Labels We Love – Philips

Violin and Piano Concerto Recordings that Fall Apart

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

Hot Stamper Pressings of Piano Concerto Recordings

Many of the vintage orchestral recordings we’ve auditioned over the years did a good job of capturing the lead instrument in a concerto — for example, the piano or violin — but fell apart completely when the orchestra came in, with obvious and unacceptable levels of congestion and distortion.

Orchestras are hard to record. Pianos and violins, not so much.

Here are some titles that often have congestion problems when they get loud. If you play your orchestral recordings at moderate levels, you may not be as bothered by this problem as we are, because we do not have the luxury of listening at moderate levels.

We have to put the records through the ringer, and one of the ringers they must go through is they must sound right at loud levels, because live music gets loud, without getting distorted or congested.

Congestion and distortion are problems for practically all the titles you rarely see on our site, the vintage pressings of recordings by EMI, DG, Philips, Columbia and dozens of others.

We discussed the problem here in more detail.

Further Reading

(more…)

Handel / Water Music – Leppard

More of the music of George Frederick Handel (1685-1759)

More Classical and Orchestral Recordings

  • With INSANELY GOOD Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from first note to last, this Philips import pressing is the BEST we have ever heard
  • This copy was simply bigger, more transparent, with more clarity and clearly layered depth to the orchestra than all others copies we played
  • Shockingly airy and warm, this is the kind of sound that makes it easy to fall in love with an oft-heard piece such as The Water Music
  • Note how far back the trumpets are in the hall, yet they are still clear, tonally correct and not smeared – that’s the sound one hears in a live performance (and too rarely on a record)
  • This is the combination of performance and sound that we know of, and let me tell you, we’ve played an awful lot of pressing of this music over the last thirty years, none of which do what the best pressings of this recording can do
  • This recording should be part of any serious Classical Music Collection. Others that belong in that category can be found here.
  • There are about 150 orchestral recordings we’ve found to offer the Best Performances with the Audiophile Quality Sound, and this record certainly deserve a place on that list.

The performance by the English Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Raymond Leppard is currently my favorite, owing in large part to the fact that it has the kind of sound I find the most natural and enjoyable.

In a way this may not be quite fair to other equally well-known, well-respected performances. We went through an elimination round for the work a while back, winnowing the recordings down to those that had the best sound, regardless of performance — perhaps some of the discarded records had even better performances than Leppard’s. At this late stage who can say?

We audiophiles want the music we play to sound its best, a requirement which more often than not involves compromises of one kind or another. We are happy to report that that does not appear to be the case with The Water Music (keeping in mind the caveat above). (more…)

Dvorak / Violin Concerto – A Killer Philips Recording

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

More Recordings Featuring the Violin

  • An incredible Philips import pressing of Dvorak’s classical Masterpiece with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it from first note to last
  • Our shootout winner was a big step up over the competition – in the old days it would have been given more than three pluses, but we don’t do that anymore
  • The orchestral passages are rich and sweet, the violin present, with its harmonics gloriously intact
  • We audiophiles are fortunate indeed that a violinist of Accardo’s skill and taste recorded this piece for Philips at a time when their recording technology was still capable of capturing the sound of his violin in rich, warm, sweet, clear ANALOG
  • A superb performance from Salvatore Accardo, not only competitive with the best we have heard, but superior – we know of none better
  • These links will take you to some of the orchestral “sleeper” recordings we’ve discovered with Demo Disc sound

Yes, it was still possible to record classical music properly in 1980, though not many labels managed to pull it off. (Londons from this era are especially opaque and airless. We find them as irritating and frustrating as most of the Heavy Vinyl releases being foisted on the audiophile public these days.)

The orchestral passages are rich and sweet, the violin present, its harmonic colors gloriously intact. This is still ANALOG, with the better copies displaying much of the Tubey Magic of ’50s and ’60s vinyl without as much compressor distortion (the Achilles’ heel of so many of the great recordings from the Golden Era).

Accardo is an accomplished performer of the works of Paganini, but those recordings are on DG and we would not expect them to be of acceptable audio quality for our customers. We will investigate further of course, as Paganini’s works for violin are some of the most sublime in the repertoire.

(more…)

Beethoven / Violin Concerto / Grumiaux

More of the music of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

More Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

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. The best copies display a Tubey Magical richness — especially evident in the basses and celli — that is to die for.

Big space, a solid bottom, and plenty of dynamic energy are strongly in evidence throughout. Exceptional resolution, transparency, tremendous dynamics, a violin that is present and solid — this copy takes the sound of the recording right to the limits of what we thought possible from Philips.

As we listened, we became completely immersed in the music, transfixed by the remarkable virtuosity he brings to such a difficult and demanding work.

What to Listen For

This copy had very little smear on either the violin or the orchestra. Try to find a violin concerto record with no smear.

Let’s face it: records from every era more often than not have some smear and we can never really know what accounts for it. The key thing is to be able to recognize it for what it is. (We find modern records, especially those pressed at RTI, to be quite smeary as a rule. They also tend to be congested, blurry, thick, veiled, and ambience-challenged. For some reason most audiophiles — and the reviewers who write for them — rarely seem to notice these shortcomings.)

Of course, if your system itself has smear — practically every tube system I have ever heard has some smear, including the one I used to own — it becomes harder to hear smear on your records.

Our all transistor rig has no trouble showing it to us.

Keep in mind that one thing live music never has is smear of any kind. Live music is scompletely mear-free. It can be harmonically distorted, hard, edgy, thin, fat, dark, and all the rest, but one thing it never is, is smeary.

That is a shortcoming unique to the imperfect reproduction of music, and one for which many of the pressings we sell are downgraded.

(more…)

Elgar / Strauss – Enigma Variations / Don Juan / Haitink

More of the music of Edward Elgar (1857-1934)

More Classical and Orchestral Recordings

  • These two outstanding performances by Haitink and the London Phil (Enigma Variations) and the Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam (Don Juan) boast KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from start to finish
  • Both of these sides are doing everything right – they’re rich, clear, undistorted, open, spacious, and have depth and transparency to rival the best recordings you may have heard
  • You’d be hard-pressed to find a copy that’s this well-balanced, yet big and lively, with such wonderful clarity in the mids and highs

(more…)

Where Cheap Turntables Fall Flat – The Music of Franz Liszt

More Classical and Orchestral Music

Best Orchestral Performances with Top Quality Sound

Classical music is unquestionably the ultimate test for proper turntable/arm/cartridge setup.

The Liszt Piano Concerto record you see pictured is a superb choice for making small adjustments to your setup in order to improve the playback of these very difficult to reproduce orchestral recordings.

Here are some other reviews and commentaries touching on these areas of turntable setup.

One of the reasons $10,000+ front ends exist is to play large scale, complex, difficult-to-reproduce music such as Liszt’s two piano concertos. You don’t need to spend that kind of money to play this record, but if you choose to, it would surely be the kind of record that could help you see the sound quality your tens of thousands of dollars has bought you.

It has been my experience that cheap tables more often than not collapse completely under the weight of a mighty record such as this.

As for the music, I don’t know of a piano concerto record that more correctly captures the relationship between the piano and the orchestra. The piano here is huge and powerful, yet at the same time, the percussive and lighter qualities are clearly expressed in relation to the entire orchestra. In addition, there are places on this album where the brass is as powerful and dynamic as I’ve ever heard on record.

Many of these would make great test discs.

Lately we have been writing quite a bit about how pianos are good for testing your system, room, tweaks, electricity and all the rest, not to mention turntable setup and adjustment.

  • We like our pianos to sound natural (however one chooses to define the term).
  • We like them to be solidly weighted.
  • We like them to be free of smear, a quality that is rarely mentioned in the audiophile record reviews we read but is easily audible on the smear-free equipment we use.

Skip the Mercury

The title originally came out as a Mercury, the work of Robert Fine and Wilma Cozart, mastered by George Piros, the legendary Mercury team of renown. It is instructive to note that this Philips mastering is clearly superior to the mediocre Mercury mastering, which may be counterintuitive, but is demonstrably true nonetheless.

Which is why we actually listen to the records we sell here at Better Records, because you can’t judge a record by its credentials — you must play it.

(more…)

Liszt / Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 / Kondrashin / Richter

More of the music of Franz Liszt (1811-1886)

More Classical and Orchestral Recordings

  • A vintage Philips import pressing of these Classical Masterpieces that boasts excellent Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last, pressed on vinyl that’s about as quiet as we can find it
  • The finest Liszt 1st and 2nd Piano Concertos we know of for their performances, and unquestionably for sonics (when the sonics are this good!)
  • The better pressings of this title are more like live music than any classical recording you own (outside of one of our Hot Stamper pressings, of course; those can be every bit as good) or your money back
  • So big, rich and transparent we guarantee you have never heard a better piano concerto recording

*NOTE: Unlike Concerto No. 1, The Second Piano Concerto opens very quietly, so there will likely never be a vintage pressing of the album that will get that opening to play like a CD. Expect to hear some random ticks, a small price to pay to hear this wonderful performance on top quality analog.

Richter and Kondrashin deliver the finest Liszt 1st & 2nd Piano Concertos I know of, musically, sonically and in every other way. Richter’s performance here is alternately energetic and lyrical, precisely as the work demands. The recording itself is explosively dynamic. The brass is unbelievably full, rich and powerful. You won’t find a better recording of this music anywhere, and this pressing just cannot be beat.

Big and rich (always a problem with piano recordings: you want to hear the percussive qualities of the instrument, but few copies can pull it off without sounding thin). We love the BIG, FAT, Tubey Magical sound of this recording! The piano is solid and powerful — like a real piano.

Huge amounts of hall space, weight and energy, this is DEMO DISC QUALITY SOUND by any standard. (more…)

Rachmaninoff / Three Symphonies / Waart – Reviewed in 2005

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

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Rachmaninoff

Three Minty looking Philips Import LPs with EXCELLENT SOUND!

The sound is dark and rich. You may prefer it as I do to the famous Previn performances on EMI, which have that mid-hall, vague ’70s EMI sound. That sound never appealed to me. 

The performances are excellent as well. The second symphony belongs in any serious collection and you get a very good one in this box set. This set includes Rachmaninoff’s Symphonies 1-3 and ‘The Rock,’ Op. 7.

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.

(more…)

Debussy / La Mer / Haitink – Reviewed in 2011

The Music of Claude Debussy Available Now

Album Reviews of the Music of Claude Debussy

This is an older review. When we revisited this title recently, we felt it was badly lacking in Tubey Magic, a real deal killer for us here at Better Records.

It’s a decent sounding record, not much more than that, but it does have a top performance. If you see one for cheap in the bins, pick it up and give it a spin.

We prefer Ansermet’s performances for Decca of both La Mer and Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun.

Our review for the album from years ago can be seen below. As for other records we think we got wrong — we may change our minds again! — you can find more under the heading of Live and Learn.

This early Philips pressing has very good sound and a SUPERB performance from Haitink. (Gramaphone, the “world’s authority on classical music since 1923”, raves about it.) Finding a quiet, good sounding La Mer is as difficult as finding a quiet good sounding Bolero. As popular as both of these works are, and considering how many times they have been recorded in analog, quiet vinyl and good sound are still the exception and not the rule, and that goes for Bolero especially. 

Side One

La Mer is on side one and it is lovely here. This is every bit a Philips recording from 1977, which means it’s a bit on the dark and smooth side. However, it is also quite musical, and never shrill or edgy. The dynamic contrasts are excellent (La Mer being a fairly dynamic work), the space of the hall is substantial, and the sound, coupled with Haitink’s superb performance, brings this music dramatically to life.

Side Two

Side two is even more transparent and open sounding.

The clarinet work on side two, rarely recorded it seems, is actually one of the high points of the entire record. The clarinet is reproduced with gorgeous fidelity.

Quiet Vinyl

Philips can usually be counted on to press their records on quiet vinyl, and here they do not disappoint. Not many RCAs and Mercs are going to be remotely as quiet as this pressing. For quiet music such as this, it works wonders.

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.

(more…)

Mozart – VTA and Balance

More of the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Mozart

What to Listen for ask? Dryness.

Some of the copies lacked the richness to balance out the clarity and became dry sounding. There is a balance to be found. The right VTA will be critical in this regard. When you have all the space; the clearest, most extended harmonics; AND good weight and richness in the lower registers of the cello, you are where you need to be (keeping in mind that it can always get better if you have the patience and motivation to tweak further).

On the other side of that coin is smear, usually from too much tubey richness. Again, finding the balance is key.

Here are some other records that are good for testing string tone and texture.

OUR HOT STAMPER COMMENTARY FROM 2013

Easily one of the finest string quartet recordings we have ever had the pleasure to play, this Philips pressing earned strong grades on both sides for its lovely recreation of space, Tubey Magical richness, and rosiny string textures.  

It sounds very much like live music, or at least what you imagine this music would sound like live. Of course, live classical music is shocking in its clarity and freedom from artificiality, and no recording I have ever heard duplicates that sound with perfect fidelity, but when the pressing is as clear and transparent and natural as this one, your ability to suspend disbelief seems to require no effort at all.

Close your eyes and your brain, search as it may, can find nothing in the recording to interfere with the appreciation of even the most subtle nuances of the score. This is the mark of a very fine record indeed.

You may notice that we do very few chamber music records on the site. Thousands of these works have been recorded, and to be honest a large portion of them actually have quite decent sound. Obviously a handful of instruments is much more easily captured on tape than the fifty or more pieces in a modern large orchestra.

But when we hear one with this kind of transparency and fidelity, we make every effort to track down more copies, working through them to discover the truly Hot Stamper pressings lurking within their identical looking covers.

This copy had the sound we were looking for. Those of you with exceptionally clean, clear systems, capable of reproducing both the clarity and the Tubey Magic captured on the tape, are in for a real treat.

(more…)