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Path: utzoo!decvax!bellcore!ulysses!burl!drh
From: drh@burl.UUCP (drh)
Newsgroups: net.music.classical
Subject: Re: Mozart on CD - warning
Message-ID: <1161@burl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 26-Mar-86 08:45:27 EST
Article-I.D.: burl.1161
Posted: Wed Mar 26 08:45:27 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Mar-86 22:39:49 EST
References: <2481@bbnccv.UUCP>
Reply-To: drh@burl.UUCP (Richard Hipp)
Distribution: na
Organization: AT&T Technologies, Burlington NC
Lines: 32
Keywords: Bad Masters

In article <2481@bbnccv.UUCP> rfradenb@bbnccv.UUCP (Roger Fradenburgh) writes:
>
>I  just  bought  a  copy  of Mozart Concerti Nos. 5 and 25, performed by
>Murray Perahia and the English Chamber Orchestra on  a  CBS  Masterworks
>CD...  Biiig mistake!  The performance itself is just swell, the problem
>is the recording.  It is, in a word, abysmal. [....]
>                There's  a  constant, loud tape hiss.  This is a digital
>recording, but someone did an absolutely rotten mastering job.

Thanks for the warning!  I too have had a bad experience with a
(supposedly) digitally mastered CD.  It was a recording of Robert
Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony and Chorus performing a variety of
baroque choral pieces.  (Sorry, I've forgotten the exact name of the
disk and the label.)  There was not much hiss on this recording, but
only because all sound above about 5kHz had been filtered out during
the mixing. (I didn't measure cutoff frequency. 5kHz is a guess.)
The music sounded like I was listening to it over a telephone.
It was truly awful.  Fortunately, Peaches Records and Tapes let me
exchange this lemon for a different title.

I'd like to hear from others who have heard or purchased poorly mastered
DDD compact disks.  Is low quality mastering a prevasive problem with
CDs, or did Roger and I just happen to select two lumps of coal out
of a pile of gems?  Is poor mastering ever a problem with LPs?  I've
recently purchased my first ever stereo system and would like to know
the answers to these questions before I spend big $$ to build up a
record collection.  Thanks!
-- 

Richard Hipp
AT&T Technologies, Burlington, NC
(919)-228-3832				    ...allegra!burl!drh