Regarding the Barbirolli material that was recorded by Mercury and Pye, I am pretty sure that EMI 
used the Pye 2-track masters for their early-era CD reissues. I think those digital masters were 
later leased to the Barbirolli Society, which put out some of the same material. According to the 
Mercury tape logs I've seen, all of the Halle/Barbirolli 3-track and mono masters were sent to EMI, 
many of them in the early 60's and the rest by 1971. I am not clear exactly what the Pye 2-track 
master were.  I was told by one first-person participant that they were made by Pye from the feeds 
of the left and right mics, which would explain what I perceive as a non-Mercury-like weak center in 
the EMI CD reissues. Another first-person participant told me that Bob Auger did his own on-location 
3-2 mix and recorded to a 2-track master. A more logical explaination, based on other Mercury 
operating procedures, is that Pye would have gotten a 2-track made during the first American LP 
cutting, so it is a "first generation 3-2 mix" tape. However, as I said, the EMI CD reissues do not 
sound the same as the original Mercury LPs or mass-duped 2-track tapes.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Carl Pultz" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2012 7:23 PM
Subject: [ARSCLIST] New-ish EMI set


>I was happy to find that the 'Sir John Barbirolli: The Great EMI Recordings'
> box set contained a mix of transfers from across the digital era, the newer
> ones excellent. A few tunes that had been the subject of earlier issues are
> updated. One example is the famous Tallis Fantasia session, which Bernard
> Herrmann had a hand in. The 2000 remastering in the box is dramatically
> different than the 1980s reissue and just clobbers the Angel LP.
> Unfortunately, the V-W 5 is not updated, but the glory shines through
> anyway.
>
> As someone here recently said, much of the EMI catalog has lagged somewhat
> behind the state of the art. With such a huge catalog, that might be
> understandable, even without all the corporate drama.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tom Fine
> Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2012 3:06 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] New SONY sets
>
> 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
>>
>