Speakers Corner Debunked
We cracked open the Speakers Corner pressing shown here in order to see how it would fare up against a pair of wonderful sounding Londons we were in the process of shooting out a while ago. Here's what we heard in our head to head comparison.
The soundstage, never much of a concern to us at here at Better Records but nevertheless instructive in this case, shrinks roughly 25% with the new pressing; depth and ambience are reduced about the same amount. Similar and even more problematical losses can be heard in the area of top end extension. But what really bothered me was this: The sound was just so VAGUE.
Classic Records Debunked
A Hall of Shame pressing and another Classic Records LP debunked. The Classic reissue of LSC 1903 is a disaster: shrill, smeary and unmusical. The best Heifetz records on Classic were, if memory serves, LSC 2734 (Glazunov), LSC 2603 (Bruch) and LSC 2769 (Rozsa). They aren't nearly as offensive as the others. If you can pick one up for ten or twenty bucks, you might get your money's worth depending, I suppose, on how critically you listen to your classical records. The CDs are better for all I know. That's probably the first place to go, considering Classic's generally poor track record. more Info
The Classic reissue of LSC 1903 is a disaster: shrill, smeary and unmusical.
The best Heifetz records on Classic were, if memory serves, LSC 2734 (Glazunov), LSC 2603 (Bruch) and LSC 2769 (Rozsa). They aren't nearly as offensive as the others. If you can pick one up for ten or twenty bucks, you might get your money's worth depending, I suppose, on how critically you listen to your classical records. The CDs are better for all I know. That's probably the first place to go, considering Classic's generally poor track record.
Cisco Debunked
I’ve had the opportunity to play our Hot Stampers against the Cisco for friends on more than one occasion. The problem is, the more you listen to the Cisco pressing, the worse it sounds. We wanted to like it, but the more we played it, the more we realized just how wrong it was in many important ways. In our original review (seen below) we described some of its shortcomings, accurately we think, so read them carefully before you take the plunge on the Cisco LP. (We stopped carrying Heavy Vinyl in 2011 and it's records like this that made us want to stop. We want people to come to our site to buy good sounding records, not this kind of crap.) more Info
Where is the Love?
Speakers Corner Reviewed
In the late '90s we described the sound of this pressing this way: "Outstanding Rachmaninoff, dark and rich. Highly recommended." Since we have not played a copy of the album in over ten years, we have taken down our previous Sonic Grade of B as we have no idea how the record would fare today on our much-improved system. For all we know it's been recut, which is another problem with old reviews of records we used to like. Check out our Heavy Vinyl Scorecard to read all about the latest winners and losers. more Info
In the late '90s we described the sound of this pressing this way: "Outstanding Rachmaninoff, dark and rich. Highly recommended." Since we have not played a copy of the album in over ten years, we have taken down our previous Sonic Grade of B as we have no idea how the record would fare today on our much-improved system. For all we know it's been recut, which is another problem with old reviews of records we used to like.
Check out our Heavy Vinyl Scorecard to read all about the latest winners and losers.
Sundazed Reviewed
Back around 2000 I spent a fair amount of time comparing this pressing with both an RCA 1S Black Label original, two different RCA Orange Label reissues, and the DCC 180 gram pressing. To make a long story short, if you're willing to buy this record for the songs that really sound amazing on it, like "Today", then you should try one. If you want the whole album to sound good, good luck! Hot Stampers in good condition for this record are incredibly hard to come by. The right Black Label original RCA pressings are superb, but try to find one! Check out our Heavy Vinyl Scorecard to read all about the latest winners and losers. more Info
If you want the whole album to sound good, good luck! Hot Stampers in good condition for this record are incredibly hard to come by. The right Black Label original RCA pressings are superb, but try to find one!
Cisco Reviewed
Some of the sweetest violin tone on heavy vinyl you will ever hear. For Heavy Vinyl this one gets a very high recommendation. The domestic originals we've played have been uniformly awful so pick up this Cisco pressing wherever you can find it if the price is right, assuming you can stand the lack of ambience and resolution that Heavy Vinyl consistently suffers from. We have not played this record in many years and would probably like it much less now than we did at the time of its release.
Classic Records Reviewed
At one time we did not recommend this record but now we do! Without going into the sordid details, let''s just say this record sounds pretty good. The acoustic guitars are especially sweet and silky for a modern reissue. The sound is better than most of the pressings of Who's Next I've ever played. Clearly this is is one of the better Classic Records rock records. (It's the only Who record they've done that we carried. The others are awful.)
