Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

• Solid Double Plus (A++) or BETTER Living Stereo sonics from 1960 bring to life this fiery performance from Heifetz in his prime on this early Shaded Dog pressing
• It’s also fairly quiet at Mint Minus Minus, a grade that even our most well-cared-for vintage classical titles have trouble playing at
• It’s some of the best sound we have ever heard for the work, right up there with Ricci’s on Decca/London
• The nothing-less-than-breathtaking performance by Heifetz may raise this one to the rank of ‘first among equals’ for those of you who prize immediacy and energy in your violin recordings
• If you have one of our killer Hot Stampers of the Beethoven or Tchaikovsky violin concertos, you know exactly the sound I am talking about
• “In the easier and looser concerto forms invented by Mendelssohn and Schumann I have not met a more original, a more masterly, and a more exhilarating work than the Sibelius violin concerto.”
• Here is a link to more records like this one containing some of our favorite orchestral performances with top quality sound
• 1960 was a great years for classical recordings – other Must Own Orchestral releases can be found here.

Early Shaded Dog pressings of Heifetz’s records rarely survived in audiophile playing condition. Top quality early pressings in clean condition come our way at most a few times a year, which means shootouts for them get done infrequently. There are hundreds, even thousands, of clean, vintage classical pressings sitting in our stockroom waiting for a few more copies to come our way so that we can finally do a shootout. These things cannot be rushed.

As for the sound, it’s practically impossible to find the richly textured, natural string tone offered here on anything but the vintage pressings produced in the 50s and 60s. Record making may be a lost art, but as long as we have these wonderful vintage pressings to play, it’s an art that is not being lost on us.

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