the sony remastered recordings of the rca classic film score series by charles gerhardt

[buson160man]

After reading the article about the best and best sounding soundtrack recordings in the september issue of the absolute sound.They mentioned that sony had reissued the rca classic film series of recordings on cd.So I ordered two of their reissues from amazon.I just received  the reissued recordings of the classic film score series from rca by charles gerhardt.I just played the casablanca and sunset boulevard cds and I have to say that sony has done themselves proud with their remasterings.I compared them with the earlier cd issues one from rca and one from bmg when they issued the recordings on cd and both sound more open than the original issues.The soundstage is both wider and deeper on the new reissues.The bass is tighter and better defined.It is also much easier to locate individual instruments on the soundstage.If you are a fan of filmscores like I am these should be  must have recordings for your collection.The sony people payed a lot of attention and have restored the original recordings to their original glory.
  I have just ordered another six recordings from the rca film score series from amazon and I am looking forward to getting them.
Kudos to sony for reissuing these truely great examples of classic film scores by the great film score composers of the twentieth century.

 

[bigshot]

There are a lot of labels that do great work in this area... Marco Polo has a fantastic classic film series as does Silva. I especially like the Universal monster movie scores. They're blends of All kinds of classical music. Very colorful and fun.

 

[mbhaub]

I've read mixed reviews of these remasterings. They have to be better than the Surround Sound versions from 20 years ago, but apparently not always. I'm in no hurry to replace the set that I have. Luckily, I have the original CD of Sunset Boulevard which sound stupendous and no Surround Sound, either. As great as those RCA recordings were, they were for the most part hobbled by only have brief excerpts, not the whole score - or a large part of it. Gone with the Wind was a great exception. The Marco Polo recordings are great, as are the Varese Sarabande recordings, which have done wonders for Bernard Herrmann and Franz Waxman. And be sure to check out the superb releases from Chandos, too.

 

[buson160man]

Quote:

I've read mixed reviews of these remasterings. They have to be better than the Surround Sound versions from 20 years ago, but apparently not always. I'm in no hurry to replace the set that I have. Luckily, I have the original CD of Sunset Boulevard which sound stupendous and no Surround Sound, either. As great as those RCA recordings were, they were for the most part hobbled by only have brief excerpts, not the whole score - or a large part of it. Gone with the Wind was a great exception. The Marco Polo recordings are great, as are the Varese Sarabande recordings, which have done wonders for Bernard Herrmann and Franz Waxman. And be sure to check out the superb releases from Chandos, too.

 I have the sea wolf on chandos and it is pretty good.I have ordered two of the remasters the sunset boulevard and the casablanca recordings.
The sunset boulevard sonded very good better than my original cd rca issue of that recording.The casablanca does not sound as good as the sunset boulevard cd.I did not have the original and or the bmg reissue of that cd but I do have the rca gold vinyl reissue and from what I could recall the vinyl did have better sound.I have ordred six more of the reissues from amazon and they only cost me about 53 dollars so I think it was not an expensive expendature.I believe that what I was hearing on the casablanca reissue was how is was recorded originally.
 i know from owning the vinyl reissues the sound quality varied some what from record to record.Some beeing very good sounding and some were not. But save for the spellbound vinyl reissue I was satisfied with most of the vinyl reissues from bmg.I have not yet received the other cd reissues yet so I cannot comment on them.But I suspect i will get similar results from the other cds like I had with the vinyl reissues.