On 27/10/07, joe@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
or the value may be in that the original record sounds BETTER than the recently reissued version with all the latest "restoration"
That could be true if you had a better turntable than the engineer who made the transfer, if you selected a more suitable stylus, if you have better judgement of pitch for selecting the exact speed, and if you had a cleaner copy of the disc.
The record itself has no sound (try holding one up to your ear). It has to be played on something, by somebody. That's where the variables come in.
Possibly optical scanning will reduce some of those variables. Pitch will always be a problem, I think. One reason JRT Davies did well was that, having played in a band that was similar to the ones he was retoring, he could tell what key a side was supposed to be in and set the pitch accordingly. No computer software will substitute for musical ability here.
Regards