discoveries-all

Massenet / Le Cid Ballet Music – Excellent on Stereo Treasury

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Jules Massenet (1842—1912)

Hot Stamper Classical and Orchestral Imports on Decca & London

This is an older review, perhaps from before 2010. We did a shootout for Le Cid, but it wasn’t remotely as comprehensive as the kind of shootouts we do now.

Our current favorite for performance and sound of Le Cid is the one on EMI Studio 2 with Fremaux conducting.

Superb Hot Stamper sound for Les Patineurs, and the Le Cid is just a step behind at A+ to A++. We had a copy of the famous Greeensleeves pressing for our shootout, along with a number of Londons, and this Stereo Treasury had the highest overall sonic grades of all of them. The original Blueback pressing — true, we only had the one, so take it for what it’s worth — was a complete disaster: shrill, with no top or bottom to speak of.

Both these pieces are audiophile Must Own Demonstration pieces, full of depth, ambience, and wonderfully correct instrumental timbres, especially from the woodwinds. Add explosive dynamics and deep bass and you have yourself a genuine audiophile recording.   (more…)

Stravinsky / The Firebird Suite / Freccia – Our First Reader’s Digest Offering

More of the music of Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

Reviews and Commentaries for The Firebird

More Records on Readers Digest

This is the first time a disc from a Reader’s Digest box set has made it to the site, and we’re starting off with a bang — The Firebird Suite and La Mer are the two pieces on record 7 of the set, and both of them are knockouts. We have a devil of a time finding good recordings of either work, and to find SUPERB better than Super Hot Stamper sound (A++ to A+++) for both back to back on one disc is a surprise indeed.

You may remember that recordings from these sets were reissued by Chesky back in the ’90s, with mediocre sound of course, as all their reissues are mediocre at best. We never carried a single one of them, even when we were carrying reissues.

I remember the first time I heard some of the records from this Scheherazade set and was knocked out — here was Tubey Magical RCA Living Stereo sound at a fraction of the price the real RCAs were commanding, a price I could not begin to afford.

The problem — and it’s still a problem, though less so — is the vinyl. These sets were produced cheaply in order to be priced affordably (under $20 for 10 LPs in a box!), and that means the best vinyl was simply not part of the budget. To find pressings that play even Mint Minus Minus is not easy, even today. Back then, before the advent of modern enzyme-based cleaning fluids and expensive record cleaning vacuum machinery, there was no way to get most of the vinyl to play even that well. (more…)

Dvorak / Symphony No. 7 / Monteux/ LSO – Reviewed in 2008

More of the Music of Antonin Dvorak

UPDATE 2026

We played a very good sounding copy of this album in 2008. If you see one for cheap on the Plum label, pick it up, give it a spin and hope for the best.

This fairly quiet (M-) Plum Label Victrola has LOVELY, SPACIOUS, tonally correct sound. Monteux and LSO are wonderful here, so this one gets a top recommendation from Better Records. 

This is an older orchestral review

Most of the older reviews you see are for records that did not go through the shootout process, the revolutionary approach to finding better sounding pressings we started developing in the early 2000s and have since turned into a veritable science.

We found the records you see in these older listings by cleaning and playing a pressing or two of the album, which we then described and priced based on how good the sound and surfaces were.

We were often wrong back in those days, something we have no reason to hide. Audio equipment and record cleaning technologies have come a long way since those darker days, a subject we discuss here.

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Gilbert and Sullivan / Pirates of Penzance – Our Shootout Winner from 2009

EXCELLENT sound on EVERY side, which means it is truly a Demo Disc. On virtually every side it has the kind of rich, sweet Decca/London sound over which we audiophiles have been known to drool. It’s nothing short of AMAZING on the White Hot side — so lively, rich and HUGE. This is a Top London pressing in every way. 

And it just so happens that such superb sonics are found on a lowly budget reissue, the Jubilee London label, pressed in Holland no less! Thank goodness we don’t judge records either by their labels, their country of manufacture or their pressing era.

If we had — as virtually every record seller in the world does to this very day — we would never have discovered how good this music can sound.

Do the original pressings sound as good as this one? Not in our experience. We prefer the sound of vintage Golden Age All Tube recordings that have been mastered with the better transistor cutting equipment that became available in the late ’60s and early ’70s.

That’s what this is to a “T.” We found a batch of these box sets sealed, cracked them open, liked what we heard and decided to clean them up and give them a serious listen. We’re glad we did. Not only is the sound SUPERB in every respect, but the music is some of the best light opera ever written. Check out the rave reviews from back in the day, keeping in mind that this music has been performed without interruption for more than a hundred years.

The hall is HUGE: spacious and open as any you will hear, but not at the expense of richness or fullness. The orchestra is solid and full-bodied, yet the woodwinds and flutes soar above the other sections, so breathy and clear. How did the Decca engineers succeed so brilliantly where so many others have failed, failing right up until this very day?

Who knows? It’s still a mystery that has yet to be explained, to my satisfaction anyway.

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Grofe / Grand Canyon Suite / Bernstein

This Minty Columbia Grey label Stereo LP is one of the most amazing copies ever! You will be hard pressed to find a better sounding Grand Canyon suite. Bernstein’s Columbia recordings usually leave much to be desired. This is a notable exception. The normal Columbia shrillness is gone, replaced by sweet and liquid sound. I wish more of his records sounded like this one: I’d be picking them up left and right.

Gilbert & Sullivan – The Best Of… (3 LP Box Set) – Reviewed in 2005

This is a Minty RCA Reader’s Digest 3 LP Box set with SUPERB SOUND! These recordings are DEMO DISC QUALITY. 

HP put the Rachmaninoff Box on the TAS List, and when you get a properly mastered one, it belongs there. But this G&S box is every bit as good sonically. This may not be high brow classical music, but it’s music that belongs in any record collection, and especially in an audiophile record collection, because the sound is OUT OF THIS WORLD.

The Mikado; Pirates; The Gondoliers and Patience are simply stunning. You won’t find more correct vocal and orchestral sound on the planet.

Pinafore is excellent but the sound of the other operattas is so amazing that even this wonderful recording pales in comparison. The only mediocrity here is Iolanthe.

Normally the problem with these sets is that the bad vinyl causes a loss of sound quality — grain, shrillness, a lack of bass; the very same things that you hear on so many massed produced rock records. It’s not bad mastering. It’s bad vinyl. (more…)

Liszt / Piano Concertos 1 & 2 / Arrau / Davis

SUPERB orchestral sound on side one, dramatically better than what you might expect from the typical Philips import pressing. The sound is BIG, rich, clear and present for the first piano concerto. The piano is percussive and weighty, and the strings have lovely texture — this is Top Quality Sound. You know it when you hear it!

We rated side one Super Hot: A++. No other side of any copy in our shootout scored higher. 

Liszt wrote two of the greatest piano concertos of all time and they are both here, played to near perfection by Claudio Arrau.

This is a BRAND NEW Philips LP that we cracked open ourselves and were shocked — SHOCKED — to hear truly wonderful orchestral sound. It’s rich, transparent and spacious in the best Golden Age tradition; remarkably, Philips still knew how to record a piano and orchestra as late as 1979, which just happens to be the date of this recording. Coincidence you say? Not really. (more…)

Offenbach / THE Gaite Parisienne to Own – A Classic Case of Reversed Polarity

More of the music of Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)

More of the Music of Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880)

  • This amazing Readers Digest disc has A+++ Out of This World Demo Disc sound for Gaite Parisienne
  • The dynamic energy, clarity and power of this work come through on this pressing like nothing you have ever heard
  • But only if you can reverse your polarity – if you can’t (or won’t) just forget hearing this record sound the way I describe it
  • “This is unpretentious, well-crafted music, and while it will not appeal to those exclusively interested in serious listening, it is undeniably masterful within its genre.”

Amazing in every way! The top end of this record is clear, clean and correct. No other copy sounded like this one on the first side. When you hear all the percussion instruments — the tambourines, triangles, wood blocks and what-have-you — you know instantly that they sound RIGHT.

The overall sound is very different from many of the other recordings of the work that we have offered in the past. Rather than smooth, rich and sweet, the sound here is big and bold and clear like nothing we have ever played.

This is Front Row Center sound for those whose systems can reproduce it!

And this is truly a top performance by Fistoulari and the Royal Philharmonic. I know of none better. For music and sound this is the one!

Side One

The Triple Plus sound makes this THE Gaite Parisienne to Own.

If you have a hot copy of LSC 1817, consider yourself very fortunate. If your copy of LSC 1817 has never thrilled you, then this pressing will beat the pants off it, as it is pretty darn THRILLING. Even if you do have a great 1817 I would still put this up against it and expect it to win the shootout.

It’s clear, clean and above all, TRANSPARENT. This is a claim no modern remastered record, in our opinion, can make. The energy is spectacular on this side. Not only that, but listen to the bite of the brass — that’s some high-rez sound!

IF…

If you can reverse your polarity. If you can’t the sound will be aggressive and vague in equal measure.

Chopin

A++ sound, in reversed polarity again. Rich and natural as befits the music.

Note how vague the violin solo is with the polarity wrong. As soon as it is switched a solid, real, natural violin pops into view.

That’s how you know your polarity is correct, folks.