Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Titles Available Now
For a cover this beautifully rendered, you would think the sound of the Shaded Dog pressings of LSC 2219 would be something special.
Unfortunately, as we were preparing our shootout for the work we did not find that to be the case.
We dropped the needle on some copies and judged that the grades would be roughly in the range of 1+. Some copies might be a bit better, some might be a bit worse, but most of them would have sound that was merely passable, even after a good cleaning. (Without a good cleaning, most would probably not even earn that single plus.)
We do not sell records with 1+ grades. You should have no trouble finding those on your own. The world is full of them. They’re what most audiophiles call “good sounding records.”
Our favorite Brahms Second Piano Concerto for sound and performance is LSC 2581. It was recorded for RCA only a few years later in 1962.
The average Shaded Dog may be better than the average classical record, but that certainly doesn’t mean it has any claim to audiophile sound. We’ve played bad early RCA pressings by the hundreds. Now, with the help of this blog, we can point some of them out to the record lovers who are looking for top quality sound and don’t care that much about the label.