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This Mercury Copland Record Had Screechy, Shrill Strings

Hot Stamper Classical and Orchestral Pressings Available Now

Our notes for SR 90246 read:

Lively and clear but screechy strings. Dry and bright sound.

To help you avoid records with these sonic faults, we’ve linked below to others with similar problems.

Here are some titles we’ve found that tend to have dry sound, and here are some that tend to have bright sound.

And of course shrill strings are the kiss of death on any orchestral record. (Classic Records, I’m talking to you!)

None?

None of the copies of SR 90246 we played were any good, but the RFR3 / RFR6 was the worst of the bunch.

Are there good sounding pressings of the recording?

There may well be. We didn’t hear any, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

However, we have no intention of spending more money trying to find them. If you know of some killer stampers for the album, please shoot us an email.

We tend to like Dorati’s work with the London Symphony Orchestra, but in this case the better Dorati/Copland record was recorded in Minneapolis in 1959, SR 90172.

If You’re a Fan

If you’re a fan of Mercury Living Presence records — and what right-thinking audiophile wouldn’t be? — have you noticed that many of them, this one for example, don’t sound very good?

If you’re an audiophile with good equipment, you should have.

But did you? Or did you buy into the hype surrounding these rare pressings and just ignore the problems with the sound?

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An Insult to Aaron Copland on Reference Records

Hot Stamper Pressings of Orchestral Music Available Now

Yet another Reference Record we’ve reviewed and found wanting.

In all the years I was selling audiophile records, one of the labels whose appeal made no sense to me whatsoever (along with their long-forgotten TAS list brethren, American Gramaphone and Telarc) was Reference Records.

Back then, when I would hear one of their orchestral or classical recordings, I was always left thinking, “Why do audiophiles like these records?”

I was confused, because at that time, back in the 80s, I had simply not developed the listening skills that today make it so easy to recognize the faults of their recordings.

I made the mistake of thinking that other audiophiles with more advanced equipment and more refined listening skills must be hearing something I was not.

I had trouble putting my finger on what I didn’t like about them, but now, having worked full time (and then some!) for more than twenty years to develop better critical listening skills, the shortcomings of their records, or, to be more accurate, the shortcomings of this particular copy of this particular title, took no time at all to work out.

My transcribed notes for RR-22:

  • Lean tonality
  • No real weight
  • No Tubey Magic
  • Blurry imaging when loud
  • No real depth
  • Bright tonal balance

Is this the sound you are looking for in an audiophile record?

Shouldn’t you be looking for audiophile quality sound?

Well, you sure won’t find it here.

On our current playback system, this Reference Record is nothing but a joke, a joke played on a much-too-credulous audiophile public by the ridiculously inept and misguided engineers and producers who worked for Reference Records.

This is a reference for something? For what?

As I wrote about another one of their awful releases, if this is your idea of a reference record, you are in real trouble.

It would be hard to imagine that anyone who has ever heard a good vintage classical recording — here are some of our favorites — could ever confuse this piece of audiophile trash with actual hi-fidelity orchestral sound.

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