Esoteric Masterpiece Collection 180g Vinyl LP Reissue Newly Remastered by the Esoteric Mastering System and Cut by Engineer Katsutoshi Kitamur at Mixer's Lab in Tokyo Employing the Neumann VMS80 Cutting Lathe

Mravinsky's immortal masterpiece that still shines even half a century passed since it was recorded. The Leningrad Philharmonic's ironclad ensemble explodes! In terms of both sound and performance, this recording boasts the highest quality of all Mravinsky-Leningrad Philharmonic recordings, and has been remastered by Esoteric Mastering and is now available on vinyl record.

The analog vinyl records of the "Masterpiece Collection", have been reissued by re-mastering the original master tapes, exclusive for the vinyl records. The mastering process employs the newly established the "Esoteric Mastering" system, including Esoteric's top-of-the-line equipment "Master Sound Discrete DAC" and "Master Sound Discrete Clock". In addition, the Mexcel cables sparingly employed to achieve flawless high quality sound as the master data. Analog cutting process has been performed at Mixer's Lab in Tokyo employing the Neumann VMS80 cutting lathe, a famous machine manufactured in West Germany in the golden era of the analog audio, and only two units are survived in Japan. The "Esoteric Mastering" equipment is also employed to send out master data for analog cutting machine. Collaborating with the Mixer's Lab, they brought the "Esoteric Mastering" equipment into their cutting room and connected the output directly to the Neumann SP79C cutting console. The "Esoteric Mastering" sound is sent directly to the cutting process bypassing the equalizer section of the console. The cutting process is performed by Mr. Katsutoshi Kitamura, a cutting engineer at Mixer's Lab, and he put his master craftsman skills into the master disc.

Today, it is rare to cut a lacquer disc just for audition purposes, only master discs are cut for record pressing. However, in order to pursue sound quality, Esoteric created a number of lacquer discs with different transmission methods to the console. Those lacquer discs created were taken back to the Esoteric Mastering Center to be auditioned and sound quality checked on Esoteric's Grandioso T1 analog turntable to determine the best transmission method. This is how Esoteric created vinyl records extending the information contained in the original master tape, with a focus on the analog sound.

Recording Details:

Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra
Conducted by Evgeny Mravinsky

Producer: Karl-Heinz Schneider
Engineer: Harald Baudis
Edited by Walter Sommer
Recorded at Grosser-Saal, Musikverein, Wien on November 9, 1960

Re-mastering:

Producer: Motoaki Ohmachi (Esoteric Company)
Mastering Engineer: Masaya Touno (Esoteric Company)
Technical Engineer: Tetsuya Kato (Esoteric Company)
Cutting Engineer: Katsutoshi Kitamura (Mixer's Lab)