Good sounding Deutsche Grammophon recordings

Lowrider, The Karajan/Berlin/Brahms Symphonies from the 1980s sound just plain bad. Imagine my surprise after many years of suffering with the several Karajan/Brahms cycles on CD and then finally hearing the wonderful mid 1960's cycle on LP for the first time just a few weeks ago. I listened to all four symphonies non stop one evening. Brahms played by an amazing orchestra with clarity precision and passion. I needed to share my excitement with my music loving friends on this site.

DG vinyl, in general, lags behind Decca and other labels. I'm referring to pre-digital recordings, sound quality only. The early stereo recordings, like Karajan's 1962 Beethoven Cycle, have compressed dynamics. I don't know why, perhaps to make the records easier to track. Later DG went to large numbers of microphones, which hurt the more natural soundstage the early recordings had.

Compare the Beethoven Piano Concerto set Kempff with the Berlin on DG to the Ashkenazy/Chicago on Decca/London. The DG set sounds pretty good if you can find it first label. But if you listen to the Decca set you'll see what DG did to the dynamic range. Between the two I still listen to the Kempff because the performance is my favorite, but Ashkenazy has far better sound.

Compare the early Brahms Symphony set on DG, Karajan, to the Solti on Decca/London. The DG sounds pretty good, but it pales when compared to the Decca set. As with the Beethoven set, Kenneth Wilkinson was the Decca recording engineer. That almost always means great sound quality.

What is really odd is the sound quality of Karajan's 1962 Beethoven Symphonies on SACD. While I usually don't like SACD, in this case I prefer them to vinyl. The SACD has much better dynamic range, no compression like the vinyl.

I believe the early DG recordings, before they went to vast numbers of mic's, probably have better sound than we've ever heard. If the Karajan 1962 Beethoven SACD's are any indication. Like Colombia, DG's mastering of the early recordings may have been a good fit in the early 1960's, but it prevents us from hearing what is really on those tapes today.

Egrady, Thank you for the informative comparisons. I'll be seeking out some of these Decca/London sets. The info about Kenneth Wilkinson is good to know as well. This thread is turning into a good resource for lovers of classical music on vinyl

For those who may be reading this thread and who are interested in some similar additional information, here are two other threads to spark your interests:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1205460173

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1083989129&openfrom&13&4#13
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Not a great DG recording but an amazing performance of Beethoven's 5th symphony with Carlos Kleiber/Vienna Philharmonic. He was an amazing conductor! If you want to see a conductor that is totally in touch with his musicians and his art watch him on You tube - Jet