Mercury Living Presence

I've found the MLP CDs I've heard to have a distinct timbre that is perhaps "brighter" than most modern good recordings, but I also find the recordings to be very smooth and dynamic and not "overly bright". I've always associated this distinct timber as being the "Living Presence" alluded to in the sereis name.

I'm sure different ears will hear different things though.

I've found the unique timbre of certain "Living Presence" recordings to be useful as a very unique reference source standard when auditioning digital sourced audio systems .

Does anyone think there are any modern recording series the equivalent or at least similar to the MLP recordings in terms of how the recordings are produced and mastered? I've never researched this but I can't think of anything I know of off the cuff.

I have many of their original Lps including a large amount of the Dutch pressings along with their box opera sets. I wish they would have reissued the opera sets on cd and sacd.

The LP's are great! Amazing quality. My only complaint is that you can tell that they used multiple tracks to record on. The separation between sounds is very exact at times vs blended.
You should hear a piano solo where they used multiple mics along the keyboard/harp. It moves across the room with utmost quality and amazing clarity.

In response to Mapman's question, not sure if you're referring more to the simple mike placement, but perhaps Telarc, in its pre-multi-channel days, was close to a mainstream record company using a fairly simple miking technique (spaced omnis as the main array) and taking great care in the mastering and production of its recordings. While many companies have produced fine classical recordings, such as Harmonia Mundi, Reference Recordings, Delos, Decca, etc., most of them use or used far more of a microphone array than Mercury did.

I have The Nutcracker on original vinyl and its very good. Also have seven others on vinyl and they are equally good, but i prefer the overall sound of RCA's Shaded Dogs and White Dogs, even though the Mercury's sound a tad more dynamic to my ears (IMHO). -Mrmitch