The latest issue of Listen magazine has two ads from Decca, a premier “classical” label since early LP days (and maybe even before).  Decca was also known in the states as London.
 
In the first ad, they’re promoting a 54-CD limited edition called “Decca Sound: the Analogue Years”.  Now, they’ve been reissuing their catalogue of stuff initially released on LP for years, especially to the delight of opera lovers.  So, what’s this then?  Have they taken all those reissues, some of which proudly claimed to be “digitally re-mastered” and reverted the digital re-mastering?
 
But even stranger is an ad for nine new issues on Blu-Ray Audio (a strategy embraced, I guess, because SACD and DVD-Audio was such a stunning success).  The ad boasts “No compression.  No compromise.”  So, you mean all those digitally recorded Decca CDs I bought during the last twenty years used compression?  You squashed Verdi and Wagner, Decca?  Is nothing sacred?  Still, no compression …  hey, I’ve gotta get me some of that!

No compression...   That's an interesting thought.
 
 
Our ears apply compression automatically to loud noises. It's one of the reasons you struggle to hear someone standing next to you talking at a loud gig.
 
If you go to a purely acoustic gig like an orchestra you'd expect there to be no compression, but the volume of a medium or large orchestra will easily push your ears into compression.  Recording the orchestra digitally with no effects or compression should (in theory) produce the most accurate reproduction of the sound, but you won't listen to the recording at the same volume/spl as the original, so you won't get the same compression and it won't sound the same/as good/whatever...

I'm holding out in the hopes that drewfx1 will lead a campaign to group-gift-buy me the Mercury Living Presence LAN Drive Box Set in 64bit Floating Point.

mike_mccue
I'm holding out in the hopes that drewfx1 will lead a campaign to group-gift-buy me the Mercury Living Presence LAN Drive Box Set in 64bit Floating Point.

Because 32bit sinks?

Which means it's not a witch?

dmbaer
...  The ad boasts “No compression.  No compromise.”  So, you mean all those digitally recorded Decca CDs I bought during the last twenty years used compression?  You squashed Verdi and Wagner, Decca?  Is nothing sacred?  Still, no compression …  hey, I’ve gotta get me some of that!
...

WE have the LP (so sadly over played down to its last chances) of Turandot by Leinsdorf with Mario del Monaco and of course, my favorite duet ... Nilson and Tebaldi ... and the LP STILL sounds way better than the CD version that was done about 10 years ago off that recording.
 
I'm not sure it was the compression or not, but they obviously adjust volumes harshly to be able to get it on the CD, because at elast twice, Tebaldi's voice was cut down harshly. It hurt the experience for me, because it was one of the prettiest moments in music in my imagination, and it goes to show you what some idiot can do to hurt a special moment.
 
I kinda doubt that the new "digital" can bring back the color of the music. I have heard, about 5 to 10 of Steven Wilson's things and updates, and they are horrible ... all they do is make it look like you are now inside some hall in your head, and some of the music is not in a hall, and shouldn't be, and it hurts a lot of things. You can not take that opera, or any other, and try to bring it inside something or other and then be able to make it sound good.
 
You will have to be a magician to do that!
 
And you already know that most of these folks are just experimenting with toys and you are paying for it.
 
Sidebar: Weird to see Decca doing this and the RCA Red Seal folks don't give a damn about their master recordings they put out, which were far superior than anything DECCA ever did! Decca just got famous because of a couple of bands. But there was nothing special about the music in them. Just some good old-fashioned luck and advertising and promotion!

Moshkiae
 
Sidebar: Weird to see Decca doing this and the RCA Red Seal folks don't give a damn about their master recordings they put out, which were far superior than anything DECCA ever did! Decca just got famous because of a couple of bands. But there was nothing special about the music in them. Just some good old-fashioned luck and advertising and promotion!

Well, my point was that this is just marketing BS in the first place.  On the one hand, Decca is touting the analog experience by re-reissuing a bunch of LP-reissues that have been in their CD catalog for years, CD reissues that orignally proudly stated they were blessed with ADRM technology (which if memory serves stands for Analog Digital ReMastering).  So, did they undo the ADRM to come up with the "Analog Experience"?
 
On the other hand they're bragging about new digital recordings having no compression, as if their fully digital "classical" recordings released on CDs used compression in the first place.  Clearly anything up to the size of a chamber orchestra is going to be fine with a 90dB dynamic range and no compression would be beneficial or desirable.  Competing Mozart concerto titles are hardly going to throw down the gauntlet of loudness war superiority.  Maybe by the time you get to a Mahler-size orchestra you'd be asking too much of a 90dB dynamic range and some subtile compression would be warranted, but somehow I doubt that even in that case ... I've just have never done an analysis, so I can't say for certain one way or the other.
 
As to Decca vs RCA, I'll just point to the Solti Ring.  The engineers recorded that to far higher standards than the reproduction technology of the time could begin to accomodate.  I listened to the LPs in college (borrowed from the library because I couldn't afford to buy them back then).  I bought both the first CD reissue, which was much appreciated, and the second which is cherished, the remastering having eliminated much of the tape hiss.  For my money this remains the greatest Ring performance/recording of all times and I'd challenge anyone to come up with something recorded at that time that surpassed the engineering triumph they acheived.

mike_mccue
I'm holding out in the hopes that drewfx1 will lead a campaign to group-gift-buy me the Mercury Living Presence LAN Drive Box Set in 64bit Floating Point.

No, no, no.
 
But I'll get you a version of the 24bit diff files created from nulling the 64 and 32 bit versions. The best part is that after lossless compression the whole library fits on a single vintage floppy disk with room to spare!

Isn't the term "marketing BS" redundant?