Labels With Shortcomings – Classic Records – Classical

Shostakovich – Another “Problematical” Classic Records Reissue

More of the music of Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Titles Available Now

It’s been quite a while since I played the Classic pressing, but I remember it as nothing special.

Like a lot of the records put out by this label, it’s tonally fine but low-rez and lacking space, warmth and above all, Tubey Magic.

I don’t think I’ve ever played an original or a Victrola reissue that didn’t sound better, and that means that the best grade to give Classic’s pressing is probably a D for below average.

The Classic Records pressing can currently be found on the TAS list, but we don’t think it has any business being there.

The Big Blowout

When Classic Records was blowing out its unsold inventory through the Tower Records Classical Annex in Hollywood, this was a title you could pick up for under ten bucks. (I remember it being $7, but some were $10 and some were $12, and my memory may not be correct about which were which. Let’s just say they were all very cheap.)

And even at that price it seemed nobody really wanted it.  Which is as it should be. Heavy Vinyl or no Heavy Vinyl, a bad record is a bad record and not worth the bother of sitting down and listening to it.

If you own this record, my guess is it is mint. If you played it at all, you played it once, at most twice (just to be sure it wasn’t really very good) and put it away on a shelf where it sits to this very day.

You may not have been able to put your finger on exactly what was wrong with it, but on some level, perhaps subconsciously, you knew there was something missing, something “off.”

Whatever it was doing, good or bad, it wasn’t a record you felt the need to return to again.

And that’s why it’s mint. It was played once or twice and stored. You kept it perhaps because it filled a hole in your classical collection. Shostakovich Age of Gold? Yes, I have that one, here it is right here, in the S’s.

An important work, right? Yes, of course, I agree, it is an important work. That’s why I own it.

Mediocre Records.

The world is full of them. This is not the brilliant insight it appears to be. They are mediocre by definition, since the average record is average. Classic Records made quite a number of them. They were joined in these efforts by lots of other incompetent mastering houses marketing their wares to audiophiles, the self-described “lovers of sound,” the ones that are so often fooled by fancy packaging, quiet vinyl and a good story.

(You, dear reader, are unlikely to be so easily fooled, or you would have stopped reading this post before now.)

Our records don’t come in fancy jackets, they rarely have quiet vinyl, and most people, audiophiles included, don’t think our story of the Hot Stamper records we sell and how we find them is the least bit plausible.

But our records actually have good sound, and we think that ought to count for something.

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Beethoven – The Classic Pressing Can Have Very Good Sound

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

More Classical and Orchestral Recordings

Somehow we managed to have a Classic Records pressing on hand to play in our most recent shootout for the Beethoven Symphony No. 4.

We knew all the way back in 1997 that Classic had done a good job with the record – we recommended it as one of the best Classic Records pressings in our catalogs at the time — but we sure didn’t expect it to do as well as it did, earning 2 pluses on one side and close to that on the other.

Years ago we wrote:

Here is the kind of sound that Classic Records could not ignore, even though the original was only ever made available as part of RCA’s budget reissue series, Victrola.

Don’t let its budget status fool you — this pressing puts to shame most of what came out on the full price Living Stereo label. (And handily beats any Classic Records reissue ever made.)

The top and bottom are wrong to varying degrees on both sides of the Classic, as you can see from our notes, which read:

Side One:

  • big,
  • a little shiny up top
  • not as rich but weighty

Side Two:

  • leaned out up top
  • blurry down low

At least the midrange is more or less correct.

A potentially good Heavy Vinyl pressing, worth picking up if you can find one at a good price.

Note that it comes with different coupling works, as well as on both 180 amd 200 gram vinyl. This is the version with the Leonore Overture.

To sum up, these grades mean that the Classic will beat the lesser Victrola pressings, and be beaten by the better ones, for what that’s worth.

Side One

Symphony No. 4
I. Adagio, Allegro Vivace
II. Adagio
III. Menuetto: Allegro Vivace – Trio: Un Poco Meno Allegro

Side Two

Symphony No. 4 (cont.)
IV. Allegro Ma Non Troppo

Leonore Overture No. 3 In C Major, Op. 72

Further Reading

Below you will find our reviews of the more than 200 Heavy Vinyl pressings we’ve played over the years.

And finally,

Even as recently as the early 2000s, we were still impressed with many of the better Heavy Vinyl pressings. If we’d never made the progress we’ve worked so hard to make over the course of the last twenty or more years, perhaps we would find more merit in the Heavy Vinyl reissues so many audiophiles seem impressed by.

We’ll never know of course; that’s a bell that can be unrung. We did the work, we can’t undo it, and the system that resulted from it is merciless in revealing the truth — that these newer pressings are second-rate at best and much more often than not third-rate and even worse.

Some audiophile records have such bad sound, I felt motivated to create a special list for them. Others are just BS. I’m sure you know the type.

Setting higher standards — no, being able to set higher standards — in our minds is a clear mark of progress. Judging by the hundreds of letters we’ve received, especially the ones comparing our records to their Heavy Vinyl and Half-Speed mastered counterparts, we know that our customers see things the same way.

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Tchaikovsky – Classic Records and the TAS List

More of the music of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

Reviews and Commentaries for the 1812 Overture

This is a classic case of Live and Learn.

We used to like the Classic Records pressing of LSC 2241 a lot more than we do now. Our system was noticeably darker and apparently far less revealing when we last auditioned the Classic back in the 90s, and those two qualities did most of the heavy lifting needed to disguise its shortcomings. We mistakenly noted:

HP put the Shaded Dog pressing (the only way it comes; there is no RCA reissue to my knowledge) on his TAS List of Super Discs, and with good reason: it’s wonderful!

The rest of our commentary still holds up though:

But for some reason he also put the Classic Records Heavy Vinyl reissue on the list, and that record’s not even passable, let alone wonderful. It’s far too lean and modern sounding, and no original Living Stereo record would ever sound that way, thank goodness. 

If they did few audiophiles would still be paying the top dollar collector prices that the Shaded Dog commands to this day.

Updated Thoughts on the Classic Records Heavy Vinyl Reissue

The Classic on Heavy Vinyl (LSC 2241) is lean and modern sounding. No early Living Stereo pressing sounds like it in our experience, and we can only thank goodness for that. If originals and early reissues did sound more like the Classic pressings, my guess is that few would collect them and practically no one would put much sonic stock in them.

Apparently most audiophiles (including audiophile record reviewers) have never heard a classical recording of the quality of a good original pressing (or good ’60s or ’70s reissue). If they had Classic Records would have gone out of business immediately after producing their first three Living Stereo titles, all of which were dreadful and recognized and identified as such by us way back in 1994.

Here are some Hot Stamper pressings of TAS List titles that actually have audiophile sound quality, guaranteed. And if for some reason you disagree with us about how good they sound, we will be happy to give you your money back.

Here are some others that we do not think qualify as Super Discs.

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Iberia on Classic Records – What, Specifically, Are Its Shortcomings?

The Music of Claude Debussy Available Now

Album Reviews of the music of Claude Debussy

An Audiophile Hall of Shame pressing and another Classic Records LP debunked.

The Classic of LSC 2222 is all but unlistenable on a highly resolving, properly setup hi-fi system.

The opacity, transient smear and loss of harmonic information and ambience found on Classic’s pressing was enough to drive us right up a wall. Who can sit through a record that sounds like that?

The Classic reissue has plenty of deep bass, but the overall sound is shrill and hard and altogether unpleasant. The better bass comes at a steep price.

Way back in 1994, long before we had anything like the system we do now, we were finding fault with the “Classic Records Sound” and said as much in our catalogs. (Sometimes. Sometimes we were as wrong as wrong can be.)

With each passing year — 29 and counting — we like that sound less.  The Classic may be on Harry’s TAS list — sad but true — but that certainly has no bearing on the fact that it’s not a very good record.

For a better sounding recording of Iberia, click here.

Here Are More Titles that Are Good for Judging These Recording Qualities

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Sibelius / Violin Concerto on Classic Records Heavy Vinyl

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

Superb Recordings with Jascha Heifetz Performing

Sonic Grade: F

An Audiophile Hall of Shame pressing and another Classic Records Classical LP badly mastered to the detriment of those lured by the promise of easy answers and quick fixes.

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

As expected, their version was awful, as bad as LSC 1903, 1992, 2129 and others too numerous to list.  

It’s 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 of the sound simply disappear.

The world is full of them.

In these four words we can describe the sound of the average Classic Records pressing. If you have the Classic, do your own shootout. We guarantee any of our Hot Stamper pressings will murder theirs.

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Beethoven / Violin Concerto – Classic Records Reviewed

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

Reviews and Commentaries for Recordings Featuring Jascha Heifetz

An Audiophile Hall of Shame pressing and another Classic Records Classical LP we found seriously lacking in some of the most important qualities we listen for on the classical and orchestral recordings we audition.

The Classic pressing of this album does not present the listener with the sound of a real, wood instrument, bowed by horsehair, in a physical space.

It is an airless fraud, a cheap fake reproduction that’s incapable of fooling anyone currently in possession of two good ears, a properly set up hi-fi system and a decent collection of Golden Age violin concerto recordings.

The fact that a great many writers identifying themselves as audiophiles embraced Classic’s mediocre-at-best reissues tells me that they were lacking some or all of the above.

Bernie Grundman’s low-rez, crude, smeary cutting system did this wonderful 1956 Living Stereo recording no favors. Other records we’ve played and found to have similar problems are linked below.

Notes from a Recent Hot Stamper Pressing (more…)

Rimsky-Korsakov – A Classic Records Disaster

More of the music of Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)

Our Favorite Performance of Scheherazade – Ansermet with the Suisse Romande

Sonic Grade: F

An Audiophile Hall of Shame pressing and another Classic Records Classical LP poorly mastered for the benefit of audiophiles looking for easy answers and quick fixes.

In 2009 or 2010, during our testing of the TT Weights turntable products, the record I played again and again — close to a hundred times over the course of two days — was a wonderful White Dog pressing of LSC 2446. The sound was glorious, some of the finest reproduction of a large orchestral work I have ever heard.  

(Late in life, Harry Pearson disgraced himself by putting this Classic Record on his TAS List of Super Discs.)

A week later I was still testing the system, and again using Scheherazade. A friend brought over his Classic pressing, probably the same one I would have sold him in the mid-’90s. Now we could compare the two.

It was a massacre. The sound on the reissue is simply AWFUL.

There is no transient information anywhere on that heavy vinyl pressing whatsoever. No instruments have any texture — not the strings, not the woodwinds, nothing. There is no air going through the flutes. There is no rosin on the bow of the solo violin.

The tympani are a blurry mess. Triangle: okay. Bass drum: okay. Everything else: FAIL.

Not having played it in years, I could not believe how much worse the record sounded than I remember. The gulf between the real thing and the Classic wannabe was now so huge that the reissue was nothing less than positively UNPLEASANT to listen to. Enjoyment? Out of the question.

TAS List? The original is, but the Classic is too. Now how messed up is that?

Disgraceful, that’s all I have to say about it.

If I were in charge of the TAS Super Disc List, obviously I would not have put this record on it.

Here are some others that we do not think qualify as Super Discs.

Here are some Hot Stamper pressings of TAS List titles that actually have audiophile sound quality, guaranteed.

And if for some reason you disagree with us about how good they sound, we will be happy to give you your money back.

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Classic Records 45 RPM Recut – This Is Your Idea of a Great Firebird?

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

Reviews and Commentaries for The Firebird

Sonic Grade: D

Many years ago, a customer alerted me to a review Wayne Garcia wrote about various VPI platters and the rim drive, and this is what I wrote back to him:

Steve, after starting to read Wayne’s take on the platters, I came across this:

That mind-blowing epiphany that I hadn’t quite reached with the Rim Drive/Super Platter happened within seconds after I lowered the stylus onto the “Infernal Dance” episode of Stravinsky’s Firebird (45 rpm single-sided Classic Records reissue of the incomparable Dorati/LSO Mercury Living Presence recording).

That is one of my half-dozen or so favorite orchestral recordings, and I have played it countless times.

This is why I have so little faith in reviewers. I played that very record not two weeks ago (04/2010) against a good original and the recut was at best passable in comparison. If a reviewer cannot hear such an obvious difference in quality, why believe anything he has to say?

The reason we say that no reviewer can be trusted is that you cannot find a reviewer who does not say good things about demonstrably mediocre and even just plain awful records. It’s the only real evidence we have for their credibility, and the evidence is almost always damning.

I want a reviewer who knows better than to play such an underwhelming pressing and then waste my time telling me about it. He should tell us what a good record sounds like with this equipment mod. Then I might give more credence to what he has to say.

Reviewer malpractice? We’ve been writing about it for more than 25 years.

P.S.

This is one of the Classic Records titles on Harry Pearson’s TAS List of Super Discs (!).

P.P.S.

Allow me to quote a writer with his own website devoted to explaining and judging classical recordings of all kinds. His initials are A.S. for those of you who have been to his site.

Classic Records Reissues (both 33 and 45 RPM) – These are, by far, the best sounding Mercury pressings. Unfortunately, only six records were ever released by Classic. Three of them (Ravel, Prokofiev and Stravinsky) are among the very finest sounding records ever made by anyone. Every audiophile (with a turntable) should have these “big three”.

Obviously we could not disagree more. I’ve played all six of the Classic Mercury’s. The Chabrier, Ravel and Prokofiev titles are actually even worse than the Stravinsky we reviewed.

This same reviewer raved about a record we thought had godawful sound, Romantic Russia on MoFi, a label that never met an orchestral string section it didn’t think needed brightening.

Find me a Mobile Fidelity classical record with that little SR/2 in the dead wax that does not have bright string tone. I have yet to hear one.

What is it with audiophile record reviewers? They seem to be taken in by the most unnatural sounding pressings. The world is full of wonderful vintage pressings that have no such problems. If you are an audiophile who feels himself qualified to write about records, shouldn’t you at least be able to hear the difference between a phony audiophile pressing and the vintage pressings it supposedly improved?

The Absolute Sound is a good example of this kind of malpractice. Most of the records on the old list were vintage pressings, and most of the classical titles set a high standard (the popular titles not so much). Now it’s full of second- and third-rate heavy vinyl recuts that are about as far from Super Discs as you can get.

We went to some pains to show the audiophile community exactly what is wrong with this famous audiophile favorite, and how they could learn to spot one of its most objectionable shortcomings.

The fact that one of the “bad” versions of the album is on the TAS List, side by side with the Living Stereo, is a sign that the standards currently in effect over there have fallen about as far as they can fall.

One of the greatest piano concertos ever recorded is on the list, but so is this unbelievably bad Heavy Vinyl repress of it. Surely somebody at The Absolute Sound can hear the difference. It’s not subtle.

But maybe it is to them. And that’s a sign that they should stop promoting the equipment they write about. Judging by their inability to tell a good record from a bad one, it can’t be very good.

Further Reading

Below you will find our reviews of the more than 200 Heavy Vinyl pressings we’ve played over the years. Feel free to pick your poison.

And finally,

A Confession

Even as recently as the early 2000s, we were still impressed with many of the better Heavy Vinyl pressings. If we’d never made the progress we’ve worked so hard to make over the course of the last twenty or more years, perhaps we would find more merit in the Heavy Vinyl reissues so many audiophiles seem impressed by.

We’ll never know of course; that’s a bell that can be unrung. We did the work, we can’t undo it, and the system that resulted from it is merciless in revealing the truth — that these newer pressings are second-rate at best and much more often than not third-rate and even worse.

Some audiophile records sound so bad, I was pissed off enough to create a special list for them.

Setting higher standards — no, being able to set higher standards — in our minds is a clear mark of progress. Judging by the hundreds of letters we’ve received, especially the ones comparing our records to their Heavy Vinyl and Half-Speed mastered counterparts, we know that our customers see things the same way.

The Violin is a Wonderful Instrument for Stereo Tweaking and Tuning

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

Reviews and Commentaries for Recordings Featuring Jascha Heifetz

Our review for LSC 2314, comprising the Mendelssohn and Prokofiev Violin Concertos, described the wonderful sound we heard on some of the better copies.

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 this violin is 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 repressings of Heifetz’s RCA recordings of the classical masterpieces by the likes of:

need to find themselves a nice — maybe even one that’s not so nice — vintage RCA Shaded Dog or White Dog pressing of any of his albums just to see just how poorly the Classics stack up (with the exception of the Glazounov, which is very good).

Anyone has ever attended a classical music concert should recognize that the violin on any of the Heavy Vinyl pressings of these famous works sounds almost nothing like a violin in a concert hall would sound.

And I mean ever.

No matter where you sit.

No matter how good or bad the hall’s acoustics.

Solo violins in live performance are clear, clean and present. You have no trouble at all “seeing” them clearly.

Our vintage Hot Stamper pressings have that kind of clear and present sound for the violin. If they didn’t, they would not qualify as Hot Stamper pressings.

We haven’t sold a violin concerto record with sound as bad as the typical Classic Records pressing since 2011, the year we stopped selling Heavy Vinyl. Since then we have dedicated ourselves to offering our customers pressings with audiophile quality sound. We believe that makes us unique in the world of audiophile record dealers.

All record dealers, when you stop to think about it.

Falling Apart

As an aside, 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.

Here are some titles that can 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.

Congestion and distortion are problems for practically all the titles you rarely see on our site, the Golden Age recordings by EMI, DG, Philips, Columbia and dozens of others. We discussed the problem here in more detail.

Sibelius / Finlandia – Classic Records Reviewed

More of the music of Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)

More of the music of Edvard Grieg (1843-1907)

Sonic Grade: F

Classic Records ruined this album. Their version is dramatically more smeared and low-rez than our good vintage pressings, with almost none of the sweetness, richness and ambience that the best RCA pressings have in such abundance.

[This turns out not to be true, as we discovered to our chagrin in 2014.]

In fact their pressing is just plain awful, like most of the classical recordings they remastered, and should be avoided at anything other than a nominal price.

Our current favorite pressing is this one on a budget Decca reissue. Go figure.

If you’re tempted to pick one up for a few bucks to hear how badly mastered their version is, go for it. If you actually want a record to play for enjoyment, don’t bother — it’s a complete waste of money.

It is yet another example of a record that has no business being on the TAS List.

Most audiophiles (including audiophile record reviewers) have never heard a classical recording of the quality of the best Living Stereo pressings like those we sell. If they had, Classic Records would have gone out of business immediately after producing their first three Living Stereo titles, all of which were dreadful and described as such by us way back in 1994.

I’m not sure why the rest of the audiophile community was so easily fooled, but I can say that we weren’t, at least when it came to their classical releases.

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