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24.1.120.29
Particularly interested in Wand's Bruckner 1-9 and Stravinsky's.
Anyone got the set and share your thoughts?
Thanks.
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I think the Levine Mahler sounds quite good, but I don't have an earlier version to compare.
Performance-wise, Levine's 10th (Cooke 2) is my favorite of any recording I've heard. (Admittedly, I haven't read this comment from major critics.)
The 4th is often acclaimed as the best in this set, but I don't find it special.
The rest of the symphonies are nothing special, but I was happy to buy the set to get the 10th.
I have the Bruckner set. It is late 70's vintage analogue remastered in 24 bit digital. The sound is pretty good, good enough that the sound does not detract from the enjoyment of the performances. It is well balanced and clear, but the resonance of the recording venue conceals the details of inner voices somewhat. The orchestra is ok but not the greatest, especially the brass.
You wouldn't happen to know if the Sony box set sounds better or worse than the previous RCA box set, would you?
I am guessing these are the same performances. I have his earlier Beethoven set and it sounds great. So hope Sony didn't mess up what was good.
I'm just leery of Sony *remastered* disc. Last year I bought their Glenn Gould reissue vinyl and it was one of the worst sounding vinyl I bought.
I expect you're better off with the 1990's digital recordings on RCA with Wand conducting the Berlin Phil.
Do you prefer the performance or sound?
I have the Casadesus/Szell/Mozart Piano Concertos and Levine/Mahler boxes. Despite the boxes having a 24bit logo on them, I compared discs in these boxes to previous CD issues of the recordings that I own, and the sound is identical.
But given the dirt cheap pricing, I'm not really surprised, and can't complain. But obviously Sony should be truthful about the remastering their using.
It depends WHICH previous issues of these performances you have. I find that some of the performances in the new box sound better than the CD versions I have, while others are unchanged. I doubt if any remastering can do much more.
I have the three disc "Legendary Interpretations" set issued in 1991. It's clearly the same digital master. Clear and obvious sign is that the amount of tape hiss in each recording is identical.
I have CD versions from other remasterings that do NOT have the same tape hiss as the new box. The remastered recordings have smoother highs.
I don't have either of those sets. I have several other Sony budget box sets and find the sound quality as good as you could expect from the material.I'd buy more sets if I didn't alreay have the material already.
I have the Fleisher / Szell Beethoven concerti on Essential Classics CDs and the Brahms concerti on a 2 CD Sony Masterworks set. I may buy that box set anyway just in case some of the material is from an recent, improved remastering.
Bill
Edits: 06/27/12
I don't have many reissue copies but the ones I do have sometimes older releases can be better than the new *remastered* version.
I was talking about classical music. I have many examples of recording quality being improved in a new re-mastered version. A Philips CD described as the result of 24/96 re-mastering is the only CD where the newer version is clearly inferior to the older version.
Bill
recent Fritz Reiner Strauss re-issue, which is ridiculously cheap, so I'm curious about this question.
It seems OK to me. However, compared to the previously issued CD's I had of some of these performances on the Testament label, these discs in the Sony box discs have a bit brighter (some would say more agressive) sound. (Check out the Amazon poster who suggests that the Sony discs were remastered at 128 kbps mp3!) Some discs in the set were better than others, but I attributed that to differences in the original recordings, many of which came from the Dynagroove era and always sounded a bit shrill and compressed IMHO.
So far all the Testament series have been just excellent.
I highly doubt that Sony reissues would be good as that. Some Sony CD I have are really poor. Remember those awful Super Bit Mapping nonsense.
So that's why I am curious to get people's feedback to see if Sony is still up to no good.
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