offengaite

Massed Strings and Brass Section Are Difficult to Reproduce

More of the Music of Jacques Offenbach

UPDATE 2020

Our favorite recording of the work now is this one: Fistoulari recorded for Readers Digest.

It’s also an excellent record to test with. As you no doubt know, there is a lot of “action” in this piece of music.

To get the strings and the brass to sound lively yet natural is a bit of a trick. (It doesn’t help that the polarity is reversed.)

When I first played this record many years ago, I was none too happy about the string tone. After making a few tweaky adjustments, the strings became much clearer and more textured. The overall presentation still sounded rich, but was now dramatically more natural and relaxed.

It was this record that made me realize some of the changes I had made to my stereo back then had caused it to have a certain hi-fi-ish quality, which seemed to work fine on the popular and jazz recordings I was using as test discs at the time.

But the reproduction of classical music is the ultimate challenge for any stereo.

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Offenbach & Strauss – A Waste of Money on the Mercury Original

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

This lovely Mercury boasts one of the greatest performances of the piece ever recorded. 

Dorati is surely The Man when it comes to energy, drive and dynamic excitement with this venerable warhorse. He and his Minneapolis Symphony play the hell out of this boisterous music, and luckily for us audiophiles, the Mercury engineers give us Demonstration Quality Sound to go with it.

But not on the original pressing.

The original Mercury release of this record (90016) is a shrill piece of trash, as is the Mercury Wing pressing. So many of the early Mercurys were poorly mastered it seems.

We used to really like the Golden Import reissue, but that was years ago. Not sure how we would feel about it now.

Our current favorite performance of The Gay Parisian is this one on, gulp, Readers Digest.

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Gaite Parisienne Is Just More Smeary Dreck from Classic Records

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

Sonic Grade: F

The last time I played the Classic I thought it was nothing but a smeary mess, as awful as their awful Scheherazade. If I were to play it today, I’m guessing it would join the other Classic Records entries in our audiophile hall of shame.

Here are some other records we played and found had smeary strings. They did not last long on our turntable.

I love Arthur Fiedler‘s performance with the Boston Pops and the 1954 two track RCA Living Stereo sound, but finding an original Shaded Dog pressing in clean condition under $500 with the right stampers is all but impossible nowadays.

If you want to go that way, more power to you. 

This 1954 2-track recording is RCA’s first stereo recording of the work. 1954. Can you believe it? A few mics and two channels and it blows away most of the classical recordings ever done! Some old record collectors and tube lovers say classical recording quality ain’t what it used to be. This record proves it.

Click on this link to read more reviews and commentaries for Gaite Parisienne.

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Letter of the Week – “the violin now is more natural as you described.”

More of the Music of Harry Belafonte

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently (emphasis added):

Hey Tom, 

I bought the harry Belafonte Carnegie Hall recently, a White Hot. I went to the On The Record site and came across the Offenbach Readers Digest discussion of reversed polarity. I had bought this record on your site a long time ago.

I listened to the record with the polarity reversed.

This is the first time I have heard this record sounding better.

Open, spacious and heard lots of macro and micro details, especially on side one, and the violin now is more natural as you described.

Btw, Do you have records with reversed polarity ready to hit the site? Please let me know.

Very interesting!

Hi,

Thanks for your letter. Glad I was able to help you get that Offenbach record to sound the way it should. It is a knockout performance with audio quality to match.

Funny how you rarely see much discussion of records with reversed polarity.

Do most audiophiles have polarity switches on their preamps or phono stages?

Can they be bothered to go back and forth enough times to make sure they have the correct polarity setting for the records they play?

Do they listen critically enough to hear any of the changes we describe when the polarity is right or wrong?

All good questions,. none of which we are able to answer. Sometimes our own customers don’t get around to switching the polarity of records that are reversed until many months later. Some of them may not ever switch polarity at all.

We discuss a number of records with well known (well known to us anyway) polarity issues here.

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A Simple Test for Polarity – Listen to the Solo Violin

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

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

This is one of the pressings we’ve discovered with Reversed Polarity.

Both sides are reversed.

On side two, the Chopin side, notice how vague the solo violin is with the polarity wrong.

As soon as it is switched, a solid, real, natural, palpable violin pops into view.

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

This Heavy Vinyl pressing is also quite vague, but you can reverse your polarity until the cows come home, it ain’t gettin’ any better.

Here are some other Records that Are Good for Testing Vague Imaging

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!

Offenbach / Gaite Parisienne / Fiedler

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

More Reviews and Commentaries for Gaite Pareisienne

  • Stunning sound on both sides of this Shaded Dog pressing from 1954 with each earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • This is a true Demo Disc quality recording – both sides are big, full-bodied, clean and clear, with huge amounts of energy and tons of space around all of the players
  • This 2-track recording is RCA’s first stereo recording of the work from all the way back in 1954 – can you believe it?
  • Two mics and two channels and it blows away most of the classical recordings that followed it
  • Some old record collectors (like me) say classical recording quality ain’t what it used to be – this record proves it
  • In the ’90s I was regularly selling this title for $1000+ and people were happy to pay it!

NOTE: *There is a mark about 1″ from the end of the side that plays 10 times at a light to moderate level.

In a listing from a while back we wrote:

I love Fiedler’s performance and the 1954 two track RCA Living Stereo sound but finding an original Shaded Dog pressing in clean condition under $500 with the right stampers (something above 10 as I recall) is all but impossible nowadays. If you want to go that way more power to you.

Well we found one! With the right stampers! There are other good stampers for this album, but none that sounded as good as these in the shootout. And the vinyl is exceptionally quiet for a pressing from circa 1958 (the first year that stereo pressings were available; before that you had to buy the music on reel to reel to hear it in stereo). (more…)

12s Is Killer on Fiedler’s Gaite Parisienne from 1959

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Recordings Available Now

This listing is from 2008. In 2004, we liked 11s/10s quite a bit.

12s Hot stampers. The best sounding copy I’ve ever heard.

Jim Mitchell is famous for pointing out that many of the RCA’s that were re-recorded a few years later are inferior to their earlier counterparts.

This record is no exception.

LSC 1817 is an amazing record.

This record is merely good, with depth, soundstaging, nice string tone, etc., but not the kind of sonic fireworks to be found on the 1954 2-track recording that RCA first did of the work.

A very good Sabre Dance as a bonus, check it out. It’s the lead off track on Destination Stereo (LSC 2307) for good reason: it sounds great.

Click on this link to read more reviews and commentaries for Gaite Parisienne.

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Offenbach / Gaite Parisienne / Dorati

More of the Music of Jacques Offenbach

This lovely Mercury Golden Import LP not only has Super Hot Stamper sound on side one, which is where Gaite Parisienne can be found, but it also boasts one of the greatest performances of the piece ever recorded. 

Dorati is surely The Man when it comes to energy, drive and dynamic excitement with this venerable warhorse. He and his Minneapolis Symphony play the hell out of this boisterous music, and luckily for us audiophiles, the Mercury engineers give us Demonstration Quality Sound to go with it.

The original Mercury release of this record (sr 90016) is a shrill piece of trash, as is the Mercury Wing pressing. So many of the early Mercurys were poorly mastered it seems.

We audiophiles must wait for reissues (either by Mercury or in this case by Philips once they had bought Mercury) to show us how good the sound of a particular recording might actually be. [Not sure I would agree with most of that now in 2022.]

Of course what you really need is the right copy to know ultimately how good the recording can be, and to find it you might have to clean and play ten LPs, or more. That’s where we come in.

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Gaite Parisienne – Reviewed in 2005

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Titles Available Now

This is one of the pressings we discovered with reversed polarity. a very long time ago, 2005, before we got our EAR 324p phono stage that has a switch for reversing polarity.

Superb sound! The top end of this record is PERFECTION. When you hear all the percussion instruments, — the tambourines, triangles, wood blocks and whatnot — they just sound so lovely.

The overall sound is rich and sweet, just like a good vintage RCA should sound. Some may find the sound colored, but I find it enchanting.

Side two, however, sounded fairly unpleasant when I first played it. As I listened more and more, I came to the realization that the absolute phase was probably inverted. The orchestra, rather than being back behind the speakers where they belong, was coming AT me, a sure sign that something is funny. One way to think about it is the sound stage becomes convex instead of concave.

So I switched my headshell leads and sure enough everything got much better — the orchestra now had depth and the strings became less forward and shrill, and the horns took on more body and had less of that blary quality they sometimes do. (more…)

Gaite Parisienne & Les Sylphides – Reverse Your Polarity

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

This is one of the pressings we’ve discovered with Reversed Polarity.

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! (more…)