This original Shaded Dog Five Disc Box Set (LSC 6902) contains all five of Beethoven’s Piano Concertos, with sound that’s predictably all over the map, from White Hot to Not-So-Hot and every grade in between. Yes folks, we actually listened to every one of these sides in a shootout with other RCA, London and Mercury pressings of the same music.
The best sound in the set was clearly the Third Piano Concerto, which had sides that were Super Hot and White Hot. (more…)
Superb Sound on this Victrola pressing, with TRANSPARENCY, spaciousness and low level detail you will not believe.
And plenty of Living Stereo COLOR.
DEMO QUALITY SOUND, if what you’re demonstrating is the three dimensional quality of Living Stereo recordings. Amazing space, depth and width can be heard on this side one. And the music is sublime.
The low level detail in the opening and the amount of ambience heard in the quieter sections is shockingly realistic Yes, the recording is compressed, which led me to think that the entire record was compressed, but that’s not completely true. In some parts it’s quite dynamic. The quiet portions are very quiet; in a couple of places there are just horns playing off in the deep distance, followed by some flutes, and they sound very natural, just as you would hear them in a concert hall. (more…)
This is a RARE and WONDERFUL SOUNDING original Capitol pressing of Milstein playing pieces for violin and orchestra by Mozart, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Saint-Saens and others. The recording of the Mozart Rondo on side one boasts DEMO DISC quality sound. Side one is amazingly rich, sweet and tubey magical. The violin is tonally correct, with the kind of immediacy few violin records (in our experience) manage to capture as well, while still retaining the correct size of the instrument. (more…)
This is a very nice looking RCA Living Stereo Shaded Dog LP. Some parts sound better than others but the real reason to buy this record is the performance. Frager is amazing here; he won awards for his performance of this piece in international competitions. The record also features Haydn – Sonata No. 35. The record is a member of HP’s TAS list.
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.
This IMMACULATE looking Philips Dutch Import LP is the best sounding version of this music I’ve ever heard and one of the all time great performances as well.
The Solti on 180g Decca is a good record. This is a great one.
This is an Older Classical/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. (For out Hot Stamper listings, the Sonic Grades and Vinyl Playgrades are listed separately.)
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.
Currently, 99% (or more!) of the records we sell are cleaned, then auditioned under rigorously controlled conditions, up against a number of other pressings. We award them sonic grades, and then condition check them for surface noise.
As you may imagine, this approach requires a great deal of time, effort and skill, which is why we currently have a highly trained staff of about ten. No individual or business without the aid of such a committed group could possibly dig as deep into the sound of records as we have, and it is unlikely that anyone besides us could ever come along to do the kind of work we do.
The term “Hot Stampers” gets thrown around a lot these days, but to us it means only one thing: a record that has been through the shootout process and found to be of exceptionally high quality.
The result of our labor is the hundreds of titles seen here, every one of which is unique and guaranteed to be the best sounding copy of the album you have ever heard or you get your money back.
This London title has long been a favorite of ours here at Better Records, and this Blueback copy does not disappoint (except in the area of condition, see the notes below).
Side one, much like the amazing Mozart record we listed today, is spacious and three-dimensional like you will not believe. I would rank it in the Top Five Per Cent of all classical recordings in respect of those qualities. You can hear into the soundstage on this pressing like few recordings you own, we guarantee it.
It’s another London winner. You may get tired of me saying it, but it has DEMO QUALITY SOUND as regards its imaging and soundstaging. (more…)
This is an INCREDIBLY RARE Wilson Audio LP in IMMACULATE condition, with works by Bach, Mendelssohn, Widor and others.
This is actually an amazing sounding record. I’ve owned a copy for over 20 years. It’s some of the best sounding organ music with the deepest bass I’ve ever heard.
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…)
This Mercury RFR pressing of SR 90143 contains Hindemith’s Symphony In B Flat, Schoenberg’s Theme And Variations Opus 43a and Stravinsky’s Symphonies Of Wind Instruments.
All three pieces sound quite good here, and we’ve rated both sides between A+ and A++ overall. The sound is very dynamic and spacious throughout in the best Mercury tradition.
Mercury was also known for its top quality performances of landmark 20th century works such as these, and here, as expected, Fennell and his venerable Eastman Wind Ensemble do not disappoint. (more…)