed that there must be some better sounding pressings out there. Now here they are.

Paul S.

Paul,

Thanks for your letter. We love all those albums too, and we love finding killer pressings of them for our customers.

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Bernstein – The Music of Leonard Bernstein / Rogers

More music written or performed by Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)

More Orchestral Spectaculars

  • A STUNNING pressing with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it throughout – a true Orchestral Demo Disc from 1970
  • As I write this, dollar for dollar this is probably the best sound for the money on the site
  • The Symphonic Dances from “West Side Story” sound superb here – big, rich and Tubey Magical
  • The performances are superb – energetic as befits most of the music, yet lyrical when the score calls for it
  • Vibrant orchestrations, top quality sound and fairly quiet surfaces combine for an astounding listening experience
  • Big speakers and loud levels are the sine qua non for the proper reproduction of this album
  • We’ve identified a number of Orchestral Demo Discs of superior quality, and they can be found here

This London Phase 4 British import has some of the most spectacular sound we have ever heard reproduced from disc. The sound is so BIG and BOLD that it handily puts to shame 95% or more of all the Golden Age Shaded Dogs, London Bluebacks, Mercury Living Presences, EMIs and Deccas we’ve ever played. If we had a Classical Top 100 list, this record would belong in the Top Ten, right near the top judging by what we heard when we played it.

If you have a system with the speed, power, and size to play this record properly (yes, you will need all three and a whole lot more), it’s hard to imagine it would not qualify as the best-sounding orchestral recording you’ve ever heard.

Demo Disc barely begins to do it justice. What sound. What music. What a record!

Side two is where the some of the best orchestral action can be found, and it is presented here with spectacular audio fidelity the likes of which you may have never experienced.

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Bernstein – Conducts Symphonic Dances from West Side Story

More music written or performed by Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)

More Orchestral Spectaculars

  • This vintage Columbia stereo pressing boasts outstanding sound from first note to last
  • The best copies are out of this world, reproducing some of the most dynamic, exciting, richest, and most spacious sound we have ever heard from Columbia records, especially those conducted by Leonard Bernstein
  • The music is wonderful of course, with the Suites giving you all the best parts of his marvelous compositions with none of the filler
  • These vibrant orchestrations are played with tremendous energy, and that, coupled with rich and tubey analog sound, combine for an especially immersive and engrossing listening experience, particularly on side one here
  • For those of you playing along at home, it should be obvious why side one earned the higher grade – some of the qualities important to the sound are in greater abundance on side one, and this is not in any way difficult to hear

This is one of the great Columbia recordings. I suspected it might have been done at their legendary Columbia studios in New York but I was wrong, Manhattan Center’s huge stage served as the venue. Either way the sound is no less glorious.

One of the biggest advantages this copy had over most of what we played is fuller brass. The shrill sounding horns on most Columbia albums is what gets them tossed into the trade pile. Fortunately for us audiophiles who care about these sorts of things, the sound here is rich and clean, with solid, deep bass. The stage is huge, with the multi-miking kept to a minimum so that you can really hear the space this big group of musicians occupies.

There is a HUGE amount of top end on this recording. Wildly splashing cymbals and other percussion instruments are everywhere, and they are a joy to hear. No original was as clean up top as this reissue, and without a clear, (mostly) distortion-free top end, the work will simply not sound the way Bernstein wanted it to.

All that percussion is in the score. The high-frequency energy – perhaps the most I have ever heard from any recording of his music — is there for a reason. He conducted his own score, and one can only assume he liked the way it came out. We sure did. (more…)