New Mercury Living Presence Mastering


Eloquence, the Australian label has recently released two recorded sets of Paul Paray conducting the Detroit Symphony from the original Mercury Living Presence catalog.
These extensive new sets have been remastered by Thomas Fine, son of the original producer Robert Fine. After listening for a while, I discovered to my dismay that he has emasculated the original Mercury sound to sound like run of the mill current commercial CD recordings.
No less of an authority than Henry Fogel in a review misguidedly calls them “excellent restorations,” presuming that they NEEDED restoration.
These are classic recordings that were incredible sounding when first released on LP and subsequently on CD transfers by Philips.
It’s a travesty! All the magic is gone. On a high resolution set the sound is comparatively lifeless and homogenized. Evidently Thomas thought he was “fixing” the sound to appeal to mid-fi consumers.
What a missed opportunity!

128x128Ag insider logo xs@2xrvpiano

Reissues are for the period album that has become unobtanium.

I happily listen thru a period press with a tick/stitch than thru a noise free,sanitized essentially CD pressed to an LP.

May as well listen to the CD/file. 

Reissue quality is a hit or miss just as much as bin diving for "the one." If one is hoping to hear one "faithful" to the original, it's a crap shoot.

I am fortunate to live with a neighborhood store with Classical gems from the "Golden Age" coming in almost weekly for cheap, because there is little demand for them.

@rvpiano 

You might want to look here and here for openers

For an audiophile board discussing classical music, you're in the wrong place.

Messing with MLP? Now THAT’s a travesty almost certainly.

In any case it would be an interesting listen. Something a little different? I will reserve final judgement until after I might hear. At least it’s likely for real and not some placebo solely  in people’s minds We will see/hear….