Musical Heritage Society LP's

I belonged to the MHS for many years, as did my mother, and I still have about 75 of their LP's. From a performance standpoint, most of their recordings are good to very good, and some are outstanding. In many respects, MHS recordings were similar to those done today by Naxos -- using smaller, less wellknown groups and orchestras, but still featuring high performance standards.

The LP pressings were also good to very good, although not up to the standards of modern LP's stamped from vinyl compositions such as Quiex. Given the very low price of the original LP's (I think most of the ones I bought back in the 1960's and 1970's cost from $3-5 each), they were a real bargain.

If you have a chance to buy a bunch of MHS LP's for a good price (not more than a couple of bucks each), I'd say get the whole batch and enjoy yourself!

I agree with Sdcambell. Also, many MHS releases were reissues from the Erato, Lyrita and Harmonia Mundi catalogs in quite good sound quality. Mastering was frequently done by Robert Ludwig (Sterling and Masterdisc), and while I assume the lacquers were cut from second generation tapes, not the original mastertapes, the sound quality of the reissues is often very good. Given the price, I never walk away from one of these MHS reissues unless I already have the original.

Buy them if they are in good condition. I picked up 100, or so, early MHS LP's, on the cheap, and enjoy them very much.

That said, I can purchase mint copies all day long, in my area, for 50 cents to $1 each, so don't pay too much.

I purchased the batch for $20-$40 (can't remember exactly) and considered it a bargain as they were all unplayed and mint. Lot's of spirited performances on this label, from my sampling.

I was a member of the MHS in the 80's and purchased many of their albums and CD's both original and reissues. I have about 50 or so both jazz and classical LP's. I concur with the above comments. I always found the quality of the vinyl as well as the sonics in their catalog quite good. Go for it.

I have about ~200 MHS lps in my collection and probably have played/listened to about ~40 of them so far(too many lps in my collection).
All of them so far has been beyond my expectation on the sonic quality, performance, and the vinyl pressing quality. I really like some of MHS's the obscure/rare/hard to find material performed by not well known musicans and their performance. Try a few, your liking may vary(some of my friends perfer well known musicians/familar piece of music from RCA/London than unfamilar musics of MHS/Nonsuch LPs).

I agree with all of the above posts, and would encourage you to invest in these LPs. They are very good to excellent sonically, and the performances usually do not disappoint! Go for it!

how do you find out what is the early pressings of MHS? any
comments?
thanks

Timchin:

They have catalog numbers on them. The ones that I picked up start in the 300's and end up in the 2300's or so. I have seen later digital LP's by MHS and even have a few CD's by them.

As far as the range that I own goes, I have never noticed the later ones sounding better/worse, though I have looked @ even later ones in the thrifts that are pressed on thin/flimsy stock.