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Debussy / Images for Orchestra / Ansermet (London)

Excellent Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER brings Ansermet and the Suisse Romande’s performance to life on this vintage London Stereo pressing
It’s also fairly quiet at Mint Minus Minus, and for recordings of Debussy, that is quiet indeed
Side one was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be amazed at how big and rich and tubey the sound is
If you want to go digging for your own copy, we tell you how to do that on the blog, and we wish you good luck – you’re going to need it
This copy is remarkably lively and dynamic – the RCA with Munch is also excellent, but you will find very little to fault in the sound of this record if you don’t have precisely the right stampers for that one
It’s worth noting that only the London pressings ever win the shootout, which is something that we run into on a regular basis, but for some reason surprises audiophile record lovers to this very day
Why the disparity, we have no idea – they are all mastered by Decca in England from the same tapes, and by the same engineers!
There are about 100 orchestral recordings we’ve awarded the honor of offering the best performances with the highest quality sound, and this record certainly deserve a place on that list.

Kondrashin and the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra’s performance of these sublime orchestral works makes its Hot Stamper debut with solid Double Plus (A++) Living Stereo sound or BETTER throughout this vintage pressing of LSC 2323
Capriccio Espagnol takes up all of this Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) side two and is practically as good as we have ever heard it, right up there with our Shootout Winner
Our Shootout Winner was a White Dog pressing as well, with these same stamper numbers – lucky us!
The Shaded Dog pressings can be excellent, but the one pressing that came in last in our shootout was — drum roll, please — a Shaded Dog with a 1s side one, if you can wrap your head around it
Both of these sides are full, rich and clear, with more space and more three-dimensional staging than practically all of the other copies we played
And of course it will completely destroy any pressing you may have on Heavy Vinyl, from any label, at any playback speed
If you like orchestral spectaculars, this is the record for you!

This is one of the most magnificent Golden Age Classical titles we have played in longer than I can remember – we put it in the top 1-2% of their best sounding releases, a nice place to be
This spectacular Demo Disc recording combines amazing richness with transparency, and even at its loudest, it is still smooth and sweet
It is very unlikely that all but a few of our best customers have any records in their collections that sound as good as this one!
The rich, textured sheen of the strings that Living Stereo made possible in the ’50s and early ’60s is clearly evident throughout these pieces, something that the Heavy Vinyl crowd will never experience, because that sound just does not exist on modern records
It’s also fairly quiet at Mint Minus Minus, and for recordings of Debussy, that is quiet indeed

DEMONSTRATION QUALITY SOUND! It’s also a better performance than the famous Reiner. Munch understands this music perfectly.