Are/were older recordings really so bad?

[Dave2002]

I have now received the CD and played the final movement of Abravanel's Mahler 8. It's certainly not terrible though some aspects of the recording jar a bit with me - such as the close recording of some of the soloists (tenor?). The organ doesn't come through as it does in Solti's and Kubelik's recordings - though that may be fairly realistic given the recording venue. The dynamic range and frequency response sound significantly better than the mp3 version I listened to before. To be sure I suppose I'd have to look at the waveforms from each and do more analysis - that can wait.

This particular work may be one which doesn't work too well in recordings for all sorts of reasons, and as noted earlier it doesn't always do well in live situations - depending on venue. This does veer me more towards thinking that some earlier recordings weren't at all bad, but that the mp3 or other compressed formats which are often used to demonstrate and sell such older recordings more or less kill the sound.

[richardfinegold]

I’ve been doing a deep dive into Pristine Audio catalog. It’s amazing how vivid some of these 90 year old recordings can sound

[gradus]

I’ve been doing a deep dive into Pristine Audio catalog. It’s amazing how vivid some of these 90 year old recordings can sound

Any recommendations?

[Ein Heldenleben]

I think people are often too obsessed with hoarding things, whether physical objects or digital ones. Just because it's possible in principle to make as many perfect copies of a digital object as one wants, that doesn't mean one needs to do it.

Oh so true ! But I now have on a few LaCie drives what would have taken up the wall of an entire room ten years ago - most of it HD film rushes. Back then I would not have bothered keeping it . The real problem is for those businesses who need to keep 4K and , increasingly 8k rushes . Storing on the cloud is very expensive.

[richardfinegold]

Any recommendations?

You could do worse than the Furtwangler Schubert CMajor. It sounds better recorded than the Stereo Barbirolli/Halle

[cloughie]

I think people are often too obsessed with hoarding things, whether physical objects or digital ones. Just because it's possible in principle to make as many perfect copies of a digital object as one wants, that doesn't mean one needs to do it.

Yes RB but it is hard to break the habit of 60+ years of collecting recorded music - doubt I’ll shake it now! Don’t think I’ll ever get into main streaming!

[gurnemanz]

Yes RB but it is hard to break the habit of 60+ years of collecting recorded music - doubt I’ll shake it now! Don’t think I’ll ever get into main streaming!

I agree with this but have in recent years got into streaming partly due to full CD shelves.

Likewise, I have over 60 years collecting, if I start with what I think was my first purchase - Buddy Holly, It Doesn't Matter Anymore 45 rpm on the Coral label with Raining in my Heart on the B side, which I still have. Collecting recordings has been a lifelong hobby and I won't deny completist tendencies, like stamp collecting in that respect, I can imagine, except that you get some great music to listen to. In my relatively impoverished years as a student and mortgage payer I used to record off radio, reel to reel then cassette, and used to enjoy hunting bargains - Farringdon Records comes to mind.

[Dave2002]

I used to record off radio, reel to reel then cassette, and used to enjoy hunting bargains - Farringdon Records comes to mind.

A great loss to mankind!

Also MDC - Music Discount Centre - with one outlet next to ENO.

[jayne lee wilson]

I think people are often too obsessed with hoarding things, whether physical objects or digital ones. Just because it's possible in principle to make as many perfect copies of a digital object as one wants, that doesn't mean one needs to do it.

I empathise with this a great deal - its why I took to streaming so happily once it was CD or Hires SQ, especially as I love to see what New Releases appear each week..
And yet, and yet...... I still buy the physical disc of things I really fall for... this is often down to the audiophile thing of wanting to hear the SACD, or the CD replay of one of my beloved disc-players..... often I can get a more tangible realistic sound from them, whether vintage or more recent.......

But philosophically and emotionally, I was never really much of a collector. I bought what I wanted to hear (usually each month, after the Gramophone came) and, coming late to CD in 1998 having been unable to afford a hifi for years, was determined to make up for lost time!

So one's choices are often very quirkily subjective.....

[RichardB]

Farringdon Records comes to mind

It certainly comes to mine since I worked there from 1980 to 1982 or so, at the tail end of the LP era. I did have quite a considerable collection of those but disposed of almost all of them when I left the UK in 1993, and most of the CDs that replaced them unfortunately found their way to second hand shops later in the 90s owing to "cashflow issues" after which the collection began to grow again, though in the last 12 years or so there have been very few new acquisitions, and when I moved again in 2013 I left most of my CDs behind with my ex; I always pick up a few when I go back there, but my heart isn't in it really... I find the current situation with streaming and downloading much preferable, it puts the emphasis back on the music rather than on the object it's stored on.

[Joseph K]

Having experienced being involuntarily divested of the most beloved part of my CD collection i.e. having the ones I had with me in the place I was living in at the time stolen, for a long time I've been purchasing CDs with something approaching impunity, many of them replacements, though many not (many of the ones stolen were either NLA or at the time prohibitively expensive). Now I have amassed another handsome collection which itself now comprises several or more NLA boxed sets etc. and of course running out of space I don't have, I feel I can ease back on the CD-collecting...

[Ein Heldenleben]

A great loss to mankind!

Also MDC - Music Discount Centre - with one outlet next to ENO.

Not to mention the one on the Strand (MDC?? ) where I must have spent a small fortune in the days when opera sets were £25 to £45 a go…it was just so near Charing X station.

Lingering in either before a night at ENO or ROH made for a very expensive evening.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Having experienced being involuntarily divested of the most beloved part of my CD collection i.e. having the ones I had with me in the place I was living in at the time stolen, for a long time I've been purchasing CDs with something approaching impunity, many of them replacements, though many not (many of the ones stolen were either NLA or at the time prohibitively expensive). Now I have amassed another handsome collection which itself now comprises several or more NLA boxed sets etc. and of course running out of space I don't have, I feel I can ease back on the CD-collecting...

Sorry to hear about the burglary . I had a break in once . The thieves carefully put all my opera boxed sets in a carrier bag and then left them.Perhaps they realised the black market for classic recordings of Verdi, Wagner, Strauss was unlikely to provide “a shot in the arm” as the investigating officer described it . They did Nick two very expensive guitars but left my 1970’s hifi …

[Dave2002]

Having expressed concern over mp3 sound quality - which I believe is a real concern - sometimes mp3s are (arguably) good enough. Currently I'm enjoying Beethoven's Op 132 quartet played by the Yale Quartet - presumably from Vanguard and dating from the 1960s, Part of a free collection.

I think mp3 goes badly wrong sometimes when used for large orchestral works - and/or if the digital compression isn't done carefully enough. Then if the performances are worth hearing or keeping then better versions (transfers) might be the way to go - if such are available.
I am pondering a trial subscription to Tidal - though it's not particularly urgent.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I think people are often too obsessed with hoarding things, whether physical objects or digital ones.

Guilty as charged.