Classical CD Box Sets

Mercury Living Presence 50 disc box set is deal of the century. Lyrita 1 and 2 look pretty tasty, though I haven't pulled the trigger on them myself.

Charles Munch/Living Stereo and Dorati/Mercury are really outstanding conductors with top-class performances. I have many on single CD's.
Although, older recordings, these are how symphonies and concertos should sound; minimal mic's with concert hall ambience. Not like today's "close-miked" engineering techniques.

Hope it brings you into the world of Classical music.

Thanks for the info guys.

I may do one classic, one modern classic box set then. :)

In addition to wanting to listen to great music, I need something to show off my speakers with.  :D

Best,

Erik

Is it fair to characterise the Living Stereo set as coming from early stereo recordings, while Deutche Grammophone are much later?

@erik_squires
RCA Living Stereo are earlier recordings, but from the review I read, the disks are from the remastered Redbook layer of the SACDs. Their catalogue was remastered to SACD and I have many Hybrid CDs which sound very good.

One thing about DG recordings, they were very inconsistent over the years and can be dry and flat sounding due to their multi-miking techniques. But, they contain some of the very best conductors and orchestras in the world.
And yes, these are later recordings than Mercury or Living Stereo.

With the early recordings, since remastering, I enjoy them immensely for the quality of performance and the open sound of the concert hall, with the only flaw being some tape hiss. (which has never bothered me since the performances are outstanding).
But, like you, I like to have some high SQ recordings to get the most out of my system.

Decca and Philips were considered among the best for sound quality. They had very talented engineers and Decca/Telefunken invented many of the recording technologies.

Thanks @lowrider57

I got a DG from the series and though it sounded really good, so I assumed that they all would.

I'll check out your recommendations. I'll have to upgrade my MediaMonkey or ripping will take too long. :)

Best,


Erik