_Conductors – Reiner

Strauss / Don Quixote / Reiner on Soria Living Stereo

More of the music of Richard Strauss

6S/5S. RCA Soria pressing in like new condition, which means it plays about M–, maybe a little better.

This is the best sounding copy of this album I have ever heard.

Far from the best RCA Living Stereo has to offer, this copy is not nearly as dreadful as I remember the last one sounded.

The quieter passages are especially lovely.

The climaxes are strained as usual, but I’ve never heard a copy of this record that didn’t have that problem.

A classic case of compression causing sonic tradeoffs.

The record comes with a gorgeous heavyweight slipcase and the 12-page libretto complete with custom artwork.

This is an Older Classical/Orchestral Review

Most of these older reviews are for records that did not go through the shootout process, the revolutionary approach to finding the best sounding pressings we started developing in the early 2000s. We found the records you see in these listings by cleaning and playing a pressing or two of the album, which we then described in the listing and priced according to how good the sound and surfaces seemed to us at the time.

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 then.

Nowadays, 99% (or more!) of the records we sell are cleaned, then auditioned under rigorously controlled conditions along with a number of other pressings, awarded sonic grades, then carefully condition checked 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 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, would ever be able to do the kind of work we do.

Every record we offer is unique, and 100% guaranteed to satisfy or your money back.

Overtures and Dances with Reiner – Were We Wrong? Probably

Hot Stamper Pressings of TAS List Super Disc Albums

Reviews and Commentaries for TAS Super Disc Recordings

This is a very old commentary. Lately every copy of this record that we have auditioned has left us wondering: what is the appeal?

Take this review with a large grain of salt and don’t spend a lot of money on this title unless you can easily return it.

We don’t think it sounds very good, and rather than continue to buy more copies, we are going to give up and write it off as a lost cause, TAS List or no TAS List.

This RCA Pink Label TAS List LP plays Mint Minus. Side one of this record sounds AMAZING, especially the Dvorak piece.

Here are the comments for the copy we recently sold on the site:

Superb string tone. This is one record that deserves to be on the TAS list, and you have to give Harry credit for going against the audiophile tide and recognizing a cheap, thin pink VIC! Side one sounds incredible. I do not ever recall hearing sound like this on this Victrola. It’s demonstration quality sound.

Classic Records remastered this record not long ago and ruined it.

This is what it’s supposed to sound like. (more…)

Strauss / Ein Heldenleben / Reiner – Reviewed Way Back When

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

This Plum Label original Victrola pressing has EXCELLENT SOUND on side one, earning a grade of A++. It’s quite a step up from the other copies we played. As you may know, this is one of the earliest RCA stereo recordings, dating from 1954 and the same sessions as the famous Reiner recording that ended up being released as LSC 1806.

This two microphone, two-channel recording, however, was never released in stereo on vinyl until the Victrola era ten years later.  

The sound on side one is very transparent, with nice texture to the strings and brass. It’s not nearly as dark as the average copy.

Side two suffers from some of that dark quality and rated an A Plus grade. It has more of a distant quality.

Brahms / Piano Concerto No. 2 – Cisco Reviewed

More of the Music of Johannes Brahms

A Heavy Vinyl pressing from Cisco / Impex.

It’s been quite a while since I played the Cisco pressing, but I remember it as being quite good.

At the time we wrote:

The overall sound is smooth and spacious. The piano may lack the full weight of the live instrument, but that’s RCA’s fault, not Cisco’s. If you can look past that you will find this to be one of the better Living Stereo reissues available today.

We’ll just have to go with that for now, since we haven’t played the record in more than ten years.

(more…)

Our Scheherazade Shootout Winner from Long Ago

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Rimsky-Korsakov Available Now

UPDATE 2024

Our favorite Scheherazade for about the last 10 years or so has been the one Ansermet conducted for Decca in 1961.

The review below was written long before we discovered how good the best pressings of the Ansermet on London could be, when you can find one with the right stampers.

We started to get some clues in 2015 about the Ansermet, and by 2019 we had enough evidence to be sure of our findings.

In 2015 we still  had a lot to learn, even though we had been playing this wonderful piece of music on vintage vinyl since the early-90s. (I’m quoted about my preference for certain pressings of LSC 2446 in The RCA Bible, which was published in 1993. Don’t believe anything you read in it though, at least whatever is attributed to me. I was as lost as everybody else in audio back in those days.)

Clearly we needed to do more research and development,

Our Review from Then

White Hot on Side One! Big brass, so full-bodied and dynamic. The solo violin is present and so real you will not believe it. The highest resolution we have ever heard for this performance. Hard To Fault (HTF). 

This copy is huge in every dimension, just as all the best ones always are, with maximum amounts of height, width, and depth. The transparency is also superb — you really hear into this one in the way that only the best Living Stereos (and other golden age recordings) will allow. (more…)

TAS List Thoughts about Festival – Harry, This One Is Out of Polarity, Man!

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Titles Available Now

Harry Pearson put this on his list of the best Classic Records RCAs. It may be. I don’t recall ever playing one.

If you can reverse your absolute phase, this original pressings of this record actually sound fairly decent. Do you think Harry knew to do that, or even how to do it? I have my doubts.

He’s gone now so the point is moot, but I maintain it’s the rare reviewer who grasps these kinds of issues with anything approaching the depth and understanding that are required in order to be informative and accurate.

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.)

(more…)

Song Of the Nightingale – Our Shootout Winner from 2009

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

This Hot Stamper pressing has DEMONSTRATION QUALITY SOUND for the Stravinsky piece that takes up side two, the one on the TAS Super Disc List. The sound is BIG and BOLD, stretching from wall to wall, and so transparent you can clearly hear all the way to the back of the stage and then some. Trust me, few Shaded Dog pressings sound like this one!

Normally we list this record under Prokofiev, but, as usual, the Prokofiev side of this copy is not very good sounding. (In fact I’ve never liked the sound of Reiner’s Lt. Kije. It always sounded hard and sour like a bad DG to me.) (more…)

Various / Heart of the Piano Concerto / Rubinstein – Reviewed in 2008

More of the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)

Reviews and Commentaries for Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concertos

This is an EXCEPTIONALLY GOOD SOUNDING Shaded Dog pressing with fairly quiet vinyl. What’s surprising about this pressing is how transparent and low distortion it is.

Just as with Destination Stereo (LSC 2307), the excerpts here frequently sound better than they do on the original complete performances. Rubinstein’s piano is solid and clear sounding, which is rarely the case, especially for his Beethoven concertos. Those almost never sound good, but the excerpt here for Concerto No. 3 is excellent. 

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.

(more…)

Rachmaninoff / Concerto No. 2 – Reviewed in 2008

More of the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)

Reviews and Commentaries for Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concertos

This is the earlier pressing of LSC 2068, which stretches the Rachmaninoff piece over both sides of the record, resulting in a more dynamic pressing.

The sound is tonally right on the money with the superb, rich, sweetly textured strings we have come to expect from RCA in this period.

The piano has exquisite tone as well.

This is a lovely, lyrical piece of music and the natural sound conveys the qualities of the work perfectly.

(more…)

Brahms / Piano Concerto No. 2 / Gilels / Reiner – Reviewed in 2010

More of the music of Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

This is one of the pressings we’ve discovered with Reversed Polarity

This Very Nice Plum Label Victrola has excellent sound — sweet and spacious — but only if you reverse your absolute phase. The vinyl is quiet and, most importantly, this is arguably the greatest performance of all time. The LSC might be a tad better overall; they’re so darn rare it’s hard to know.