fallanight

Falla / Turina – Nights In The Gardens Of Spain / Danzas Fantásticas

More of the music of Manuel De Falla (1876-1946)

With excellent Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides, this original UK import pressing of these wonderful classical works will be hard to beat
These sides are doing pretty much everything right – they’re rich, clear, undistorted, open, spacious, and has depth and transparency to rival the best recordings you may have heard
Soriano’s piano is especially clear, solid, and present throughout Danzas Fantásticas, with practically no trace of vintage analog tube smear
When you hear how good this record sounds, you may have a hard time believing that it’s a budget reissue from the 70s, but that’s precisely what it is.
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.

Rachmaninoff / De Falla – Rhapsody On A Theme Of Paganini / Nights In The Gardens Of Spain

More of the Music of Sergei Rachmaninoff

The rich, textured sheen of the strings the RCA engineers achieved in the ’50s and ’60s is a joy to hear throughout these pieces
This is something the Heavy Vinyl crowd will never experience, because that sound just does not exist on modern remastered records the way it does on these vintage pressings
Tonally correct from top to bottom and as transparent as practically any vintage recording you may have heard, the combination of clarity and Tubey Magic here will be hard to beat
To see more of the best orchestral recordings with top quality sound we’ve done shootouts for, click here
If you’re a fan of Rachmaninoff and/or Rubinstein, we think this Living Stereo from 1960 belongs in your collection.

This superb Living Stereo recording checks off a number of boxes for us here at Better Records.

Until we heard the right later pressings, we had always been disappointed with this TAS List recording, wondering what all the fuss was about. The original Shaded Dog pressings we had played left a lot to be desired. Like many of the old records we audition, it was somewhat crude and congested, and badly lacked both highs and lows, our definition of boxy sound.

Well, now we know. The early Shaded Dog pressings have consistently worse sound than the reissues we are offering here.

We never offered the record as a Hot Stamper pressing because we didn’t think the sound of the originals was all that impressive, TAS List or no TAS List.

Mystery solved, and truly Hot Stampers have now been made available to the discriminating audiophile.

Harry’s list, as was so often the case, did not provide the information needed to find the pressing that captured all the qualities of the recording the way this one does.

Did Harry have a good later pressing? Did he have an original and simply liked it more than we did? We’ll never know.

(more…)

On This Rachmaninoff Title, the Right Reissues Clearly Have the Best Sound

More of the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)

Until we heard the right later pressings, we had always been disappointed with this TAS List recording, wondering what all the fuss was about. The original Shaded Dog pressings we had played left a lot to be desired. Like many of the old records we audition, it badly lacked both highs and lows, our definition of boxy sound.

Well, now we know.

The earliest Shaded Dog pressings have consistently worse sound than the reissues we offer.

We never offered the record in Hot Stamper form because we didn’t think the sound of the originals was all that impressive, TAS List or no TAS List.

Mystery solved, and truly Hot Stampers have now been made available to the discriminating audiophile.

Harry’s list, as was so often the case, did not provide the information needed to find the pressing that captured all the qualities of the recording the way this one does.

Did Harry have a good later pressing?

Did he have an original and simply liked it more than we did?

Who knows? Like so much in the world of records, it’s a mystery.