Mercury Living Presence

As Rushton noted, the originals are highly prized by collectors. A fine example of a very simple recording philosophy (3 mikes across the front of an orchestra) superbly executed by a producer with excellent musical taste. The recordings have a lot of the energy you might hear at a live performance (their reproduction of orchestral dynamics was probably the best of the era), but on the whole are on the bright side, as Chadlnliz points out; the first set of SACD reissues actually seemed to tame that brightness just a little, compared to the original CDs. The CDs were remastered under the direction and direct supervision of Wilma Cozart Fine, the original producer of the records, so they had a lot of care taken in their transfer.

Glad to hear from Rushton that the LPs are worth buying, I have held off, as a number of previous re-issues of some Mercury recordings, both on Mercury's budget labels and on the Philips label, have been either disappointing or a mixed bag (not the case, though, with the few Classic Records reissues, wehich are stunning).

I do not find the Mercury LPs or CDs to be overly bright, generally speaking, tho' there may be a few exceptions. they will challenge one's system. I like the Classic reissues quite a lot; some are quite remarkable.

I've found the MLP CDs I've heard to have a distinct timbre that is perhaps "brighter" than most modern good recordings, but I also find the recordings to be very smooth and dynamic and not "overly bright". I've always associated this distinct timber as being the "Living Presence" alluded to in the sereis name.

I'm sure different ears will hear different things though.

I've found the unique timbre of certain "Living Presence" recordings to be useful as a very unique reference source standard when auditioning digital sourced audio systems .

Does anyone think there are any modern recording series the equivalent or at least similar to the MLP recordings in terms of how the recordings are produced and mastered? I've never researched this but I can't think of anything I know of off the cuff.

I have many of their original Lps including a large amount of the Dutch pressings along with their box opera sets. I wish they would have reissued the opera sets on cd and sacd.

The LP's are great! Amazing quality. My only complaint is that you can tell that they used multiple tracks to record on. The separation between sounds is very exact at times vs blended.
You should hear a piano solo where they used multiple mics along the keyboard/harp. It moves across the room with utmost quality and amazing clarity.