Anyone who has been at this audio game for twenty years or more knows that we have recently emerged from the darkest period of recording history into the brightly lit day of digital sound. Nothing was worse than LP's in the late 60's and all 70's into mid-80's. Recordings were ruthlessly manipulated to soup them up, vinyl was recycled garbage and fillers, pressings were done poorly with dirty plates, etc. We would pay $25 or $30 for a "direct to disc" with crappy music by second-rate performers only because we wanted to hear something, anything, which approached real sound. CD's were promising but poorly done initially. There is more music with far higher quality sound now than ever before. Anyone who says differently is a neophyte, or simply stodgy beyond comprehension. Sure, there is still a lot of junk available, many modern classical releases are for illiterates who wouldn't know Mahler from Mozart. Not all the digital sound and remasters are equally well realized, but their intent is to make the best possible sound available to the consumer, and for that they should be applauded. When they get it right, DAMN, they get it great. I hear music now in a way that was not possible 20, or even 10, years ago. If you're a vinyl dinosaur, fine, go that way. But digital technology has opened up a treasure chest of vintage recordings, and the best digital, SACD, is yet to come. The only thing magical about putting a sharpened piece of rock against a distorted piece of rotating plastic to get sound is that some peole are still spellbound by it.
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.......