|  Author | Topic: KARAJAN GOLD (Read 2,866 times) |
lee
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|  | KARAJAN GOLD
« Thread Started on Aug 13, 2008, 12:25pm » | |
A few years ago, Deutsche Gramophon released a number of Karajan's later Digital recordings on a remastered series called Karajan Gold.
Having already owned these recordings from when they were first issued, it seemed to me to be unnecessary duplication at the time so I neither purchased or investigated them, but one question has always bugged me - are these recordings an improvement sonically over their original releases ?
I wonder if anyone had any opinions on whether I should therefore "upgrade" to Karajan Gold ?
With best regards to all,
Lee
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Rosy
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| | Re: KARAJAN GOLD
« Reply #1 on Aug 13, 2008, 3:21pm » | |
Hi, Lee!
Only my humble opinion: I've several discs of the beautiful series "Karajan Gold" ( The wonderful Bruckner No 7, for example). The sound is so good that could be the risk of making artficial. But, you know that the ways of technology.....However I'm always curious about the improvements audio-video, at the same times I fear that we might lose something important even if "imperfect"
*******************************************************************************
Ciao
Rosy
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lee
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| | Re: KARAJAN GOLD
« Reply #2 on Aug 14, 2008, 1:43pm » | |
Thank you for your comments Rosy, as ever appreciated.
Lee
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Dave
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| | Re: KARAJAN GOLD
« Reply #3 on Aug 14, 2008, 4:52pm » | |
Lee, if I'm not mistaken, Karajan Gold is the way to get pretty much all of Karajan's digital recordings these days. They even did the 83 Beethoven cycle on it. However, I don't actually think any remastering has taken place, particularly since some of them were released only a few years after they were first recorded. I suppose the Original Image-Bit Processing/4DDD might be a form of remastering, but I also think that might be something DG have always done with their digital recordings, but which they also apply to their analogue re-releases...
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lee
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| | Re: KARAJAN GOLD
« Reply #4 on Aug 16, 2008, 10:05am » | |
Hi Dave
Appreciate your advice and help. I'm pretty sure that the releases in the Karajan Gold series were subjected to some form of remastering which did result in some improvement over the original issues - the question is really, how much improvement ?
Lee
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David
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| | Re: KARAJAN GOLD
« Reply #5 on Aug 16, 2008, 11:32am » | |
Hello Lee,
I can’t really make any useful comments concerning improved sound quality on the Karajan Gold series. I have a few of the original digital LPs and some of the later digital CDs, although none of these are duplicates. In any case I think that a comparison across different mediums would be meaningless.
I just wonder what the Maestro himself would have thought about the name used for this series by DG.
There is an interesting page on the DG web site where the entire Gold series is shown, and there are plenty of extracts to hear, although there again this doesn’t address the issue you raised.
http://www2.deutschegrammophon.com/series/?ID=KRNGLD
Best Wishes -
David
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Dave
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| | Re: KARAJAN GOLD
« Reply #6 on Aug 16, 2008, 10:29pm » | |
Fair enough, Lee. I never owned any of the originals myself, so I can't say for sure. I'm simply looking at CD boxes and guessing. I have all the Gold edition Strauss CDs, among others, and they are, quite simply, astounding. If you haven't got them already, I cannot recommend them enough.
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stuartg
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| | Re: KARAJAN GOLD
« Reply #7 on Aug 24, 2008, 12:48pm » | |
Dear all
My only experience here is that of owning both the earlier digital CD of The Planets and the later Karajan Gold re-master.
I must say that the earlier issue is superior. By comparison, the Karajan Gold version sounds artificial and one could be forgiven for believing that the strings were plastic!
Although I have many digital HvK CDs, I don't have any other duplications, so I can't comment further.
Stuart
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lee
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| | Re: KARAJAN GOLD
« Reply #8 on Aug 24, 2008, 2:48pm » | |
Hi Stuart
Thank you for your comments. I think that Karajan's recording of The Planets was the first CD I ever bought, way back on a wet afternoon in January 1985. The sound on the original issue was perhaps not the greatest and so was hoping for an improvement on the Karajan Gold remastering, perhaps in vain.... It would appear that Karajan doesn't always have the best of luck with regards to this - those large Karajan boxsets reissued by EMI this year contain the original glassy sounding issues from the 1980's, rather than the remastered issues from the Great Recordings of the Century series. Oh well, at least they are available !
Best regards, Lee
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stuartg
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| | Re: KARAJAN GOLD
« Reply #9 on Aug 24, 2008, 4:22pm » | |
Lee,
I can't remember when I bought my Planets CD, but it was after '85 - probably around 90/91. I agree, the sound is a disappointment, but I think it's better than the re-master.
Thanks for your observations on the EMI box-set from this year. I bought the orchestral set and assumed that it would contain the most up to date masterings (e.g. Great Recordings of the Century). I am surprised and disappointed, even though I did not realise this fact!
I don't think I'll add the opera & choral box-set, especially as I've already got a few on GRotC, e.g. Pelleas & melisande, Salome, Verdi and lots of Wagner operas.
I've several duplications of earlier EMI issues with GRotC and the GRotC seem generally better to my ears.
Regards
SGQ
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tjh212
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| | Re: KARAJAN GOLD
« Reply #10 on Oct 22, 2008, 8:05am » | |
I once had 5 versions of his Shostakovich:
1. Digital, non-Gold initial release
2. Galleria
3. Gold
4. "Originals"
5. "Originals" (from another vendor)
#1 is the best. The first timpani stroke gives it away - it's definitely clearer. Hi and low strings come out more in tuttis, and to my ears the frequency range somehow is wider in #1. In mvt 3 as well, the percussions are crisp in #1, more muffled in the others.
Another comparison I did was on his last recording (Bruckner 7).
The initial release again sounded sharper, brighter, and more defined than the "Gold".
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lee
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| | Re: KARAJAN GOLD
« Reply #11 on Oct 22, 2008, 1:02pm » | |
Hi Tjh
Many thanks for your detailed response - it would appear that updating my original CDs to the Gold series would probably not result in any discernable benefit, so I will hold fire until one day, they get properly remastered. If ever, that is !
Best regards, Lee
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prahcello
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| | Re: KARAJAN GOLD
« Reply #12 on Oct 25, 2008, 11:30pm » | |
Oct 22, 2008, 8:05am, tjh212 wrote:I once had 5 versions of his Shostakovich:
1. Digital, non-Gold initial release
2. Galleria
3. Gold
4. "Originals"
5. "Originals" (from another vendor)
#1 is the best. The first timpani stroke gives it away - it's definitely clearer. Hi and low strings come out more in tuttis, and to my ears the frequency range somehow is wider in #1. In mvt 3 as well, the percussions are crisp in #1, more muffled in the others.
Another comparison I did was on his last recording (Bruckner 7).
The initial release again sounded sharper, brighter, and more defined than the "Gold".
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Thanks for this! I have 3 pressings of the Shostakovich 10, including the original pre-Gold DDD release on CD (with the "Made in West Germany" stamp at the back of the CD). It is unfortunately with me in Europe but at my parents' home in New Zealand. But still, I am happy to know that the sound is clearer on that pressing.
The Gold remastering is smoother, but not necessarily muffled, in my opinion. Early digital recordings tended to sound VERY bright and sometimes too sharp.
Paul
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Waldstein
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| | Re: KARAJAN GOLD
« Reply #13 on Jan 11, 2009, 2:49pm » | |
That's an interesting topic, and suitable one I think for my coming back to the Forum after relatively long absence. My collection and my knowledge of Herbert von Karajan improved at least a little bit, unfortunately the same cannot be said of my English. Anyway, here are some random thoughts about Karajan Gold and other releases.
Actually, I think I have listened to very few recordings in both the original release and the later Gold remaster and these include the outstanding Verdi's Requiem from 1984, Grieg's Peer Gynt Suites and Sibelius' Finlandia. It's a tricky business to compare the two releases. On the one hand I think the Gold sounds better but whether this is not just my fancy, I cannot be sure. On the other hand, I have come to the conclusion that the first recording one has heard is the most important, especially for favorite performances of beloved works. That indeed is the case with me and this recording of Verdi's masterpiece. I love this recording but I had been used to listen it in the original release and the Gold one sounded strange to me when I heard it for the first time (and it still does), although it is perhaps superior sonically. Besides, I think such audiophile comparisons might be disastrous and sometimes I have caught myself comparing the strings and timpani in both releases until I lost everything that so great a music in so fine a performance can give me, and that's lot. That's why I am trying to avoid such things. So in my humble opinion, Lee, you needn't replace your original releases with the Gold remasters as well as I needn't do the opposite (even if I could find copies of them because from all other recordings issued in both original and Gold variants I have only the latter).
Recently I've noticed that I have some other similar duplications, namely the DG CD from the Masters series with music of the Strauss family. It's written that for this release the recordings were newly remastered using the so-called OIBP (Original-Image Bit-Processing) which I believe is the same remastering used for the Gold series. This wonderful CD contains selected works from the three (I think) CDs that Karajan recorded in 1980 and were later released with the "Made in West Germany" stamp. I haven't noticed any marked differences in the sound of the two releases. Both sound sometimes a bit glassy and flat which I think is a disadvantage of the digital recordings in general, not only the early ones, but I don't mean that all digital recordings are so. Anyway, I do like these recordings and enjoy listening to them immensely in any release. They are splendid and give the lie ot all who claim that the music of the Strauss family is just a light salon entertainment.
All in all, I am quite satisfied by both the original releases and their remasters of Karajan's digital recordings. It doesn't bother me much that the Gold series is strangely incomplete. I wonder why DG never remastered the digital Ein deutsches Requiem or the string masterpieces of Tchaikovsky and Dvorak (I would have loved to see them coupled with Strauss' Metamorphosen). But the original releases of this recordings can still be found quite easily and their sound is beautiful.
Best regards to you all,
Alexander
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Rosy
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| | Re: KARAJAN GOLD
« Reply #14 on Jan 11, 2009, 5:01pm » | |
Hello Alexander! 
Thanks for the detailed article. It's great pleasure to see that you're back here, so I hope other "historical" members!!!
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Regarding the various methods of remastering more or less sophisticated, oh how I would still have all my vinyl! 
Very Best Wishes
Rosy
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"Beruflich kreativ tätig zu sein ist ein Privileg, und wir haben die Pflicht, unseren Beruf so Auszuüben, dass wir all jenen, die nicht das Glück haben, Freude und erfüllung bringen". Herbert von Karajan
To work in a creative profession is a privilege, and we have a responsability to carry out our work so that it brings joy and fulfilment to those who do not have this fortune.
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