Donald Satz wrote:

>I've heard some of the Library of Congress discs - sounded fine to me.
>Also, I've read many reviews which were highly complimentary.  I don't
>know why some folks on the list talk as if the whole world has rejected
>the recordings, but that's far from factual.

Clearly not the whole world...and these judgments are often very
subjective.  I myself don't recall having ever heard those performances.
Not having a very critical ear, I suspect that I might have liked them
fine.

In the contra camp, however, the well respected music critic, B.H. Haggin,
who admittedly was occasionally eccentric and always outspoken in his
opinions, but who was a fan of the Budapest String Quartet, described its
later, stereo, performances, contrasted with its earlier, mono, ones, as
having undergone a "deterioration in tone and intonation and even in the
treatment of the music [that] reached the point where the playing was not
only musically unsatisfying but unpleasant to listen to."

Walter Meyer