What's with Deutsche Grammaphone?

I've been buying their 'Original Masters' series for some years now, and
have generally been happy with the 'upgraded' sound...but why are they so cheap
with remastering info? I recently bought eh OM version of Boulez conducting Berg's 'Lulu' and there's zero, zilch, nada information on who did the remastering and how. (The original CD issue had a remastering credit to Hans-Peter Schweigmann)

(They've also removed all of the production photographs from the libretto)

And as long as I'm on the subject of DG, if anyone can tell me whether all the discs in
the new Pollini boxed set are remastered, please do.

 

I can't answer that, but I'd like to extend the question: -- what ARE the "processes" being used by the major classical labels to "shape" the sound? All the newer series -- Decca Legends, DG Originals, and EMI "Great Recordings" -- variously tout their own (specially-named) remastering systems and "noise shaping", etc. -- but what IS it?

On this forum, we share a concern with "processing"/ "restoration" of sound; is that what is going on here, is it having a bad effect, and does it mean we might want the older CD issues in classical music?

 

I've been generally happy with the sound of the remastered classical CD's from DG and Sony so far. Sony, of course, has used their 'SBM' (Super-Bit-Mapping) process in the past and now is beginning to use DSD. SBM is a 20 to 24 bit process which is then interpolated down to 16 bit for CD. DG uses what they call 'Original-Image-Bit-Processing' (an off shoot of their '4D' process), which is, again, a 20 to 24 bit process that is once again interpolated down to 16 bit by throwing away all of the information that is 'not needed'. I do not beleive in either case that there is any added EQ or compression etc. of any sort being used, but don't hold me to that.

 

Classical remasters

The ones I'm really concerned about are EMI's "Great Recordings of the Century" series. (A series that's existed on LP and CD before.) In their current incarnation, they boast a remastering "process" called ART (for "Abbey Road Technology," which sure doesn't say a lot). And I note with alarm that this is the same ART that was used on the latest Bowie CDs -- to very poor effect.

These are good older recordings on tape; the situation is rather different, I guess, for transferring 78s. The better engineers (M. Obert-Thorn, Ward Marston) use various kinds of processing to limit surface noise, and that seems OK, I guess; others are disembowelling the sound on the assumption that NO surface noise can be tolerated.

 

Re: Classical remasters

I'm afraid I don't know anything about the 'ART' process. Perhaps someone else can fill us in?

 

Re: Re: Classical remasters

Beethoven's 9th by Furtrangler, Beethoven's violin concerto by Furt and Menuhin, and Brahms German Requiem by Klemperer. These reissues with EMI's "ART" process are absolutly fantastic. (Oddly, the Mendelssohn concerto that comes with Menuhin's Beethoven is runined by crappy tape playback. Ugh!)

I have a feeling that most or all of the mastering techniques used by the majors involve some use of a digital work station.
In the right hands and ears they can sound wonderful. Has anyone heard the Westminster reissues from DG? Good stuff there too.
Dan C