Beethoven Symphonies - best perf + sonics on CD

Brownsfan, have u seen this 1963 set...
http://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-9-Symphonies-Gundula-Janowitz/dp/B000001GBQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1361404079&sr=1-1&keywords=karajan+beethoven

Reading the user reviews makes it even more confusing as to the sound quality. I see there are now some hybrid SACDs of the remixed 1963. I'll be looking into those.

Goofyfoot...you are most welcome. I have many DDD cycles of Beethoven; like you I am interested in the interpretation.
But now I explore the early conductors such as Klemperer, Kleiber, Furtwängler, but it's a crapshoot finding good quality CDs and some of the mono to stereo transfers are dreadful.

Lowrider and Brownsfan, I have a Furtwängler set on the Orfeo D' Or label that I want to recommend for these reasons;

A) The remastering was taken from the original source.
B) They are live performances from the Salzburg Festival 1949-1954 with the Vienna Philharmonic.
C) It contains 8 mono CD's.
D) Includes Beethoven Symphonies 3, 9, 8, the Große Fuge and Symphony 7

This set won the PREIS DER DEUTSCHEN SCHALLPLATTEN KRITIK

Lowrider, Thank you thank you thank you! Your link got me (eventually) to the sacd remasters of the 63 Karajan LvB, which I bought in a small fragment of a New York minute. Woohoo, this is fun. Shall we do Brahms next?

Are these the Japanese remasters found on the Acoustic Sounds website or are they DG remasters?

We could start with something familiar;

http://store.acousticsounds.com/d/39716/Karl_Bohm-Brahms_Symphony_No_1-200_Gram_Vinyl_Record