Home remastering of old Bruno Walter Mahler Recordings

[David]

I have been a fan of Bruno Walter's conducting since I first stumbled upon some LPs in the bargain bin in the 70s.

Over the years, I have discovered some wonderful old recordings with varying degrees of brittle sound that are nevertheless treasures that should be listened to.

Four recordings in this category are his 1939 recording of Mahler 1 with the NBC Symphony, 1938 recording with the Vienna Philharmonic of Mahler 9, Das Lied von der Erde with Kerstin Thorborg from 1936, and the Mahler 2 from 1958 with the NY Philharmonic. This last one has decent sound for 1958 even if left unmolested.

I found a great deal of satisfaction applying wave editing to these recordings (amateur remastering) using a simplified version of a wave editor called Wavelab. Though I am a complete amateur, I feel I improved the sound of these recordings by adding a judicious touch of reverb and ambiance. I am especially pleased with the results of the Mahler 2 recording. It sounds more vivid and fresh.

Too bad professionals don't release new re-mastered versions using all the advanced digital tools available today. Anybody else experimented with a wave editor?

[nicoff]

Years ago I digitized my entire collection of cassettes that I had recorded from LPs. I created wave files and was able to reduce tape hiss, deleted ticks and pops, and normalized the volume. It was a fun, albeit time consuming project. But... today I can access pretty much all those albums in digital format via Tidal and they sound better than my digitized tapes. I realize that you are talking about about rare recordings that are not available in digital format so that’s the only avenue you have.

[David]

Originally Posted by nicoff

. . . . . But... today I can access pretty much all those albums in digital format via Tidal and they sound better than my digitized tapes. I realize that you are talking about about rare recordings that are not available in digital format so that’s the only avenue you have.

I experimented with streaming and continue to. I have a free subscription to Spotify and just started a 30 day trial with Tidal after reading your post.

So far I enjoy the sound quality and the ability to hear recordings I have never heard before. The negatives for me are that the format is not that effective for classical, which I mostly listen too. Also it seems that the library of classical music is very good but still limited. Information on albums seems to be limited and many names are truncated because of the format limitations in the software. Also, it seems that while the sound quality is good it is not as good as when played from my hard drive via JRiver and upsampled to DSD. I will keep playing with it because I do see the potential.

[Antonmb]

Originally Posted by David

I experimented with streaming and continue to. I have a free subscription to Spotify and just started a 30 day trial with Tidal after reading your post.

So far I enjoy the sound quality and the ability to hear recordings I have never heard before. The negatives for me are that the format is not that effective for classical, which I mostly listen too. Also it seems that the library of classical music is very good but still limited. Information on albums seems to be limited and many names are truncated because of the format limitations in the software. Also, it seems that while the sound quality is good it is not as good as when played from my hard drive via JRiver and upsampled to DSD. I will keep playing with it because I do see the potential.

Since you are a classical listener, you’ll want to try Qobuz. Qobuz has a much deeper classical catalogue, and high res streaming available. The sound is very good.

[nicoff]

Originally Posted by David

I experimented with streaming and continue to. I have a free subscription to Spotify and just started a 30 day trial with Tidal after reading your post.

So far I enjoy the sound quality and the ability to hear recordings I have never heard before. The negatives for me are that the format is not that effective for classical, which I mostly listen too. Also it seems that the library of classical music is very good but still limited. Information on albums seems to be limited and many names are truncated because of the format limitations in the software. Also, it seems that while the sound quality is good it is not as good as when played from my hard drive via JRiver and upsampled to DSD. I will keep playing with it because I do see the potential.

A couple of comments:
1. If you are listening to the free trial offerings from Tidal, you are only getting lossy, less than CD quality music. So basically you are not comparing apples to apples. You have to pay $20 per month (USA) to get CD-quality streaming from Tidal.
2. The GUI of Tidal and the album information that they provide leaves a lot to be desired. I use Roon in conjunction with Tidal to get a better interface and excellent album/artist information. To me, Tidal makes sense when used with Roon.

[David]

Thanks for the suggestions. I have cancelled Tidal after exploring their classical catalog. It is not deep enough for me. So even if I could access it through Room, it is still not adequate.

I'll report back on my experience with Qobuz.

I have more than two thousand classical CDs and digitized LPs on my hard drive that are thoroughly tagged and organized. A streaming service would have to have a substantially deeper catalog and convenient access to be worthwhile.

[David]

Qobuz is finally available in the US. Thanks for recommending it. For me it is the streaming answer for classical music. Easy to navagate, a fine catelog especially of newer releases, and excellent sound.

[bart]

Originally Posted by David

Qobuz is finally available in the US. Thanks for recommending it. For me it is the streaming answer for classical music. Easy to navagate, a fine catelog especially of newer releases, and excellent sound.

Welcome to the Qobuz fan club David!
You'll find older classical jewels as well in their catalogue.