rachmpiano

Rachmaninoff / Piano Concerto No. 3 – Years Ago We Liked a Mono Pressing

Hot Stamper Mercury Pressings Available Now

CBFR-1/CBFR-2. This Mono pressing sounds SUPERB, much smoother and more natural than I remember the Stereo pressings sounding. What’s interesting about these Monos is they’re not mastered by Robert Fine. They are mastered by someone with the initials J.J., who apparently does all the Mono mastering. The reason Mercury Monos can sound as good as they do is because they have their own separate microphone feed and their own separate Mono tape recorder dedicated all to themselves. (London did the same thing and that’s why so many London Monos are amazing sounding.)

I don’t think you can find a better sounding Rachmaninoff 3rd on Mercury than this one. 

[UPDATE: Of course we no longer agree with that.  The best stereo copies are in an entirely different league. The mono can be good, but it cannot be great in the way the stereo pressings can be.] (more…)

Rachmaninoff / Piano Concerto No. 2 on Domestic STS – Would It Still Hold Up?

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Sergei Rachmaninoff

This is a twenty year old review of a pressing we have not played in many years, so please take what we say with a very large grain of salt.

Beating that in mind, if you see one for cheap in your local record store, give it a good look and, for the five bucks they will probably be asking, take a chance to see if the record actually does have the sound we heard all those years ago.

Folks, what we are offering here is THE SLEEPER Hot Stamper pressing of all time. Side one earned an amazingly good grade of A++ with side two every bit as good. The buyer of this album is going to be SHOCKED when he sees what pressing it is. 

For those of you who cherish pressings for their best sound and performances — as opposed to the typical audiophile collector who prefers the “right” original labels on his records, of course produced only in the “right” countries — this is the record for you.

Hold it up for your (right-thinking or otherwise) audiophile friends to witness before you put it on your table and BLOW THEIR MINDS.

How did this kind of sound get produced so cheaply, so late in the game? From what tape, by what engineer? It is a mystery to me, one that is very unlikely to be explained to anyone’s satisfaction.

Side One

A++ Super Hot Stamper sound — rich strings, clear horns, a piano that is full-bodied and natural, with a solid low end (the kind you rarely hear on record but is always so strikingly obvious in the presence of the real instrument).

A bit of compression holds it back from A+++. What a record!

Side Two

A++, not quite as rich as side one but lively, transparent, present, with zero smear (always a problem with piano recordings — you want to hear those hammers striking the strings clearly). 

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Rachmaninoff – Piano Concerto No. 2 / Ashkenazy / Kondrashin

More of the Music of Sergei Rachmaninoff

  • An outstanding pressing of this superb Decca recording with Double Plus (A++) sound on both sides
  • This copy is guaranteed to beat any and every pressing you have of the work or your money back
  • Big, clear, rich, dynamic, transparent and energetic – HERE is the sound that simply does not exist outside the world of the properly cleaned, properly pressed vintage LP
  • On both of these sides you’ll hear rich strings, clear horns, a piano that is full-bodied and natural, with a solid low end (the kind you rarely hear on record but is nonetheless strikingly obvious in the presence of the real instrument)

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Rachmaninoff / Piano Concerto No. 1 – 1957 Living Stereo Is Hard to Beat

More of the music of Richard Strauss (1864 – 1949)

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

  • Both sides of this vintage Victrola pressing are big, full-bodied, clean and clear, with a wonderfully present piano and three-dimensional space around the musicians
  • Some old record collectors (like me) say classical recording quality ain’t what it used to be – here’s all the proof anyone with two working ears and top quality audiophile equipment needs to make the case
  • I used to think that the Classic was better than the Victrola, but that was a long time ago, and I hear a lot of midrange magic on this LP that I don’t think you can find on practically any modern remaster, by Classic Records or anyone else
  • The Classic will be quieter though – we had a devil of a time finding Vics pressings with audiophile quality vinyl

I highly recommend this one back in the day, musically and sonically. Everybody loves Rachmaninoff, especially when Byron Janis is at the keyboard, and the Strauss piece is engaging on its own as well.

1957 stereo, can you imagine?

Here is a complete list of Living Stereo Classical titles we have available on the site at this time. On our blog you can find reviews for the hundreds of others we’ve auditioned over the years.

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Rachmaninoff / Piano Concerto No. 2 – Katchen / Solti

More of the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff

  • An outstanding UK reissue pressing of this superb recording with solid Double Plus (A++) sound on both sides
  • I’ve known how good this reissue can sound for more than twenty years – it is guaranteed to beat any and every pressing you have of the work or your money back
  • Big, clear, rich, dynamic, transparent and energetic – HERE is the sound that simply does not exist except in the world of the properly cleaned, properly pressed vintage LP
  • On both of these sides you’ll hear rich strings, clear horns, a piano that is full-bodied and natural, with a solid low end (the kind you rarely hear on record but is nonetheless strikingly obvious in the presence of the real instrument)
  • “Is the pulse even, building in steady crescendo, or do those famous opening measures find some subtle phrase within? Most settle for the former; not so, Katchen and Solti – and that pretty much describes the attitude of these artists in this piece altogether: searching for and finding the phrase within the obvious.”

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Rachmaninoff / Piano Concerto No. 1 / Katin / Boult

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

More of the music of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

  • This superb classical release makes its Hot Stamper debut here with outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER throughout
  • The orchestra is big, rich and tubey here, yet the dynamics and transparency are first rate
  • Some old record collectors (like me) say classical recording quality ain’t what it used to be – here’s all the proof anyone with two working ears and top quality audiophile equipment needs to make the case

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Rachmaninoff / Piano Concerto No. 2 – Katchen / Solti

More of the Music of Sergei Rachmaninoff

  • A superb copy of this stunning classical recording with Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound from start to finish – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • This Demo Disc Quality recording is big, clear, rich, dynamic, transparent and energetic – HERE is the sound that simply does not exist except in the world of the properly cleaned, properly pressed vintage LP
  • On both of these sides you’ll hear rich strings, clear horns, a piano that is full-bodied and natural, with a solid low end (the kind you rarely hear on record but is nonetheless strikingly obvious in the presence of the real instrument)
  • “Is the pulse even, building in steady crescendo, or do those famous opening measures find some subtle phrase within? Most settle for the former; not so, Katchen and Solti – and that pretty much describes the attitude of these artists in this piece altogether: searching for and finding the phrase within the obvious.”
  • Our current favorite recording of the work as of 2025 is the Decca recording with Ashkenazy from 1964

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Letter of the Week – “What a privilege! A big big thank you.”

More of the Music of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1973)

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Rachmaninoff

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

Hey Tom,

Saturday morning 06.15 waking up, checking messages, news and of course your site. Actually a daily routine.

Finding there Rachmaninov 2. For so many, as for me, an astonishing work.

So once again excited. Then checking reviews on the performance (you just take it for granted what an amazing thing this internet is). Searching, finding and reading about this specific performance is fun, thrilling in a way and in the process you learn more about the composer and piece.

The reviews show the performance as a stand out; for some brusque and maybe too fast leaving out the drama, but for many an exhilarating benchmark.

Afterwards going back to the better-records site to read about the recording. What a great story about Wilkie and the Decca tree.

And then of course being able to actually buy that record. What a privilege! A big big thank you. (more…)

Various / Heart of the Piano Concerto / Rubinstein – Reviewed in 2008

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

Reviews and Commentaries for Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concertos

This is an EXCEPTIONALLY GOOD SOUNDING Shaded Dog pressing with fairly quiet vinyl. What’s surprising about this pressing is how transparent and low distortion it is.

Just as with Destination Stereo (LSC 2307), the excerpts here frequently sound better than they do on the original complete performances. Rubinstein’s piano is solid and clear sounding, which is rarely the case, especially for his Beethoven concertos. Those almost never sound good, but the excerpt here for Concerto No. 3 is excellent. 

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.

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Rachmaninoff / Concerto No. 2 – Reviewed in 2008

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

Reviews and Commentaries for Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concertos

This is the earlier pressing of LSC 2068, which stretches the Rachmaninoff piece over both sides of the record, resulting in a more dynamic pressing.

The sound is tonally right on the money with the superb, rich, sweetly textured strings we have come to expect from RCA in this period.

The piano has exquisite tone as well.

This is a lovely, lyrical piece of music and the natural sound conveys the qualities of the work perfectly.

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