Toscanini's 1939 Beethoven cycle - which set to get?

I am looking for the best sounding version of Toscanini's 1939 Beethoven cycle, though I realize "best sounding" is a euphemism in this case There are, of course, the old and OOP Naxos discs that were done by Richard Caniell, and also the 2013 Music & Arts set (there's also an older one) and the 2016 Immortal Performances set, again done by Richard Caniell. The M&A set is not complete and uses "harmonic balancing" mastering by Aaron Z. Snyder, which seems to resemble Pristine/Andrew Rose's mastering style, a style I don't like ("ambient stereo" in pre-stereo recordings, no thanks), while the IP set uses CD-Rs, no CDs, and my personal experiences with CD-Rs are not that positive.

Any recommendations and opinions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

IIRC, the Immortal Performances is the best sounding.

 

No problems with its CD-Rs?

 

Anyone?

 

Not as I recall.

 

The fact that the Immortal Performances Toscanini Beethoven set was released on CD-R is one of the reasons why I haven't bought it (yet) and I would like to hear some more opinions. Anyone? I'm especially interested to hear if it really is so much better than the now OOP Naxos CDs with these recordings, which, as noted earlier, were also restored and mastered by Immortal Performances founder and owner Richard Caniell.

 

No response to my last question (post #6), pity. There seems to be no interest here in the Toscanini 1939 Beethoven cycle and the Immortal Performances set. Thought about it some more and decided not to get the set, at least not now. The fact that they released it on CD-Rs is a big issue for me, the more so since they're asking 116 Canadian dollars for it, plus a hefty shipping charge. On top of that I'd probably have to pay import charges (21% of its value plus a handling fee), so all in all it would be a very expensive CD-R set.

 

I'm always interested in pre-war Beethoven, Mahler, Bruckner, etc but I've only heard one of the poor sounding PD releases so I've been watching this thread.

 

Been listening to the Music & Arts version (2007) on Spotify, and it certainly sounds better than the others that are available on that service (by far). I don't believe the Immortal Performances version is available there. Neither is the 2013 Music & Arts version, which some have indicated sounds better than the 2007 version.

 

Well, the answer is definitely not vinyl.

 

As per the unwritten rule, I did a search before asking a question! And found this thread still active. Any new opinions? I've gone through several RCA Boxes (LM-6901). And love the performances, but even the cleanest LPs still have too much surface noise for my taste. Any new opinions on if a digital version bests the old box set, or should I just keep looking for a magic pressing? I agree with OP, in that I have little use for mastering techniques that seek to make mono sound more like stereo. Thanks in advance for any opinions.