The Art of quality recordings

[roberto]

AJ,

The CLXs are a totally different beast than any other model by Martin Logan. It's sound is so fast with a precision only found on the electrostatic panel. So, it is very difficult to do a comparison. Analogy would be, a sport car vs family car. This would be the CLXs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pZcxhtDdto

To my ears, the deepest bass notes from the electronic music, or even double bass like Brian Bromberg, the way that he plays, using the deepest bass notes that his big double bass instrument produces, and he keeps this very deep resonance musical note as part of his way to play and with the right harmony. What a great musician he is. He is a truly virtuoso with the bass! It is a low frequency effect.

Been said this, mostly all my listening time, while listening to a solo instruments, like a piano, or any other type of music where it does not need this very low frequency, the sub is not acting. It is not needed as RJ said. The bass quality coming from my CLXs are impressive, and the best bass that I ever heard. The timbre and the harmonic texture of the musical instruments is granted with an outstanding precision, and this is unmatched by any other type of speakers. To call the musical notes are easy, and the fingering too. So, I do understand what RJ is trying for me. I should not to use the sub. What I am telling him is that the sub is cut at a very low frequency, circa the 30Hz!. The sub is set in a way where it does not touch the amp and does not touch the CLXs. The CLXs are all the time full range!. And when the bass notes are played, all the time, only when there is this very low info, the sub works. There is no way to tell that the sub is on. You do when you turn it off and wait for a very low frequency info, and you sense that something is missing. You can't point where the sub is while it is acting. The blend and I said this before, is perfect! Also impossible to tell unless you turn it off.


I love this recording by Hank Jones, Ray Brown and Jimmie Smith: Rockin' in Rhythm. The first song: Your Feet's Too Big, the Ray brown solo, the sub does not act any time...and it is on. How do I know this? Very simple. You can remove the side cover cloth and you can touch the woofer's cone. It does not move at all. But when I play organ music or very low frequency content music, barely moves, but it does, giving this almost ultra low frequency info that it is needed for this type of music.

Happy listening!

[Big Dog RJ]

Two well recorded LP's listening to right now, simply superb! I'm trying to get the other volume from Yuko M but it doesn't seem to be out as yet. Anyone here have heard of her jazz trio? Or any info on the volume 2 album?

Cheers maties, RJ

[Big Dog RJ]

Just listened to the limited edition from 3 blind mice Jazz, high quality reference recording on LP 45rpm - limited edition box set by Impex records, superb!

Then I played a Chet Baker LP, standard speed 33rpm recorded by River Side records something label, awful!
I'm not sure where I even bought this LP from... trying to think which store. Definitely not a quality store, one of those generic JB HiFi joints ... must have been.

Anyway, what a difference in comparison, not just sound quality but everything else, surface noise, background noise, whatever is going on in the background as if they recorded it close to the sea shore! I'll have to gift this to someone.

Now, I'm listening to a 4 set LP by Chet Baker - plays and sings on a label called NOT. This one's much better, although not reference quality but definitely listenable. What a variance in quality. I just wonder how many demos and reviews are actually conducted based on proper recordings, rather than focusing too much on equipment...

Very critical to get that equation right.
Cheers, have a good one
RJ

[Big Dog RJ]

G'day maties,

Trust all is well in the land of your fine CJ gear and you're enjoying those fine tunes, of course!

Just a quick note in addition yo my last post on quality reference recordings. The ones I picked up from Audiophile reference recordings earlier last Sat, these digital ones were superb! Then the 6 LP's I picked up, the three Yuko Mabuchi on Yarlung label were mighty fine, volume 2 and vol1&2 playing Miles Davis with her Trio, fantastic!

However, out of the two Anne Bisson LP's, one of the album's Keys to my heart, has a terrible scratching and hissing noise on the left channel. Sounds like the recording engineer or someone forgot to sort out that left channel playback...

I'm wondering why though, given the high price plus the rave recording quality... what on earth happened to this recording?

So, now I'm off back to this store to return this LP hopefully for an exchange but I'm wondering if the whole batch / stock that he has would have this similar problem. So he's decided to check all of them for me. He also claims that this is the first time ever someone has identified a problem with his stock. Seems like there's always a first time!

I'll know how it all goes tomorrow arvo, once back home and spinning fine, I'll report the findings. Would be interesting to know what the defects were.

Anyone experience such erratic behaviour/ quality in their recordings? Especially on one channel...
Very weird I must say, never had this funny thing before. Always good to know though.

Cheers to all, and keep well.
Best, RJ

[admin]

The is pretty unusual. I have experience "audiophile" recordings not sounding that great but I don't think I have encountered a single channel being of poor quality. Let us know what comes of it.

[AnotherJohnson]

It’s probably dirt or a bad pressing.

They should be willing to exchange it.

As Admin points out, it is an unusual phenomenon.

Of course you’re sure that the issue is on the record and not some component channel issue.

Best of luck either exchanging the disk, or sorting it out if there’s an equipment issue.

[AnotherJohnson]

If they won’t exchange it, Here’s where your friend Roy from Rega can help.

Set your tracking force to 4 grams and plow that furrow.

Or try a cleaning machine and see if it improves.

[AnotherJohnson]

I have experience "audiophile" recordings not sounding that great ...

Boy, ain’t that the truth.

The modern rereleases have been processed from very old magnetic tapes, which have printed through, lost dynamic range, lost presence, etc. They “restore” them to “better” than new by digitizing them and filtering out the noise floor.

And the whole half speed process has been controversial from the beginning, based on the premise that normal speed cutting lathes are underpowered.

And then there’s direct to disk. Has to be one take, like a live show, but very stressful for the performers, especially for orchestras. It’s one take, like a live recording, but tape allows minor fixes without much diminishment. The psychology behind DD trumps the technology in my opinion.

If your system isn’t capable rendering vinyl at its best, Audiophile recordings may sound pretty doggone good compared to originals. But at higher levels of vinyl playback, the table tilts in favor of clean originals.

I’ve got the whole set of Sheffield DD, a large number of MoFi and other half speeds, plenty of modern rereleases, 180 grams, digitized, etc.

I mostly listen to original releases from the 50’s and 60’s, with a fair number of 80’s rereleases done when the tapes were less than 30 years old.

[Big Dog RJ]

Ah! Well here we go... after nearly half the day on the road to and from the ARR store, spent a good two hours there testing all the Anne Bisson LP's he had with that particular album. Turns out it is the master tapes... nothing to do with the recording. Notified the supplier as well, seems this particular Anne Bisson was transferred directly from the original masters, hence no editing or fixing of additional noise done whatsoever. Therefore, recording was done just as pure as possible, which includes this annoying hiss on all of the discs throughout. Funny thing is playing on a decent system comprising of Hegel amplifiers, a Project TT, Parasound phono-preamp and Whatmore speakers, it was fairly listenable. However, on a highly transparent system, such as CJ & ML forget it! That excessive noise is ten times louder and annoying, and not listenable.

Most new LP releases are digitised where you can actually get rid or lessen that issue, so it's something native to those masters. If it was corrected and omitted, so would the overall quality, and that's something that Burnie Grundman doesn't do.

In the meantime it was exchanged and I had the pleasure of picking up another 3 more LP's. One more of Anne Bisson on 180g pressing done by Burnie Grundman, a RTI production. Called Tales from the Treetops, superb! A fine recording and very smoothly done. The other two are blues LP's by Eric Bibb, one on Opus and the other some other label. Very fine recordings, and top notch smoothness throughout. So I'm glad I made the trip, started at 2pm and got home at 7pm, well worth it I guess.

Oh! I forgot to mention, there was another episode of a massive static attack last Friday. This time heavy static accumulated on the surface of the Spec disc mat and hits the underside of the LP. So after a few plays, when I lift off the LP it triggers that spark and onto the preamp shutting it off with a loud thud!

The only viable solution is to hold the D-stat III gadget each time I need to change sides... oh boy what a load of bollocks! I mentioned this to my chap and one solution- discontinue use of the Spec disc mat, the Aluminium is the material that's causing the actual static build up, hence when lifting off the LP it has no where to go, rather straight to the preamp... and that doesn't end so well.

So now, I'm using once again just the original carbon fibre disc mat that was supplied by Rega and recommended by them. I guess they have their reasons. It also sounds quite good compared to the Spec mat. I'm noticing the Spec mat had something sharper in terms of pick up energy and focus, more dynamics in the tone. At the same time the simple modest carbon fibre mat has a nice sense of depth to the soundstage and a tonal purity, sounds more natural. Maybe it's a psychological thing, I'm not sure but whatever it's doing seems to go OK, since I'm actually enjoying the music!

At one point I was wondering, why bother with these fancy disc mats and the so called claims they make. It's really great if it works for you but what's the point in having major static build up and not being able to enjoy those LP's...

Might as well just stick to what your system accepts and works well with, afterall if that was the intended purpose might as well enjoy it!

I'm going to gift away the Spec mat to someone who really wants one but can't afford to spend $500 for it. It's good to show some kindness.

Cheers maties, hope all is well. And do enjoy those fine tunes! Best RJ

[rff000]

I like to listen to East European folk music, especially from Romania. The Electrecord vinyls from the 1970-80's sound great but the more recent CD's often are much too loud and terrible.

I use two solutions: digitize my old vinyls of which I have a ton. Also, I sometimes convert the CD's to wav files and run them through the Wavegain program which lowers the volumes of all the tracks at once. The Wavegain solution is not perfect but it improved a lot of loud CD's for me.

[Big Dog RJ]

Hey there rff000,

Interesting to learn about the digital transferring of your vinyl. I guess those tunes will be well preserved compared to the LP version, unless properly cared for.

Speaking of those loud CDs, yes these are the ones I try to avoid as much as possible. They are highly compressed with over EQ and high loudness levels, therefore regardless of the correct tonality and pitch, they always sound loud and overbearing.

These are definitely not audiophile grade or reference quality recordings for that matter. I've manage to steer clear of these and have given most away. Now I just stick with those FIM labels, Telarc, Chesky, Pure Pleasure on vinyl, Yarlung records, Groove Works. Occasionally a few Blue Note albums long as the music is good.

Cheers mate, enjoy those fine tunes!
RJ

[admin]

When buying new CD's, I always see if there is entry for it on http://dr.loudness-war.info. I can't stand dynamic range compression with everything being mastered to be high volume.

[Big Dog RJ]

Right, here we go, discovered something in the quality of recordings that perhaps was quite obvious!

Have a few Anne Bisson on 45rpm 180gm limited edition recorded off Master tapes. Plenty of hiss & scratching noises that are quite unlistenable on a highly revealing system. On a more forgiving system you can actually ignore this background noise unless someone pointed it out, as was the case at the store, which I had to return two of those LP's.

Now I'm listening to another Anne Bisson on 45rpm 180gm Blue Minds, absolutely dead silence, zero noise and crystal clear! Ah! Took a look at the back and noticed this album was record off digital masters. 24bit 96kHz and 98kHz on some tracks, using DCS DACs and Moon amplifiers. Well there you go!

Now the question is, which one's more musical, the master tapes or digital masters... I reckon both are just as musical and enjoyable, as long as you can ignore that background noise from the original masters. However, due to the added clarity and crystal smoothness, I would say that the digital masters are more accurate, pitch and tonality seems more accurate, I don't know... something seems more listenable, you sort of hear more of the recording.

Maybe I'm wrong but there's more of the music off these digital masters. I then looked at a handful of my LP collection and played those ones with digital masters and ones from original master tapes. When comparing, it's quite obvious which ones are the most quiet. However, on some well recorded 60's & 70's LP's, especially George Benson, Grant Green and Kenny Burrell, those recordings are mighty fine coming off original masters. So I'm not sure why these recording engineers are having issues with original masters using modern tech coming off master tapes. Maybe there's far more to this process than I thought.

Anyway, thought I'd share this, either format off the originals are fantastic, just as long as those background noises are not so apparent.

Cheers, and enjoy those fine tunes!
RJ

[AnotherJohnson]

Sharing some thoughts with no agenda other than that:

Recordings are literally like combination magic carpets and time machines. They can transport us to performances that were captured at another time and in another place.

The genie comes out of the bottle to varying degrees, depending on our room, and our system.

Sometimes we are excited, and even thrilled, just to hear the score. When I play my 10” 78 rpm shellacs from the estates of my grandparents on my Dual record changer with the Shure spherical stylus, I am transported to the floor in front of my grandparents’ console where, as an elementary school age child, I spent many hours spinning disks that were brought from the old country (Scandinavia in my case). These Swedish and Norwegian language folk and gospel
tunes transported my grandparents back to their roots. My love affair with the guitar started on that floor.

When I became a novice audiophile 50 years or so ago, I made it a point to hear as many live performances of all genres as possible. 40 years ago as a young professor, I was
befriended by the Dean of the Blair School of Music, and was blessed to hear many sessions of both informal and formal performance, and this led to more opportunities to sit as a fly on the wall in many more Nashville sessions. I made many contacts in classical, heavy metal, rock, country, and other industry areas. Some of these led to lifelong friendships.

Later still, I was blessed with gifted teachers who helped me acquire the mediocre performance skills that I possess.

And my love for acoustics drove the earliest phases of my professional life.

One thing I am sure of is that, in order to feel a performance, you really have to play it at a level that allows the subtle nuances of the quietest passages to come through.

In order to play back at very low levels, you have to have a room that allows these nuances to be heard at those lowest levels. Once the low levels are set in playback, the rest follows if your system and room are up to the task.

The full dynamic range may or may not sound real. It just depends on so many things, of which the source is just one.

I have many recordings that are from original releases, but I also have later digital remasters on vinyl, and later still releases on CD, half speeds, and in some cases even SACD, of the same programs.

Often all of the releases are quite good. But they are nearly always different.

I think the success of any release is tied to my expectations. I can’t make a blanket statement about which is always best ... but if I listen through the analog tape noise that the earliest releases typically exhibit, my sense is often that those earliest releases are closest to the original intent.

I think it is wonderful that we have had so many different technologies for playback during our lifetime. I enjoy nearly everything in my collection on some level.

I’ve said many times that I am startled by the number of times that I’ve been startled by improvements that I perceive from gear changes. But I never forget that the goal is always to be transported to the time and space of the original recording session.

[AnotherJohnson]

Something I didn’t say, but that follows logically, is that for reproduced music to sound fully detailed and focused at low levels, either it had to start without much dynamic range, or compression had to have been part of the mastering.

While this may make the release sound uniformly detailed and pleasant at low levels, it is unlikely to accurately represent the original tape. Note I did not say impossible. But it is unlikely, as much as one might like it.

[AnotherJohnson]

And one other “probably goes without saying” thought...

People complain about releases being cut too loud.

If the levels are harsh and too loud, it is probably because the levels are overloading the input at either the preamp or the amp.

If the levels are just “too loud” it’s probably due to compression in the mastering.

Some things, like foreign language folk music, and even spoken word, exhibit high average levels just because they’re not intended as audiophile recordings, but just for information transmission.

If levels are too high, that’s a classic opportunity for Rothwell in-line attenuators to shine. Put them between the offending source and the next component, and it should tame things.

[rff000]

Another thing I do with very loud audio files is look at the wav file in a program like Goldwave. The first step is to get rid of all clipping, then reduce the volume a little more after that. You can at least make some things listenable instead of unpleasant, even though they're definitely not high quality recordings.

I modify a lot of digitized vinyls that I get off the archive.org site. When downloads are available, they're all recorded at 24/96, but the volumes are extremely low. What I do is raise the volume to an acceptable level and use a program like Click Repair to get rid of pops and clicks. You then have to monitor the sound in case there are any other defects that are not pops or clicks and remove them if possible. When a few seconds of noise occur, I managed to transplant sound from another source, even if it's a lower bitrate. The results are often quite good. Also, I assume that if archive.org is giving away the download, there's nothing illegal about uploading my corrected audio with no noise and correct volumes. I did this with a lot of classical audio, mainly when there's no CD available, like Telemann's 36 harpsichord Fantasias, played by Helma Elsner. If anyone wants the URL for download, let me know. I'm not sure if it would be permitted to give it here.

[Big Dog RJ]

G'day maties, thought I'd share some analog love...

Since lately I've been listening to digital quite a lot, after acquiring the Esoteric digital gear, and having a ball trying out various DACs, clocks, cables, high res files, other people's DACs for shoot outs and that sort of thing. One thing we all noticed, amongst our very dedicated Esoteric group, it does take an awful long time for it to get going, especially from cold start. I work basically 6days of the week, so leaving any gear on is out of the question, especially with two nosey cats...

So, just today since we're in lockdown and the wifey actually prefers the warmth tone of vinyl, she wanted me to play a few LP's of her choice.

And so I did! I must say, whatever or how far the digital front has evolved, with ultra-high-end DACs, clocks, transports, power supplies and all those gizmos that cost a fortune, there's just some magic whenever that stylus hits those grooves.

Wow! It's like a different dimension, there's a sense of added depth in the soundstage, warmth, an enveloping affect to the sound and something in the bandwidth that digital just doesn't quite have. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love my digital playback system, I can't flaw it and it's always improving each time I spin discs. But there's just something supremely right about analog, I'm not sure what it is but it just warms your heart and soul and allows you to melt...

I just finished spinning Diana Krall's wallflower album, the good wife is now fast asleep, time to load up those fine jazz tunes from John Scofield and Amad Jamal, here we go lookout!

Just my humble rig, is totally satisfying and I like to keep it simple. Cheers, and oh! Do enjoy those fine tunes!
A big woof'n!
RJ

[Big Dog RJ]

G'day to all Tea2 owners,

This is to confirm that the upgrade from SE to Max may not seem so justifiable in terms of dollars spent, initially that is... From the first couple of notes/tunes, it's obvious that something does sound different but what exactly...

Is it the spacial cues, soundstage depth and presence, refinement in imaging, a higher degree of resolution and most of all even further quietness, thanks to a further layout of Vishays... and that's exactly it!

All of those above are quite apparent within the first few notes coming from the SE upgrade, and then it gets going to a further refined level once it has settled in the first 100hrs or so. Similarly but doesn't take that long to run-in, I would say a few weeks, the refinement level is supremely controlled by well gripped transients and detailed information coming off your favourite tracks on vinyl.

I would certainly like to have gone a step further and ventured into the territory of the TEA1 performance, however I feel that would cause another influence to change the TT and the vicious cycle begins!

So, I'm not going there for that purpose. I also need to respect the wifey's suggestion to make it a call and just be satisfied with what I've achieved, afterall these are some very fine tunes coming off the humble RP8 and the Benz Micro cart. I'm happy as!

So, yes I very highly recommend these particular upgrade paths for those using the TEA2 phonostage. Getting to the Max level is SOTA, real vfm and doesn't get any better than that. Instead of upgrading existing quality gear vertically, I decided trying all possible upgrades horizontally/ laterally across my existing gear. I never know how far they can improve without trying, and I believe this is where your money spent is justifiable. Just my 50cts worth.

Now the ART of quality recordings, really makes you appreciate what the artists have created.

Cheers to the TEA2Max! Enjoy those fine tunes!
RJ

[admin]

Very nice. Enjoy the sound of that beautiful TEA2!