And speaking of RCA, here's their take on Living Stereo: http://www.archive.org/details/LivingSt1958
Bob Olhsson wrote:
My experience has been that the very best pressings were the major label DJ copies. These were often better than test pressings due to an even higher grade of vinyl. The first manufacturing run was generally comparable to the test pressing however reorder runs were frequently done as quickly and cheaply as possible.
From the 78 RPM era, I've had record store demonstration copies from Victor, Columbia, and Decca, that were pressed on really nice vinyl as opposed to ordinary shellac (or, in Decca's case, asphalt with sand). I have no idea what sort of equipment dealers used to play these, but it would seem to me that the thinking was that dealers needed really good copies to "show off" the record being sold.
Michael Shoshani Chicago