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Classical Audiophiles Rejoice!

The audio quality of recordings now available has recently made huge gains with various remastering techniques used by major labels to greatest recordings in their past catalog, and released at mid price! EMI "great recordings of century" uses ART (Abbey Rd tech.), DG uses original image bit processing, Sony uses SBM (superior bit mapping), RCA "living stereo" uses UV22 super CD encoding, DECCA "legends" uses 24bit/96khz digital transfers, etc etc. Even budget lines like Naxos have very good sound! For example I am now listening to Mahler 2nd Sym EMI label Klemperer/Schwarzkopf remastered using ART. I had original CD, and sound was average at best for 1963 recording. What a transformation now, huge gains in every dept.....much larger gain than a Gold CD gives to average recording. Mahler 2 on one CD, mid price, excellent sound quality, great performance with SCHWARZKOPF! Some of the RCA remasters from late 1950s are better than any recordings made today! Any other comments on this subject.......
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Sugarbrie, the comments you make are absolutely correct. That is even more reason to listen to the Classic Records reissues on LP. I have every 45 RPM that Classic has issued. These are pressed from the RCA masters that had music lovers the world over, chasing after the "shaded dogs" pressed in the 1960's. And, if the RCA's masters are not exactly to your taste, much of the Decca masters have been perfectly repressed, and without any remixing on them either. The Decca's are becoming very difficult to find though.
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That is a wonderful story. Only a conductor as great a Karajan would have enough sway with the Dutch to make such a demand.
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Madisonears absolutely has a swear word in his posting. The word was DIGITAL. If he thinks this is enlightenment, perhaps he also prefers fluorescent light to daylight. The modern fluorescent was advertised to be perfect light with long life (sound like the promise of CD?) However, there are many of us that are actually bothered by the flickering at 60 times per second. You say that the human eye cannot see the flickering at 60 times per second? Well, sit under a room full for 8 hours, and tell me which is better the Sun, or fluro's? The comparison is not that far apart. Digital is an approximation, that means it is trying to be analog. And, it does switch on and off to try to trace the signal that true analog can do. Perhaps today's digital will beat the analog of 10 or 20 years ago, but guess what? All things change, and some of today's analog is absolutely astounding.
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Kurtisjeffers, the posting does say, (I quote) "Some of the RCA remasters from late 1950s are better than any recordings made today! Any other comments on this subject.......". I think Carl did just that. The recording he is speaking of is from that era, and is an excellent performance. I understand why you prefer CD, and I certainly understand why you prefer a performance at Severance Hall, but this is not only a music site, but an audiophile site as well. The comments concerning format are generally passionate, as this is the next most important thing, aside from the performance itself. So if someone here wants the same quality performance as you, but prefers a format that they believe is superior, it is not wrong. In a sense it is an attempt to share. Much like the postings that perhaps claim that the Black Crows are better than anything classical or maybe that Bartok is superior to Ray Charles.
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Megasam, You could also add that with CD, you can enjoy the entire performance, without interruption. In that sense, CD can present the performance as you would enjoy it live, where LP requires a break to turn over or even change discs. For those of us that at LP junkies, it is a frustrating problem.
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