In article ,
John Phillips wrote:
First, many of the DDD CDs I have from the 80s (but not all) are very
flat in sound quality, regardless of performance quality.

Digital should guarantee a decent recording of the balance engineer's art.
But it can't correct for this if it's poor, or not to your taste.

However, I have CDs of analogue recordings from the 1960s onwards with
modern (1990s onward) digital mastering. Most sound marvellous. Full of
life and full of the ambience of the recording venue. For example
Boehm's 1967 Wagner Ring which just drips with the Bayreuth
Festspielhaus accoustic (even through the audible tape hiss).

Which backs this up. The record/replay side of digital is excellent - but
it depends, rather obviously, what is put into it.

Another specific example: I have a 1985 CD of a rather splendid 1975
performance conducted by Carlos Kleiber of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5.
It sounds flat. I also have the 1995 re-mastered CD. Even after
correcting for the higher level of the newer CD, it has bags more
ambience. In many ways it's much more like the 1970s LP I have of the
same performance.

Before coming to any conclusions, you'd have to know just what masters
both LP, original CD and re-mastered one came from. If, as is likely, they
are all different, it's not surprising the end results are different too.

--
*If you don't like the news, go out and make some.

Dave Plowman London SW 12
RIP Acorn