Shostakovich Shootout: Vintage RCA Living Stereo v Mono

[@ThePressingMatters]

Very interesting comparison, thank you so much for doing this!

[@analogueanorak1904]

Thanks Scott it was a joy to put this one together. Alan Reeve appears very similar to Roy Wallace both modest quiet guys never happier than when in West Hampstead Decca Studios with a soldering iron mending complex equipment.

[@rufus_the_cat]

New subscriber here. I enjoy your videos

[@analogueanorak1904]

Welcome and many thanks for your feedback. I’m doing holiday/family stuff for a while but hope then to get out another of the deep dives!

[@danijelsan81]

This was great. Thank you. I’d love to hear more about Decca’s budget labels whose pressings are considered an equivalent to Decca’s.

[@analogueanorak1904]

Thanks really glad to hear you enjoyed it. You will be pleased to hear in the pipeline is a video about the budget Decca versions of the RCA Living stereo releases from mainly the 1950s Kingsway sessions. This was due to watching Scott’s videos on pressing matters about the AP rereleases which are all fantastic but so expensive to get in UK. They are mainly SPA and some are awesome but I also still need to get a particular Eclipse still.

[@danijelsan81]

@@analogueanorak1904 Looking forward to it.

[@lollol7688]

Good evening, Very entertaining these video’s, thanks for that. I was wondering what you’re point of view regarding the following is: how good are the later pressings from rca ( who also State ‘living stereo” (from the immortal classics series for example) , rca victor and the Victrola series? Would be interesting to know!

[@analogueanorak1904]

@@lollol7688 Most of my experience and knowledge comes from buying the UK pressed RCA’s so as far as US later pressings advice Scott from the pressing matters KZbin channel is your man. As far as UK RCA pressings the brown grooved Victriola series is a great alternative to scarce overpriced originals if you want tubey early sound and don’t mind different cover art. I only however get the recordings from European venues not the US recordings as these highly unlikely to be cut from original tapes and unlikely to be spectacular. The RCA UK red label (not to be confused with the US red label) can sound very good benefiting from later cutting heads. I recently listened to a Julian Bream red label cut by Tony Hawkins K Decca code of the living stereo Arnold guitar concerto that sounded awesome. The pink coloured late RCA releases are underwhelming. Instead I tend to look through the Decca UK budget SPA and Eclipse labels for UK/European living stereo recordings where the rights and the original tapes returned to Decca as these can be spectacular the Witches Brew version in my video is one of these, but it helps to see them first hand as they can be poorly looked after. But the main rule with vintage RCA I think is if recorded in US buy US.

[@JustFortheRecord66]

I have mono and stereo US pressings but not compared them. I like having both versions and the mono can often have strengths in texture and dynamics over their stereo releases.

[@analogueanorak1904]

Very nice plus you’ve got the proper Technicolor covers rather than the UK cost cutting version. I’ve really enjoyed doing the mono / stereo shootouts and learnt a lot from the process. I haven’t yet completely decided which one to do next, Maag’s Mozart at Kingsway would be quickest as have covered parts already but Martinon Ibert in Paris might be the better one as not covered that venue yet