Interesting. I too have a lot of these recordings in their first pressing incarnation as well their digital remasters. Some I cannot fault on any level. They hold up against the best digital recordings I have listened to. I am thinking of the Dorati recordings on Mercury. I have never heard a better recording of Ancient Aires and Dances for example. So I think tube recordings can deliver at a real high level. This even applies to extraordinarily dynamic and dense stuff like “Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima” a tube recording on EMI from 1959. Anyway, I guess that I am just taking issue with some posters that claim that tubes are inherently non-hifi. Might not be as accurate as the best ss stuff available today, but certainly not shabby.
Those earlier Monophonic Mercury recordings were even better. I once had about 8 of the first 12 of those in great condition.
I recall "Ancient Airs and Dances" having audible tape intermodulation artifacts. Sonically, not one of my favorite MLP issues. I recall a number of "Living Presence" recordings having brief overloads on peaks. Even more RCA Victor Living Stereo recordings had issues with brief overloads on peaks. Mind you, most of the time, I was listening via Stax Earspeakers. Whatever Amir's measurements might say, the whole system of amplification and earspeakers from Stax were excellent tools for hearing distortion artifacts back in the 1990s.
I don’t like headphones generally and don’t use them (after several tries). So maybe some of these artifacts are below the resolution threshold of my system. Even though I understand in theory what IM distortion is, I really wouldn’t know what to listen for to detect it. As for peak overloads, you are right - I have heard a few of those on that recording. After I got my NAD M22 v2 I was pleased that they became a lot less obvious though. I guess I liked the performance so much that I tended to overlook those things.
I wish I hadn’t been such a stereo bigot - I was fascinated by imaging early on in my hifi interest. Those mono Mercs were ubiquitous back in the 80’s in used record stores. Don’t know how many I passed over. I even passed over some mono versions of Blue Note recordings! Now days some of my favorite recordings are the Blue Note monos.
I don't listen to too much from the acoustic era, but I still listen to a lot of transfers from the early electrical era. Performance is more important than sound quality up to the point where there's more noise than signal. In any case, being a recording "engineer" [recordist is more accurate, photographers are not called "Photographic Engineers", after all], I made a point of having very transparent playback gear in order to insure higher fidelity in my recordings. As I was essentially learning on the job, the results had an obvious learning curve. Still, hearing more of what was happening than what most people could hear turned out to be useful, particularly when digitally editing complex music.
No I haven't gone that far.... I am assuming "sum to mono" is almost the same thing.... I know it isn't but it is easier and cheaper.
Indeed, listening to mono with only one speaker is really the way to go. I do it all the time.
