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Reviews (2)
30 Mar, 2017
Songs play SLOW!!!
When I got the RCA Complete Caruso set, the first thing I did was perform A-B comparative listenings with two earlier Caruso LPs on RCA, "The Voice of the Century" and "The Tenor of the Century". I won't dwell on the subjective issue of sound quality. Some may prefer the cleaned up, more natural sound of the CD set; some may prefer that a 78 recording sound like a good, ol' 78. I often felt, switching from vinyl to CD, how dead the CD sounded in comparison. (Then again, I always felt that way when playing a cassette and switching Dolby on.)
But the Complete Caruso CD set is wholly deserving of a minimum star rating for one completely inexcusable defect: speed. With the exception of perhaps 2 songs from the two record albums (about 28 songs total), the CD tracks are SLOW! Some are slightly slow, most are dreadfully slow, maybe 4 to 8 seconds longer over the course of 2.5 to 4 minutes. The drop down in pitch switching to the CD version will hit you over the head. No, the LPs are not fast; one of them discusses the lengths they went to to get the speeds correct. I have no idea what the explanation is; if BMG were merely "careless", we'd have as many sped up tracks as slowed down ones. I didn't find any tracks noticeably sped up.
You can observe this phenomenon yourself without fooling with vinyl; play an early recording of "O Lola" on the set, and then Caruso's last version. The drag is excruciating.
So, I hate to ruin everybody's fun with the CD set, but if Caruso sounds to you even more "baritonal" than he is generally noted for, it's because BMG slowed down most of the tracks.
30 Mar, 2017
Big disappointment
Comparing it to my former "Double Quick" hand pump (which still works fine, but needed a replacement for one of the nozzles), this one has a very stiff hose and much flimsier feet. Ok, those aren't show-stoppers, but this one does not "trap" the pumped air on the down stroke. Whatever pressure you've built up in your inflatable, that's pushing right back on the pump, forcing the plunger back up. So, unless you have 3 or 4 arms, you have to lean over the plunger with your belly while you wrestle with the nozzle and getting the valves on your inflatable plugged.