Post by wolf359 June 9, 2009 (601 of 4131)
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bissie said:
No, no, no!
Not for BIS!!
SACD, perhaps, but not BIS.
We would be vastly better off, financially speaking, if we gave SACD up!
Robert
Robert
I was of course making the mistake that in line with all of the other companies your sales of standard Cd's were down because of such factors as downloads, credit crunch and the general downturn in trade. If BIS is able to continue and be profitable into future with or without SACD (preferably with it of course) I would of course be delighted. It shows that one should never assume anything in advance. All I ask is don't give up on SACD because a few on this site disagree with you. You will of course have realised that passion often overules logic. As I have stated in the past I would much rather have a PCM SACD rather than none. If DSD believers choose to miss out on the recordings you produce simply because they are not DSD they are more foolish than wise in my opinion.
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wolf359 said:
If DSD believers choose to miss out on the recordings you produce simply because they are not DSD they are more foolish than wise in my opinion.
today most cd players employ delta-sigma DACs for 'pcm' playback so it's not about pcm vs DSD at all.
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Post by krisjan June 9, 2009 (603 of 4131)
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hanser said:
As a follow up I would like to discuss why BIS has deviated from their minimalist miking in the past which I liked very much and have developped a tendency to spotmiking. Do not get me wrong, Robert, I still like your recordings, but they do not have anymore the special BIS touch I loved. EG the recording of the original version of the Sibelius Violin concerto: I never heard a more realistic sounding perspektive of single violin with a large orchestra with the violin perfectly integrated and occasionally even almost buried by the orchestral forces, just like in a real concert situation. I don´t think such a recording would be made today by BIS any more.
YES! I was thinking of starting another thread on this very topic using BIS an the example. I think some of BIS's most excellent recordings are the ones done with two mics on analog tape. I'm thinking of the Brahms piano trios that were done in analog with two mics. This recording remains one of my demonstration CD's due to is naturalness of timbres and soundstaging. Over the years, BIS has added more and more microphones and I think that has been detrimental to the final result. Still the recordings are very good but I think they could be better with judicious placement of as few mics as possible rather than more. Of course, with multichannel, a few more mics are needed to capture the hall ambience but for those of us who still do two-channel, minimal micing is preferred.
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Agreed. It's not about PCM vs DSD at all.
It's about hi-rez vs 44.1 kHz. And being future-compatible ...
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Post by HDtracks June 9, 2009 (605 of 4131)
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Concerning the issue of HDtracks selling BIS content at 88.2/24 and the content of our high resolution store in general, all hi-res content on HDtracks is native hi-res.
We have conversion charts posted on our welcome page for our hi-res store. HDtracks receives files in 88/24, 96/24, 176/24, 192/24 and DSD (SACD). All DSD files must be converted to PCM because the web does not support DSD (SACD).
HDtracks has done extensive listening tests to find the best way to convert there formats. We believe that in double blind listening tests on the best equipment one cannot tell the native file from the HDtracks files.
The HDtracks Team
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Post by bissie June 9, 2009 (606 of 4131)
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HDtracks said:
Concerning the issue of HDtracks selling BIS content at 88.2/24 and the content of our high resolution store in general, all hi-res content on HDtracks is native hi-res.
We have conversion charts posted on our welcome page for our hi-res store. HDtracks receives files in 88/24, 96/24, 176/24, 192/24 and DSD (SACD). All DSD files must be converted to PCM because the web does not support DSD (SACD).
HDtracks has done extensive listening tests to find the best way to convert there formats. We believe that in double blind listening tests on the best equipment one cannot tell the native file from the HDtracks files.
The HDtracks Team
Hi, HDtracks,
before anyone else tells you, let me do it.
We do record most of our SACD:s in 44,1/24.
We delivered physical SACD:s to you, (Edit: via our contact person in the US) which were, of course, upsampled to DSD.
You reconverted them to 88,2/24 and, if I understand correctly, charge a premium for them as against 44,1/24.
This shouldn't be.
Very best - Robert (von Bahr, CEO, BIS Records).
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Post by bissie June 9, 2009 (607 of 4131)
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Can I bump post 586 on page 59?
I think it got drowned in the new avalanche of posts.
Thanks - Robert
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In case anyone is wondering what brought about the above 3 posts ...
I was browsing the HDTracks site a short time ago, and was surprised to notice that HDTracks were still selling BIS recordings in their hi-rez 96 kHz store ... 3 weeks after this issue erupted here. So, I popped off an email to HDTracks, asking them to clarify the matter.
I got back a response almost immediately ... they appeared to be completely unaware of the matter.
To their credit, they acted immediately to fix the matter up ... literally within about 20 minutes of my emailing them ...
Here is their reply ...
===========================================================
Thank you for your email and pointing this out to us. We take this matter very seriously and we have removed the BIS catalog from our hi-res store while we get to the bottom of this. In our negotiations with our label partners, for hi-res content, we have asked that they provide us with native hi-res content only. We have made it clear that we only want native hi-res files and nothing else, nothing upsampled and we trusted our partners to provide us with this. Unfortunately, thanks to you and the others on the SA-CD.net forum, it has been brought to our attention that it appears that this is not the case.
We are currently in the process of contacting our label partners to reconfirm that what they have sent us is in fact native hi-res. If we find out that they are not, they will be taken off of our hi-res section of the site immediately. Please be assured that HDtracks would not and will not intentionally sell anything in the hi-res store that is not native hi-res.
Again, thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Sincerely,
The HDtracks Team
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Post by bissie June 9, 2009 (609 of 4131)
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canonical said:
In case anyone is wondering what brought about the above 3 posts ...
I was browsing the HDTracks site a short time ago, and was surprised to notice that HDTracks were still selling BIS recordings in their hi-rez 96 kHz store ... 3 weeks after this issue erupted here. So, I popped off an email to HDTracks, asking them to clarify the matter.
I got back a response almost immediately ... they appeared to be completely unaware of the matter.
To their credit, they acted immediately to fix the matter up ... literally within about 20 minutes of my emailing them ...
Here is their reply ...
===========================================================
Thank you for your email and pointing this out to us. We take this matter very seriously and we have removed the BIS catalog from our hi-res store while we get to the bottom of this. In our negotiations with our label partners, for hi-res content, we have asked that they provide us with native hi-res content only. We have made it clear that we only want native hi-res files and nothing else, nothing upsampled and we trusted our partners to provide us with this. Unfortunately, thanks to you and the others on the SA-CD.net forum, it has been brought to our attention that it appears that this is not the case.
We are currently in the process of contacting our label partners to reconfirm that what they have sent us is in fact native hi-res. If we find out that they are not, they will be taken off of our hi-res section of the site immediately. Please be assured that HDtracks would not and will not intentionally sell anything in the hi-res store that is not native hi-res.
Again, thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Sincerely,
The HDtracks Team
If they were unaware of the matter, they must have stopped reading emails.
Immediately when this question was raised, I contacted our representative in the US (who negotiated the deal) and told her to please inform HDtracks immediately that they are selling 44,1 as 88,2. She said she did, twice. We have no direct contact whatsoever with HDtracks or any other DSP - for that we use an intermediary company.
Since 44,1/24 still is considered Hires I don't see any other problems.
Thanks, canonical, for helping to sort this out.
Robert
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Post by Chris June 9, 2009 (610 of 4131)
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krisjan said:
YES! I was thinking of starting another thread on this very topic using BIS an the example. I think some of BIS's most excellent recordings are the ones done with two mics on analog tape. I'm thinking of the Brahms piano trios that were done in analog with two mics. This recording remains one of my demonstration CD's due to is naturalness of timbres and soundstaging. Over the years, BIS has added more and more microphones and I think that has been detrimental to the final result. Still the recordings are very good but I think they could be better with judicious placement of as few mics as possible rather than more. Of course, with multichannel, a few more mics are needed to capture the hall ambience but for those of us who still do two-channel, minimal micing is preferred.
Yes indeed,
I have already said that I can´t always hear the difference between a pure DSD and a PCM recording on my home equipment.
Nor have I ever had the chance to really compare the formats at actual recording sessions .
And right now I have to admit that one of my favourite recordings on SACD is the very good Resphighi disc on MDG which was recorded in the year 2000 in what may very well have been 24/41khz?
But the music, the playing and the recording are all truly wonderful and there is lots of "air" around the instruments and I can clearly hear that the orchestra is playing in a real coherent acoustic.
But,I have maybe too often for some of you posting here,said that IMHO the more mikes you employ the more difficult it will become to arrive at a really natural realistic recording.
Since these threads started I have listened to many of my BIS recordings and there is no doubt to me that most of them are up there with the very, very best both musically and as recordings.
For my taste among the very best ones are also the simply miked ones released as DMM LPs.
An interesting example would be a comparison between some of several diffent recordings BIS has made in the glorious acoustic of the Concerthall in Gothenburg,and for my subjective taste it is hard to beat the sound captured by 5 mikes! and an analogue tape recorder in 1981 by Mikael Bergek .
Järvi conducting Tubin at a live concert.
State of the Art 1981 IMHO.
I haven´t got the foggiest idea what the CD sounds like, and I don´t think there will ever be an SACD ?
But my mint condition LP is still absolutely stunning!
Maybe not quite the dynamic range of modern digital,but the natural timbre of the orchestra and the glorious acoustic of the world famous Concerthall captured close to perfection.
I have also again listened to some of the Tchaikovsky recordings from Gothenburg especially number 2 where I was present at the sessions and got to hear both live sound mike feed and can now listen to it on SACD.
Again ,in spite of a bit too many mikes IMHO.
Very,very good, very realistic, and in most repects State of the Art again.
And I dont´find them bad at all musically.
But today I heard for the first time Crusell´s clarinet concertos also recorded in the same hall with the same orchestra.
Though with another recording engineer.
My first impression was ok very close but not bad .
But the longer I listened the more disappointed I became .
Although musically brilliant as always from Fröst,the miking is so close that everything is definitely clearly audible, everything very ,very upfront to say the least.
And what has happened to the glorious acoustic so brilliantly captured on all my other BIS recordings from the same venue????
Almost totally absent.
I have no idea how many mikes the recording engineer Mattias Spitzbarth used.
But to me this recording sounds almost like a dry, lifeless, studio pop recording with one mike on every instrument!
There is no way I could have heard that this disc was recorded in Gothenburg´s world famous concert hall!!!
Luckily this recording is an exeception at least in my BIS collection.
But it sure makes me a bit worried.
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