So Dennis, is it possible that Sony sourced for these RCA reissues mentioned at the start of this
thread, something like the early 90's Living Stereo CD masters? As I understand it, those were made
from second-generation stereo cutting masters, not original session tapes. As I further understand
it, the SACD/CD Living Stereo hybrid discs done at Soundmirror were all made from first-generation
session tapes, with new 3-2 mixes done where appropriate. Plus, the transfers were done with very
high-quality equipment at very high resolution. Perhaps in today's crazy mixed-up world, someone
would be ignorant of those digital files and would thus use an earlier inferior source, but it's
pretty scary to think about that scenario.
Just to be clear, John Pfeiffer did the best he could with the RCA organization he worked in, but
many of the Living Stereo CDs released in the 1990s are vastly inferior sounding, to my ears, when
compared to the CD layer (not to mention the SACD layers) of the Soundmirror/BMG hybrid discs.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dennis Rooney" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2012 7:38 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] New SONY sets
> POLICY as to WHICH digital transfer to use? Not in my experience, unless it
> was the late Jack Pfeiffer's instructions to his reissue supervisors to use
> the most recently released source, a policy that survived at RCA after his
> demise. Under Tom Frost's aegis, Sony Classical was very concerned with
> countering the bad press they had received from so many early CBS CDs
> produced from Lp cutting masters. All the reisssue lines in production when
> I was there in the 90s used new a/d transfers from the SW master reels. (It
> was an embarrassment when we discovered that the initial group of classical
> SACDs, ordered up by the hardware division and not run through A&R, were
> all made from 2-track submasters.) However, by the early years of this
> century, everything was in a state of disorder. Recycling is now the norm,
> and as institutional amnesia affects the labels, there is often ignorance,
> confusion or both over what is the best digital source.
>
> DDR
>
> On Wed, Aug 8, 2012 at 3:05 PM, Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
>
>> Mike, do you know if there's a policy as to WHICH digital transfer to use?
>> In the case of both Columbia (Sony) and RCA (BMG), there were many
>> not-so-good attempts before good remasters were obtained. For Sony, I'd put
>> the ones that Dennis Rooney oversaw in the late 90's as their best. For
>> RCA, the CD layer of the SACDs done by Soundmirror are vastly superior to
>> earlier attempts.
>>
>> For their box set, Decca went back and re-did some material that had been
>> previously remastered, with good results. I think DGG did new transfers for
>> some of the material in their budget-priced boxes, for instance the Kubelik
>> Mahler cycle seemed to have all been remastered in the late 90s as opposed
>> to some of the earlier remasters of some of the symphonies (I don't think
>> all were previously released prior to the box set). I believe everything
>> was brought up to the era and quality of the "DGG Originals" series, so
>> circa late 90's.
>>
>> -- Tom Fine
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gray, Mike" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2012 2:47 PM
>> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] New SONY sets
>>
>>
>> As a rule, no new transfers are made from analog originals save where no
>>> prior digital transfer has already been
>>> made.
>>>
>>>
>>> Mike Gray
>>>
>>>
>
>
> --
> Dennis D. Rooney
> 303 W. 66th Street, 9HE
> New York, NY 10023
> 212.874.9626
>
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