Re: [ARSCLIST] early CD bashing

[phillip holmes <insuranceman@xxxxxxxxxx>]

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.
> > >
> > >  
> >