Living Stereo SACD Releases

Let's keep the hype about these recordings under control! These were, in their time, state of the art recordings, but that was about fifty years ago. Folks should know that they will hear tape/tube hiss and/or AC rumble on many of the discs (all I have to date). I would not discourage people from buying these historic discs, but if they want an audiophile demo disc they will be disappointed.

Fatparrot...Sorry to tell you, but compression and peak limiting can and was implemented with tube equipment. It is almost manditory when cutting an LP. You are right that early multitrack mixing was not the greatest idea, but it made the recording session a lot easier for the technicians and musicians. "Get it down on tape, several times, and we'll fix it later". The multitrack approach is much better when implemrented with modern digital recording tracks, where timing is exact and proper phase relationships can be maintained.

Unfortunately not all the master tapes "stand the test of time"...in some cases they have turned to dust and 7.5ips copies of the original 30ips masters, made several decades ago, were used to make the SACDs.

I repeat, these are interesting discs, but don't expect an audiophile's dream.

Theaudiotweak...Center was always driven by a L+R mix signal. I did that for about 30 years, but what we have now is much better.

Regardless of how you make the master tape, compression/peak limiting is necessary when you cut an LP, along with LF blend, and the usual RIAA mutilation of the original signal. Much less of this is necessary for a digital disk.

What is meant by "35mm film stock"? Are we talking about optical recording? 35mm magnetic tape running at 30 inches per second was the usual medium for master tapes.

Fatparrot...I can't cite the particular disc, but in at least one case the original 30ips tape was unplayable, but an excellent 7.5ips copy of the master was used. (From liner notes).

The original analog tapes probably used dbx noise reduction processing.