Hot Stamper Pressings of Mercury Classical Records Available Now
For Mercury classical and orchestral recordings, the original FR pressings on the plum labels are the way to go, right?
In some cases, yes. We talk about how much better the FR pressings for The Firebird are compared to the much more common, and still quite good, M2 reissue pressings here.
The stamper numbers you see below belong to a different album.
The notes for the FR originals we played read:
- Tubey but never as open or dynamic as RFR-1 can be.
The better of the three FR pressings we played was not a bad sounding record, earning a grade of 2+. They’re just not as good sounding as the RFR reissues, which, of course, are the ones that win shootouts.
Something to keep in mind: A Super Hot Stamper Mercury orchestral record is guaranteed to be dramatically better than any Heavy Vinyl reissue ever made.