I came across a mystery today that I have absolutely no explanation.

Like many others I like the Brahms #4 symphony. I have my favorite: my beloved Barbirolli with Vienna during the Musikvereinssaal 1967 . I also a big admirer of Carlo Maria Giulini, but not with unreasonably celebrated his play with Chicago Symphony but his obscured but brilliant performance of the Brahms #4 when he took Vienna Philharmonic at tour to Japan…

I also a fan of Carlos Kleiber and I feel that any sane person who appreciates classical music shall have everything that Kleiber ever recorded with Vienna. Kleiber recorded Brahms #4 with Vienna in 1981. Well, I have it on record and I always I kind of have difficulty with this performance.  Kleiber sometimes too tacky with Brahms, sometimes too cute and sometimes too dancy… so I never developed any love to it….

The last week, after Kurt Masur’s wonderful play in Tanglewood the all Brahms program I got some craving for fresh Brahmcy and I desired to order CD version of Brahms #4 Kleiber/ Vienna. I ordered the DG’s “The Originals” that use to be very good in 90s and very much admire their premastering. So, the CD came today, it is 289 475706-2. I played it today and cannot figure out ether my ears went nuts, or my equipment is turn crap, or the people who did are Morons.

The sound of Vienna is sliding off tonality like it would do with a record playing that has problems with disc stability. It does not sound like technical sliding (it is impossible on CD as my TL0 buffers tracking) but rather as the Vienna Philharmonic section run off tune – imposable in my view!

I wonder what the hell might be a reason for it? I was searching and was not able to local my LP with the same performance but I am very convinced the Vienna would not play like this, particularly under Carlos Kleiber. The defect is very minor but it there and it is annoying. I think that there are 4 reasons for it.

1)      Something is wrong  with my equipment

2)      My sonic psychosis is progressing and I turned into some kind of deranged coo-coo.

3)      The DG’s “The Originals” CD that I bough (new sealed from Amazon) is not the DG’s CD but some crap made from MP3 (or 8-track) in third country by Morons that is being sold by Amazon as authentic DG discs.

4)      The quality of the DG went so bad that even the defects like this become possible with their products.

Regard the last reason. The quietly of DG’s “The Originals” after 2002-2003 wend down very much and I tend do not buy their new releases – they are all vandalized nowadays. However the CD that I bought is from 1998 – it was very good time for “The Originals”.

Anyhow, did anybody else come across the same problem? Is it possible that the reason #3 is the reason and some kind of criminal operation in China has their hands in the deed?  Did I discover the Big CD Conspiracy?  I do not ask if 911 was internal job I ask if we have out there an ocean of “wrong” CD – if you ask me then I think it would be a very lucrative business for someone…  It might be a bit too crazy but if it is how I implied then would it explain why all labels report drop in sale last few years? I do not buy a lot of CDs last 3-4 years so I do not know how spread the problem is…

Anyhow, you might want to pay attention to it.

Axel wrote:

is what I assume that your CD's source is all about. So it could be in deed a problem having used the 'original' master tape (analogue) which might have had a slight problem, stretched, or issues with the equipment speed (slight speed wobble) when the a new digital conversion for the new digital master was carried out. I have the odd 'Original-Image Bit-Processing' Digital Recording DG CD -- BUT this would not be susceptible to what could be the case with an analogue master of what you are relating. However, those digital recordings have their own problems with a stupidly over-done 'treble-resolution' so it may sound 'marvellous' on some rubbish plastic boom-box. Since so many people have bough such cheap crap audio over the last 10-15 years, it might just be that DG thought they have to suit the prevailing market 'requirements'. You would know if my notion on this 'wanting' re-mastering is correct, ALL of these CDs would show the same problem. So, if someone of your site-posters has it as well, he then might be able to confirm that it's a re-mastering issue and not your own 'audio processor' having gone coo-coo. Axel

Guys, I think you are missing the point.

Regardless what technology the DG used the DG’ “Originals” series are in away different as they (allegedly) do use technology to guide sound with those re-masters but rather then use the trained ears of this own Tonmeisters. The DG Tonmeisters or Balance Engineers are no jerks - they are well trained in classical music, acoustics and electrical engineering people with properly set listening culture (reportedly) and with ability to understand what they hear. If you look for the “Originals” releases from 90s then you would truly hear the quality of very well-groomed balance of re-masters and in some cased the re- balance.  The problems that I reposted would NEVER pass the DG’ Tonmeisters control, never! This is why I was thinking that it was not the DG authentic CD.

Romy the Cat wrote:

The sound of Vienna is sliding off tonality like it would do with a record playing that has problems with disc stability.

Scooter, I was thinking myself if it was a pirated CD and I very carefully inspected it, I did not found any signs of not authenticity but I am not expect in it. To me it looks like a legitimate DG album. Though I admit that with contemporary mean of production anyone on basement can make undistinguishable pirate CDs.

Now about the Mani’s idea. I have to admit that Tonmeister title make me horny as well. The word itself is such a powerful – what a fantastic name for a cartridge, or for an amplifier, or for a compression driver! I do not k now what tonmeister do at DG, I ma sure what they do is different from what they would describe they do in their resumes. The concept as I understand is to dedicate special people during recording and mastering process whose responsibility would be to balancing the technical efforts in order to assure that the final sound of a product has some resemblance to how it shall be. I see the Audio Morons who listen non-classical music blinking these stupid eyes and asking “What do you mean how it shall be?” Well, there is a reason why I call them the Morons… BTW, Mani if you even go do multichannel acoustic system with multi-amping then you will see that you are THE Tonmeister and you will be able to make any orchestra to sound in any way you wish. The difference would be that DG Tonmeister need to convince the whole world that their vision of Sound is correct. You, as a Tonmeister of own playback, would need to convince yours that you get correct Sound and this is a way more difficult and noble task.

Now, returning to your idea of different digital recorders/processors. Possible, in different sense, but this is where the DG Tonmeisters shall be QA the problem out. When I said “in different sense” then here is what I meant. That Kleiber recording was a studio digital recording; most likely they used many different tracks to record each microphone of group or microphones. So, the “master” of this recording is perhaps 16 or 48 different digital tracks that they mix together. Now, if you listed the recording carefully then you will see that there is very slight slide of tone with certain orchestral sections when they play loud. It is almost like strings woodwinds and brasses are tunes slightly different. Yes, I well familiar with difference of Vienna sound, I, like those differences and do appreciate them:

http://www.wienerphilharmoniker.at/index.php?set_language=en&cccpage=viennese_sound

However, what is demonstrated on this CD is NOT that but it rather a different tune between the sections _ would say it hardly be possible at the level of Vienna Philharmonic and Carlos Kleiber. So, it might be that some of the let say 48 different digital tracks were processed during the DG re-mastering with different type of possessors (like the Lavry Gold pitch vs. Pacific pitch). If the tracks # 5-6-7-8 had the digital feed from the microphones that cared first violins but the tracks # 25-26-27-28 had the digital feed from the microphones that cared let say woodwinds and if they were mastered with possessors of different pitch then it might be the effect.  However, this is what the Tonmeister are for…

Anyhow, I do not know what the problem is but something is very much off on this CD. Am not a huge fun of THIS specific Kleiber recording, I feel Barbirolli, Giulini in Japan and Bruno Walter did better job, particularly with first and second movements. What Kleiber in my view "owns" is the third and partialy the last movement, which is truly remarkable in his reading.  I know the DG will re-master the recording very soon and release it at motherfucking SACD. I do not buy the SACD but it might be interesting if any of you buy then let me know if they fixed the problem.

http://www.esoteric.jp/products/esoteric/essg90018/indexe.html

it is if it was a problem in there and the CD that I got is not a pirated CD… BTW, it very much possible that the very same Chinese pane that presses the DG disks “after-house” press the “left” disks that do not go over the DG quality control. I have seen it many times before, what the hell, I run such an operation myself, and I know that it is very possible…

The Canal Grande series would be normal cds. There are a few recordings  (Budapest Festival Orchestra oa.) that are originally in SACD. But if SACD is not an interest to you, then this series is fine. Concerning the sound quality of   normal cd's. This series is being copied from sending in one of the pressed cd's. Not from the original mastertapes where master cd's are made from. Whether the difference in masters will be audible to everyone's ears is a point for much discussion. Of course the older cd process had the problem of copying the tapes everytime you had to make a correction as to having computer based systems today. Every time a copy was made there was always some bit correction going on that degraded the original signal.