78s...or digital discoveries. Or a bit of both.

I'll reply direct rather than quote you Kev as I'm following on directly. Having been much impressed with Juana Zayas's Chopin Etudes (see post -General Discussion) I got her Schumann Carnaval & Fantasiestucke and played it on the system using my old Rogers  valve amp (with shock horror: tone controls!). Wonderful lively, exciting and spontaneous performances matched with with bold, immediate piano sound (Music & Arts recording). I'm ashamed to say Murray Perahia's Goldbergs is a disc I've bought but not got around to playing, I'd better dig it out! I think though I'll now have a go at Zayas's Schubert (much liked by Hector on the Zayas post) which needs rather a different approach from Chopin and Schumann.

Live chamber music takes some beating and my local church (sadly used infrequently) is a wonderful acoustic. Having said that though I feel it's easier to get closer to the original sound at home with chamber and instrumental music than an orchestra at full throttle. 

Your electronics man is probably  correct. Some designers may over-run valves or operate them right at their maximum voltages and currents to extract as much power as possible which will give a reduced lifetime and some manufacturer's products may be more robust than others even for the same valve type. Anyway best of luck hope the problems are sorted OK.

Philip-Clark wrote

This is interesting, 33lp. Could you say more about what transfers you've found unlistenable?

One CD transfer I didn't like was a Dutton disc of Myra Hess playing Schumann. Virtually all the surface noise had been removed but this seemed to have destroyed the original ambience so electronic reverberation had been added to bring the performance back to life. Then there was an (understandably) short lived label called " Magic Talent" and on the two discs I heard,a hopeless mess had been made of Cortot & Michelangeli recordings using CEDAR or similar noise reduction. Naxos's transfers are usually good, especially those done by Mark Obert-Thorn, but their Edwin Fischer Well Tempered Klavier sounds dull and muffled as though all the life blood has been sucked from it: I can't believe the originals sounded thus.

I agree with Spadger in likiing some of Pearl's transfers which sound just like original 78s. Yes they have a high surface noise (and some of their originals have seen better days) but the original acoustic is maintained. Three of my favourites are their Eileen Joyce, Irene Scharrer and "Pupils of Leschetizcy" discs. Of course others may find the high surface noise difficult to tolerate but perhaps because I was brought up with 78s I prefer surface noise to emasculation by computerized noise reduction.

PS to Spadger, I have Pearl's Beecham Magic Flute transfer and definitely side with the critic who praised it in the Gramophone Debate some time ago.

I well remember John Steane coming to talk to the Recorded Vocal Art Society (of which he was a much loved, and now sadly much missed, patron) when Nimbus first started releasing their historical singers series. He was extremely enthusiastic about them. "I really think these are the answer" were his exact words. He was, I think, a consultant on the series for a while, though that certainly did not influence his views. It's fair to say that he tempered these views over time and became rather more critical, though still appreciating them greatly.However, it must be remembered that the CD era was comparatively new at the time and, more importantly, Nimbus offered an enormous range of singers in their series and used consistently high quality originals which would cost a King's ransom to collect via other avenues. 

I have a very considerable number of the Nimbus vocal issues and very good though many of them are, they are always, in my view, bettered by 'straighter' transfers of the same material by engineers such as Mark Obert-Thorne and Ward Marston. I find the Naxos historical issues very impressive indeed, both their individual discs of singers and opera reissues. Symposium issue extremely faithful transfers of very rare material, although the market is somewhat 'specialised' I suppose. Certainly Mission Control, lover of singing that she is, remains to be convinced by what she refers to as 'scratchy tenors'.

spadger wrote

Does anyone have any comments on the Pristine Audio transfer method - highly interventionist but often rather good, I have found? On the whole, though, I generally still prefer Pearl above all others for their truth to the originals.

I haven't heard any of Pristine's, nor in fact many of Nimbus's, as virtually all of my historic recordings on CD are piano. The Naxos's I didn't like were not by Obert-Thorne or Ward Marston, both of whom have also done good transfers for other labels too.