Post by canonical February 23, 2012 (11 of 30)
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bissie said:
1) If the disc SOUNDS good, then surely that should be enough reason to buy it, regardless of how it has been recorded. So why this TOTAL emphasis on numbers rather than actual sound? The proof of the pudding lies in the eating, not the packaging.
The problem with the Chandos Reich disc is that it sounds murky. Yes - the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Sometimes the ingredients are off.
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Post by seth February 23, 2012 (12 of 30)
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I have the SACD; think it sounds wonderful in surround; no regrets on buying it, nor do I feel duped.
For those that care, there is nothing in the liner notes that list any of the recording equipment -- they just printed all the names of people involved in the recording as well as the dates and locations.
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Post by canonical February 23, 2012 (13 of 30)
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bissie said:
> 2) Since Ralph Couzens of Chandos does not enter into these discussions (perhaps a very good idea - my participation some time back nearly drove me out of my little mind), ...
I think BIS has done very well out of that process. You now have some great new proper hi-rez recordings that sound superb, a whole new business model where you can offer recordings at different resolutions/prices ... that is perfectly suited to the modern world, and you are ahead of the curve rather than behind. You have shifted your whole company into the 21st C. Nothing to complain about :)
P.S. Listening right now to the yummy ...
Beethoven: String Trios Op. 9 - Trio Zimmermann
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Post by Iain February 23, 2012 (14 of 30)
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seth said:
I have the SACD; think it sounds wonderful in surround; no regrets on buying it, nor do I feel duped.
For those that care, there is nothing in the liner notes that list any of the recording equipment -- they just printed all the names of people involved in the recording as well as the dates and locations.
+1
I received my copy of Reich SA-CD yesterday. I listened to a few tracks of it last night and can honestly say, I'm impressed.
Wonderful performance and great sound.
Canonical, perhaps something is wrong with your sound system if as you say, "SA-CD sounds murky".
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Post by Nagraboy February 23, 2012 (15 of 30)
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bissie said:
To Nagraboy, two comments:
1) If the disc SOUNDS good, then surely that should be enough reason to buy it, regardless of how it has been recorded. So why this TOTAL emphasis on numbers rather than actual sound? The proof of the pudding lies in the eating, not the packaging.
2) Since Ralph Couzens of Chandos does not enter into these discussions (perhaps a very good idea - my participation some time back nearly drove me out of my little mind), let me tell you the following:
We send each other hard drives with our recordings to be sold at our respective sites. We sent him a backlog of some 200 "hi-res" products, out of which he mercilessly scrapped anything for his shop that was recorded in 24/44,1, regardless if they sounded fantastically. This shows Ralph Couzens to be very, very careful with what he actually does sell. From that I infer that there is absolutely no way that he would have tried to pull a fast one with the Reich. N-O W-A-Y.
Hi Robert,
I agree with you, in essence. As I stated, I think the Chandos disc I own sounds very good, very natural and emotionally communicative. I do believe this is what counts when it comes down to actually enjoying your listening time.
I was not suggesting that we had been duped, merely that it raises the question. It's reassuring to hear what high standards Chandos have regarding HD content. It's certainly borne-out in the Elgar violin concerto's recording quality.
I've never been involved in the BIS thread regarding your label's technology choices, and in fact, I find some people's attitude towards BIS very rude and uncalled for. Your restraint has impressed me in the past in the face of some comments made about BIS. I have several of your SACDs plus the Suzuki Well-Tempered Klavier II on RBCD and have enjoyed most of them - particularly the Suzuki which is RB!
The DSD issue touches on people's 'obsessiveness' maybe. There's no doubt that a lot of labels recording in DSD, take a lot of care in making their recordings and often produce stunning results - Channel being my favourite example. I still believe that the producer/engineer's skills and many other variables are more important to the final musical enjoyment than whether something is DSD from ADC to SACD and every turn in between. Having said that, pure DSD all the way through would seem to be the ideal. This idealism can affect people in a counter-productive way.
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Post by canonical February 23, 2012 (16 of 30)
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Iain said:
Canonical, perhaps something is wrong with your sound system if as you say, "SA-CD sounds murky".
Curious - do you listen in stereo or MC?
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Post by pacwin February 23, 2012 (17 of 30)
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DSD said:
Pacwin look closer at the page you posted. Chandos offers MP3 and Lossless for the Steve Reich, if you move your mouse over the Question mark you will see it's 16/44.1. If there was a hi-rez download listed there would be another button with the words STUDIO and the bit/frequency rate.
The other link you posted does say it was recorded DSD, it is possible it was and then possibly edited in 44.1k.
>>Pacwin look closer at the page you posted.
Okay fair enough I was being literalistic about it being removed "all together". Periodically some unsophisticated minion does set up dud high resolution files (usually by goofing up filter settings on sample rate converters) on download sites, HD tracks has been bitten by this in the past. The 96/24 plots do look abnormal, I will concede that. If the SACD is as good as people suggest then hopefully they will replace the file and contact their customers for a fresh download. I note the recording was done five years ago and it may be that there were problems with the recorded material?
Based on my experience with the Mytek DAC there is significant sonic loss with DSD->PCM conversion and really the ideal solution is to listen to DSD files natively. That is still on the bloody side of the bleeding edge but looks more promising every day. Hopefully Chandos will join the fray and let their DSD be downloaded as well.
Even more encouraging is that with this resurgence of interest in DSD, very bright signal processing minds are starting to look at native DSD time and frequency room correction or convolution. A software playback tool is expected to allow native DSD level and time delay correction anytime soon (MCh), with frequency correction potentially down the track (its processor intensive which possibly makes it difficult to keep the players hardware passively cooled. It may be possible to harness a systems graphic processor unit to help processing)
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Post by Russell February 23, 2012 (18 of 30)
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Ralph Couzens removed the Reich album from The Classical Shop's hi-res downloads page last year after I ran an Audacity spectrum analysis and sent a copy to him (well, to The Classical Shop, who forwarded my letter to him). The spectrum analysis revealed that the files were brickwalled at around 22kHz. I posted about this experience in the following thread on Computer Audiophile:
http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/HD-music-fft-atlas-reference-thread
Look for my posts starting 6/16/11 in that thread. (Sorry--you'll have to scroll through dozens and dozens of posts to find it.) I reprinted Couzens' reply there as well. The following excerpt is telling:
"Your evidence is indeed worrying and I have instigated an investigation into this. This product was bought in from outside engineers and the understanding was that is was a 24/96 master."
He did the right thing, though, by removing the hi-res file from the site and refunding me the difference between the standard-res and hi-res versions.
BTW, I do think the album sounds good regardless....
Russell
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Post by canonical February 23, 2012 (19 of 30)
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Russell said:
The following excerpt is telling:
"Your evidence is indeed worrying and I have instigated an investigation into this. This product was bought in from outside engineers and the understanding was that is was a 24/96 master."
Actually, this raises 2 interesting issues.
FIRST, if they believed it to be from a " 24/96 master", then why does the SACD box state on its rear cover: "Recorded in DSD" ??
SECOND ... it is not just the Reich disc. For instance, the Weinberg Chandos SACD
Weinberg: Concertos - Svedlund
has a similar brick-walled Audacity plot (I actually think this is one of the better sounding Chandos discs I have, by the way).
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Post by Claude February 24, 2012 (20 of 30)
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I listened to the Reich SACD (in stereo only, with headphones) yesterday, and the sound is problematic indeed, although I don't attribute this to the recording or mastering resolution (I have many CDs that sound better), but to the miking/engineering. The sound is muddy, lacks perspective and transparency. Not a good job by the ORF (Austrian Radio) recording team. This goes for both recording sessions, made at different locations.
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