Classical Audiophiles Rejoice!

The thing to keep in mind about DG recordings is that their recordings tend to utilize many microphones and a multi-track recorder to be mixed down after the session by their "Tonemeister". They tend to exaggerate most everything in the recording and are very unnatural sounding. Decca, RCA Living Stereo, Mercury Living Presence, Everest, etc... utilized much different recording philosophies than typically used today. They had many fewer microphones and often only had 2 or 3 tracks to work with. Remember that recording technology in the days of RCA was very basic and it forced the engineers to be better at what they did with less equipment. Decca became famous for the Decca tree recording technique and the same configuration is still widely used today. Just as an example Shawn Murphy uses a Decca tree with three Neumann M-50s to record most of his work (most blockbuster movie soundtracks), the same rig Decca pioneered. However, my favorite part about the old Decca recordings is not only the glorious sound but the rumble of the subway beneath Kingsway Hall! Lastly, being a "mainstream" label doesn't neccessarily mean that the label is going to use more or fewer microphones or more or less processing in the mastering phase (DG uses a lot any way you cut it). That is totally dependendent on the recording and mastering engineers and the record label. I can guarantee that often what goes on a disc and what went on the master are two different stories for a modern recording. High quality artificial reverberation is very cheap and easy to add at the mastering phase and done more often than not so don't believe that the sound you hear is the sound of the hall the recording was made in. The amount of loss/change between a commercial CD and the master is sometimes simply mind-boggling. I am fortunate to have heard 1st generation open reel copies of the masters from many of the labels discussed here and can say that on modern playback equipment, you would be hard pressed to find a recording made today that can match these old classics... especially the Deccas!

I am glad I was able to stir some debate. To clarify further, the problem with a lot of remastering is that while the strings, winds, brass, etc sound very clear on all of these new reissues; the sound you are hearing while clear is not how the real instruments sound. They all sound fake to me. If is not possible to improve the sound of an original master recording without altering the sound. That is what I mean when I say they sound terrible; it's not the clarity it is how natural the instuments in the recordings sound. Also the balance is way off. On a lot of concerto recordings the solo instrument has been enhanced and is now in your face, along with maybe the strings, while the rest of the orchestra is playing a block away behind a curtain. On new recordings the practice in many cases is to put microphones pratically inside every instrument, so what you end up with is not the sound of an orchestra playing together, but the sound of many instruments recorded separately and then mixed together by some sound engineer. Also then, why tinker with the artistry of two chamber musicians playing together as one voice and turn it into two instruments mixed by a machine into something else??? Luckily some groups are going back to using a few microphones placed in the hall in front of the stage to capture the sound of the ensemble as a whole, which gives the listener the the feel of sitting in the concert hall. The Decca/London reissues I was referring to are on CD, not vinyl. They go by "The classic Sound" series. Decca did not try to remove all the hiss in the master, thereby preserving the original sparkle in the playing. They also did not boost the midrange to please the boombox crowd. Happy listening!! After all, if it sounds good to you, then in the end that is all that really matters.

Madisonears has a swearword in caps...needs to be warned of your policy immediately.

Madisonears absolutely has a swear word in his posting. The word was DIGITAL. If he thinks this is enlightenment, perhaps he also prefers fluorescent light to daylight. The modern fluorescent was advertised to be perfect light with long life (sound like the promise of CD?) However, there are many of us that are actually bothered by the flickering at 60 times per second. You say that the human eye cannot see the flickering at 60 times per second? Well, sit under a room full for 8 hours, and tell me which is better the Sun, or fluro's? The comparison is not that far apart. Digital is an approximation, that means it is trying to be analog. And, it does switch on and off to try to trace the signal that true analog can do. Perhaps today's digital will beat the analog of 10 or 20 years ago, but guess what? All things change, and some of today's analog is absolutely astounding.

Anyway, Audiogon has threatened to revoke my membership for doing what the so-called "ears" guy did, so all of you should be warned against it.