Lewis Layton, Engineer – Reviews and Commentaries

On This Recording of Concerto No. 1, Transparency and Piano Weight Are Key

More of the Music of Ludwig van Beethoven

Notes from a recent shootout.

This pressing has the real Living Stereo magic in spades, but unlike most of the RCA concerto recordings, Richter, the brilliant soloist featured here, is not overly spotlighted, hence the much more immersive “concert hall” sound.

The piano is part of the orchestra, and properly sized, allowing the contributions of the other musicians in the orchestra to be heard more clearly, laid out as they are elegantly across a huge and deep Boston Symphony Hall stage.

All of which adds up to a top quality piano concerto recording in every way.

When it comes to clarity in orchestral music, there is nothing that comes close to the sound of a live performance.

However, some records, this one especially, give you the sense that you are hearing it all.

Audio may be an illusion but it can be a very convincing one.

The spaciousness and three-dimensionality of the recording are also exceptional. Through the efforts and skill of the RCA engineers, that striking openness in the recording is somehow combined with an electrifying immediacy in the sound of the piano, no mean feat. One rarely hears both, except of course live (and not always even then).

There may be other performances of merit, but I know of no recording of this music with better sound. If you are demonstrating naturalistic sound, not bombastic Hi-Fi spectacularity, this pressing more than qualifies as a DEMO DISC.

What to Listen For

What typically separates the killer copies from the merely good ones are qualities that we often look for in the records we play: transparency. Transparency allows you to hear into the recording, reproducing the ambience and subtle musical cues and details that high-resolution analog is known for.

(Note that most Heavy Vinyl pressings being produced these days seem to be seriously Transparency Challenged. Lots of important musical information — the kind we hear on even second-rate standard-weight pressings — is simply not to be found.)

Solid weighty sound for a piano concerto recording is critically important as well. The piano has to be big, powerful, and solid, as massive as a boulder, just the way it can be in the concert hall. In this respect it helps to have Sviatoslav Richter pounding away on the instrument of course.

Side One

Amazing – big and rich without a touch of smear on the strings or the percussive piano. The piano is right sized and that is unusual indeed in our experience.

Dynamic as all get out, with lively horns and a piano that is clear and present. Tonally correct, in a big hall, the sound is Hard To Fault.

The piano is so clear, yet the orchestra is as rich and smooth as one could possibly ask for. No smear, no congestion, no bandwidth limitations – this is the sound of the master tape. No modern reissue — digital or analog — will ever be able to reproduce more than a fraction of the sound found on this pressing.

Side Two

Big, lively and less congested that most of the copies we played. Side one had no smear, this side has a touch, but the sound is wonderful nevertheless.

Listen to the woodwinds on this side; they are glorious. You will have a hard time finding better sound for that section of the orchestra on other recordings.

Pines and Fountains of Rome – Our Mistaken Review from 2006

More of the music of Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936)

Back in 2006 we liked Red Seal pressings of Living Stereo recordings a lot more than we do now, so take this commentary with a huge grain of salt.

Only the advent of top quality cleaning equipment and much improved playback made it possible for us to hear the earlier pressings in all their glory.

A lot of records that I used to like because they were cleaner and brighter — later Red Seal Living Stereos, some OJC jazz, some reissues of rock — sounded much better when my system was darker and less revealing.

There are a lot of live and learn entries about these records, and this is one from many years ago that could not be more wrong (probably, the record is long gone and not around to be played).

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A Simple Listening Test Makes It Easy to Judge Pressings of Scheherazade

Hot Stamper Orchestral Pressings Available Now

The Classic reissue of LSC 2446, as well as the Analogue Productions version from 2013 (the original 33 is the only one I have played, mastered by Ryan Smith at Sterling), are both disasters for many reasons, but they do have one specific failing that is easy to recognize.

Both pressings are worth further discussion and analysis because they provide an easy test that can show you how wrong they are.

When reading the commentary below, keep in mind that what is bad about the Classic Records reissue from 1995 is what is bad about the Analogue Productions remaster put out many years later.

As I noted for some of the Classic Heifetz titles a while back, for all I know the CDs for his Living Stereo recordings may have better sound. That’s probably the first place to go, considering Classic’s rather poor track record regarding the remastering of his music.

Case in point: The Living Stereo CDs I own (both the CD and the SACD) of Scheherazade are dramatically better than the awful Classic Records pressing of it.

Audiophiles who don’t notice what is wrong with the Classic pressing need to get hold of a nice RCA White Dog pressing to see just how poorly the Classic stacks up. (They could even find one that’s not so nice and listen through the surface noise. The difference would still be obvious.)

UPDATE 2025

It has been many years since a White Dog pressing won a shootout. In our last listing for a Hot Stamper White Dog pressing in 2024, we noted:

Now that we know which stampers have the potential to win our shootouts, the right Shaded Dog originals have lately been coming out on top, although the White Dog pressings can still sound quite good, just not as good.

No White Dog earned a higher grade than 2+, and none of the three WD pressings we had on hand earned 2+ on both sides.

Our notes for the various sides of the WD pressings read: “a bit brash, sometimes squawky, dry and bright,” and the like.

Those of you looking for the best sound should stick to the Shaded Dog label originals. They are rich and lush in a way that the WD reissues in our experience never are. I used to swear by the WD reissues, but I see now how wrong I was. My judgments were colored by a darker, less revealing stereo than the one we use now, and that makes all the difference in the world.

Back to LSC 2446

The solo violin in the left channel at the opening of the first movement should be all it takes to hear what is wrong with the modern remastered pressings.

Anyone has ever attended a classical music concert will have no trouble recognizing that the violin on any of the Heavy Vinyl pressings, including the Analogue Productions pressing, is completely wrong and sounds nothing like a violin in a concert hall would ever sound.

And I mean ever.

No matter where you might be sitting.

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

The violin on these Heavy Vinyl pressings is dark, it’s veiled, and it’s overly rich, as well as lacking in overtones.

Solo violins in live performance never sound like that.

They are clear, clean and present. You have no trouble at all “seeing” them, no matter where you sit.

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Ravel / Concerto in G on Classic Records

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Maurice Ravel Available Now

UPDATE 2025

We just played a Shaded Dog pressing of LSC 2271 and thought it was a good sounding record but not a great one. There may be great sounding pressings of available, but at the price clean copies command these days, $100 and up, we have decided not to pursue them anymore.

Classic Records did a passable job with this title, which is about the best they ever do. It’s a far cry from the sound heard on our Hot Stamper pressings, but for those of you who do not want to spend that kind of money, or for those who insist on quiet surfaces, the Classic is not a bad record.

The performance is excellent as well, and of course the Ravel Concerto is a piece of music that belongs in any serious collection.

This record also includes d’Indy’s Symphony on a French Mountain Air.

What do you get with Hot Stampers compared to the Classic Heavy Vinyl reissue?

Dramatically more warmth, sweetness, delicacy, transparency, space, energy, size, naturalness (no boost on the top end or the bottom, a common failing of anything on Classic); in other words, the kind of difference you almost ALWAYS get comparing the best vintage pressings with their modern remastered counterparts, in our experience anyway.

Now if you’re a Classic Records fan, and you like that brighter, more detailed, more aggressive sound, our Hot Stampers are probably not for you. We don’t like that sound and we don’t like most Classic Records. They may be clean and clear but where is the RCA LIVING STEREO Magic that made people swoon over these recordings in the first place?

Bernie manages to clean that sound right off the record, and that’s just not our idea of hi-fidelity.

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Rachmaninoff / Concerto No. 3 / Janis – Wrong Again?

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

In 2007 we raved about this title:

Outstanding! Sounds just like the already very good shaded dog, in many ways better. (I don’t have that one around to compare anymore but this LP has that same natural, smooth sound, while being cut a bit cleaner.) 

We have two copies of this Victrola, both with the same stamper numbers, and this is definitely the better of the two sonically. It has more presence, more transparency and better dynamics.

In preparation for our latest big shootout, we decided to give the Victrola another listen, and the one copy we had on hand was not impressive to say the least. It was dark, thin and flat.

Three strikes and it was out. Seems as though we were wrong.

Did we have better copies in 2007? Perhaps.

Our advice: skip it. If you do buy one, buy it for cheap.

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Who Can’t Hear Differences in Sound from Side to Side on Most Records?

rimskscheh_2446Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Rimsky-Korsakov Available Now

Both the Chesky [1] and Classic reissue pressings of LSC 2446 are just plain terrible. Embarrassingly, the latter is found on the TAS List.

There is a newly [2013, time flies!] remastered 33 RPM pressing of the album garnering rave reviews in the audiophile press. We didn’t like it either. It fails the violin test that we wrote about here.

Please note that in many of the reviews for the new pressing, the original vinyl used for comparison is a Shaded Dog pressing. In our experience almost no Shaded Dog pressings are competitive with the later White Dog pressings, and many of them are just plain awful, as we have noted previously on the site.

UPDATE 2024: Now that we know which stampers have the potential to sound the best in our shootouts, the Shaded Dog originals have lately been winning top honors, although the White Dog pressings can still sound quite good, just not as good.

rimskscheh_chesky

The “original is better” premise of most reviewers renders the work they do practically worthless, at least to those of us who take the time to play a wide variety of pressings and judge them on the merits of their sound, not the color of their labels.

[A fairly embarrassing example of live and learn.]

Missing the Obvious

The RCA White Dog with the best side two in our shootout had a very unmusical side one. Since reviewers virtually never discuss the sonic differences between the two (or more) sides of the albums they audition, how critically can they be listening? Under the circumstances how can we take anything they have to say about the sound of the record seriously?

The sound is obviously different from side to side on most of the records we play, often dramatically so (as in the case of Scheherazade), yet audiophile reviewers practically never seem to notice these obvious, common, unmistakable differences in sound, the kind that we discuss in every listing on the site. If they can’t hear the clear differences in sound from side to side, doesn’t that call into question their abilities at the most basic level?

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We Heap Scorn Upon Chesky Records, With Good Reason

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

Sonic Grade: F

Chesky is one of the WORST AUDIOPHILE LABELS in the history of the world. Their recordings are so artificial and “wrong” that they defy understanding. That some audiophiles actually buy into this junk sound is equal parts astonishing and depressing.

Their own records are a joke, and their remasterings of the RCA Living Stereo catalog are an abomination.

The best RCA Living Stereo pressings are full of Tubey Magic. The Chesky pressings I have played have none.

What else would you need to know about their awful records than that?

If there is a more CLUELESS audiophile label on the planet, I don’t know what it could be, and I don’t want to find out. 

(Turns out there is someone producing the worst kind of remastered junk vinyl who may be even more clueless than Chesky, imagine that!)

Scheherazade Is a Classic Records Disaster

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Rimsky-Korsakov Available Now

An audiophile record hall of shame pressing and a Heavy Vinyl disaster 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.

Our favorite performance of Scheherazade is Ansermet’s with the Suisse Romande from 1961.

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The Reiner Sound Is A Demo Disc for Energy, Dynamics and Top End

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Recordings Available Now

This review was written in 2010.

I don’t think we have found a Reiner Sound as nice as this one since then. 

UPDATE 2024

It may have taken us more than a decade and cost us a lot of money to get another shootout going, but this killer copy made it all worth it.

Wow, the first nice Reiner Sound on Shaded Dog to make it to our site. Why? Because the few copies we’ve run across that looked decent enough to clean and play were just too noisy to enjoy. Not many copies have survived the bad turntables of their day with all their top end and inner grooves intact, but we’re proud to say that this one has! 

This former TAS List record really surprised us on two counts. First, you will not believe how DYNAMIC the recording is. Of all the classical recordings we’ve played lately I would have to say this is THE MOST DYNAMIC of them all. 

I really don’t have the wattage to handle the explosively loud sections of these wonderful works, with their huge orchestral effects, dynamic contrasts that are clearly part of the composer’s intentions but ones that rarely make it from the concert hall to vinyl disc the way they do here. 

Second, there is simply an amazing amount of TOP END on this record. Rarely do I hear Golden Age recordings with this kind of ENERGY and extension up top. Again, it has to be some of the best I have heard recently.

This is of course one of the reasons the Classic reissue is such a disaster. With all that top end energy, Bernie’s gritty cutting system and penchant for boosted upper midrange frequencies positively guarantees that the Classic Reiner Sound will be all but unplayable on a proper set up system.

Boosting the bass and highs and adding transistory harshness is the last thing in the world that The Reiner Sound needs.

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The Reiner Sound – Classic Records Reviewed

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Recordings Available Now

There is simply an amazing amount of TOP END on the original pressing we played a while back (reviewed below). Rarely do I hear Golden Age recordings with this kind of ENERGY and extension up top.

This is of course one of the reasons the Classic reissue is such a disaster. With all that top end energy, Bernie’s gritty cutting system and penchant for boosted upper midrange frequencies positively guarantees that the Classic Reiner Sound will be all but unplayable on a good system.  

Boosting the bass and highs and adding transistory harshness is the last thing in the world that The Reiner Sound needs.

You may have read on the site that, unlike many soi-disant audiophiles who buy into HP’s classical choices, I am not the biggest Reiner fan. On these works, though, I would have to say the performances are Top Drawer, some of the best I have ever heard.

The amount of energy he manages to coax from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is nothing less than BREATHTAKING.

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