_Performers – Wild | The Skeptical Audiophile

Both sides of this original Shaded Dog pressing were giving us the big and bold Living Stereo sound we were looking for on these wonderful orchestral pieces, earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER
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
If you love the sound of a big bass drum, the Concerto in F is the work for you, and the engineers know how to capture both the bass and the space surrounding it
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 repressings
Everything that is wrong with the low-res Classic reissue – boosted mids, strings lacking in texture and sheen, etc. – is nowhere to be found on these superb sides, overflowing with Living Stereo Tubey Magic from 1962
This is yet another Must Own orchestral recording from 1962
For a more complete list, the highest quality recordings of piano concertos that we’ve auditioned to date can be found here

An excellent copy of this wonderful original 4 LP Box Set with roughly Double Plus (A++) orchestral sound across these 8 magical sides
The vinyl is as quiet as we can find it – like most Shaded Dogs and Mercs, Mint Minus Minus is about the best you can hope for
We have been readying this shootout for probably twenty years – we had 8 box sets to play, 32 discs in all, searching for the best sound we could find on these famous TAS List records
There is not much chance we will be able to do such a comprehensive shootout in the near future — we find at most one nice set per year, which means the next big shootout is a very long way off
Wild’s playing of the Rhapsody On A Theme Of Paganini here is one of our favorites on vinyl
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
“Rachmaninoff’s music . . . changes as the composer goes along, moving from Romantic to a tentative Modernism in such works as the fourth piano concerto and the Symphonic Dances. In this sense, he walks a path similar to Puccini’s, incorporating new approaches to extend that [which was] already essentially his. Certainly, the works here show these changes, as the composer picks up more experience, both in writing and in hearing music.”

The Skeptical Audiophile