Following the friendly prompting of reader John Bar under my discography of the audiophile reissues of the Everest catalog, I pulled out of my shelves and boxes the three editions I have in my collection of Josef Krips’ 1960 recording of the complete Beethoven Symphonies made for Everest, and made a comparative assessment of their sonics. No interpretive comment yet, although sampling various movements for sonics left me under the impression that Krips’ approach was very traditional and “kapellmeisterisch”. The verdict is: avoid Fat Boy, Everest is the best, but with a few provisos (the major one pertaining to the Finale of the 9th Symphony), Tin Can is a good backup option if you do not want to shell out the sums now demanded for the prized Everest set on the marketplace.
The comparison I would like to see is between the Everest EVC set which was about the best CD can produce because of Sony’s SBM process and the recent fresh remasterings of the magnetic film masters to SACD undertaken by King Records Japan. When I spoke to the guy in charge at COUNTDOWNMEDIA he thought it would be the last word in quality and possibly the final remastering. As they arw Japan imports to UK going for about £60 plus duties etc per disc these are out of my reach so I’d be interested in anybody’s views, that is totally objective and not hype, who have listened to both. I have SACDs some of the Esoterics and Tower Records and the difference between these and the CDs issues is negligible or I found myself preferring the CD!
Cheers David