Film Spectacular, vol. 2.(Sound recording review)

Film Spectacular, Volume II. Stanley Black, the London Festival Orchestra. FIM XR24 070.

If you're of a certain age, you may remember the big to-do caused when Decca released its first "Phase 4" recordings during the early years of stereo in the late 1950s. While competitors RCA Living Stereo and Mercury Living Presence were miking their projects as simply as possible, usually using three-mike arrangements that still sound more realistic than anything made today, Decca decided to hang literally dozens of microphones all over the place, practically a mike for every instrument of an orchestra, and then mix them all down to two channels. The resultant sound was nothing like a person would hear in a concert hall, but it sure could impress the ear with its clinical accuracy.

I mention all this because the folks at First Impression Music have remastered one of these stereo extravaganzas, "Film Spectacular, Volume II" from 1963, using the state-of-the-art audiophile XRCD process pioneered by JVC. Although the new record is just as unrealistic in its presentation, it is even more stunning in its precision, focus, and dynamics than I recalled from the old days. However, according to FIM's producer, Winston Ma, in a refreshingly candid booklet note, it took a little cleaning up to get it to sound the way Winston remembered it. Let me quote what he has to say about the first time he listened to the original master tape Decca sent him: "... the sound was just awful! What we heard were two concentrated beams of sound energy directed from the centers of the cone drivers of the two speakers. There was nothing in the center fill or ambiance spread of the soundstage. The strings were a cluster of razors and the brass ear-piercing." Apparently, the Decca audio engineers back then had mixed down forty-eight channels to two and then brightened it all up to sound good on early, non-audiophile speakers. But with the help of engineer Paul Stubblebine, ...