Do you enjoy older or old recordings?

[gradus]

Jayne, I'm interested in the equipment that you listen on/through as your reports often refer to refinements in recorded sound that I should like to try to share. It seems that you mostly listen to modern recordings as downloads on quite exotic gear but it is only my impression. I should add that I get lost fairly easily when the technicalities or even the function of things like DACs are discussed. I suppose I'm really asking what a discerning listener discerns with.

[Alain Maréchal]

I haven't heard the 3rd yet, but I can't imagine I'll be disappointed, or anyone being disappointed in this release.

Well Jayne, I will accept your recommendation. I hope Vanska "increases the tension and excitement" in the finale of the third as well - only Akeo Watanabe in a radio broadcast has ever achieved this for me, driving it possibly a fraction too hard. As you can tell, I value performance over sound, and that answers Dave2002's opening question - yes, certainly.

[Dave2002]

Reverting to older recordings, I did enjoy listening to Grumiaux's performance of Brahms' violin concerto with Van Beinum and the Concertgebouw from the Regis box set earlier on. If the volume is turned up a bit, it does come to life, and I think the performance is well worth hearing. There is quite a bit of low frequency noise though on the CD. I seriously wonder if this could be improved by ripping it, and then running a suitable filter over the data file, then making a new CD from that. The performance would certainly justify that. Grumiaux did it again later, in September 1971, with Colin Davis - and perhaps surprisingly, the Philharmonia - a version which has for a long time been some people's favourite. That might be better as a recording, and a few small blemishes from the Concertgebouw might not be matched by similar ones in the later version.

[pastoralguy]

Got them yesterday. fascinating musically and remarkable 'stereo", though Ive only listened to disc 1. A labour of love!

Alas, mine haven't arrived yet and Presto are saying they are out of stock and it may take 6 weeks for them to arrive!

[Lordgeous]

Alas, mine haven't arrived yet and Presto are saying they are out of stock and it may take 6 weeks for them to arrive!

Rarewaves.com ltd

[jayne lee wilson]

Jayne, I'm interested in the equipment that you listen on/through as your reports often refer to refinements in recorded sound that I should like to try to share. It seems that you mostly listen to modern recordings as downloads on quite exotic gear but it is only my impression. I should add that I get lost fairly easily when the technicalities or even the function of things like DACs are discussed. I suppose I'm really asking what a discerning listener discerns with.

It would be well worth getting hold of the HiFINews issues for August and September 2016, as they include a two-part very clearly written Computer Audio guide (by Andrew Everard), which might answer many of your mysteries about downloads/Dacs etc. 9/2016 is still in the newsagents and may be enough on its own. Recent back issues can be tricky to get hold of so try their orderline 0344-243-9023 and ask them about it...
Computer Audio gets easier by the year & any good dealer should be able to set everything up for you... you won't have to go through all my late night frustrations of 5 or 6 years ago!

My USB download replay is off a 2014 Macbook Pro running either Audirvana+ (good to look at, simple to use) or JRiver (many more technical functions e.g. fie conversion, spectrum analysis etc, worth the effort if you want that). Both look nicer, sound better and work a lot better than iTunes, cost you $50 or so...to purify & clarify the sound I have the widely available Audioquest jitterbugs on the Mac outputs, and a more esoteric Uptone Regen on the DAC input. The Kimber b-bus USB cable is the link from Mac to Dac. (It may be better to have a dedicated server e.g. MacMini etc., but this set-up gives me very good results, so for now I'm sticking with it...)

http://uptoneaudio.com/products/usb-regen

http://www.audioquest.com/jitterbug/jitterbug

...always try to get accessories on an SOR trial basis!

My own main system hasn't changed much in the last few years: Krell 300CD or (customised) Marantz CD63 Mk 2 KI-Signature as transports (both from the 1990s, CD only, not universal or SACD); T&A DAC 8 (2012); ATC SCA2 PRE-AMP/SPA2-15O POWER AMP; Harbeth C7 ES-Mk2 Speakers (I think these are up to mk.3 now). (Most of these were obtained as 2ndhand or ex-dem.)
Amps and speakers are actual studio monitors or derived from such, the point being to give a very truthful audition of any given recording (The T&A Dac has the same design philosophy). In practice this means simply that you hear the difference between recordings/webcasts very easily, warts-and-all - though you still have to try to describe them accurately of course!

Everything comes back to your price range and what functions you want... ATC and many others now do one-box players with CD, streaming, USB playback etc., so you could seek out their website & have a look.

Please do pm me if you have any other questions...

[mikealdren]

In practice this means simply that you hear the difference between recordings/webcasts very easily, warts-and-all!

I think this probably explains why PG's older recordings sound better on his back bedroom system, I find the same, my main setup in the living room sounds magnificent with good modern recordings but ruthlessly exposes poorer ones, my adequate system in my office is much more tolerant.

Mike

[cloughie]

Just seen this thread and I think there are really good performances and recordings from the 50s and 60s but the problem arises with transfers. The really great box is the big Decca 'orange' mono box which has many recordings which sound far better than I remember them way back in the 60s when Ace Of Clubs was one of my affordable labels of choice. The difference in sound possibly down to better, though not top of the range or surper sophisticated equipment I have now. Dave's comments about Regis are relevant as some are notoriously badly transferred and probably from dubious masters.

[Dave2002]

Just seen this thread and I think there are really good performances and recordings from the 50s and 60s but the problem arises with transfers. The really great box is the big Decca 'orange' mono box which has many recordings which sound far better than I remember them way back in the 60s when Ace Of Clubs was one of my affordable labels of choice. The difference in sound possibly down to better, though not top of the range or surper sophisticated equipment I have now. Dave's comments about Regis are relevant as some are notoriously badly transferred and probably from dubious masters.

I'm never quite sure whether Regis get things wrong, or used what you call "dubious" masters. I don't see why if they have properly licensed masters, or indeed own the masters, why that should be a problem, and if they are trying to sell works which are still in copyright then without ownership or agreed licensing they would be breaking the law in most countries round here.

Of course it is unlikely that many companies will have digital masters from before 1970, so remastering of analogue material would either have to be off the original tapes (most likely) or a copy - possibly digital - provided by one of the owners or by an agreed arrangement with a licensee. Some companies may also have access to multiple tracks, so can rebalance the overall mix - but this is less likely to apply to early material, both because of rights and access issues, but also because recordings of the time may have gone relatively quickly down to a 2 channel mix and intermediate material may have been discarded. Some of the Decca remasterings over the years were done with great care, apparently, taking the tape apart, and remaking all the joins, and now Decca/Universal have presumably achived digital masters of most of the significant analogue originals.

Some remastering companies may start off with a big advantage with good quality source material, but the story probably doesn't end there.

We can perhaps draw a slight analogy with photo and film retouching. Some round here may have played with tools such Photoshop or Lightroom or the open source program GIMP and discovered some of the significant improvements which can be made to photos. Further improvements can be made with relative ease using tools such as the NIK collection - now a free collection originally from Google costing £95 or so - https://www.google.com/nikcollection/ or for very specific problems in photos - WireWorm - a PhotoShop plugin - http://wire-worm.en.softonic.com/. Tools such as WireWorm do not aim to alter photos to increase realism, but rather to remove features which are a visual distraction. Returning to audio, an accurate audio recording may include the sounds of aircraft overhead, or traffic noise, or tube trains passing by (realistic!), but some may prefer to have any such extraneous noises removed or at least minimised. Recording isn't, perhaps, always to achieve the most realistic reproduced sound.

To some extent photo retouching will be subjective, but some may certainly feel that the subjective improvements which can be made are very significant. For audio there is probably quite a lot which can be done by way of modifying the overall effect (hopefully to give an improvement) but to do it well would take time, and probably the music would have to be followed with a score to make sure that any adjustments make musical sense.

[John Wright]

78rpm collectors here will be particularly interested to see this find:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/78rpmclub/permalink/1340651542626577/

[jayne lee wilson]

I think this probably explains why PG's older recordings sound better on his back bedroom system, I find the same, my main setup in the living room sounds magnificent with good modern recordings but ruthlessly exposes poorer ones, my adequate system in my office is much more tolerant.

Mike

Yes, but sometimes it can go the other way - the often very close-set Columbia Stravinsky recordings from the 60s, can be a bit fierce and compressed on many systems I've tried, but they seem to sound better, the more you hear of them...

Don't forget Pristine Audio and their XR remastering - anyone into older classical recordings should sign up and explore the many riches. The technical stuff is interesting (some would say controversial...), though you might want to make the coffee (or something stronger) before you start reading it....

https://www.pristineclassical.com/xr

https://www.pristineclassical.com/ambient-stereo

[cloughie]

I'm never quite sure whether Regis get things wrong, or used what you call "dubious" masters. I don't see why if they have properly licensed masters, or indeed own the masters, why that should be a problem, and if they are trying to sell works which are still in copyright then without ownership or agreed licensing they would be breaking the law in most countries round here.

Of course it is unlikely that many companies will have digital masters from before 1970, so remastering of analogue material would either have to be off the original tapes (most likely) or a copy - possibly digital - provided by one of the owners or by an agreed arrangement with a licensee. Some companies may also have access to multiple tracks, so can rebalance the overall mix - but this is less likely to apply to early material, both because of rights and access issues, but also because recordings of the time may have gone relatively quickly down to a 2 channel mix and intermediate material may have been discarded. Some of the Decca remasterings over the years were done with great care, apparently, taking the tape apart, and remaking all the joins, and now Decca/Universal have presumably achived digital masters of most of the significant analogue originals.

Some remastering companies may start off with a big advantage with good quality source material, but the story probably doesn't end there.

We can perhaps draw a slight analogy with photo and film retouching. Some round here may have played with tools such Photoshop or Lightroom or the open source program GIMP and discovered some of the significant improvements which can be made to photos. Further improvements can be made with relative ease using tools such as the NIK collection - now a free collection originally from Google costing £95 or so - https://www.google.com/nikcollection/ or for very specific problems in photos - WireWorm - a PhotoShop plugin - http://wire-worm.en.softonic.com/. Tools such as WireWorm do not aim to alter photos to increase realism, but rather to remove features which are a visual distraction. Returning to audio, an accurate audio recording may include the sounds of aircraft overhead, or traffic noise, or tube trains passing by (realistic!), but some may prefer to have any such extraneous noises removed or at least minimised. Recording isn't, perhaps, always to achieve the most realistic reproduced sound.

To some extent photo retouching will be subjective, but some may certainly feel that the subjective improvements which can be made are very significant. For audio there is probably quite a lot which can be done by way of modifying the overall effect (hopefully to give an improvement) but to do it well would take time, and probably the music would have to be followed with a score to make sure that any adjustments make musical sense.

Also Regis may be use copy from vinyl with out of copyright recordings. The early Kempff recordings of Beethoven Sonatas seem to suffer very bad reports.

[pastoralguy]

Rarewaves.com ltd

Thanks for that but
I 'phoned Presto to confirm it would be a late delivery and they offered me a refund so I could buy it elsewhere sooner. However, I decided to remain loyal to a company that have been very helpful in the past.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Thanks for that but
I 'phoned Presto to confirm it would be a late delivery and they offered me a refund so I could buy it elsewhere sooner. However, I decided to remain loyal to a company that have been very helpful in the past.

[gradus]

Jayne
Many thanks for your response up-thread. I'll get the HFN articles and bone-up on digital. Unfortunately our Internet connection speed seems to vary from barely adequate to bad and dropouts/buffering occurs when streaming R3 so I think hi-res downloads are impossible for the time being until BT gets its act together in these parts. The Harbeth speakers look interesting and a little easier to house than my current Quad 63's, I'm still in the Quad era amp-wise too!