More of the music of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
More Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin
The reproduction of the violin here is superb — harmonically rich, natural, clean, clear, resolving. What sets the truly killer pressings apart is the depth, width and three-dimensional quality of the sound, as well as the fact that they become less congested in the louder passages and don’t get shrill or blary. The best copies display a Tubey Magical richness — especially evident in the basses and celli — that is to die for.
Big space, a solid bottom, and plenty of dynamic energy are strongly in evidence throughout. Exceptional resolution, transparency, tremendous dynamics, a violin that is present and solid — this copy takes the sound of the recording right to the limits of what we thought possible from Philips.
As we listened, we became completely immersed in the music, transfixed by the remarkable virtuosity he brings to such a difficult and demanding work.
What to Listen For
This copy had very little smear on either the violin or the orchestra. Try to find a violin concerto record with no smear.
Let’s face it: records from every era more often than not have some smear and we can never really know what accounts for it. The key thing is to be able to recognize it for what it is. (We find modern records, especially those pressed at RTI, to be quite smeary as a rule. They also tend to be congested, blurry, thick, veiled, and ambience-challenged. For some reason most audiophiles — and the reviewers who write for them — rarely seem to notice these shortcomings.)
Of course, if your system itself has smear — practically every tube system I have ever heard has some smear, including the one I used to own — it becomes harder to hear smear on your records.
Our all transistor rig has no trouble showing it to us.
Keep in mind that one thing live music never has is smear of any kind. Live music is scompletely mear-free. It can be harmonically distorted, hard, edgy, thin, fat, dark, and all the rest, but one thing it never is, is smeary.
That is a shortcoming unique to the imperfect reproduction of music, and one for which many of the pressings we sell are downgraded.
