GG: Shuffling

[adellaer@mail.cc.trincoll.edu (A.D. Dell'Aera)]

mwilliamson@alston.com once said:

>I bought a CD player right away
>     (even though I was very poor) and of course the first CD I
>     bought was the GVs, and I still have it.  There is no
>     question that it has only one track; when you load it in and
>     the machine boots up it says "1."  And it is really
>     annoying.
>
>     You know, there are 2 things that are really curious about
>     that.  First, as some of you have already pointed out; the
>     entire work was not recorded that way.  It is very easy to
>     hear where the breaks were taken.  Second, I have many CDs
>     on which the track number changes even though you can tell
>     that there was no break during the recording.
>
>     Anyway, it does not surprise me that later copies of that
>     recording have 32 tracks.

Yeah, I'd have to agree with you.  I also bought one of the very early
copies of Goldberg '81, whose 1 track wasn't the greatest way to induct the
new CD format (of  course even an LP allows you to go instantly to any part
of the recording--albeit one side at a time).  So after a few years of
continued accusations of craziness on the part of my distant friends who
were either latecomers (had to use the word) to GG or gently coerced (using
moderate verbal threats) by me into buying this recording,  "let the truth
be told though the heavens may fall."

Now, for those of you that have heard both the CBS (either track version)
and the Sony, I now ask: is there a compelling reason to get the Sony
(20bit and 32 tracks), which, by the way, I have never seen in CD format in
the US?  I usually listen to the CBS 1 track recording straight  through
anyways and I've observed that Sony GG Edition transfers are not always an
improvement over earlier incarnations.

Tony