Do classical CDs made from early analog tapes sound better on your system than new CDs?

Inna, 

I guess your ears are different from mine, or you don’t listen to a lot of classical music.

Profoundly stupid, eh?

One of the most treasured CDs in my collection, both musically and sonically, is Chesky’s remastering of Jascha Horenstein conducting the Royal Philharmonic in a 1962 (!) performance of Dvorak’s New World Symphony. The original recording was engineered by the great Kenneth Wilkinson, and of course in the days before the use of a forest of microphones and extensive post-processing in the recording of symphony orchestras became the norm.

Frankly, I find the sonics on this recording to be so amazing that I would expect anyone having a bias against the CD format would find themselves re-thinking their outlook after hearing it.

Chesky’s CD re-issue of the 1962 Horenstein/London Symphony performance of Brahms' Symphony No. 1, also originally engineered by Mr. Wilkinson, is also quite wonderful, both musically and sonically.

Best regards,
-- Al

Of course, high-end labels such as Chesky are re-releasing many, many classic analog-original recordings produced by wonderful engineers such as Wilkerson, Mohr and Layton and many others from the 50’s and 60’s, and eagerly picked up by audiophiles.  Not to mention, RCA Living Stereo and Mercury Living Presence releases originally recorded during that period that are audiophile classics.

OP, you got no ears at all, it would seem.

Inna,

Are you OK? There are many transfers of what were originally analog recordings to digital that sound great. Tastes change with time and so do interpretations and performances as well as recording techniques. I am not surprised to see a preference for 50’s classical - the budgets back then were bigger in classical than today.

There is nothing inherently wrong in converting analog to digital after all EVERYTHING except electronic generated music starts off as Analog. All the microphones in use today are actually analog devices so there is no way to avoid the A to D conversion at some stage if you are listening to digital.