1960

Mozart – Clarinet and Horn Concertos / Maag

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

  • This wonderful classical release returns to the site for only the second time in twenty months, here with two killer Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sides – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • Big, clear, present and transparent, with a huge bottom end, you better believe that this is some Demo Disc sound
  • Both sides are open, high-rez, and spacious, with depth like you will not believe and some of the least shrill string reproduction we have ever heard for this music (which is the main problem we ran into on the album)
  • These wonderful concertos — some of the greatest ever composed — should be part of any serious classical collection.
  • Others that belong in that category can be found here.
  • Kenneth Wilkinson was (probably) the engineer for these sessions in glorious Kingsway Hall. It’s yet another remarkable disc from the golden age of vacuum tube recording.

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The Weavers – At Carnegie Hall, Vol. 2

More Live Recordings of Interest

  • The Weavers At Carnegie Hall, Vol. 2 appears on the site for only the second time ever, here with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them throughout this original Stereo Vanguard pressing
  • These are just a few of the things we had to say about this stunning copy in our notes: “tubey and 3D and weighty”…”very full and detailed vox”…”sweet and tubey and present”…”so much space and bass”
  • Both of these sides are rich and full, Tubey Magical, and tonally correct from top to bottom
  • The sound is big and open, with the performers front and center (as well as left and right)
  • Our notes for the early red label mono pressing we played noted that it was “crude, congested and awful.”
  • There are plenty of mono pressings on Vanguard with excellent sound, but this is not one of them
  • 4 1/2 stars: “By April 1, 1960 [at the time of the album’s recording]…the Weavers had overcome the loss of Pete Seeger and fully integrated his replacement, Erik Darling, who proved a banjo virtuoso and exuberant humorist (listen to his kazoo solo on “Bill Bailey Come Home”). They had an excellent act, mixing old favorites dating back to the days of the Almanac Singers (“The Sinking of the Reuben James”) and newer songs that would become standards of the folk boom (“Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream).”

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Dick Schory – Music To Break Any Mood

More Exotica Recordings

  • Music To Break Any Mood appears on the site for only the second time ever, here with solid Double Plus (A++) Living Stereo sound throughout this original RCA pressing
  • Spacious, rich and smooth – only vintage analog seems capable of reproducing all three of these qualities without sacrificing resolution, staging, imaging or presence
  • You won’t believe how natural, rich, tonally correct and Tubey Magical this copy is – until you play it, of course
  • So transparent, dynamic and real, this copy raises the bar for the sound of this kind of percussion-based music on vinyl

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Lionel Hampton – Silver Vibes on Six Eye Columbia

More Records with Exceptionally Tubey Magical Sound

More Vintage Columbia Pressings

  • Here is an original Stereo 6-Eye pressing of Hampton’s superb 1960 release (only the second copy to hit the site in three and a half years) with solid Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it from first note to last
  • Three-dimensional space and ambience, Tubey Magic by the boatload (particularly on side two) – this All Tube recording shows just how good Columbia’s engineers were back then
  • Comprising mostly standards (“Skylark,” “What’s New,” “Speak Low”) performed in a mellow mood, Hampton, his bandmates, and the engineers provide an immersive, enchanting listening experience of very high quality
  • “Although a number of prominent musicians are present, the focus is almost exclusively on the leader in each of the ten brief arrangements… While this record may be a bit low-key, it is still very enjoyable.”

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Chet Atkins – The Other Chet Atkins

More Chet Atkins

More Living Stereo Recordings

  • Rich, smooth, sweet, full of ambience, dead-on correct tonality — it’s all here on this wonderful TAS list recording
  • Need a refresher course in Tubey Magic after playing too many modern recordings or remasterings? This record is overflowing with it
  • It seems as though Bill Porter just doesn’t know how not to make an amazing sounding Living Stereo recording. Everything the guy touches is GOLD!
  • If you’re a fan of Chet Atkin’s albums from the Golden Age of the 50s and 60s, this vintage Living Stereo pressing from 1960 surely belongs in your collection

Acoustic guitar reproduction is superb on the better copies of this album. The harmonic coherency, the richness, the body, and simply phenomenal amounts of Tubey Magic can be heard on every strum.

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Berlioz / Symphonie Fantastique / Monteux

More Living Stereo Recordings

  • Boasting two solid Double Plus (A++) Living Stereo sides, this original Shaded Dog pressing (LSC-2362) was giving us the sound we were looking for on Monteux and the Vienna Phil’s performance of this orchestral spectacular
  • An outstanding pressing, with gorgeous Golden Age Tubey Magical strings and lovely hall acoustics
  • This is our favorite performances of Berlioz’s masterwork
  • Argenta’s recording for Decca (CS 6025) is also a favorite, but when you play the best of them against the top Shaded Dogs, the differences are clear and so is the winner, the RCA
  • The hall is huge, the brass solid and powerful, the top and bottom extends properly, the stage is wide and clear — what more can you ask for?
  • There are about 150 orchestral recordings we think offer the best performances with the highest quality sound. This record is certainly deserving of a place on that list.

This is a piece that’s difficult to squeeze onto two sides of a single LP, clocking in as it does at around 45 minutes, which means that the mastering engineer has three options when cutting the record: compress the dynamics, lower the level, or filter out the deep bass.

The RCA mastering engineer for this pressing managed to hold on to the powerful dynamics captured by the Decca (as far as I know) recording team, seemingly without doing harm to dynamics, levels or deep bass. How, I have no idea.

Maybe it’s the gorgeous Living Stereo strings and hall acoustics that let us forget about the possibility of compromises in other areas.

Of course this was always the downfall of the Classic Records RCA remasterings. Their records had bass and dynamics, no one could deny it, but the strings were usually shrill and smeary, and the hall a fraction of the size the vintage pressings had.

We found out some years ago that there was a new series of recuts coming from Acoustic Sounds. Based on their dismal track record, I will be very surprised if they are much better than mediocre.

UPDATE 2024:

We finally got one in — no less than LSC 2446, Scheherazade with Reiner and The Chicago Symphony — and put it right into a shootout we had been preparing.

The results: a mediocre side one, a bad side two.

Not really worth the vinyl it’s pressed on. Almost any White Dog or Shaded Dog will beat it (although it should be noted that there are plenty of vintage pressings of the album on those two labels that don’t sound much better than mediocre. Still, no matter what early vintage pressings you have, on side two it should be no contest.)

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Schumann – Concerto in A Minor / Van Cliburn / Reiner

More Classical and Orchestral Recordings

More Living Stereo Recordings

  • Solid Double Plus (A++) Living Stereo sound brings Van Cliburn and the Chicago Symphony’s performance of Schumann’s Concerto in A Minor to life on this original Shaded Dog pressing (the first copy to hit the site in years)
  • Both of these sides are remarkably transparent, high-rez, and open – all signs that the cutting was done on very high quality equipment, properly EQ’d and not bandwidth limited or overly compressed
  • Lewis Layton engineered this recording and he nailed it, perfectly capturing the rich, textured sheen on the strings, the hallmark of Living Stereo sound in the 50s and 60s
  • Problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these early pressings, but this particular title had so many condition problems that, as good as the music and sound might have been, we may not be able to do a shootout for it again

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Vivaldi, Bach, et al. / Concertos for Cello / Janigro

Living Stereo Classical and Orchestral Titles Available Now

200+ Reviews of Living Stereo Records

  • Glorious Living Stereo sound throughout this early Shaded Dog pressing of these wonderful cello concertos, with both sides earning STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them
  • Janigro’s cello is immediate, real and lively here – you are in the presence of greatness with this copy
  • This record will have you asking why so few Living Stereo pressings actually do what this one does. The more critical listeners among you will recognize that this is a very special copy indeed. Everyone else will just enjoy the hell out of it.

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Tchaikovsky / Excerpts from The Nutcracker

More of the Music of Tchaikovsky

  • With STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) Living Stereo sound or close to it throughout, this vintage RCA Red Seal reissue pressing is the BEST pressing of this recording we have ever heard
  • Both of these sides are exceptionally detailed, with an abundance of space around all the players, the unmistakable sonic hallmark of the properly-mastered, properly-pressed vintage analog LP
  • This copy is rich, 3D, full-bodied, and dynamic, with the clarinet especially musical
  • We noted that the sound on this later label pressing could not be beat — it was so much more roomy, spacious and detailed, without the crudity of the Shaded Dogs that we mistakenly expected to win the shootout
  • The performance is faster than our other favorite, the Ansermet, and fans of the work will have to determine for themselves which they prefer

This RCA reissue pressing of LSC 2328 has some of the BEST sound we have ever heard for The Nutcracker, and we’ve played them by the dozens, on the greatest Golden Age labels of all time, including, but not limited to, the likes of Mercury, RCA and London.

In a somewhat (but not too) surprising turn of events, the reissue pressing we are offering here beat all the originals and early reissues we could throw at it. Finally, this legendary Mohr/Layton production can be heard in its full glory!

If you like your Nutcracker exciting and dynamic, this is the copy for you.

Don’t buy into that record collecting / audiophile canard that the originals are better.

A Wealth of Recordings

For our most recent shootout we played Ansermet’s performance of the Suites on London, as well as pressings by Reiner and Fiedler, both of whom opted against using the Suites as Tchaikovsky wrote them, preferring instead to create a shorter version of the complete ballet with excerpts of their own choosing.

The CSO, as one might expect, plays this work with more precision and control than any other. They also bring more excitement and dynamic contrasts to their performance, adding greatly to our enjoyment of the music.

We like our recordings to have as many live music qualities as possible, and those qualities really come through on a record such as this when reproduced on the full-range speaker system we use.

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Debussy & Ravel / Julliard String Quartet

More of the Music of Claude Debussy

More of the Music of Maurice Ravel

  • An original Shaded Dog pressing of the famous Juilliard String Quartet’s performance of these wonderful classical works (one of only a handful of copies to ever hit the site), here with INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them from first note to last
  • Having just played some killer copies of Death and the Maiden, we’re tempted to say that this Debussy record has the potential for even better sound – it’s richer and sweeter, but every bit as real and immediate as any chamber recording we know of
  • The Living Stereo sound here is Tubey Magical, lively and clear, with the kind of transparency that puts living, breathing musicians right in your listening room in the way that only the best vintage vinyl pressings can
  • Lewis Layton engineered this recording (along with Ed Begley) and he nailed it, perfectly capturing the rich, textured sheen on the strings, the hallmark of Living Stereo sound in the 50s and 60s
  • He recorded both the Schubert (LSC 2378) mentioned above and this wonderful Debussy/Ravel record (LSC 2413) for RCA in 1960 — it would be quite the understatement to say he had quite a gift for recordings of this kind

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