CDs as investment?

[Pianorak]

Shame you never got the superior Chesky CD issues of those, then you wouldn't even need to clean them!
Luxury, bloody luxury, etc...

Hmm, the following from an Amazon customer:

Chesky's remaster of Earl Wild's recording of the Grieg Piano Concerto is gorgeous - warm and detailed. The Rachmaninov remasters however are stripped bare - they're too clean. Piano sound is good but the orchestra sounds old and shrill because the warmth has gone. Surprising and disappointing. The Chandos remasters actually sound better (and all the concertos and rhapsody are on 2CDs). Performance of course is brilliant.

I probably should have listened to you.

[MrGongGong]

To CDs.

Wire is the only way

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNETM6M8KCg

(I guess a B77 is a little heavy to carry about ?)

[anotherbob]

I might acually pay to deposit my Kogan Tchaikovsky vc (Columbia SAX 2323) in the bank vault. And no, I'm not interested in selling, whatever the offer (well OK, but it'll need to be a big one ...).

Check here...

http://tinyurl.com/7pvefuo

...for a few results on that one. Depending on which label you have it could be worth alerting your Home & Contents insurers

[Dave2002]

Wire is the only way

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNETM6M8KCg

(I guess a B77 is a little heavy to carry about ?)

Or this one - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT2wx...eature=related

O Tanenbaum!

[MrGongGong]

Or this one - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT2wx...eature=related

O Tanenbaum!

or even Chris's version ?

http://delaurenti.net/flap/

[umslopogaas]

#29 Dave2002, you mentioned the Bruno Walter LPs of Schubert's 8th and 9th symphonies. Did you notice which label the 9th was on? I have the 9th on English CBS (SBRG 72020) and the 8th on Philips HiFi Stereo (SABL 209). For some reason, collectors are very sniffy about English CBS and they are pretty much worthless, though they sound fine to me. I'm not sure if Philips and CBS had some sort of commercial tie-up but the fact that Walter recorded the 8th on one and the 9th on the other rather suggests that they did: does anyone know?

and #33 anotherbob, this is a dilemma. If my house burns down I will only get back a fraction of the replacement value of my discs. On the other hand, if I increase the insurance to ensure full replacement value, assuming the company would take on the committment, the premium would go through the roof. So, I cross my fingers and take great care with the matches!

[Dave2002]

Check here...

http://tinyurl.com/7pvefuo

...for a few results on that one. Depending on which label you have it could be worth alerting your Home & Contents insurers

Wow - are those real? I knew it was an odd one when I spotted it going on eBay, but I don't remember what price it went for. Might have been somewhere around £450, so by the standards of the page you've shown it might have been a bargain. What's so special about the LP?

[Dave2002]

#29 Dave2002, you mentioned the Bruno Walter LPs of Schubert's 8th and 9th symphonies. Did you notice which label the 9th was on? I have the 9th on English CBS (SBRG 72020) and the 8th on Philips HiFi Stereo (SABL 209). For some reason, collectors are very sniffy about English CBS and they are pretty much worthless, though they sound fine to me. I'm not sure if Philips and CBS had some sort of commercial tie-up but the fact that Walter recorded the 8th on one and the 9th on the other rather suggests that they did: does anyone know?

and #33 anotherbob, this is a dilemma. If my house burns down I will only get back a fraction of the replacement value of my discs. On the other hand, if I increase the insurance to ensure full replacement value, assuming the company would take on the committment, the premium would go through the roof. So, I cross my fingers and take great care with the matches!

Difficult to say. I don't really recognise any of these covers - though of the three it's more likely to be number 1 or similar. On balance though, I don't think it was any of these. Did LPs ever get reissued with the same music and record number, but with different covers?

1. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/61058-Schu...item43ade3c4e1

2. http://www.amazon.com/72020-Schubert.../dp/B004CJW03A

3. http://www.popsike.com/HIFI-STEREO-S...595492366.html

Re the insurance - been there done that. My father in-law's possessions were "valued" for insurance purposes at several hundred thousand. He collected china. When they were revalued for auction the figure was around 10 times lower, and with auctioneers fees etc. what we received was relatively modest. The problem with that kind of insurance is that it seems to me that the insurers usually win. If you value stuff low, and the company decides it was worth more, then they scale back your claim. If you value stuff high, then they scale back your claim. Plus, as you say, the insurance charges are higher if you value high. Obviously they'd like the values to be "about right" to avoid fraud etc., but values can change and are subject to fashion and other factors.

For many people the only thing of really significant financial value they have will be their house.

[Dave2002]

or even Chris's version ?

http://delaurenti.net/flap/

Great. Anyone tried the Ravel Bolero?

[cloughie]

#29 Dave2002, you mentioned the Bruno Walter LPs of Schubert's 8th and 9th symphonies. Did you notice which label the 9th was on? I have the 9th on English CBS (SBRG 72020) and the 8th on Philips HiFi Stereo (SABL 209). For some reason, collectors are very sniffy about English CBS and they are pretty much worthless, though they sound fine to me. I'm not sure if Philips and CBS had some sort of commercial tie-up but the fact that Walter recorded the 8th on one and the 9th on the other rather suggests that they did: does anyone know?

and #33 anotherbob, this is a dilemma. If my house burns down I will only get back a fraction of the replacement value of my discs. On the other hand, if I increase the insurance to ensure full replacement value, assuming the company would take on the committment, the premium would go through the roof. So, I cross my fingers and take great care with the matches!

American Columbia at one time was issued on Columbia in the UK, then the agreement with EMI ended* although I think Epic which later became part of CBS, continued on EMI Columbia here for a little longer eg Szell Schumann Syms.
* Then American Columbia was distrubuted in UK by Philips SABL209 until sometime in the early sixties when the CBS label was born SBRG72020 as an independent label in UK, this grew and grew and was in due course taken over by Sony and the rest you probably know.

Similar distribution things happened with RCA, originally on HMV in UK, then the RCA label distributed by Decca, then RCA became an independent UK label. Eventually it beacme part of the BMG group.
Now of course BMG and Sony are one, to the benefit of collectors with those bargain boxes.

[umslopogaas]

#37 Dave2002, I think what makes this one special is a combination of factors. There was plenty of competition at the time - I've got 14 versions of this concerto on vinyl, some from the mono-only era prior to 1958, some as late as the 1970s, but in 1958 there would have been many rival versions by some big names, eg Heifetz, Campoli, Ricci, Oistrakh, Elman ... and Kogan wasnt as well known as many of these. This is partly because EMI (of which Columbia was a part), was keen to promote other violinists like Menuhin (though I'm not sure if he actually recorded the Tchaikovsky) and partly because Oistrakh got in first and rather blocked Kogan's light. I think that for some reason Oistrakh was more favoured by the USSR authorities, so they let him out first and Kogan had to wait his turn, by which time Oistrakh was ahead of the recording game. Bear in mind too that these full price Columbias were expensive at a time when people didnt have much spare cash and al lot of the few that were sold were subsequently wrecked by terrible equipment, kids spilling jam on them etc etc. The number surviving now in good nick is very low. And, at the time, Kogan wasnt so highly esteemed as a violinist: now, he is. So everyone is clamouring for a copy of Kogan's recording and there arent enough to go around. Add to which, Columbia blue and silver label stereos are highly prized by collectors, they were produced by Walter Legge, who from accounts I've read was a most unpleasant person, but who was undoubtedly a very good producer. Supply and demand, its the old story. I wish I'd got some more, he made several stereo recordings for Columba and they all go for very high prices: four thousand quid for Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole in a recent ebay auction. And no it wasnt me, that really is silly money ... but I wish I had one to sell!

[Dave2002]

But even allowing for the "vinyl is better than digital" arguments, surely the inflated prices are silly, when acceptable CDs can be bought at reasonable prices. I could understand this more if the master tapes are damaged, and the recording companies didn't have the foresight to make decent digital copies, which has clearly been the case with some Russian reordings I've written about recently, particularly Fedoseyev's Glazunov 5th symphony. Even so £4000 for an LP? Are you sure it sold and wasn't relisted?

[anotherbob]

But even allowing for the "vinyl is better than digital" arguments, surely the inflated prices are silly, when acceptable CDs can be bought at reasonable prices. I could understand this more if the master tapes are damaged, and the recording companies didn't have the foresight to make decent digital copies, which has clearly been the case with some Russian reordings I've written about recently, particularly Fedoseyev's Glazunov 5th symphony. Even so £4000 for an LP? Are you sure it sold and wasn't relisted?

The availability of CD copies even when made from original masters would be of little interest to collectors who wants the the whole "valve" experience. Only vinyl pressed from masters cut by the old valve driven lathes will do.
My son, who is a percussionist, has had the opportunity to listen to such a set-up playing some of the old ED1 Decca SXL LPs and he was astonished by the sound quality. Quite unlike anything his digitally trained ears had heard before. Whether "unlike" equals "superior" is a whole different argument.

[umslopogaas]

There a couple of points of interest here. I would never maintain that vinyl is superior to CD, but I'm not a musician and to my non-discriminating ears, the sound is quite good enough. And as anotherbob points out, the sound from late 50s early stereo Deccas (and other makes) can pleasantly surprise people brought up on digital. But people like me who collect vinyl arent just doing it for love of music. This activity has a lot to do with collecting, the psychology of which is a dangerous thing from which to remove the lid. All I'll say is that I have a compulsion to collect, and vinyl is much more interesting than stamps.

And no, that £4000 was a bid, not a list price: I dont recall that it was even the highest bid, the final one might have been even more. And that's nothing, you should see what first issue Beatles LPs go for: as I recall, a first label 'Please Please Me' in stereo went last year for twelve grand. There's a lot of money shoshing around out there somewhere ...

[jayne lee wilson]

Goodness... I don't recognise that description of these 20x128 Rakhmaninov remasters...they sound utterly gorgeous played on [Jayne here self-censors a lengthy, detailed and boastful description of her CD replay systems]...

...having a custom-rebuilt Marantz CD player helps! Whoops, that bit slipped out...

Hmm, the following from an Amazon customer:

Chesky's remaster of Earl Wild's recording of the Grieg Piano Concerto is gorgeous - warm and detailed. The Rachmaninov remasters however are stripped bare - they're too clean. Piano sound is good but the orchestra sounds old and shrill because the warmth has gone. Surprising and disappointing. The Chandos remasters actually sound better (and all the concertos and rhapsody are on 2CDs). Performance of course is brilliant.

I probably should have listened to you.