Hot Stamper Pressings of the Pines of Rome Available Now
We were only slightly impressed with this Speakers Corner pressing of Maazel conducting The Cleveland Orchestra, writing at the time:
The famous TAS List recording. Very good sound. You can do better but it’s not easy. This work is just too difficult to record.
Mostly true. Not sure about very good sound but difficult to record is spot on.
Hot Stamper Pressings of the music of Edvard Grieg Available Now
Sonic Grade: C+
The Fjeldstad has long been one of our favorite performances of Peer Gynt here at Better Records.
This record is handy for VTA set-up as well, a subject discussed below in our listing from 2010.
The sound is excellent for a modern reissue*, but in the loudest sections the orchestra can get to be a bit much, taking on a somewhat harsh quality. (The quieter passages are superb: sweet and spacious.)
So I adjusted the VTA a bit to see what would happen, and was surprised to find that even the slightest change in VTA caused the strings to lose practically all their rosiny texture and become unbearably smeared.
This is precisely why it’s a good heavy vinyl pressing for setting up your turntable.
If you can get the strings to play with reasonably good texture on this record you probably have your VTA set correctly.
VTA
Correct VTA adjustment for classical records (as well as all other kinds of records) is critical to their proper reproduction. If you do not have an arm that allows you to easily adjust its VTA, then you will just have to do it the hard way (which normally means loosening a set screw and moving the arm up and down until you get lucky with the right height).
Yes, it may be time consuming, it may in fact be a major pain in the ass, but there is no question in my mind that you will hear a dramatic improvement in the sound or your records once you have taken the time to correctly set the VTA, by ear, for each and every record you play.
We heard the improvement on this very record, and do on all the classical LPs (and all other kinds of records) we play.
The Big Caveat
As for the asterisk (*) above, it concerns the caveat “…for a modern reissue…” What exactly do we mean by that? Allow us to reprint what we wrote about another Heavy Vinyl classical pressing, one that we actually used to like.
More of the music of Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
The Speakers Corner pressing earned something like a “B’ grade from us, which makes it one of the better releases on that label. (I would guess that one or two out of ten would rate a “B.” I also don’t know of any record of theirs that rates a higher grade than “B.”)
It’s overly rich, a case of being too fat in the mid-bass, but otherwise it mostly sounds right.
As you may already know, we stopped carrying Heavy Vinyl pressings of any kind in 2011.
By then, the quality of our playback and record cleaning had improved to the point that even the best Heavy Vinyl LPs were no longer competitive with the vintage vinyl we were then offering as Hot Stamper pressings.
More of the music of Isaac Albeniz (1860-1909)
Years ago we wrote the review you see below. Not sure we would still find the record as good sounding as we did back then, in the ’90s, so take it for what it’s worth. (What I couldn’t hear on my system back in those days may be of interest to some of you.)
If you can pick one up for cheap, it’s probably a good record for the price.
One of the better Speakers Corner Deccas! Excellent sound and lovely music. This pressing also sounds much better than the Super Analogue pressing of the same music.
When you get the right original pressing — London or Decca — they’re even better, but they sure are hard to find on quiet vinyl.
That last part we definitely agree with.
More of the Music of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)
This commentary was written in 2004.
We carried Heavy Vinyl back then, and for that, knowing what I know now, I can only apologize.
Back then, I thought I knew a great deal more about records and how to reproduce them than I actually did. Yes, I have to admit it: I suffered from the Dunning-Kruger effect.
On the bright side, there is one very powerful benefit that I gained from being so mistaken. Having failed to recognize my own shortcomings, the signs that someone thinks they know more than they do are easy for me to spot. Here is one of my favorite examples. I link to it a lot.
If you want to see the effect played out in the cyber world, go to any audiophile forum and start reading any thread about records you find there. The D-K effect is hard to miss. Some of the experts on these forums have even convinced themselves that they know things that cannot be known, which is always a sure sign they know a great deal less than they think they do.
Our Old Commentary
Some thoughts on the new 180 gram Mercury reissues by Speakers Corner and a bunch of other record related stuff.
The Absolute Sound weighed in with their view of the series:
Speakers Corner has given these recordings the respect they deserve. The packaging is gorgeous: a black album titled “The Living Presence of 20th Century Music” and displaying the Mercury logo holds the three records with their original covers and liner notes. In addition, there are informative annotations on the music and Dorati, and a history of Mercury Living Presence…They sound at least as good and in some ways better than the originals…There are no negatives and not enough superlatives to describe these magnificent reissues. It’s rare that performance, sound, and musical value combine at this level in a recording.
Arthur B. Lintgen, The Absolute Sound, February/March 2004
Let me start by saying that I have not listened to a single one of the new Mercury titles.
Now that that’s out of the way, let me state for the record that the chances of the above statements being true are so close to zero that they cannot be calculated by anything but the latest Cray computer.
Has Speakers Corner produced a single classical record that’s better than a well-mastered, properly-pressed vintage pressing? One or two. Maybe. [These days we would say zero is the right number.] So what are the chances they did so with these? Almost none I would say.
The above review reminds me of the nonsense I read in TAS and elsewhere in the mid-’90s regarding the supposed superiority of the Classic Living Stereo reissues. After playing their first three titles: 1806, 1817 and 2222, I could find no resemblance between the reviews I read and the actual sound of the records I heard.
The sound was, in a word, awful. To this day I consider them to be the Single Worst Reissue Series in the History of the World. [Presently there are too many contenders for that title to hold that view anymore.]
More of the Music of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)
For some background, in 2005 we were still selling Heavy Vinyl. We were fans of DCC and Cisco and carried many of the Speakers Corner remasters.
But things were starting to look grim. With every improvement to our playback system, these modern reissues seem to be falling further and further behind.
In the late-’90s, Classic had released some Mercury titles which we’d auditioned and disliked immensely. In 2005 it was Speakers Corner’s turn to have at the Mercury catalog, and they went a different way, finding a “new sound” for the legendary recordings, completely unlike any vintage pressing we’d ever heard.
This was very upsetting. I felt the need to say something.
By 2007 it was clear that Heavy Vinyl was a lost cause and had no business being sold by any audiophile record dealer who cared about sound quality, most especially me. And that was the end of it. This Mercury was one of the records that helped me see the error of my ways.
Part 1 of this discussion of Speakers Corner’s Mercury Series can be found here.
A blog entry on the site from 2005 about the new Mercury reissue series that was coming out noted that:
I am expecting the new Rach 3rd (90283) later this week, and will report my findings as soon as I have a had a chance to evaluate it.
[A few weeks later I followed up with this:]
The news on 90283 is here. It came today. Are you ready? In one sentence:
The most opaque, dull and lifeless 180 gram reissue in the history of the world.
My blog entry from 2005 continues below, transcribed practically word for word.
I hope it’s becoming clear to people now that this series is an enormous fraud perpetrated against all right thinking (right listening?) audiophiles. I can’t imagine a worse sounding record. It makes the most opaque ’70s Phillips or London LP sound positively transparent next to this thick piece of crap. I pulled out my late label copy, far from the best sounding pressing I’ve ever heard, and it killed the new version. The trumpets sound like they’re playing from under a pile of blankets on this 180 gram LP. The sound is so bad it defies understanding.
And the sad thing, in some ways the saddest aspect of this very sad affair, is that I can safely predict right now, with absolutely no fear of being proved wrong, that every major record dealer will rave about it. Mark my words. Every one. Except me of course. But I’m not one of the majors. Thank god I don’t have to sell crap like this to make a living.
And every audiophile who reads a rave review in a dealer’s catalog or on a website should take it for precisely what it is: a naked grab for his money, nothing more, nothing less. It’s all about the money. It’s not about the sound. It’s not about the music. It’s just about money.
Any record dealer who would stoop low enough to take money for a record this bad is telling you something very important about his business: he either can’t tell a good record from a bad one, or he doesn’t care. Either one would make me take my business elsewhere. How do these guys stay in business? (Maybe the fact that most of their catalogs are now given over to equipment explains it.)
And you should be outraged at this kind of fraud. If you give money to retailers who so obviously have nothing but contempt for you, you share in the blame. You’re keeping these guys in business. It makes me think of the scene in Network where Howard the veteran newscaster talks directly to his audience:
So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell: ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore!’
I want you to get up right now. Sit up. Go to your windows. Open them and stick your head out and yell – ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not gonna take this anymore!’ Things have got to change. But first, you’ve gotta get mad!…You’ve got to say, ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore!’
After playing this new Mercury, I was filled with questions.
What is to become of the record business?
Do we really need records that sound worse than the worse sounding CDs, at twice the price?
Hot Stamper Pressings of Recordings by Decca Available Now
Sonic Grade: B?
One of the better Speakers Corner Deccas. We were impressed with the Speakers Corner pressing when it came out back in the day. We’ve come to learn that it is such an exceptional recording that even their second rate remastering of it was still capable of resulting in a very good sounding record.
One of the ways you can tell how great a recording this is is simply this: as soon as the needle hits the groove you are immediately involved in the music, listening to each of the lines created by the five preternaturally gifted players, all the while marveling at Schubert’s compositional skills.
More of the music of Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904)
The one recording of this work that seemed to us to have the best balance of sound and performance was conducted by Istvan Kertesz. His recording with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1961, his debut for Decca as a matter of fact, is the one that ended up winning our shootout of a dozen pressings or so.
You may be aware that Speakers Corner remastered this recording in the ’90s. We carried it and recommended it highly at the time.
Now that we have much better equipment and much higher standards than we did then, we probably would not like it as well. Still, if you can pick one up for cheap, something close to the thirty bucks we used to charge, it might not be such a bad deal.
I will be happy to give Speakers Corner credit for knowing which recording of the work was most deserving of remastering. They make a lot of mistakes, but this is not one of them.
Unsurprisingly, we prefer a later mastering of the recording, not the original.
Here are more reviews of music conducted by Kertesz, a man whose work we very much admire.
Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Tchaikovsky Available Now
Our catalog from the 90s recommended this Heavy Vinyl Decca pressing from Speakers Corner.
We haven’t played a copy of this record in years, but back in the day we liked it, so let’s call it a “B” with the caveat that the older the review, the more likely we are to have changed our minds. Not sure if we would still agree with what we wrote back in the ’90s when this record came out, but here it is anyway.
Excellent, one of the best of the Deccas. Better sound by far than the Classic with Reiner, although of course the original of that record is quite good [actually it is not].
You may get better results if you reverse your polarity when playing this record. It’s been a while since I did it so better to check it yourself and see how you like it each way.
Years ago we wrote the review you see above. Doubtful that we would still find the record as good sounding as we did back then, in the 90s, so take it for what it’s worth. (What I couldn’t hear on my system back in those days may be of interest to some of you.)
If you can pick one up for cheap, it’s probably a good record for the price.
What to Listen For
As a general rule, this Heavy Vinyl pressing will fall short in some or all of the following areas when played head to head against the vintage pressings we offer:
More of the Music of Igor Stravinsky
This is probably one of the better Speakers Corner Deccas.
We haven’t played a copy of this record in years, but back in the day we liked it, so let’s call it a “B” with the caveat that the older the review, the more likely we are to have changed our minds.
Not sure if we would still agree with what we wrote back in the ’90s when this record came out, but here it is anyway.
“Excellent sound with a wonderful performance from Ansermet.”
Currently our favorite Firebird is the original pressing on Mercury with Dorati conducting. Our opinion is very unlikely to change concerning the best combination of sound and performance. The record is simply a monster on the right pressing.
We have never heard an especially good sounding London or Decca of Ansermet’s performance, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. We tend to avoid judging records we have not played and we encourage the audiophile community to do the same.
As a general rule, this Heavy Vinyl pressing will fall short in most of the following areas: