Past Purchases (CLOSED)

[Bogey]

At $1 per platter from a local shop.  All the albums look very nice, with covers showing various degrees of wear:

Furtwängler
-Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4
EMI-Mono

Gieseking
-Debussy/Ravel/Grieg from 1953-56
Seraphim

Gould
-Beethoven Sonatas 30-32
Columbia 6-Eyed
-Bach Goldberg Variations
Columbia 6-Eyed

Horowitz
-Beethoven Sonatas 27 and 53
RCA Shaded Dog
-Beethoven Sonatas 13, 27, and 57
Columbia Demonstration Album
-Rachmaninoff Sonata Op. 36/Preludes Op. 32/Moment in Musical Op. 16/Three Etudes-Tableaux
CBS
-Chopin Sonata No. 2 Op. 35/Rachmaninoff Etude Tableau Op. 33, No. 2 and Op. 39, No. 5
-Schumann Arabesque, Op. 18
-Listz Hungarian Rhapsody No. 19
Columbia
-ScriabinSonata No. 3, Op. 23/16 Preludes
RCA
-In Recital (Various composers)
RCA Shaded Dog

Richter
-Debussy Preludes: Book II
Turnabout

Rubinstein
-Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 with Ormandy
RCA
-Beethoven
Kruetzer and Spring Sonatas with Szeryig
RCA-Shaded Dog
-Chopin
Polonaises 1-6
RCA Red Long Play label
-Chopin The Mazurkas
RCA

Serkin
-Mendelsshon
Concertos 1 and 2 with Ormandy
Columbia 6-Eyed: Was still in shrink wrap.
-Beethoven PC No. 1 with Ormandy (repeat of above?)/Eleven Bagatelles Op. 119
Columbia
-Beethoven PC No.3/and Choral Fantasy with Bernstein
Columbia
-Brahms Piano Concertos 1 and 2 with Szell
Columbia
-Beethoven
Sonatas 8, 14, and 23
6-Eyed-Columbia

Stowkowski/LSO
Beethoven Symph. No. 9
London Phase 4 Stereo

[Que]

At $1 per platter from a local shop.  All the albums look very nice, with covers showing various degrees of wear:

Impressive list, Bill!

Q

[Novi]

I have this set too.  Don't feel bad about having bought this set twice, I bought some duplicates also over the years.  As your collection gets larger, it must be computerized.  That is another reason I rarely walk into a brick-and-mortar store these days since I may not be able to avoid picking up duplicates if I do not have a list of my full collection handy ...

Ah, but in this instance, the culprit wasn't an unmanageably vast collection (mine isn't) but a characteristic absentmindedness, which led me to order the disk from both amazon and hmv at the same time.    My idiocy, methinks, can be as boundless as Ms Capulet's bounty ...

That recording I am fairly certain not many people would mind being given!

Indeed! Perhaps your enthusiastic recommendations are partly to blame for my enthusiastic buying.

[Coopmv]

At $1 per platter from a local shop.  All the albums look very nice, with covers showing various degrees of wear:

I doubt you can get this kind of deal in the NY metro-area.  Your local record shop does seem to have some pretty good selections.  I think I have many nice records but may not have much chance to play them in any serious way until I retire.  For now, convenience is key when I have a 70-hour workweek ...

[George]

I doubt you can get this kind of deal in the NY metro-area.  Your local record shop does seem to have some pretty good selections.  I think I have many nice records but may not have much chance to play them in any serious way until I retire.  For now, convenience is key when I have a 70-hour workweek ...

Man, 70 hours?! That sucks, Stuart. 

[Coopmv]

Man, 70 hours?! That sucks, Stuart. 

The 14-hour day includes my commuting time, which is on average 1 1/2 hours each way.  John Greenwood of SH Forum works in my town but lives in NYC ...

[Renfield]

Indeed! Perhaps your enthusiastic recommendations are partly to blame for my enthusiastic buying.

I had an inkling I might have had something to do with it...

But I certainly hope it wasn't an unwarranted enthusiastic recommendation.

[Coopmv]

Ah, but in this instance, the culprit wasn't an unmanageably vast collection (mine isn't) but a characteristic absentmindedness, which led me to order the disk from both amazon and hmv at the same time.    My idiocy, methinks, can be as boundless as Ms Capulet's bounty ...

Indeed! Perhaps your enthusiastic recommendations are partly to blame for my enthusiastic buying.

I think I picked up the duplicates at the brick-and-mortar stores when I had under 800 CD's and back in those days, internet was in its infancy and amazon was the only e-tailer.  You are right, your over-enthusiasm was probably the cause. 

[Bogey]

Impressive list, Bill!

Q

Well a bit more vinyl, and these were a tad bit more as well.

All with Tulips:

            

and:



Listed for $80 on Ebay, and I snagged it for $7.....that seller has lost his....

Also picked up a Furtwängler Tchaikovsky Symph. 5, 1952 recording with the Italian Radio Orchestra.  It is mono and says recorded at a public performance and that it is a private recording.  Has this one slipped out on disc Que or George?

[RussellG]

Two more CDs from the used bins, both nice early Japan pressings:

[The new erato]

Two more CDs from the used bins, both nice early Japan pressings:

Is pressing an issue with CDs? I can see mastertapes being important, but isn't most pressings (aside from the occasional hysteric audiophile gold platter....) made from the same tapes equal?

[RussellG]

Is pressing an issue with CDs? I can see mastertapes being important, but isn't most pressings (aside from the occasional hysteric audiophile gold platter....) made from the same tapes equal?

Theoretically any CD made from the same mastering should be equal, because it's all just 1's and 0's isn't it?  One would think so, but there's an audiophile school of thought that says early pressing plants were superior in quality to those built for mass production from around 1990 on.  Such plants included the very first ones built in Japan and West Germany, plus slightly later plants including PDO France, Nimbus UK, and DADC Austria and USA.  It's hardly a fringe element school either.  The esteemed mastering engineer Barry Diament has stated that the CDs pressed at different plants from the glass masters he sent out all sounded different (and none of them like the glass master).  Also Steve Hoffman says that they spent a lot of time choosing the pressing plant for the DCC audiophile CD's of the early 90's.  On the other hand there are plenty of audiophiles who vigorously maintain that theoretically there can be no difference, and practically there is not either (ie. they can't hear any difference).

I personally think that the earlier pressings have just a little extra spark and focus to them.  It could be imagination, but I have compared earlier and later pressings of the same masterings and sometimes heard distinct differences.  There's definitely more than just 1's and 0's at play - there's jitter embedded in the disc for starters, and there may well be other as yet unknown factors.

Also over at the Hoffman forum there's an early CD collector mentality amongst some of the members, and I bring a bit of that to the table here too.

Far more discussion, dissection and argument on the matter than you could ever want is available at http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/

[The new erato]

Theoretically any CD made from the same mastering should be equal, because it's all just 1's and 0's isn't it?  One would think so, but there's an audiophile school of thought that says early pressing plants were superior in quality to those built for mass production from around 1990 on.  Such plants included the very first ones built in Japan and West Germany, plus slightly later plants including PDO France, Nimbus UK, and DADC Austria and USA.  It's hardly a fringe element school either.  The esteemed mastering engineer Barry Diament has stated that the CDs pressed at different plants from the glass masters he sent out all sounded different (and none of them like the glass master).  Also Steve Hoffman says that they spent a lot of time choosing the pressing plant for the DCC audiophile CD's of the early 90's.  On the other hand there are plenty of audiophiles who vigorously maintain that theoretically there can be no difference, and practically there is not either (ie. they can't hear any difference).

I personally think that the earlier pressings have just a little extra spark and focus to them.  It could be imagination, but I have compared earlier and later pressings of the same masterings and sometimes heard distinct differences.  There's definitely more than just 1's and 0's at play - there's jitter embedded in the disc for starters, and there may well be other as yet unknown factors.

Also over at the Hoffman forum there's an early CD collector mentality amongst some of the members, and I bring a bit of that to the table here too.

Far more discussion, dissection and argument on the matter than you could ever want is available at http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/

Thank you for an iluminating reply. I'll avoid the link though as I try to stay content, avoiding audiophilia necrosis.  Playing on a Wadia 830, C-J MV 2500 and Dali MS-5's (mostly) and being mainly very satisfied, I don't need more insanity. 

[RussellG]

Thank you for an iluminating reply. I'll avoid the link though as I try to stay content, avoiding audiophilia necrosis.  Playing on a Wadia 830, C-J MV 2500 and Dali MS-5's (mostly) and being mainly very satisfied, I don't need more insanity. 

I don't blame you for not clicking on that link - I only just escaped from that asylum 

I rarely go out of my way to find early pressings anyway.  The differences are subtle at best, and the mastering itself is far more important.

(Nice sounding system BTW)

[jlaurson]

The differences are subtle at best, and the mastering itself is far more important.

Even what you had for breakfast is more important in how and what your ears hear. 

(I have been so brutally cured of fringe-audiophilia by comparative, blind, and double blind tests that completely ruined my hi-fi world view... I have come to consider that the quality of the recording itself and the quality if the speakers/headphones (properly powered) is 90% of the equation. The rest is "source", "absence of distorting elements", "positioning", and "breakfast". Then there's the question of psychological hearing (to which, admittedly, "breakfast" probably belongs)--which is valid because it affects us almost as much as physical hearing... but it's not a topic for hi-fi forums but medical professionals.)

[haydnguy]

RusselG, back in the mid-90's (long before my interest in classical music) I walked into a mass market bookstore and they had that complete Beethoven cycle on sale in a special bin. (I think it was new then.) On a whim I bought it because I thought (it would be nice to have a little classical music).  Since that time I haven't really gotten into Beethoven yet so that's my lone cycle of Beethoven. 

[RussellG]

RusselG, back in the mid-90's (long before my interest in classical music) I walked into a mass market bookstore and they had that complete Beethoven cycle on sale in a special bin. (I think it was new then.) On a whim I bought it because I thought (it would be nice to have a little classical music).  Since that time I haven't really gotten into Beethoven yet so that's my lone cycle of Beethoven. 

Word on the street is it's one of the best 9th's to own.  The last movement sure sounded great in a quick sample.  I don't know about the rest of the cycle, but it seems from recent discussion everything Dohnányi/Cleveland touched turned to gold 

[haydnguy]

Word on the street is it's one of the best 9th's to own.  The last movement sure sounded great in a quick sample.  I don't know about the rest of the cycle, but it seems from recent discussion everything Dohnányi/Cleveland touched turned to gold 

As someone said yesterday, "sometimes you get lucky".   

[rubio]

Waiting in the mail box after a Marrakesh trip.

 

[Bogey]

Nice grab, Russell....as you know, my favorite recording of the 9th.  As you stated, simple.  The ability of Dohnányi to keep this one in check and not go over the top in spots, but to just add a bit power where it makes sense is the magic to this recording that most others miss while trying to make their mark with it.  In short, nothing to see here folks....please go back to your homes and enjoy the music.