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.
