"Iain Churches" wrote in message
i.fi...

"David Looser" wrote in message
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"tony sayer" wrote in message
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I've just sort of inherited some CD's that are of quite old recordings
and I'm impressed that some of them sound .. well they don't have that
modern sound on them .. a sort of -vague- harshness..

I'll trade a slight amount of tape hiss for the lack of that!..


Are you suggesting that an analogue tape generation removes "a sort
of -vague- harshness" that would otherwise necessarily be present? Seems
a pretty daft idea to me.

I took this to mean in contrast to the "smiley" EQ which is present on so
many non-classical CDs.


Perhaps I don't buy those sorts of CDs, but I'm not aware of this modern
"sort of -vague- harshness". OTOH I am very aware of the distortion present
on many of the classic pop albums of the 60s and 70s, which sounds like the
effect of overdriven analogue tape to me. This distortion is still clearly
audible on the CD re-issues so it's obviously there on the analogue master
tapes. I'm not that bothered by a bit of tape hiss either, it's the
distortion that I dislike.

OTOH I recently inherited a double LP re-issue of the Lew Stone recordings
of 1935. The technical quality varies, but the best are superb. I was amused
to hear his version of "Anything Goes" (which is on the LP) used on the
soundtrack of the 2008 film "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day". It did not in
any way sound like a "period" recording, but it was Lew Stone's 1935
recording - I checked the credits. It seems to me ironic that so many pop
recordings of the analogue tape era are technically inferior to pre-war
direct-to-disc 78rpm ones.

David.