Minnesota Orchestra

Rachmaninov Danze Sinfoniche Minnesota Orchestra Audiophile edition

Anyone who knows and appreciates Sergei Rachmaninoff's piano concertos will enjoy these lyrical and dynamic orchestral works by the composer. The 'Symphonic Dances' have become the most performed Rachmaninoff compositions in recent years. This album was chosen as the best release in 2001 by three reviewers from Absolute Sound magazine. In 2003 it was nominated for a Grammy in the category "Best Engineered Album - Classical".

The LP version comes in 33rpm in a gatefold sleeve and sounds as open and dynamic as ever. If you don't have a turntable, check out the HDCD of the same name.

All you need to know about the new Reference Recordings LPs:

The Californian specialists for sonorous recordings at the highest technical level took a long time to really try out everything before finally presenting LPs again. This process took more than three years, as they didn't want to be just one of many who were now releasing vinyl again, but wanted to be at the forefront of what was technically possible.

Originally, they tried to cut their own recordings using a typical lacquer cutting machine at the RTI pressing plant in Camarillo, but the dynamic range of the recording was simply too large for the machines there and the lacquer cut already contained distortions. The next step was to go to Germany and have a half-speed DMM cut and a test pressing (at Pallas in Diepholz) carried out. Dynamically, the result was excellent, but the sound was almost identical to that of a CD. This might have been desirable in the 80s, but today the expectation of vinyl is much higher and Reference Recordings is no exception.

The LPs now being released were cut on a newly built half-speed machine in Paul Stubblebine's studio in San Francisco. This machine cuts classically in lacquer foil and uses a special design by old master Nelson Pass as a cutting amplifier. The final piece of the puzzle, however, was the new record pressing plant at Acoustic Sounds in Kansas. The company has been working with Reference Recordings for decades and presses 200g vinyl in a completely rebuilt factory. A special feature is a 30-second stop groove before the run-out groove, which allows the cartridge to be lifted before the end of the LP.

180 gram or 200 gram pressing - a difficult question

For identical titles from Reference Recordings, there are covers labelled 180g which contain LPs weighing around 200g, and vice versa. This is due to the fact that the pressing plants QRT and RTI in the USA specify a weight tolerance of 10% and occasionally mix up the orders. There is no difference in sound between the pressings. Please don't call Sieveking Sound to have an LP unpacked and put on the scales just for you! We recommend the use of "L'Art du Son" LP cleaner to wet wash your vinyl. Even new records of high quality production will benefit from this.