Re: [ARSCLIST] early CD bashing

[David Lennick <dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

They could still turn out a decent recording once in a while. Stokowski doing 
an extended Suite from "Carmen" was one of his last. It came out briefly on CD 
and now can't be found (which is too bad because my copy was stolen). Yes, 
"mushy" describes a lot of Columbia LPs as well. And then there was their habit 
of mixing ancient tapes with new ones to pad out compilations (by Ormandy, 
Kostelanetz etc) and sometimes even throwing in a fake stereo track without 
going out of their way to reveal it.

Hey, I like the Shostakovich 7th. Especially Steinberg's performance (yup, on 
Musicrap 78s).

dl

phillip holmes wrote:
> Have you ever heard the Shostakovitch 7th done by Bernstein and Chicado 
> on DG?  It's a live recording (as opposed to dead).  It's a much 
> maligned piece, but Bernstein really makes something of the 4th 
> movement.  I think they were overloading the microphone preamps or the 
> console.  At one point, the sound goes from really loud, to sinus 
> clearing level, to Saturn V taking off, and it gets hard and glassy 
> sounding.  I've played it back on $2k super high end DACs and it always 
> sounds bad, but the performance, because Bernstein was a showoff, 
> actually makes the piece fun.  Most other recordings, he gets on my 
> nerves.  He's a take it or leave it kind of guy.  I do like the Ormandy 
> performance of Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphosis, but the sound is so 
> mushy. Phillip
>
> David Lennick wrote:
> > Not surprising..in the 70s when I programmed classical radio, 
> > Columbias were pretty near the final choices (aside from my being 
> > bored to death by most Ormandy performances and wondering when 
> > Bernstein was going to stop being such a freaking showoff). Their eq 
> > was definitely weird and usually earsplitting. Two pressings of the 
> > same disc could sound vastly different. I opened the US sample of 
> > Berman playing the Rachmaninoff 3rd Concerto and was knocked out. The 
> > Canadian pressing had no life to it. (And at the time the Canadian 
> > pressings were far superior..the US pressings were always accompanied 
> > by little bits of plastic shavings which scratched the discs before 
> > you ever played them.)
> >
> > dl
> >
> > phillip holmes wrote:
> > > Yes, recent CD transfers (done by Sony, right?) and the original 
> > > 7.5ips tapes were very good.  Yes, they had limitations, but they 
> > > didn't have the weird EQ that the LPs had.
> > > Phillip
> > >
> > > Don Cox wrote:
> > > > On 08/01/07, phillip holmes wrote:
> > > >  
> > > > > I snatch up Columbia promo copies whenever I see them. The classical
> > > > > promo copies are especially good, compared to the regular issues, even
> > > > > though the Columbia classical sound doesn't measure up to RCA,
> > > > > Mercury, EMI and Decca standards--mostly because of EQ decisions
> > > > > made--house sound?--the tapes and CD reissues sound much better than
> > > > > the LPs.     
> > > >
> > > > That has been my experience with Columbia LPs, especially if you mean
> > > > recent CD transfers.
> > > >
> > > >  
> > >                               
>