Re: New DECCA SACDs of three classic recordings

I agree, it will a much more difficult project. The Esoteric team has
done a wonderful job with the Decca stereo recordings (and the
Beethoven/Davis), I think; I'm certain PentaTone could do as well
but they are not keen to do stereo -- it's four channel reissues they
are interested in as you probably know.

Exactly -- why do something the other label could do "better"?
Go for the niche market.

Precisely. The difficulty with the Phase Four materials is that they
are true multi-track originals, which were then mixed down by Tony
Damato to two-track. When CDs came along, the best option would have
been to transfer the original tracks directly to digital and then
remix them for the new medium.

The earlier Phase 4s aren't as multi-track as you might think. I believe a
lot of the mixdown occurred before the signals got to the tape recorder,
which was only four-track. I think Decca went to 8-track later. I'm not
sure.


Pentatone would be intimidated by the enormous cost of such an
enterprise and not really interested in the two-track analogue
materials either. The Ring is one thing, which they did magnificently,
but at truly HUGE cost, largely recouped by now, I would imagine. But
individual niche items? I don't think so.


That isn't quite what I meant.

By niche, I meant people who regularly buy multi-ch SACDs. Obviously, there
would be no point in releasing two-channel CDs, as Decca could do that more
cheaply, and distribute them more efficiently (which, for most of these
recordings, they've probably already done).

A good chunk of the cost would be restoring and setting up the tape
transports. If PentaTone picked out, say, 20 master tapes for transfer, the
cost could be amortized easily. In addition, if the tapes have level and
test tones, you'd think it wouldn't be too hard to get everything properly
aligned. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)


.

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