_Conductors – Karajan

Beethoven – Symphony No. 7 / Karajan

More of the Music of Beethoven

  • This Decca-recorded, Shaded Dog pressing of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 debuts on the site with big, spacious, and lively Double Plus (A++) Living Stereo sound or close to it from first note to last
  • Side one is doing just about everything right – it’s rich, clear, undistorted, open, and has depth and transparency to rival the best recordings you may have heard, and side two is not far behind in all those areas
  • The texture on the strings is captured perfectly (particularly on side one) – this is an area in which modern pressings fail utterly, and without good string reproduction, especially in the lower registers, a Beethoven symphony is simply not a pleasurable experience on highly resolving equipment

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Dvorak – Symphony No. 8 / Von Karajan

More of the music of Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904)

More Imported Pressings on Decca and London

  • Here is an early pressing (one of only a handful of copies to ever hit the site) with the big, rich and tubey Decca sound we were hoping for, earning excellent Double Plus (A++) grades from first note to last
  • These sides are doing just about everything right – they’re rich, clear, undistorted, open, spacious, and have depth and transparency to rival the best recordings you may have heard
  • Our recent major survey for the 8th symphony produced this outstanding London – no other recording had sound even close to this quality, and the performance by Karajan was as good as any we heard
  • The original Decca pressing we had was especially disappointing, especially considering that it was mastered by one of our favorite cutting engineers, Ted Burkett
  • There are about 150 orchestral recordings we think offer the best performances with the highest quality sound. This record is certainly deserving of a place on that list.

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Tchaikovsky / Piano Concerto No. 1 – Our Favorite Performance and Sound By Far

More of the music of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 – 1893)

More Masterpieces of Classical Music

  • A Large Tulip label pressing of this wonderful piano concerto with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER from start to finish
  • Side one was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be amazed at how big and rich and tubey the sound is
  • It’s also impossibly quiet at Mint Minus to Mint Minus Minus, a grade that practically none of our vintage classical titles – even the most well-cared-for ones – ever play at
  • By far our favorite performance for the work, and fortunately for us audiophiles, it is also the best sounding recording of the work that we know of
  • With huge amounts of hall space, weight and energy, this is Demo Disc quality sound by any standard
  • When the brass is the way it is here – rich and clear, not thin and shrill – you have yourself a top quality DG pressing
  • Virtually no smear to the strings, horns or piano – this is Golden Age recording done right!
  • 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.
  • This link with take you to more entries in our core collection of well recorded classical albums.

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Does Your Pressing of Death and Transfiguration Have These Shortcomings?

More of the Music of Richard Strauss

Many of the later pressings of CS 6211 were not competitive with the earlier pressings, something we had no idea was true until we actually did the shootout.

This is why we do our shootouts with every kind of pressing we can find that has any hope of sounding good to us.

(This is of course something that cannot be predicted with much certainty. What we are saying is simply that we do not expect the German, Dutch, Japanese and such like pressings from other countries outside the UK to do well because they have almost never done well in the past, not for Decca recordings anyway.)

The notes on the left in the box are for the copies that did not do as well as our best copies.

If your copy of the album has any of the shortcomings we mention, and you would like a better pressing to play, rest assured we will have something for you down the road, as this is our favorite for both performance and sound.

Stamper Information

The stampers of the pressings that consistently came in last in our shootout had the mastering marking of L, which signifies the work of George Bettyes. He has done good work in the past, but odds are that any pressing of this title mastered by L is going to be inferior to those that are not.

Our advice: stick with E and G.

As is sometimes the case, there is one and only one set of stamper numbers that consistently wins our shootouts for CS 6211.  Here are some of the others we’ve discovered through the shootout process.

Our notes for an exceptionally good sounding copy from the last shootout can be seen below.

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Strauss – Death and Transfiguration / Till Eulenspiegel / Karajan

More of the music of Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

  • This original Stereo London pressing of Karajan and the Vienna Phil’s performance of these classical pieces boasts stunning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound from first note to last – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • Our notes for the two top copies mention how special some stampers are: “these are so tubey with tons of room and space — the massive tympani really shine”
  • These are superb readings of the works, and we know of no others that can compete with the sound of this Decca recording
  • Clear, transparent, rich, big, spacious, tonally correct, with Tubey Magical textured strings, this record is doing practically everything right, and that makes it a very special pressing indeed
  • 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 needs to make the case

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Adam / Giselle / Karajan – A Classic Decca Recording from 1962

Hot Stamper Decca and London Pressings Available Now

Outstanding Recordings from 1962 Available Now 

Reviewed in 2010 so take what we say with a large grain of salt. Dutch pressings are rarely the way to go.

This Dutch Import is the best sounding copy I have ever heard. It is dead silent and rich!

Big spacious hall sound. Lovely mid-hall perspective. Very smooth and sweet.

You can listen to music like this for hours and never get tired — the opposite of your typical Classic Records pressing.

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Ravel / Karajan Conducts Ravel / Orchestre de Paris

EXCELLENT SOUND!

I recently purchased a large number of EMI classical pressings from the ’70s, many of which had disappointing sonics. Without paying any attention to this particular record, I threw it on and was pleasantly surprised — it really sounded good! Checking the back of the cover (the old fold-over flap kind) I noted that this recording was from 1972 — of course it sounds great! EMI from that period is often AMAZING. It’s only later, when they got into quadraphonic, that their sound becomes vague, diffuse, hard and even sour. Some of the EMI records on the TAS List can sound that way, which is a real scandal in my opinion.

As for the performances, they are wonderful. This is not a German orchestra. The French know how to play their own music!

This record includes alborada de gracioso, rapsodie espagnole, valses nobles et sentimentales and more.

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.

The term “Hot Stampers” gets thrown around a lot these days, but to us it means only one thing: a record that has been through the shootout process and found to be of exceptionally high quality.

The result of our labor is the hundreds of titles seen here, every one of which is unique and guaranteed to be the best sounding copy of the album you have ever heard or you get your money back.

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Tchaikovsky / Piano Concerto No. 1 – Our First Shootout Winner – 2008

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Tchaikovsky Available Now

This fairly quiet Large Tulips early DG pressing in the heavy cardboard outer sleeve has THE BEST SOUND we have ever heard for this recording! Believe me, they don’t all sound like this! This copy is airy and sweet; just listen to the flutes — you can really hear the air moving through them. There is still some congestion in the loudest passages, but that’s unfortunately not something we can do anything about. Since it’s on every copy we’ve ever played we just have to assume it’s part of the recording.

Of the twenty or so clean copies we’ve auditioned over the last year or two, this one is clearly in a league of its own, with a price to match.

THE Tchaikovsky First

Since this is the best performance of the Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto of all time, the minor shortcomings in the sound are easy to overlook. The piano sounds solid and full bodied. I don’t know of another performance of this work that gets the sound of the piano better. You can really hear the percussive quality of the instrument. It’s amazing how many piano recordings have poorly mic’ed pianos. They’re either too distant, lack proper reproduction of the lower registers, or somehow smear the pounding of the keys into a blurry mess. The piano sound is what first impressed me when a friend of mine brought the record over for me to hear. Of course I bought it on the spot.

And the texture of the strings is out of this world — you won’t find a DG that gets with better string tone, and 99% of them are worse. This record does not sound like your typical DG: hard, shrill, and sour. DG made good records in the ’50s and ’60s and then proceeded to fall apart, like most labels did. This is one of their finest recordings. It proves that at one time they knew what they were doing.

This recording really only has one shortcoming, which is that in some sections, when it gets loud, it tends to be a bit congested. Other places are very dynamic. I’m guessing somebody dialed in too much compression in those spots, but who’s to say?

[Not sure we would agree with that in 2024. The best copies are not congested when cleaned and played back properly.]

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Tchaikovsky / Concerto For Violin and Orchestra / Karajan/ Ferras – Reviewed in 2008

Near Mint original DG German Import with FABULOUS SOUND!

This large tulips label pressing has the sound only hinted at by the reissues. (This same recording is in the 6 LP Box set.) Lots of hall, with the kind of rich orchestral sound you don’t find on most DGs. Ferras is superb and Karajan is a master as well.

Letter of the Week – “I’m surprised you parted with this one”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Tchaikovsky Available Now

Phil is a long time customer who shares my love for Richter and Karajan’s powerful and exceptionally well-recorded performance of Tchaikovsky’s 1st Piano Concerto.

He knows full well how bad most copies sound — he has a few of his own to prove it. When he saw this beauty in the mailer he did what any self-respecting record lover would do: he jumped on it. Even at $500 he feels he got his money’s worth, and that’s a lot of money for a Deutsche Grammophon record, the kind that no record store in the world would charge more than ten or twenty dollars for. If only we could find more like it…

Phil writes: 

You called it exactly right. The opening salvo by the orchestra gave me chills, and I knew I was hearing something extraordinary. In spite of tutti mayhem, the sound and performance is operatic and thrilling. I’m surprised you parted with this one.

Phil, years ago I used to say on the site that the best copies go in my collection, but that hasn’t been true for quite some time now. I have about ten records in my collection that I’m keeping for one reason or another, and everything else goes into the shootouts we do around here. (I may list my own collection on the site one of these days. You could type up the whole list in twenty minutes.)

Good records should be played, and when do I have time to play records for myself? We spin the damn things all day long. Monday through Friday, the VPI is booked. On the weekends I like a little peace and quiet; can you blame me? So better that you have an amazing record like that to play. I’ll just be content with the memory of the sound — until we do the next shootout of course. Then we’ll play it all day long and I’ll have a chance to really get back into again.

The performance on that record is really one for the ages. I hope we find a Hot Stamper that sounds as good as the one you bought. I don’t expect to, but it sure would be nice for someone else to have the chance to hear that recording at its best.