I suspect that the originals are simply in horrible shape, and were probably not well made in the first place, which prevents anything resembling decent sonics. All of the recordings suffer from unstable pitch, in addition to the surface noise inherent in such early material. The quality of the reproduction of McCormack's voice is high variable; in some cases, he's not even recognizable, and I wondered if that was due to poor pitching or an actual misidentification.So this one is only for McCormack completists. His singing is OK when you can actually make it out, but he developed a great deal in the few years after this. If you want early McCormack, look to buy the Naxos volumes, which begin, as I recall, around 1910, and are expertly transferred by Ward Marston.