Stereophile
New member
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2013
- Messages
- 442
- Thread Author
- #1
<img src="http://www.stereophile.com/images/666rotm.earl.jpg" alt="666rotm.earl.jpg" width="250" height="246" hspace="10" vspace="4" border="0" align="right" /><b>BERLIOZ: <i>Symphonie Fantastique</i></b><br />Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Massimo Fraccia<br />Chesky CR-1.
<p>
<b>RACHMANINOV: Piano Concerto No.2 in c</b><br />Earl Wild, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Jascha Horenstein<br />Chesky CR-2.
</p><p>
Chesky? Massimo Fraccia? Is this a put-on?
</p><p>
No, it's not. Chesky is a new record company which, at a time when everyone is predicting the imminent demise of the LP, has just launched its first two LPs and is threatening to follow them with more.
</p><p>
David Chesky is a young composer/musician who, despite some impressive credentials in the classical music world, remains singularly unrenowned. But he is also a musical reactionary after my own heart, who feels that all the best performances of the so-called Romantic repertoire were done years ago and will probably never be equalled. But rather than just bitch about this in record reviews, he is <i>doing</i> something about it, by releasing some of those early, possibly definitive performances on the best-sounding recordings he knows how to produce.
</p><p>
According to Chesky's literature, these two discs were cut directly from the master tapes, without any kind of signal processing or equalization. I can see where he's coming from on this; the major record companies have given EQ a bad name among audiophiles. But I do not believe EQ to be intrinsically wrong, if used intelligently.
</p><p>
For example, the highly acclaimed Mercury Living Presence Series of LPs were all done with Telefunken U-49 microphones, whose high end
[Source: http://www.stereophile.com/content/recordings-november-1986-cheskys-first-releases]
<p>
<b>RACHMANINOV: Piano Concerto No.2 in c</b><br />Earl Wild, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Jascha Horenstein<br />Chesky CR-2.
</p><p>
Chesky? Massimo Fraccia? Is this a put-on?
</p><p>
No, it's not. Chesky is a new record company which, at a time when everyone is predicting the imminent demise of the LP, has just launched its first two LPs and is threatening to follow them with more.
</p><p>
David Chesky is a young composer/musician who, despite some impressive credentials in the classical music world, remains singularly unrenowned. But he is also a musical reactionary after my own heart, who feels that all the best performances of the so-called Romantic repertoire were done years ago and will probably never be equalled. But rather than just bitch about this in record reviews, he is <i>doing</i> something about it, by releasing some of those early, possibly definitive performances on the best-sounding recordings he knows how to produce.
</p><p>
According to Chesky's literature, these two discs were cut directly from the master tapes, without any kind of signal processing or equalization. I can see where he's coming from on this; the major record companies have given EQ a bad name among audiophiles. But I do not believe EQ to be intrinsically wrong, if used intelligently.
</p><p>
For example, the highly acclaimed Mercury Living Presence Series of LPs were all done with Telefunken U-49 microphones, whose high end
[Source: http://www.stereophile.com/content/recordings-november-1986-cheskys-first-releases]