In article , Iain
wrote:

Tony D'Amato, whom I knew well, was trying to make the loudest and most
spectacular MOR recordings available at that time. He was an excellent
orchestral producer. He used to set up a music stand above the bridge of
the console facing the engineer, where he could see the stereo meter
pair, and give every cue with great clarity. So as an engineer you knew
exactly what was going on in the piece without having to even glance at
your own score.

His exaggerated "fortissimo" and "sforzsando" meant that the engineer
responding to them was in danger of driving the tape into distortion.
So Decca engineers used to align the stereo master recorder 4dB "hot" on
replay, and turn the record level down by a similar amount, So that the
peak levels would appear to be the same. Mr D'Amato soon got wise to
this :-)

Yes, the distortion on the results in some cases does support that, sadly.

Jim

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