_Performers – Heifetz

Beethoven / Violin Concerto / Heifetz / Munch

More of the Music of Beethoven

  • Our superb vintage pressing of this brilliant Living Stereo recording – from 1956! – boasts solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER throughout
  • 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
  • The orchestra is wide, tall, spacious, rich and tubey, yet the dynamics and transparency are first rate
  • White Dogs and Shaded Dogs can both sound good on this title – just avoid the Red Seals and later pressings if you are looking for the best possible sound
  • 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.
  • If you’re a fan of Beethoven’s music, this superb All Tube Recording from 1956 belongs in your collection.
  • This Classic Records pressing, however, was a piece of garbage, and we made our position clear right from the start

The reproduction of the violin here is superb — harmonically rich, natural, clean, clear, resolving. What sets the truly killer pressings apart is the depth, width and three-dimensional quality of the sound, as well as the fact that they become less congested in the louder passages and don’t get shrill or blary.

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For Scottish Fantasy, Forget the Red Seal Pressings

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin Available Now

The 70s Red Seal pressings we’ve played recently have all left a lot to be desired, but, since we had one sitting on a shelf in the backroom with lower stampers, we figured what the hell, let’s clean it up, throw it into our next shootout and hope for the best.

As you can see, the best was not to come.

There are quite a number of other records that we’ve run into over the years with obvious shortcomings.

Here are some of them, a very small fraction of what we’ve played, broken down into the three major labels that account for most of the best classical and orchestral titles we’ve had the pleasure to play.

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How Good Is the Sibelius Violin Concerto on Classic Records?

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

Classic remastered this title in the 90s — of course they did, it’s clearly one of the better Heifetz recordings.

As expected, Classic’s remastered pressing of the Sibelius Violin Concerto (LSC 2435) was awful, as bad as LSC 1903, 1992, 2129 and others too numerous to list. 

(There is one Classic violin concerto record that is actually better than every RCA Living Stereo we have ever played — which amounts to scores of them since we have done shootouts for them all — and one of these days you will be able to read about it right here on this very blog!)

The Classic is both aggressive and lacking in texture at the same time, the worst of both worlds.

Bernie’s cutting system is what I would call Low Resolution — the harmonics and subtleties you would expect to hear are simply not there. He brightens the tonal balance, causing screechy strings whenever they get loud.

The world is full of these kinds of third-rate records. They make up the bulk record collectors’ collections as well as the ones audiophiles have sitting on their shelves.

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Beethoven / “Kreutzer” Sonata & Bach / Concerto For Two Violins / Heifetz

Hot Stamper Pressings with Jascha Heifetz Performing

  • An original Shaded Dog pressing of these classical violin performances with two stunning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) Living Stereo sides – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • 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
  • This copy had the balance of clarity and sweetness we were looking for in the tone of the violin, and the orchestra sounds amazing – so rich and full-bodied
  • These sides are doing practically everything right – they’re rich, clear, undistorted, open, spacious, and have depth and transparency to rival the best recordings you may have heard
  • Although the Shaded Dog originals, now that we know which stampers are the best, will always win our shootouts, the White Dog reissues still sound quite good to us, just not as good
  • 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, beating out Heifetz’s other performance for RCA, LSC 2377

If you want a recording that is going to put your system to the test,this is that record!

The violin is real. The piano is also very well recorded, and the balance between those two instruments on this recording is perfection.

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The Violin is a Wonderful Instrument for Tweaking and Tuning

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin Available Now

Our review for LSC 2314, with both the Mendelssohn and Prokofiev Violin Concertos, described the wonderful sound we heard on some of the better copies as follows:

As usual for a Living Stereo Heifetz violin concerto recording, he is front and center, with his fingering and every movement of his bow clearly audible, without being hyped-up in the least. (Well, maybe just a bit.)

No violin concerto recording can be considered to have proper Living Stereo sound if the violin isn’t right, and fortunately we found the violin on this copy to be very, very right, with the kind of rosiny texture and immediacy that brings the music to life right in your very own listening room.

Audiophiles who cannot hear what is wrong with the Classic Records repressings of Heifetz’s RCA recordings by composers including:

may want to seek out a nice — maybe even one that’s not so nice — vintage RCA Shaded Dog of any of his albums, if only to see just how poorly the Classics stack up (with the exception of the LSC 2734, which we have to say, against all odds, is very good).

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The Cisco Pressing of Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata

Hot Stamper Pressings of Recordings with Heifetz Performing

An audiophile hall of shame pressing from Cisco / Impex / Boxstar / whatever.

The Cisco pressing of LSC 2577 should not have sound that is acceptable to any person who considers himself an audiophile.

There is no violinist in front of you when you play their pressing.

There is someone back behind your speakers under a thick blanket, and his violin sure doesn’t sound very much like a real violin — no rosiny texture, no extended harmonics, no real body.

In short, the sound of this reissue is much too smeary, veiled, and lacking in presence to be taken seriously.

Unfortunately for those of us who love good music with good sound, Cisco’s releases from this era (as well as DCC’s) had to fight their way through Kevin Gray’s transistory, opaque, airless, low-resolution cutting system. We discuss that subject in more depth here.

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Beethoven, Bach, Schubert / Heifetz, Primrose, Piatigorsky

More of the Music of Beethoven

  • An original Shaded Dog pressing of this wonderful recording of string trios and sinfonias, here with two solid Double Plus (A++) or BETTER sides
  • It’s also fairly quiet at the high end of Mint Minus Minus, a grade that even our most well-cared-for vintage classical titles have trouble playing at
  • Beethoven’s Trio in D, Op 9, No. 2 takes up all of this Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) side one, and is practically as good as we have ever heard, right up there with our Shootout Winner
  • Remarkably spacious, rich and smooth – only vintage analog seems capable of reproducing all three of these qualities without sacrificing resolution, staging, imaging or presence
  • This copy showed us the balance of clarity and sweetness we were looking for in the violin, viola and cello – not many recordings from this era can do that as well as this one does
  • Heifetz is a fiery player – he is front and center, with every movement of his bow clearly audible without being hyped-up in the least

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Is the 1s Pressing Always the Best on the Brahms Violin Concerto with Heifetz?

Hot Stamper Pressings that Sound Their Best on the Right Reissue

This early Shaded Dog pressing of the 1958 recording has surprisingly good sound on side two. On the second side the sound opens up and is very sweet, with the violin becoming much more present and clear.

The whole of side two is transparent with an extended top. Usually the earliest Living Stereo titles suffer from a lack of top end extension, but not this one.

Maybe the 1s pressing is also that way. For some reason audiophiles tend to think that the earliest cuttings are the best, but that’s just more mistaken audiophile thinking if our experience can serve as any guide, easily refuted if you’ve played hundreds of these Living Stereo pressings and noted which stampers sound the best and which do not.

The 1s pressings do not consistently win our shootouts.

About half the time, maybe less would be my guess.

Of course, to avoid being biased, the person listening to the record doesn’t know the stamper numbers, and that may help explain why the 1s loses so often.

If you are interested in finding the best sounding pressings, you have to approach the problem scientifically, and that means running record experiments.

Practically everything you read on this blog we learned through experimentation.

When we experimented with the Classic Records pressing of LSC 1903, we were none too pleased with what we heard. Our review is reproduced below.

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Better Front Ends Actually Reduce Surface Noise

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Tchaikovsky Available Now

This record has no marks that play appreciably, but that RCA vinyl is up to its old tricks again.

Mint Minus Minus with constant light surface noise underneath the music in the quieter sections is the rule. The first half inch of side two is where you will notice it the most.

We are of the opinion that good sound and good music allow you to pretty much ignore surfaces such as these (scratches being another thing entirely of course). 

Better Front Ends

I would make the further point that the better your front end is, the less likely you are to have a problem with vinyl like this, which is the opposite of what many audiophiles perceive to be the case. In other words, some of the cheaper tables and carts seem to make the surface noise more objectionable, not less. (They also tend to collapse completely under the weight of a mighty recordings.)

On the other hand, some pricey cartridges — the Benz line comes to mind — are consistently noisier than those by Dynavector, Lyra and others, in our experience anyway.

Vintage Vinyl

As long as vintage vinyl is the only vinyl with sound worth pursuing, as is surely the case these days and will be the case for the forseeable future — we have ample evidence to support this statement for this who are interested in that lamentable reality — a quiet cartridge and a very high quality arm are essential to your being able to recognize good records and reproduce them properly.

Our Dynavector 17Dx gets down deep into the groove, where vintage used records have the least number of problems created by their previous owners.

And we run it nude for even better sound. I discovered this possibility more than a decade ago — so long ago that I cannot remember where I came by the information — but the sound was immediately so much better that all questions were answered moments after dropping the needle.

Not a lot of things are obvious, but that sure was.

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Putting Your System to the (Violin and Piano) Test

Hot Stamper Pressings with Jascha Heifetz Performing

Do you want a recording that is going to put your system to the test? Well this is that record! The violin is REAL. As you compare equipment or tweak your system, you will hear the sound of that violin change and it should be obvious when it gets better and when it gets worse. 

The piano is also very well recorded.

If you lose some body to the piano you’re probably going in the wrong direction.

But since that direction would make the violin almost unbearable sounding, I’m going to guess that would be easily recognized as a mistake.

The balance between those two instruments on this recording is perfection, so if you get this record right, you’re making progress of the most important kind: toward musical naturalness.

Otherwise this violin, at least on the Kreutzer Sonata, is going to tear your head off.

Our previous Hot Stamper review follows.

The Beethoven, which takes up side one, is recorded in a fairly dry acoustic. The sound of the violin is very immediate. It’s quite a showpiece for Heifetz.

I much prefer the Bach on side two, however, which is recorded within a more natural hall acoustic. Sir Malcom Sargent conducts and Eric Freidman plays the second violin in this concerto, which is also his debut for RCA, according to the liner notes.

This piece was recorded in England and to me it has the rich, sweet, glorious sound of Living Stereo at its best.

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