The thing to keep in mind about DG recordings is that their recordings tend to utilize many microphones and a multi-track recorder to be mixed down after the session by their "Tonemeister". They tend to exaggerate most everything in the recording and are very unnatural sounding. Decca, RCA Living Stereo, Mercury Living Presence, Everest, etc... utilized much different recording philosophies than typically used today. They had many fewer microphones and often only had 2 or 3 tracks to work with. Remember that recording technology in the days of RCA was very basic and it forced the engineers to be better at what they did with less equipment. Decca became famous for the Decca tree recording technique and the same configuration is still widely used today. Just as an example Shawn Murphy uses a Decca tree with three Neumann M-50s to record most of his work (most blockbuster movie soundtracks), the same rig Decca pioneered. However, my favorite part about the old Decca recordings is not only the glorious sound but the rumble of the subway beneath Kingsway Hall! Lastly, being a "mainstream" label doesn't neccessarily mean that the label is going to use more or fewer microphones or more or less processing in the mastering phase (DG uses a lot any way you cut it). That is totally dependendent on the recording and mastering engineers and the record label. I can guarantee that often what goes on a disc and what went on the master are two different stories for a modern recording. High quality artificial reverberation is very cheap and easy to add at the mastering phase and done more often than not so don't believe that the sound you hear is the sound of the hall the recording was made in. The amount of loss/change between a commercial CD and the master is sometimes simply mind-boggling. I am fortunate to have heard 1st generation open reel copies of the masters from many of the labels discussed here and can say that on modern playback equipment, you would be hard pressed to find a recording made today that can match these old classics... especially the Deccas!
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.......