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From: jeff@tesla.UUCP (Jeff Frey)
Newsgroups: net.audio
Subject: CD reviews
Message-ID: <141@tesla.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 30-Jul-83 08:11:57 EDT
Article-I.D.: tesla.141
Posted: Sat Jul 30 08:11:57 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 4-Aug-83 01:28:20 EDT
Lines: 41

I started to prepare a review of my CD collection (up to about 30 now) for
the Net but things have moved a little beyond me, what with friends returning
from Japan and Europe, and CDs available by `phone order both from Record
& Tape Ltd in Georgetown, D.C. (a good place, knowledgeable people, $20 per
plus shipping) and EuropaDisc in London (I haven`t ordered yet, seems OK,
$l4/disc for Polygrams, $l8 for CBS/Sony, + $6 shipping for air mail,
any number of CDs).  The reviews in "Audio" seem rather superficial.
"Gramophone" still looks like the best bet for reviews of both musical
and sonic content.

Of my CDs the ones I like best (sonically) are still the Montreal Ravel:
Daphnis & Chloe; Amsterdam Concertgebouw Rimsky: Scheherazade; and a CD
of two Dvorak serenades, opp 22 and 44.  A new Denon of BAch organ works
(Toccata & Fugue in D Minor included) gives a very good impression of the
mid and high ranges of the organ but the low end seems thin.  The CBS/Sony
Mozart Symphonies (Kubelik, also available on LP) aren`t CD material at all;
their Prokofiev 5th (Bernstein) is very good; Shostakovich 5th (Bernstein)
not so good.

RCA is coming out with a Magic Flute complete (Levine, a live recording from
the Salzburg Festival) but I`d prefer to wait for Gotterdammerung (especially
if the recording producer, as did John Culshaw for Decca, inserts a recording
of an earthquake in the last scene--probably still the best pure demo
track on LP).  There`s a 2-CD set also of the music from Star Wars, but there`s
only about three minutes worth of content so it hardly seems worth $40.

Anybody have any suggestions on pop or jazz CDs?

AN interesting phenomenon I`ve noticed is a new impatience with dust noise
on LPs, so that even the sonically best in my collection are getting played
much less these days.  The sonically worst, kept around for historical/musical
reasons, on the other hand, are getting played more, for performance comparisons
with the CDs.  If my experience is generalized LPs will die off even faster
than people originally thought.  

With turntable/arm/cartridge combinations now available for UNDER $200
that are considerably better than the best of only a few years ago, although
of course they`re not equal to the best analogue equipment available now,
I fail to see why anyone WOULD buy anything more expensive now.  Or, would
pay $14 or more for an analogue LP.
JF