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We judged these vintage RCA records to have unacceptable sound based solely on the specific pressings we played.

We can’t say that other pressings won’t sound better. We just don’t plan on playing any more copies to find out.

Tchaikovsky / Symphony No. 6 on Shaded Dog

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Tchaikovsky Available Now

We’ve played at least three Shaded Dogs of LSC 1901 since we started doing shootouts for this recording and all three were awful.

The only version of this wonderful performance from 1955, one of the best we know of, is this very late reissue that we discovered more than twenty years ago, a sleeper of a record if ever there was one.

Years ago we described a Hot Stamper pressing this way:

The size and scope of this recording is enormous, with the orchestral sections clearly staged wide and deep. Where is the old tube smear and compression and opacity? It must not be on the tape, because I hear no trace of it.

This copy is cut clean, its dynamics intact, which just goes to show how much better the master tape must be than we’ve been led to believe by the original Shady Dogs and the hacks at Classic Records (note: their Heavy Vinyl reissue is awful).

RCA managed to cut this record amazingly well decades after the tape was first recorded, not for audiophiles, but for music lovers. Maybe that’s the secret.

When you hear how good it sounds, you may have a hard time believing that it’s a budget reissue from 1976, but that’s precisely what it is. Even more extraordinary, the right copies are the ones that win shootouts.

UPDATE 2025

Some of our newer commentary for the Gold Seal pressing we like goes like this:

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Don’t Waste Your Money on this Schubert Recording with Munch from 1962

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Recordings Available Now

Some audiophiles buy albums based on their labels. For example, this Shaded Dog pressing from the Golden Age of RCA Living Stereo might appeal to a certain kind of audiophile who treasures original LSC pressings.

More than that, he might limit himself to the most sought-after 1S Indianapolis pressings. Hooray! What could be better?

However, many records from this era simply do not sound good, and this is one of them. We have never heard a good sounding copy of LSC 2522, and we’ve played plenty of them over the decades that we’ve been selling Golden Age Classical records.

Are You a Fan?

If you’re a fan of Living Stereo pressings, have you noticed that many of them – this one for example – don’t sound very good?

If you’re an audiophile with good equipment, you should have. But did you? Or did you buy into the hype surrounding these rare LSC pressings and just ignore the problems with the sound?

When vintage RCA Living Stereo records don’t sound good to us, we put them on this list and they go into our hall of shame. We don’t make excuses for them. We call a spade a spade. The same goes for records being made today.

Some audiophiles buy albums based on their labels. For example, this Shaded Dog pressing from the Golden Age of RCA Living Stereo might appeal to a certain kind of audiophile who treasures LSCs on the original label.

More than that, he might limit himself to the most sought-after 1S Indianapolis pressings. Hooray! What could be better?

However, many records from this era simply do not sound good, and this is one of them. We have never heard a good sounding copy of LSC 2522, and we’ve played plenty of them over the decades that we’ve been auditioning Golden Age classical records for sale.

This Shaded Dog might be passable on an old school system, but it was too unpleasant to be played on the high quality modern equipment we use.

There are quite a number of other records that we’ve run into over the years with similar shortcomings. Here are some of them, a very small fraction of what we’ve played, broken down by label.

  • London/Decca records with weak sound or performances
  • Mercury records with weak sound or performances
  • RCA records with weak sound or performances, including many on the coveted Shaded Dog label

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VICS 1069 – In 2004 We Thought It Was a Demo Disc

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Sibelius Available Now

UPDATE 2024

We played a 4S/1S copy of this record, VICS 1069, and thought it sounded terrible.

It was flat and bright with splashy cymbals and crude brass.

Even if we assume the copy we played many years ago could have been much better than this latest pressing — which is doubtful but certainly possible — there is no reason to pursue this version of the album when there are known top quality pressings of this very same performance on Decca.

Our Old Review

DEMO QUALITY SOUND and quiet surfaces too.

I don’t know when I’ve heard this album with better sound. This one may be better than the best Shaded Dog for all I know — it’s that good.

You’ll notice that there is a copy of this very same record on the website for $1.99. That one sounds dull. I don’t think you’ll be able to find a better sounding copy of this record than the pressing we are selling here, because it really is an exceptionally good sounding record. If it weren’t, it would be more like $1.99.

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Don’t Waste Your Money on this Living Stereo from 1962

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Recordings Available Now

The sound of the copies we’ve played of LSC 2605, Highlights from Rubinstein at Carnegie Hall, released by RCA in 1962, have never impressed us sonically.

We didn’t listen to the music critically because our primary purpose here at Better Records is to evaluate recordings for their sound quality first (hence the name of our business), and if the sound isn’t good enough, we have to move on to titles with better sound that our customers might find more to their liking.

1962 was surely one of the truly glorious years for analog recordings, but the sound of the most recent copy of the album we played may have been rich, but unfortunately is was also opaque.

We would consider the sound no better than passable, and therefore it’s not a title we would consider offering to our customers.

Unless…

Unless you somehow managed to come across a copy noticeably better than the ones we’ve played over the last twenty or more years — a possibility that, although unlikely, cannot be ruled out — we would advise those interested in a top quality piano recital recording to look elsewhere.

Leave this RCA to the people who love collecting records. It’s perfect for record collectors — it’s from the right company, made in the right era, and it has the right original label — but it’s really not suitable for those of us who love playing good sounding records. It will of course sit happily on a shelf, to be pulled out and shown to other like-minded souls, but it is unlikely to spend much time spinning on a turntable platter with a needle tracing its grooves.

Some audiophiles are of the opinion that vintage Living Stereo recordings on the original Shaded Dog label can do no wrong, but we have never subscribed to that view. We’ve played too many that did plenty wrong. Maybe one out of three are good enough for the audiophile who wants to experience music reproduced at a highest levels of sound quality.

There are quite a number of records that we’ve run into over the years with more shortcomings than this one. Here are some of them, a very small fraction of the titles we’ve played, broken down by label.

  • London/Decca records with weak sound or performances
  • Mercury records with weak sound or performances
  • RCA records with weak sound or performances

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Don’t Waste Your Money on this Living Stereo from 1964

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Recordings Available Now

The copies of LSC 2606 we’ve played to date have never impressed us with the quality of their sound.

They are tonally natural, sure, but the acoustic tends to be too dry for our taste.

We are officially giving up on it since it’s very unlikely to sound good enough on the high quality modern equipment we, as well as our customers, use.

It’s much better suited to the old school audio systems of the 60s and 70s, but we would be surprised if anyone reading this blog still has one of those in this day and age.

Audio has come a long way since then.

Higher quality playback has revealed that some vintage records are dramatically better sounding than anything that has come after them over the course of the last fifty years.

Others have been left behind, and rightly so. Based on our experience of playing and critically listening to thousands and thousands of vintage pressings, it is our belief that the latter group must now include LSC 2606.

If you see a copy sitting in the bins of your local record store, by all means pick it up (for cheap) if you’re interested in the repertoire. Audiophiles looking for higher quality sound are advised to look elsewhere.

On that note, readers might want to consider trying something from our Hot Stamper Classical section. It typically has close to a hundred titles and they are all guaranteed to demonstrate dramatically better sound than any other pressing of the same album you can find, especially when compared to any record pressed on Heavy Vinyl.

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Don’t Waste Your Money on this Living Stereo from 1959

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Recordings Available Now

The sound of the copies we’ve played of LSC 2293 with Piatigorsky performing these two works for cello have never impressed us with their sound.

They are tonally natural but the acoustic is much too dry for our taste.

Perhaps Radio Recorders was not the ideal place to record this music.

Or we got unlucky with the copies we’ve played. Either way, we are not going to pursue this one. It’s a title that is very unlikely to sound right on high quality modern equipment.

There are quite a number of other vintage classical releases that we’ve run into over the years with similar shortcomings.

For fans of vintage Living Stereo pressings, here are some to avoid.

1959 was a phenomenal year for audiophile quality recordings – as of 2025 we’ve auditioned and reviewed more than one hundred and seventy titles, and there are undoubtedly a great many more that we’ve yet to discover.

We think there are close to 50 that belong in any audiophile record collection worthy of the name.

Our Pledge of Service to You, the Discriminating Audiophile 

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Skip the Living Stereo of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with Cliburn

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Recordings Available Now

We recently dropped the needle on a copy of LSC 2601 — the first one we’ve played in years — and found a great deal to fault in the sound. Our copy with 3s/3s stampers was awful sounding.

Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 is a wonderful piano concerto, one that belongs in any serious record collection, but the sound on the pressing we played was definitely not up to our standards.

The piano was cranky, the overall sound a dry mess overall. It just sounded much too much like an old record.

A Shaded Dog pressing such as this might be passable on an old school audio system, but it was too unpleasant to be played on the high quality (mostly) modern equipment we use.

There are quite a number of other vintage classical releases that we’ve run into over the years with similar shortcomings. For fans of vintage Living Stereo pressings, here are some to avoid.

Some audiophiles may be impressed by the average Shaded Dog, but I can assure you that we here at Better Records are decidedly not of that persuasion.

Something in the range of five to ten per cent of the major label Golden Age recordings we play will eventually make it to the site. The vast majority just don’t sound all that good to us. (Many have second- and third-rate performances and those get tossed without ever making it to a shootout.)

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LSC 2433 – Hard to Recommend on Living Stereo

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Titles Available Now

I’ve never liked this recording of the Grand Canyon Suite, but not having played a copy in twenty years or so, I thought we should get one in and give it a spin before we give up on it entirely.

That was money down the drain. The sound was thick, bright and crude.

Definitely not our sound, and we hope not yours either.

Lots of Morton Gould’s recordings for RCA from this era have been disappointing. We’ll add this one to the list.

If you want to avoid records with these problems, click on any of the links below to see the titles we’ve found over the years to have the same issues.

There are quite a number of pressings that we’ve played with crude sound. It’s unlikely that anyone reading this blog would be happy with such crude sounding pressings.

Here are some with thick sound and here are some with bright sound. Audiophiles would do well to avoid all of them.

Lewis Layton is one of our favorite engineers, but this album is clearly not up to his usual standards, at least it isn’t on the copies we’ve played.

Waking Up a Dull Stereo

If your system is dull, dull, deadly dull, the way old school systems tend to be, this record has the hyped-up sound guaranteed to bring it to life in no time.

There are scores of commentaries on the site about the huge improvements in audio available to the discerning (and well-healed) audiophile. It’s the reason Hot Stampers can and do sound dramatically better than the average vintage pressing, or Heavy Vinyl counterpart: because your stereo is good enough to show you the difference.

With such a stereo you will continue to be fooled by bad records, just as I and all my audio buds were fooled thirty and forty years ago. Audio has improved immensely in that time. If you’re still playing Heavy Vinyl and audiophile pressings, as wall as vintage Golden Age classical records that don’t sound good, there’s a world of sound you’re missing. We discussed the issue in a commentary entitled: some stereos make it difficult to find the best sounding pressings

My advice is to get better equipment, and that will allow you to do a better job of recognizing bad records when you play them.

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Don’t Waste Your Money on this RCA from 1961

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Recordings Available Now

These Beethoven “Appassionata” And “Funeral March” sonata recordings have never impressed us sonically.

On the Shaded Dog pressings of LSC 2545 that we’ve auditioned, the piano is too thin.

Who likes a thin sounding piano?

If you have big speakers that can move air with authority, the kind needed to reproduce the size and power of a concert piano, then check out some of the titles we’ve found to have especially weighty piano reproduction.

The sound is not awful — you could certainly do worse — but we do not see the value in this title considering it will be neither cheap nor quiet.

We say pass.

Lewis Layton is clearly one of our favorite engineers, but this album does not seem to be up to his usual standards, or ours.

There are quite a number of other vintage classical releases that we’ve run into over the years with noticeable shortcomings.

For fans of vintage Living Stereo pressings, here are some to avoid.

Some audiophiles may be impressed by the average Shaded Dog pressing, but I can assure you that we here at Better Records are decidedly not of that persuasion.

Something in the range of five to ten per cent of the major label Golden Age recordings we play will eventually make it to the site. The vast majority just don’t sound all that good to us. (Many have second- and third-rate performances and those get tossed without ever making it to a shootout.)

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On Porgy and Bess, Stick with the Early Pressings on the Black Label

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Harry Belafonte Available Now

A Living Stereo knockout! We sometimes forget to spend time with records like this when there are so many Zeppelin and Floyd records waiting to be played (and a lot more customers waiting to get hold of them to add to their collection).

We’ve always enjoyed Belafonte At Carnegie Hall, but when we’ve dug further into his catalog we’ve been left cold more often than not. However, when we finally got around to dropping the needle on a few of these many years ago we were very impressed by the music and blown away by the sound on the better pressings.

Just make sure that you avoid the orange label reissues.

They are dry, gritty and spitty. The notes below show a side one earning a single plus (1+) not-quite-Hot Stamper grade. We discuss its faults on the far right, and the other orange label pressing we played was even worse, earning a grade of NFG.

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