Thursday, November 04, 2010

Wanted: Audiophile Mahler Fans, Must Own Turntable

You also need to have enough disposable income to drop $749 on an LP set - but it's not just any LP set.

It's a 22-LP set pressed on 180 gram virgin vinyl of the complete San Francisco Symphony Mahler cycle. It includes the completed symphonies, the Adagio from the unfinished Symphony No. 10, and all of the orchestral song cycles. You can hear Isabel Bayrakdarian, Laura Claycomb, Michelle DeYoung, Susan Graham, Anthony Dean Griffey, Thomas Hampson, Elza van den Heever, Katarina Karnéus, Quinn Kelsey, Sergei Leiferkus, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, James Morris, Thomas Moser, Yvonne Naef, Marina Shaguch, Stuart Skelton, and Erin Wall on the cycle.

Limited edition of 1,000, to be pressed only when pre-orders reach 600. Pre-ordering requires you to plunk down $75. For more information, visit the San Francisco Symphony web page about the release.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

In this digital age, I really have to wonder about those who think vinyl actually is capable of adding anything to what was sourced from a digital recording. Even coming from the SACD-quality masters, it simply can't get any better than the best digital equipment can, and being vinyl, it will eventually have to get worse.

Granted the cycle is wonderful (especially on SACD with the full 5.1 impact)...

Anonymous said...

Would the sufficiently purist analog fans who might be prepared to drop this much for an LP set ($34 a disc!) be willing to soil themselves with music that had been recorded and mixed digitally?

Lisa Hirsch said...

Your guess is as good as mine.