EMI Remasters Its Classical Catalog for SACD

[Mister Wednesday]

Greetings all,

 

An article on the Stereophile website on the SACD format reissue program EMI is undertaking with its classical catalogue which gives some insight into EMI's approach to this kind of project:

 

EMI Remasters Its Classical Catalog for SACD | Stereophile.com

 

I have no connection to or association with any of the persons, companies, products or views expressed in the article referenced above.

 

Regards,

 

Mister Wednesday

[pacwin]

This is fairly ancient news to SACD fans. Stereophile is late to the party here. EMI Japan started this process in 2011 releasing the first hundred. Now they have started a reissue programme, same data on single layer SACD format. In the West we have seen only a subset of the discs although packaged quite differently and considerably cheaper.

 

EMI CLASSICS ??SACD????????? :: SoundTown CLASSIC

[Boris75]

I have bought a dozen of these EMI SACD releases. To my ears, they are good-quality masterings of often remarkable recordings, but there is no miracle: what you hear cannot be better than the original tape, and my impression is that EMI recording in the 50s-60s was not on a par with RCA or Mercury. Nevertheless, I enjoy a couple of these SACDs quite a lot, especially Gieseking's Debussy (a mono SACD!) and Richter's recording of Grieg's piano concerto.

[JonP]

I have bought a dozen of these EMI SACD releases. To my ears, they are good-quality masterings of often remarkable recordings, but there is no miracle: what you hear cannot be better than the original tape, and my impression is that EMI recording in the 50s-60s was not on a par with RCA or Mercury. Nevertheless, I enjoy a couple of these SACDs quite a lot, especially Gieseking's Debussy (a mono SACD!) and Richter's recording of Grieg's piano concerto.

 

I agree. I have been buying the HiQ vinyl reissues and digitalising them. Much better than the previous and highly processed sounding CD versions, but as you say, EMI is EMI. I bought the Previn Planets LP this week and the sound, although hugely dynamic yet non fatiquing, has a sort of closed in feeling. It does not seem to convey the essence of the hall in the way that a great early 60s Decca might. Alot of the earlier EMIs are to my ears almost completely unlistenable and I will be avoiding those - a pity because they are great performances, but there comes a point where poor sound simply becomes too much of a distraction.

[ted_b]

I am a DSD fanboy, yet find these reissues a disaster in decision making. Why the f&%$ would you edit and remaster in 24/96 then do a DSD conversion? Why not release them in PCM (another thread talks about how they are on HDTracks at 24/96 and we are all hoping they are the "original" remasters, i.e prior to the unnecessary DSD conversion). It's not like SACD is the great distribution network anymore. I mean, I LOVE DSD, but the goal here is to listen to masters as close to their originating format as possible. Right?

[Boris75]

Why not release them in PCM (another thread talks about how they are on HDTracks at 24/96 and we are all hoping they are the "original" remasters, i.e prior to the unnecessary DSD conversion). It's not like SACD is the great distribution network anymore. I mean, I LOVE DSD, but the goal here is to listen to masters as close to their originating format as possible. Right?

 

I share your perplexity. Why doesn't EMI release these 24/96 files directly? Ideally I would prefer to buy the original files, but after one try with HDtracks (well as you say we hope these HDTrack EMI 24/96 files are the remasters, but it is not 100% clear), I chose to purchase the SACDs for the rest of the collection because doing so is easier for me in Europe, the SACDs are cheaper (sometimes by a wide margin), the SACDs come with nice liner notes whereas the HDtrack 24/96 files for these EMI releases come naked. And, also, it is good to have a physical disc as backup in case all my hard drives go down (i.e. in case of an HEMP although in that situation I might have other, more pressing worries than audiophile listening).