Classical Audiophiles Rejoice!

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.

If you listen solely or mostly to classical on CD, you'll find a lot of variation in production values. I love Naxos for their extensive (and very rapidly growing) catalog of 20th century works. Their problem is that the production value is not very consistent. Fortunately, it's not much of a gamble for me to buy a disk for $6 to find out whether it was recorded as well as the Vaughn Williams disk or as poorly as the Creston symphonies that I recently purchased (although these are a couple of great pieces, and I do think that the purchase was worth it). Some of the new HP line of disks sound wonderful. I found the Bartok/Kodaly at a Border's outlet for 4.99, because it was missing the jacket booklet. I've already got 3 or 4 recordings of both pieces, so I can't imagine that there's much in that book that I haven't already read, or that I didn't learn in 3 years of Music History class in college. Anyway, the recording is fabulous. At the quiet beginning of the Concerto for Orchestra, there is an incredible palpability to the winds. Hey, for anyone who's interested in Classical(I'll probably regret letting the cat out of the bag), I've found that I have very little reason to buy disks at full price. Check out www.berkshirerecoutlet.com. Since most classical works have been recorded many many times, you're bound to find multiple recordings of almost anything. Happy listening!