Good sounding Deutsche Grammophon recordings

The early "tulip" Deutsche Gramophon label is the tip off for the really good sounding LPs. I agree when record companies went from tubes to solid state that marked the end of the golden era. It happened to RCA and many others, too. I also think things were just different back then, so many great orchestras and conductors, generally speaking.

So, what label has the best recordings ?

DG Lp's rarely show up on "best sounding" Lp lists!

That says it all!

Rrm,
Thanks for the tip. just picked up a near mint LP of the Dvorak cello concerto with Rostropovich/Karajan on amazon. Have it on CD and like it but the record should sound much better. Agree with you about the Carlos Kleiber/Beethoven - have it on CD - amazing performance but crappy sound. Also agree that every upgrade to ones vinyl rig makes some of these DG records sound better. But it is hard to ignore the bad sounding ones when you A/B them with the great sounding ones.
Rcprince - we also have Karajan's second Beethoven cycle from the 70s. Not much good I can say about it.
Jet

Jetrexpro--no, afraid I don't. Don't think it's a tube/solid state question as much as the recording philosophy, though perhaps it might be linked to the thinness/skewed tonal balance. I do notice a difference between the earlier DGs, like Karajan's first Beethoven cycle in the 60s, vs. later, worse-sounding, ones, like his second Beethoven cycle from the 70s.

Always lots of complaints about Karajan on DG. Last night on Tidal heard Karajans recording of La Mer on EMI. What a glorius recording. Very big sounding and obviously multi miked but still a great recording and also one of the best La Mers I have ever heard
Alan

I have many DG LP's which include the complete Beethoven set. These are all DG recordings and from the get-go I was disappointed in the sound quality. Several years ago, I upgraded my playback to a Basis turntable w/a Vector 3 tonearm and a Transfiguration Axia cartridge and I cannot believe how much better these records sound. All my previous disappointments have been eradicated. The sound is suddenly wonderful and fulfilling.

I now listen to this set much more than I previously did.

Rcprince- interesting insight. Do you happen to know when DG moved from recording with tube equipment to solid state?

I concur with the general view: great artists but often mediocre sound- or worse.
Two examples that span the range of sound quality: Dvorak cello concerto with Rostropovich/Karajan- glorious sound, analogue at its best.
Beethoven's 7 th in a truly great performance by Carlos Kleiber-thin, dry shallow sound,really awful. I just can't listen to it . So sad.
I can think of several more examples of bad sound but would like to hear of some more good ones.

Schubert, you reminded me of another DG Bohm recording from 1974 also on vinyl that is nicely recorded. Perhaps not as good as some mentioned above.
Bohm/Vienna Philharmonic - Mozart's clarinet concerto with Alfred Prinz on clarinet. Very elegant. Bohm was known for his Mozart interpretations. Side two has Mozart's bassoon concerto.

I can ditto the Bohm Schubert 5, most excellent.

We have Karajan's digital recordings of Brahms 4 Symphonies on CD and they are poor sounding. Lacking any air/space and kind of muddy sounding. That is why I wanted to especially bring the 1965 version to folks attention as it is quite a surprise to hear such clarity. Inspiring listening. If you like the Brahms symphonies this is a must have. They are inexpensive :)

He worked with Christian Ferras quite a bit in the 60's and I was shocked at how great the above mentioned recordings are. The violin is beautiful sounding.

I also picked up the 1962 Karajan Beethoven cycle on vinyl and it does not sound as good-more of the typical Deutsche Grammophon sound which was a surprise as I would have thought it was going to sound as good as the Brahms,

Agree. Totally overrated. DG had ONE advantage (at their time) they paid the musicians immediately .They have a huge repertoire, but they did create "Digital Sound" (thin, flat, dead) into their pressings even when no one did know what that is. Compared to Mercury/Decca/London Standard light years below. Well, we have to go back to understand it. All companies used that stuff what was available at their time. And they had recording teams which made the best out of it. But none of them did know how good they really were (Except Robert Fine probably). We do that rating now, 40-50 years later. We can say now, they had equipment which was fantastic but no one did know that at that time. They went on with technical "progress" used more mikes, used mixing desks, used Dynagroove cutters and so on and on....
Deutsche Gramophone was simply too late. They started at their point with equipment which was at that time the "Standard". And again, now, 40 years later, we can rate that and based on that, they fail. That "Standard" is mediocre from sonics. That's it.

Musically DG recordings are generally among the best. Sonically, a mixed bag. DG, unlike Decca, generally used a lot of microphones, some almost in the laps of musicians, ran the feeds through a mixing board and relied on the producer (tonmeister, I think they called the person) for the final mix, along, of course, with the featured conductor or artist. They still follow this practice, as I understand it. As a result, the end result depended on the musical sensibility of the producer, and DG had some good ones who did not care as much about how realistic a portrayal of the orchestra they could achieve but rather how the music recorded should sound. That's why in the middle of a quiet passage in a symphony you might hear a larger than life flute being spotlit, for example. DG actually acknowledges that their recordings are aimed at music lovers more than at audiophiles, though some of their recordings can satisfy both. I have found that many of their recordings from the late 60s on and especially their earlier digital recordings were on the bright side and lacking bass, though their recent offerings seem much better. I used to avoid DG recordings, but have now found that, as long as they don't chase me from the room with their tonal balance, the musical result overrides the occasional deviation from what I'd hear in the concert hall.

As an aside, with the exception of Mercury, earlier Telarc and a few purist labels, multi-miking is often used by labels, not just DG (though DG seems to use a lot more than, say, Decca or RCA). If RCA was recording Heifetz or Rubenstein, for example, they were going to spotlight their star artist, sometimes at the expense of a literal portrayal of a concert hall experience. In speaking with a former EMI recording engineer, I was told that using a lot of mikes was often a necessity for them, given the numerous places they were recording in which the acoustics of the hall were not so well-known and balances needed to be adjusted after the recording session to make recordings sound good. I was also talking this past weekend with the NJ Symphony's recording engineer, who records a great many orchestras and ensembles and uses not only the basic "Decca tree" with outriggers and a pair of spaced omnis in the hall, but also a large array of spot microphones over different sections when recording orchestras, in part because, to paraphrase, when a world-famous conductor listening to the playback tells you he wants more sound from the second violins in the final product, you don't ask him why he didn't have them play louder in the first place. In addition, he told me that today labels and artists generally want more impact in the recording, something you don't always get with a few spaced omnis in front of the orchestra (like Telarc used to do--while their recordings were certainly dynamic, they could sometimes sound a bit distant). I can tell you that this engineer's products are musically excellent and give a good facsimile of what you would hear in the concert hall, but they are certainly not purist recordings. The end result just depends on the skills of the recording engineers and producers, as well, of course, as the artists, not just the recording techniques.

My take on DG is that they always had some of the best artists and performances of any label, but the recording quality was inconsistent. I also own DG records from the 60s and 70s and many times have been disappointed by the recording quality.

IMO, these should have been excellent sounding LPs, as they were from the golden age of vinyl and made in Germany/Holland. I've often wondered if the many mergers and sale to Polygram in 1972 had anything to do with the engineering or quality control.

But Decca from that time period was always a sure thing.

do you reverse the phase on them?