Mercury Living Presence

[pwhinson]

I've found that these releases - which were mostly classical "compilation" type discs, sound great on high resolution equipment, and the same goes for the old RCA "living stereo" series but IMHO to a lesser degree. Check out the Mercury reissues of these old recordings.

 

[Synfreak]

I own both series complete (about 55 RCAs and 20 Mercurys).

 

The transfer / recording quality of the Mercurys isn`t equal on all of the recordings, some suffer from - maybe - the non optimal and often changed material (tape) on which they where recorded at. The 35mm film recordings seem all to be fine.

 

The RCAs are a bit more balanced over the series, but the Opera titles are truly spectacular (and I´m not an opera fan at all ...).

 

At the current prices (at least here in Germany), I would give them all a "must have" rating.

 

Cheers

Harald

 

[pwhinson]

Wow. True indeed. I purchased La Boheme with some great singers of the day and the sound is absolutely phenomenal, no overmiking, very lifelike. I also think the early Decca recordings are really great on the classical repertoire - look for the recording engineer "Wilkinson." Wonderful sound. I'm putting together a diverse library of classical music based on classical.net's basic repertoire list. I've found that using the Third Ear guide (Amazon) is reliable guidance although it lacks the latest releases. Doesn't matter to me at all - I've made a hobby out of trying to find these great recordings often still listed for sale on Amazon but sometimes listed there only by individuals in the marketplace section. I've found GREAT deals. Most of the dealers ship first class mail as "standard" despite what the Amazon site says - so you get them pretty quick.