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DSD said:
I whole-heartily recommend the entire RCA Living Stereo SACD collection except for this one. Why was this released?
Happy Listening,
Teresa
The answer is Monteux, Monteux, Monteux. That was reason enough for me! Like I said, I am not unhappy I bought it. Just that people were giving it accolades for sound I felt it surely does not deserve!
Wow Teresa, emit tweeters! Thats pretty primo in my estimation. This morning I just orded that Membran of the Franck you mentioned. Glad to hear it is good!
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Post by mdt December 16, 2005 (12 of 17)
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Ivymike said:
This 1959 recording of "Petrouchka" is my favorite of dozens I've heard over the years. The performance is first-rate and the sonics only slightly behind. The CD issued in the Pierre Monteux Edition in the early 1990's sounds a bit overloaded on climaxes, with the brass becoming "screamy" as tape rolls happily into saturation. It is a soundstaging champ, however,with a bass drum that sounds( and feels!) just like it should in a concert hall and it's easy just to get lost in the music.
The new SACD sounds first-rate in three-channel mode as well. As usual, I notice the soundstage actually seems wider in three-channel playback and the center fill is a bit more solid. There are places, however, when the center channel level seems a bit too high and all of the woodwinds, some brass and violas all "pile up" atop one another dead center mono, but at obviously different distances. It sounds a bit odd, and as I've carefully set the playback levels on all three channels to be equal I'm not sure if we're hearing a transfer quirk or something Bob Simpson, the original engineer, was doing. In any case the effect is not always noticeable and hardly detracts from this super release.
Do you have the three front speakers at the same distance from you, meaning on a circle line and not on a straight line as sometimes seen ?
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Post by ramesh December 16, 2005 (13 of 17)
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Mea culpa re the Franck symphony; I'll amend/rehabilitate my review shortly. Condolences to those led astray. Can't really explain why I didn't write about the tape overload which, as Teresa says, sounds like it was caused by too high a recording level. I seem to have so enjoyed the disc each time I played it, the rest didn't matter. Although this isn't meant as an excuse, this is what Kalman Rubinson with his expensive hi-fi wrote about the offending recording in the November 'Stereophile': "Monteux's almost definitive Franck is greatly freed of the compression of earlier releases ( including the LP ) and given room to breathe."
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Post by Peter December 17, 2005 (14 of 17)
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ramesh said:
Mea culpa re the Franck symphony; I'll amend/rehabilitate my review shortly. Condolences to those led astray. Can't really explain why I didn't write about the tape overload which, as Teresa says, sounds like it was caused by too high a recording level. I seem to have so enjoyed the disc each time I played it, the rest didn't matter. Although this isn't meant as an excuse, this is what Kalman Rubinson with his expensive hi-fi wrote about the offending recording in the November 'Stereophile': "Monteux's almost definitive Franck is greatly freed of the compression of earlier releases ( including the LP ) and given room to breathe."
I didn't find the overload offensive, no worse than some concert halls; this transfer is, I think, an enormous improvement over previous CD releases (I have them all), and the sound is largely excellent. So, "greatly freed of the compression..." is fair enough.
Don't let the caveats put you off buying what is a wonderful disc.
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Post by DSD December 18, 2005 (15 of 17)
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Peter said:
I didn't find the overload offensive, no worse than some concert halls; this transfer is, I think, an enormous improvement over previous CD releases (I have them all), and the sound is largely excellent. So, "greatly freed of the compression..." is fair enough.
Don't let the caveats put you off buying what is a wonderful disc.
I have never heard overload distortion in a concert hall of live acoustic classical orchestra music. I have heard gross overload distortion at live electric Rock concerts. Could you be thinking of this?
The severe distortion in the Franck Symphony is amoung the worst I have ever heard, so bad it is unlistenable and ruins the performance for me.
Teresa
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Post by Peter December 19, 2005 (16 of 17)
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DSD said:
I have never heard overload distortion in a concert hall of live acoustic classical orchestra music. I have heard gross overload distortion at live electric Rock concerts. Could you be thinking of this?
No, I'm referring to levels which are too high for the hall to cope with. Recently I've heard this both at the Barbican and the Festival Hall, and it sounds similar to overload distortion in recordings.
As I hinted before, the sound quality of the Franck has improved with each release, the earliest being quite poor. However, I haven't found the sound of the SACD to be anywhere near as unacceptable as you find it. I agree that overall it hasn't top quality sound but I would still urge listeners to try it out themselves before crossing it off their to-buy list.
It won't be the first time recording quality evinces quite different opinions!
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Post by Castor December 19, 2005 (17 of 17)
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As I hinted before, the sound quality of the Franck has improved with each release, the earliest being quite poor. However, I haven't found the sound of the SACD to be anywhere near as unacceptable as you find it. I agree that overall it hasn't top quality sound but I would still urge listeners to try it out themselves before crossing it off their to-buy list.
It won't be the first time recording quality evinces quite different opinions!
I agree Peter, and must warn those contemplating the purchase of the Membran / Leppard Franck that they will be missing out if they reject Monteux for that version, both as a recording and performance.
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