Posted by Richard on February 16, 2002 at 20:34:49:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Old CSO Low Brass......overrated???????? posted by Eric Nagamine on February 16, 2002 at 16:54:07:
Your points are well taken. But Decca introduced a new level of twiddling and tweaking that was unprecedented. And Solti's audio team in the early 70s had no taste. And whatever mixing tricks were employed in the Reiner Sheherezade and other recordings of that period, the ears of the engineers were at the service of the ears and minds or the performers. Same for Heifetz, and yes it was the miking and the placement in the hall. That's why those vintage Living Stereos still sound great on still evolving audio systems. Nothing will ever make those early Solti CSOs sound any good.
And yes, Stokowski was very hands-on with the audio team, but what a pair of ears he had. He could not only get any orchestra to sound as he wanted, but he knew how to get whatever ever sound he wanted on record, from acoustic 78s through stereo, which he was helping to develop since the early 30s. That's a far cry from the pathetic period of recording that began in the 60s, and from which we've only recently begun to recover.