Post by Edvin March 14, 2007 (31 of 54)
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GrizzledGeezer,
I don´t get it. In your world it is either black or white, either or. Yes, record companies made some very fine and natural sounding recordings in the late fifties. Even Deutsche Grammophone managed that. But everything is not downhill from there, is it. And surely they cannot compare with the best of todays efforts as they haven´t got the dynamic range that the best recordings have now. But what I love about those old ones is that they capture far more of the room. The accoustic in which the recording was made. But, isn´t this a question of analogue versus digital? I don´t know.
One of my favorite records of all time is the EMI Previn conducts Britten from 1976, and it sounds exquisite in the latest release. Two venues are used, the old and loved Kingsway Hall and the Abbey Road studios. They sound different and in their unique way stunning. But you can actually hear the difference.
Decca made some of their best recordings just before changing to digital. The early digital efforts sounds absolutely feeble. But listen to the Mahler three from Mehta and Los Angeles, the Bruckner 6 from Solti, or the best ever their Saint-Saens from Dutoit and the Philharmonia. All made around 1980.
The Decca engineers made a lot of recordings for other companies. Guess why the Previn/RCA Vaughan Williams sounds so marvellous. Because it is recorded by Kenneth Wilkinson of Decca fame! The same goes for many of the beloved Lyritas. In one sentence, people with ears recorded them.
I have always admired the Philips recordings. I remember telling a friend during listening to Haitink´s Sheherazade with LPO on LP that the sound on these Philips LP´s is better than the vinyl can reproduce. PentaTone has shown me to be right! Their remasterings have brought out the full range of those recordings.
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Edvin said:
GrizzledGeezer,
I don´t get it. In your world it is either black or white, either or. Yes, record companies made some very fine and natural sounding recordings in the late fifties. Even Deutsche Grammophone managed that. But everything is not downhill from there, is it. And surely they cannot compare with the best of todays efforts as they haven´t got the dynamic range that the best recordings have now. But what I love about those old ones is that they capture far more of the room. The accoustic in which the recording was made. But, isn´t this a question of analogue versus digital? I don´t know.
Grizzled Geezer has some interesting opinions on this matter. But first I would think that capturing far more of the room has to do more with microphone type and placement.
Unfortunately people seem to prefer UP CLOSE !
Responding to that preference, recording engineers are not only placing the three spaced omnis closer to the orchestra, they are spot miking everything and placing those mikes closer and making them louder...so that now you not only hear the note the flute plays you hear the exhalation of air over the instrument itself.
Naturally recorded with a lot of hall sound are referred to as "distant", "dull" and "lacking in "see-through" transparency", muggy on detail."
Until reviewers and the public show that they value "hall sound" it will be replaced by "spectacular" and "transparent" etc. Not that you can't have tranparency with hall sound, its just that a lot of people either don't attend live concerts or they don't listen to what they are hearing.
One thing is clear to me from direct experience, the closer you sit in a hall - the more "transparent" the sound in that you hear more "detail". As you go further back, you get a splendid blend of direct and reflected sound that is much more euphonius (hope I spelled that correctly), but with less "detail". Most people's speakers don't have sufficient resolving abilty to reproduce that experience when mics are placed further back in the hall so more "detailed" recordings are made by more up close miking losing the in the hall feeling. Some PentaTones however show that the engineers still value that hall sound, but almost invariably those are the ones that are rated less highly for sound such as the recent Orchestre de la Suisse Romande disc and the Bolshoi discs. Similarly the Ondine Concerto for Orchestra, which as you know is another Polyhymnia recording, sounds great on my system - lots of hall sound, while many discs you guys praise to the heavens for sound seem just a little too bright to me.
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Folks, don't you think this thread is going completely off topic? ;-D
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dvda-sacd said:
Folks, don't you think this thread is going completely off topic? ;-D
Oh man, are you ever so right!
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Post by Sigfred March 15, 2007 (35 of 54)
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Windsurfer said:
[snip]
Until reviewers and the public show that they value "hall sound" it will be replaced by "spectacular" and "transparent" etc. Not that you can't have tranparency with hall sound, its just that a lot of people either don't attend live concerts or they don't listen to what they are hearing.
One thing is clear to me from direct experience, the closer you sit in a hall - the more "transparent" the sound in that you hear more "detail". As you go further back, you get a splendid blend of direct and reflected sound that is much more euphonius (hope I spelled that correctly), but with less "detail". Most people's speakers don't have sufficient resolving abilty to reproduce that experience when mics are placed further back in the hall so more "detailed" recordings are made by more up close miking losing the in the hall feeling.
I just to have to attend a chamber concert to be yet again reminded how inadequate my system is. So, for me, MCH playback in my untreated room with decent speakers is a compromise that I have to live with ;-)
Many have the hope that with MCH capable home system there will be more interest in "MCH music" (playback, that is). But anyone with small satelites combined with a subwoofer (erh, big woofer producing a single note) will be quite disappointed with what is promised on sa-cd.net. Big time disappointed.
Sorry not to be more "positive", but playback system really matter.
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I agree that we've gotten a bit off-topic, but it wasn't wholly my fault.
My original point was that, in order to promote a new product or service, you need to give the potential customer something they don't currently have -- perhaps even something they don't yet know they want. (Instant photography is an excellent example.)
In the case of SACDs (the product under discussion), there are hundreds of existing surround recordings -- especially the infamous full-surround recordings produced by Columbia -- and multi-track recordings produced by other labels -- that could be issued as full-surround SACDs. As these recordings would also include stereo-only tracks, "everyone would be happy". Full surround can be much more exciting than Plain Old Stereo, but many listeners don't know this -- or are prejudiced against full surround -- because they haven't heard it.
As for "sound quality" -- I'm going to (largely) stick to my claim that "the majors" rarely produced/produce recordings of audiophile quality, however pleasing they might be. That doesn't mean such recordings _shouldn't_ be reissued, but to claim they should take precedence over full-surround SACDs makes no sense. Most big-label recordings were/are multi-tracked to begin with; both the stereo and multi-ch tracks on an SACD will be derived from those multi-track masters. It's disingenous (paraphrasing "Animal Farm") to say "Two channels good, four channels bad", as both are derived from the same acoustically unnatural source.
The Solti "Ring" is a good example of how sound quality tends to decline with technical complexity. If you listen to the operas in the sequence they were recorded, it's obvious that R has the best sound, even though it's the oldest recording. Each following opera (S, G, W) sounds subtly less natural and more artificial/mechanical-sounding.
Decca ought to consider reissuing the Solti "Ring" in an SACD-only, stereo-only edition with R on one disk and W, S, G on two each. (Think of that -- the entire Ring on 7 disks!)
The recent release of the Keilberth "Ring" sheds some light on the issue of recording quality. Though the Keilberth was recorded by Decca at least two years before work started on the Solti "Ring", some reviewers have indicated a preference for its sound -- it was a "live", simply miked recording made at Bayreuth. (I haven't heard these recordings, and probably never will -- Testament's price is outrageous.)
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Post by Johnno March 18, 2007 (37 of 54)
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Windsurfer said:
Critics need to be monitored and protests lodged when they write non-sense. In my opinion, they need to be reminded that what may appear an unappealing release in rbcd, can in mch SACD, prove breathtaking. It is apparent that a lot of SACDs have been reviewed in Gramophone solely as rbcds. They need to know that SACD mch sound is capable of coming so close to making you feel you are actually there, that it is in itself astonishing, and puts small differences in performance in the shade!
Well put, and something I agree entirely with. I have recently read the Ivan Fischer Mahler Resurrection" review in "Hi-Fi News" ands the recording does not get the **top** recommendation. I must assume that the critic doesn't have an SACD player as such and listens only to the RBCD layers when hybrid SACDs are reviewed. How else could he not rave about that recording, either in plain stereo or multichannel?
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Post by Johnno March 18, 2007 (38 of 54)
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GrizzledGeezer said:
Decca ought to consider reissuing the Solti "Ring" in an SACD-only, stereo-only edition with R on one disk and W, S, G on two. (Think of that -- the entire Ring on 7 disks!)
YES, PLEASE!
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Post by Johnno March 18, 2007 (39 of 54)
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I know all the following has been said many times before but I believe it is worth repeating. The one thing that really concerns me about the future of any sort of digital format that one can hold in one's hands -- and that's the Internet. It seems that the majority of young people have no interest in sound quality as such and are perfectly happy to download MP3 files at almost criminally low bit transfer rates, while magazines like "Gramophone" are encouraging downloading from what appears to be an increasing number of outlets, including companies like Linn, which is now offering downloads it claims are the equal of SACD in sound quality (one assumes stereo-only, however -- or are they encoded multichannel?).
This source of musical material is only going to expand as broadband services improve and more people buy computers. We are fighting this -- are we going to win?
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Johnno said:
I know all the following has been said many times before but I believe it is worth repeating. The one thing that really concerns me about the future of any sort of digital format that one can hold in one's hands -- and that's the Internet. It seems that the majority of young people have no interest in sound quality as such and are perfectly happy to download MP3 files at almost criminally low bit transfer rates, while magazines like "Gramophone" are encouraging downloading from what appears to be an increasing number of outlets, including companies like Linn, which is now offering downloads it claims are the equal of SACD in sound quality (one assumes stereo-only, however -- or are they encoded multichannel?).
This source of musical material is only going to expand as broadband services improve and more people buy computers. We are fighting this -- are we going to win?
The Linn downloads are stereo only (at present - I know that they are actively seeking a way to allow MCH as well).
However, the stereo download is approximately 1GB worth of data - even on corporate-level bandwidth this would take some time to receive the files. For the same reason, downloads of film/TV at anything approaching broadcast quality has yet to take off. I'm sure that for "disposable" consuming (i.e. soaps, "teen" pop etc.) this route will become viable once download speeds approach 100Mb or so; whether this ever becomes appealing for collectors remains to be seen. For the foreseeable future this is not a realistic proposition.
For some reason on Linn's site the stereo-only hi-resolution layer costs about 35% more than the physical product (despite no actual shipping costs, booklets to be printed, discs to be pressed or cases bought - I know that hosting costs but there must be savings to offset this) that contains three layers! If that doesn't put people off, then I don't know what will...
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