_Conductors – Stokowski

Don’t Waste Your Money on this Living Stereo from 1962

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Titles Available Now

LSC 2612, released in 1962 on the Shaded Dog label, offers Handel’s Water Music and Royal Fireworks with Stokowski conducting, engineered by one of the greats, Robert Simpson.

The sound is terrible however.

The copies we had on hand were loud and crude, with steely strings and not much in the way of hall space. In other words, LSC 2612 seems to suffer from the “old record” sound that we’ve found on many of the hundreds of vintage pressings we’ve auditioned over the years as we were looking for top quality recordings to put in our Hot Stamper shootouts.

If you want a good Water Music, the right stamper pressings of the Philips recording with Leppard are the best we’ve ever played.

The Shaded Dog of LSC 2612 might be passable on an old school system, but it was too unpleasant to be played on the high quality modern equipment we use.

Leave this RCA to the collectors. Some audiophiles are of the opinion that vintage Living Stereo recordings on the original label can do no wrong, but we have never subscribed to that view.

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.

  • London/Decca records with weak sound or performances
  • Mercury records with weak sound or performances
  • RCA records with weak sound or performances

1962 was a phenomenal year for audiophile quality recordings – we’ve auditioned and reviewed more than one hundred and twenty titles as of 2024, and there are undoubtedly a great many more that we’ve yet to discover.

When it comes to classical and orchestral titles, more than a dozen are so good that we would consider them Must Owns.

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Wagner – The Sound of Stokowski and Wagner

More Richard Wagner

More Orchestral Spectaculars

  • With two stunning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sides, this vintage Shaded Dog pressing of this sought-after classic of the Living Stereo canon is close to the BEST we have ever heard, right up there with our Shootout Winner
  • Lewis Layton engineered this blockbuster recording, and after hearing his brilliant work for The Pines of Rome with Reiner, we can see why they gave him the job
  • The rich, textured sheen of the strings that the advent of Living Stereo brought into being in the ’50s and early ’60s is clearly evident throughout these pieces, something that the Heavy Vinyl crowd will never experience — simply because that sound just does not exist on modern records
  • These shorter pieces are ideal for those who want to listen to Wagner’s music and don’t have the two hours one of his better-known operas requires of its audience

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Rhapsodies – Classic Records Reviewed

More of the music of Franz Liszt (1811-1880)

The lower strings are wonderful on the original — wall to wall, with that rosiny texture we love. I wrote at the time — this is twenty or so years ago — that the Classic pressing took that rich, dark sound and brightened it up, ruining it in the process.

Cellos and double basses just don’t sound like that. On the best pressings of LSC 2471, their timbre is Right On The Money. Of course, that’s the real thing, not some audiophile rebutchering. 

Now if you’re a Classic Records fan, and you like that brighter, more detailed, more aggressive sound, the original is probably not the record for you.

We don’t like that sound and we don’t like most Classic Records. They may be clean and clear but where is the RCA Living Stereo Magic that made people swoon over these recordings in the first place?

Bernie manages to clean that sound right off the record, and that’s just not our idea of hi-fidelity.

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Liszt, Enesco, Smetana / Rhapsodies / Stokowski

More of the music of Franz Liszt (1811-1880)

Our Favorite Recording of the Hungarian Rhapsodies

This RCA Living Stereo LP (LSC 2471) has SUPERB SOUND!

I’m a big fan of this title. The string tone is rich and dark and just wonderful. If you want an exciting record with outstanding Living Stereo sound — dynamic, with strings to die for, and an energetic performance, this is the one!

Don’t let the White Dog fool you. I doubt if the average Shaded Dog is any better.

[I suspect that the Shaded Dog has the potential to be better, but when this review was written I did not.]

This record sounds just right to me. Listen to how clear and correct the triangle is. 

I wonder if the Shaded Dog copies would be cut that clean. Without one here to compare there’s no way to know.

[We have since compared them and our Shaded Dogs were slightly better than any of the White Dogs.]

The Classic version sounds fine until you play it next to the real McCoy.

Then you hear how brightening up the strings ruins everything.

Here are some of the other records we’ve discovered that are good for testing string tone and texture.

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