Best Recording quality on CD

mahiruha

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Hello guys,
I am looking to build a collection of CDS of Kishore Kumar , Mohammed Rafi, Asha bhosle , Lata Mangeshkar and Mukesh. Could you guys please guide me which cds offer the best recording quality to do justice to good amplifier.
thanks,
Mahiruha.
 
How good is the recording quality of the customised HamaraCDs? If they are good, you have quality as well as access to loads of songs.
 
wow! exactly my type of music! Except I would also add Rafi, Hemant Kumar, Manna De and Talat Mehmood!
But Kishore is on the top!
regards


Hello guys,
I am looking to build a collection of CDS of Kishore Kumar , Mohammed Rafi, Asha bhosle , Lata Mangeshkar and Mukesh. Could you guys please guide me which cds offer the best recording quality to do justice to good amplifier.
thanks,
Mahiruha.
 
Now In proess of Ripping in Flac of all those artists ...BTW found some Hindi flac on Net too!!!:yahoo:( Now some links are unavilable!)

Anyone can give Best 500 Songs of Kishore Rafi Mukesh& Asha ...I mean if such lists exists?
 
Hello shuvc,
thanks for ur reply. What is HamaraCDs ???
thanks.

Check this out
HamaraCD.com from Saregama Ltd., - Make your own Customized CD with all your favorite Indian music.

You can create your own song compilation and then order for it. They will write the CD, with your own chosen cover design and deliver it to you.

Gives you the freedom to create your own compilations of artistes. Instead of buying CD's from shops whereby you end up have duplicate songs across your collection.

My brother had ordered quite a few some years back and was pretty happy.

You could order 1 CD and check out the quality.
 
Hello Shuvc,
thanks for that link and it seems like a very good idea. Is Sa re ga ma the only source for these kind of music. I have a particular dissatisfaction towards the quality control of this brand. Actually I found the vinyls i have under EMI logo the same artist same song when published under sa re ga ma logo sounds really bad. No idea what the issue is. Is sa re ga ma the sole publisher of this kind of music? And to be honest the owner of Sa re ga ma also happens to be the electricity provider of calcutta who does a very good job in providing electricity. So it is my opinion they are maintaining the same quality standard in music reproduction as well.;)
Thanks.
 
Hello Shuvc,
thanks for that link and it seems like a very good idea. Is Sa re ga ma the only source for these kind of music. I have a particular dissatisfaction towards the quality control of this brand. Actually I found the vinyls i have under EMI logo the same artist same song when published under sa re ga ma logo sounds really bad. No idea what the issue is. Is sa re ga ma the sole publisher of this kind of music? And to be honest the owner of Sa re ga ma also happens to be the electricity provider of calcutta who does a very good job in providing electricity. So it is my opinion they are maintaining the same quality standard in music reproduction as well.;)
Thanks.

IMHO 70-80% classic Hindi Film Song catalougu is owned by Sa Re Ga Ma ( Former Labels HMV & EMI)

Few titles are available with Universal( Polydor ,Music India) fewer with other lables ....

If CD's are so bad start vigorously collecting vintage Vinyl ....
 
Most of the recordings are of HMV (saregama). The recording quality tends to be poor. You need to really focus on the singer and the lyrics to get over the quality issues.

The only Kishore Kumar CD which is of slightly better quality is produced by Music India (Finest Moments i think). The song selection is good and the quality is also slighlty better.

The next option you have is to look at the Classics Revival series. HMV has remastered old songs (of almost all the great names). These come in a set of 4 or 5 cds per singer. It has a plastic feel to the music, but is certainly better than the poor quality recordings of originals. That gets me to the next question. If HMV found a need to produce remastered music, then they must be certain that the original recordings are not of good quality. Would that make vinyl quality also a suspect?

I will watch this thread to pick suggestions that others have.
 
having listened to many of Saregama's collection, the best in terms of quality and selection is the Golden Collection.

However, the number of songs is very limited (e.g. 4CDs of Kishore solo) and anything else you buy will always overlap with this collection. Thus it is not easy to expand upon.

Another good collection is Legends, but here the collection is even more limited (e.g.5CD pack for Kishore - duets and solo mix).

In order to avoid overlap and get the not so popular tracks, I look out for the Movie Album CDs
 
Hello guys,
thanks a lot for your valuable inputs.

@srramanujam : Well thanks for confirming the idea of discarding the cds sold under sa re ga ma brand straight away. I will have to look at revival series I have never heard that before so have to give it a try. I guess the best recorded voice of Kishore Kumar can be heard from the movie MR India which I think was his last movie. From my experience I can tell that vinyls are definitely better than cds in terms of sound quality specially for the oldies but the pops and cracks can be annoying at times. But all the vinyls doesn't have the same quality of recording. I found live performences has far superior recrding comapred to the film tracks. May be it has do with the fact that film tracks are recorded in a closed studio environment so they lack the openness of a big auditorium. These are my feeling experts can comment better. The only kishore kumar cd I have is the 2 cd set of golden collection bought in 1995. Those were early days of cd and it is Branded as EMI and made in USA.
I found they closely matches the vinyl quality in terms of recording quality but of course not as lively as vinyls.

@Raghav : Have you compared the recording quality of golden collection with that of music india published cds.

@hemantwaghe : I am already in a process of vigorously collecting vinyls. My current rate is 10 per weeks. I am seriously limited by the detailed bathing rituals that to be followed after vinyl procurement. The vinyls are like a wooden fire place in a cold winter night. It warms you up with lot of nostalgia. CDs are like electric heater just get the temperature you want without too much fuss.
Thanks.
 
About 3 or 4 years ago, HMV remastered a large number songs and brought out a series of 65 albums called the Classic Revival. They first brought it in cassettes and then later on in CDs. The quality was very decent. Unfortunately, they have stopped the series and it is not available in the market any more.

The Amin Sayani's Geetmala set of 5 CDs have excellent recording.

I have cut a number of CDs from HamaraCD and I find their recoding quite decent. After listening to Worldspace for nearly a year, I have made a list of 300 odd songs that I am willing to die for. I am getting all these songs from HamaraCD.

Since they own the rights of nearly every song that were released upto the 1980s, it will be very difficult to get these songs from elsewhere. Even if some one else sells the musics, they have get the original tape and the rights from HMV.

Cheers
 
Hi,

There is no overlap between the catalogs offered by SaReGaMa (Ex. HMV,EMI) and Music India/Ploydor(now sold by Universal). So we cannot really choose one over the other. Polydor/Music India recordings were significantly better, so music directors like RD Burman and Kalyanji-Anandji moved to that label. Unfortunately this company existed for a very short duration and have a limited catalog. HMV/EMI ruled the roost for close to 80 years! (1930's to this date). Unfortunately their recording quality was pathetic most of the time, but they have most of the music you are looking for.

The interesting thing to note here is that HMV messed up every time they re-released the albums. So the first original release was always the best sounding (with the exception of some of the revival releases, not all). So albums released on LP's sounded worse on cassette and CDs. Similarly many albums released on cassette actually sound worse on CD!
The solo-movie CD/cassette has better sound than the combo albums.
This trend is also seen with Universal. Their solo-movie CDs(I think labeled as Classics), sound way better than the 5 movie combo in a cardboard box, available at almost the same price.

Thanks,
Sharad
 
Last edited:
About 3 or 4 years ago, HMV remastered a large number songs and brought out a series of 65 albums called the Classic Revival. They first brought it in cassettes and then later on in CDs. The quality was very decent. Unfortunately, they have stopped the series and it is not available in the market any more.

The Amin Sayani's Geetmala set of 5 CDs have excellent recording.

I have cut a number of CDs from HamaraCD and I find their recoding quite decent. After listening to Worldspace for nearly a year, I have made a list of 300 odd songs that I am willing to die for. I am getting all these songs from HamaraCD.

Since they own the rights of nearly every song that were released upto the 1980s, it will be very difficult to get these songs from elsewhere. Even if some one else sells the musics, they have get the original tape and the rights from HMV.

Cheers

Hello Venkat,
thanks for your useful input. It is sad that HMV has discontinued the Classis Revival series. Today I have contacted a wholesale dealer and he told that he will come back to me if he can get some cds for me. I am definitely getting this Amin Sayani collection. I like this way of music presentation and if the recording is good then it is added bonus. At the same time its a pity that a comapny holding rights for all these great music doesn't really care about the recording quality.I guess it doesn't make business sense for them to spend too much money to produce quality recorded music because mass market doesn't really care about quality. MP3 does more than enough job for them.
Thanks.
 
Dear Mahiruha,

I remember seeing some of the Classic Revival CDs in the Planet M close to my house. I have had bad experiences with this store though. Many CDs have fungus on them even as you open them and some other strange liquid.

If i see these CDs, i will PM you and you can let me know if i should buy it for you.

Regards
 
The Classic Revival series has the instrumentation part redone. Pl remember its not the original. Only the voices are original.
 
The Classic Revival series has the instrumentation part redone. Pl remember its not the original. Only the voices are original.

If I remember right, it is the initial music that is different. The instrumentals within the song, if I remember right, are all original.

Cheers
 
All the Classic Revival songs are available on Hamaracd.com, so you can choose what you want.

My experience has been that they started with the old songs, and did a good job with them. Some where down the line they seem to have handed over the job to ignorant technicians. So I recommend the remastered versions for songs from 1932-1950. Remastered songs from 60s and 70s sound awful most of the time.

Thanks,
Sharad
 
my experience with HamaraCD has not been too good, since I believe the compiled CD creation is an automated process. so, since recording levels, quality, etc., of the different songs in the mix is different, the final CD has its highs and lows. also, IMHO, the DB is not in lossless, so the o/p is very sparse, like MP3 playback.

also, there are propriety issues.

for example, i wanted to compile a suresh wadkar CD, but a few of his best songs are not owned by Sa Re Ga Ma. so, one has to do with what's there. of course, great concept nonetheless. if someone did a cross-label royalty thingie contract and also did the normalisation prior to burning, it'd be great, but would definitely not be as cheap.

i kno t series compiles their own songs and adds covers of the ones they don't own (of course, UGH!) to complete a collection.
 
SaReGaMa (Ex. HMV,EMI) CD's are pathetic. I would stick to FM,Worldspace anyday over these CD's.

Had gotten one Humara CD ( shankar Mahadevan compilation ) about 6-7 yrs back. Was quite OK..not great not bad. Would avoid unless absolutely desperate.
 
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