I find (and I am not alone) that the best recordings are from the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Of course, this is contrary to what the average person probably thinks (that advanced technology means better sound quality). The reasons are:
* That the expertise of the recording engineers is the most important factor. Prior to the Rock age, recording music was not a glamor occupation, and so it was more often done by a trained and dedicated professional (rather than by the artist's cousin).
* That the quality of the equipment, rather than its technology, was the second most important factor. In that period, magnetic tape was in widespread use, and the upgrade from the shellac-based systems of the pre-war era was enough to make other factors more crucial to sound quality. In those days, professional equipment was all hand made to precise standards, and machined from high quality materials. As a result, equipment would perform closer to specifications.
* The lower complexity of early systems inadvertently led to better sound quality. Recording stereo with two microphones leads to a more natural sounding stereo image. Later miking with dozens of microphones resulted in smearing in time domain, or mismatched sound fields.
My favorite of those recordings is Rimsky-Korsakov - Scheherazade performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Fritz Reiner in 1960, recorded with three microphones by Lewis Layton. It is my favorite audio recording because it is also perhaps the best performance of that piece of music. (For those who have not heard the piece, it is romantic classical music, perhaps what would now be called "movie music".)
The SACD is an essentially transparent transfer of the original master tape, and the recording sounds like you are sitting in Chicago's Orchestra Hall.
You can buy the Hybrid SACD for US$9 on Amazon:
www.amazon.com/Rimsky-Korsakov-Scheherazade-Stravinsky-Nightingale-Hybrid/dp/B0006PV5VC/
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Topic: Audio gems....what have you found (Read 4797 times)