What download have you bought?

[mathias broucek]

Am overwhelmed with excitement!

Celibidache and the Munich Phil in 24/96 hi res on the MPO's own label. Dvorak 9 and Schubert 8. The Dvorak is NOT the same as the one put out previously on video

Given that Celi had such an ear for detail this could be quite something!

Here's hoping they release the mythical Celi Daphnis Suite 2 with the MPO, unofficial copies of which go for very silly money

http://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/schubert-symphony-no-8-unfinished-dvorak-symphony-no-9-from-the-new-world-sergiu-celibidache/0793052112400

[HighlandDougie]

Alexandra Evrard's stereo remaster of the Vegh 1954 Bartok Cycle for Praga Digitals is....astounding. It sounds like Bartok's Bartok, at once radical and definitive; the Quartet is spaciously set in a lively acoustic, with a remarkable (well, scarcely believable) range of tonal colour and dynamics for its date (well, for any date, really).
No opulence here, no "beauty of tone"; no "stunning precision of ensemble" or rhythmic acuity; nothing of the circus about it.
Just - the music speaking as plainly and intensely as it can through the vessel of the Vegh Quartet. If I can make sense of the over-excited scrawl of my notes I'll try to say more later, but - I'm only up to No.4 and it's already my Album of the Year. A landmark and - A Listening Event.

(Thanks to Bryn once again for highlighting this.... it has revitalised my listening year.)

Although I've cheated by buying the CDs, I'm with Jayne on how good this issue is in terms of performance (hors concours, almost, given the provenance of SV and colleagues - and the fact that the recordings were made less than 10 years after BB's death) and sound - how has Mme Evrard done it? I'm about the same age as the recordings so I'd like to sign up to be remastered too, if this is the result. I'm not giving up on the Heaths - I like reflective Bartok from time to time - but the 5th Quartet (a great personal favourite) in the Vegh Quartet's hands and as remastered is - well, you have to hear it.

[Bryn]

I got the Scribendum box in February, it is very good, but this new Praga set of the Bartok Quartets claims to be "Genuine Stereo". How, I do not know. The implication is that the master tapes were multi-track, but in 1954? These were Columbia recordings made in London. Surely Warner would have had the nous to re-issue them in stereo if the spacial information was there? I will find out soon enough, I suppose.

[Just a minor point re. the Scribendum box, the metadata can be somewhat unreliable. On the final disc, (Bartok 2, 4 and 6), the 6th gets labelled in the metadata on the disc as the number 5 but with only 4 movements. ]

The delayed Praga double album arrived this mornng. It too suffers from listing errors. Though correct in the main listing inside the booklet, on backs of both the booklet and the jewel case insert the2nd quartet apparently has four movements, the 4th three, and the 6th four. So far so bad, but it gets worse. On those back listings only 11 tracks are admitted to on the second CD, which actually had the required 12. Despite this, the correct overall playing time for each quartet is given. If these are not from more than a single channel master, the stereo 'reconstruction' is very well done. I would love to know more about Ms. Evrard's "Genuine Stereo Lab" techniques but there is no information about them that I can find on the Internet.

[Listening now on headphones, I reckon the source for these 'transfers' was mono. There is no clear spacial separation of the four instruments.]

[[See also: http://www.sa-cd.net/showthread/34698/100247 ]]

[jayne lee wilson]

The Praga note says: “This new edition is restarting from the initial stereo tapes”. Despite the linguistic awkwardness it would be rank dishonesty if they are in fact mono-derived.

Listening to No.2 again just now, whilst the stereo isn’t pin-point, I felt there was enough spatially distinct location of the 4 instruments, across a fairly wide spread (which sounds to me too wide to be processed mono), from just within the speaker plane across the soundstage, to place 1st Violin and Cello clearly left and right, with 2nd Violin and Viola centre-left/right, and with a lovely ambient blend of instruments as they come in together. In the 2nd movement there are passages with just one, then two instruments playing; and where 1st Violin and cello pay different music from the viola/2nd, and here I was still happy with the stereo separation/blend; the "overlapping" of the players seemed natural given the usual seating. Good depth too.
The general impression from the cycle is that the Quartet can sound quite narrowly positioned at first, but expands into a lively acoustic space as the levels rise.

Quite a few quartet recordings exhibit this kind of ambient positioning, allowing the room reflections to add to the body of sound, rather than separating the instruments too much; a quality of sound I much prefer in small groups. Some of MDG’s Leipzig Quartet simply-miked recordings have a similar sound, warm and ambient. Yes, the stereo separation is clearer on those, but with this Bartok we are listening to very early stereo - at least it sounds like “genuine stereo” to me.
Trying the BnF mono issues via Qubuz HiFi, the mono in No.2 is pretty narrow - a point source really, not as wide-mono as some. Little depth & sharper treble. Good presence & dynamics, but very obviously distinct from the new one.

***

It is a shame the note to the new Praga release didn’t go into more detail, about why the stereo tapings were never previously released. Was it the more-audible than usual tape noise/echo (most obvious in No.3) that put them off?
….So I just compared them and, sure enough, that low-frequency resonance audible on the Praga Digitals stereo No.3 (eg. after the climax at 1’15, CD1/ track 4) is absent from the BnF mono. Strongly suggesting a genuinely different source.
What about the Scribendum issue?

[Bryn]

As I mentioned, it was when I listened on headphones that the likelihood of a mono source became clear. The old Duophonic process often gave the impression of high strings to left of centre, low strings to the right. Things have moved on a lot since the simple frequency filtering, plate reverb and phase shifting tricks. Do you really think that Praga/AMC Paris would be able to get their hands on precious Warner unreleased stereo master tapes without full acknowledgement to that company by name? The nearest they get is to cite the original releases on Columbia/Angel LPs and then, without any specific mention of copyright, simply announce publication by AMC Paris in 2016. What I hear, especially via headphones, is carefully digitally engineered artificial 'stereo'. When I listen to the 1944 Gieseking/Rother 'Emperor' I hear real stereo separation. That was a decade before these Vègh recordings.

[Bryn]

In relation to the 1954 Végh recordings, I have now written to Praga Digitals seeking elucidation regarding their use of the phrases "GENUINE STEREO LAB", "studio first stereo recordings" and "initial stereo tapes", all three of which appear decidedly equivocal to me. I await their response, if any.

[jayne lee wilson]

In relation to the 1954 Végh recordings, I have now written to Praga Digitals seeking elucidation regarding their use of the phrases "GENUINE STEREO LAB", "studio first stereo recordings" and "initial stereo tapes", all three of which appear decidedly equivocal to me. I await their response, if any.

Great minds... I did the very same a few days ago, using their website contact form and the pragadigitals@wanadoo.fr address. No response as yet (early Saturday)....

Note though, that "GENUINE STEREO LAB" is used on Praga Digitals for quite a few recordings which were stereo to start with... it really does seem to be just a name, "a rose by any other name"....
Howsoever sweet, or not....
e.g. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Serenades-B...PRAGA+DIGITALS

http://www.pragadigitals.com/epages/265941.sf/en_US/?ObjectPath=/Shops/265941/Categories

I tried to find an email address for Alexandra Evrard.... without success.

[cloughie]

Great minds... I did the very same a few days ago, using their website contact form and the pragadigitals@wanadoo.fr address. No response as yet (early Saturday)....

Note though, that "GENUINE STEREO LAB" is used on Praga Digitals for quite a few recordings which were stereo to start with... it really does seem to be just a name, "a rose by any other name"....
Howsoever sweet, or not....
e.g. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Serenades-B...PRAGA+DIGITALS

http://www.pragadigitals.com/epages/265941.sf/en_US/?ObjectPath=/Shops/265941/Categories

I tried to find an email address for Alexandra Evrard.... without success.

Praga seem to get their recordings from a variety of sources, both obscure and major labels. Are their products superior to the originals?

[mahlerei]

Flux – Original Works for Saxophone Quartet
Jean-Baptiste SINGELÉE
Grand Quatuor concertant, Op. 79
Gabriel PIERNÉ
Introduction et variations sur une ronde populaire
Eugène BOZZA
Andante et scherzo
Guillermo LAGO
Cíudades (Cities)
Hugo REINHART
Quartet in F minor
Guillermo LAGO
The Wordsworth Poems
Will GREGORY
Hoe Down
Ferio Saxophone Quartet – Huw Wiggin (soprano sax). Ellie McMurray (alto sax),
José Bañuls (tenor sax), Shevaughan Beere (baritone sax)
Rec. February 2017, Church of St Silas the Martyr, Kentish Town
CHANDOS CHAN10987

A musical and sonic treat. Quite possibly one of my recordings of the year...

A 24/96 Studio Master from:

https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%2010987

[mahlerei]

Praga seem to get their recordings from a variety of sources, both obscure and major labels. Are their products superior to the originals?

I've been wary of Praga Digitals in the past - and I still am - but to my ears at least their remastering of Monteux's Daphnis sounds superior to the various Decca outings. Quite exceptional, actually.

[HighlandDougie]

Great minds... I did the very same a few days ago, using their website contact form and the pragadigitals@wanadoo.fr address. No response as yet (early Saturday)....

Note though, that "GENUINE STEREO LAB" is used on Praga Digitals for quite a few recordings which were stereo to start with... it really does seem to be just a name, "a rose by any other name"....
Howsoever sweet, or not....
e.g. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Serenades-B...PRAGA+DIGITALS

http://www.pragadigitals.com/epages/265941.sf/en_US/?ObjectPath=/Shops/265941/Categories

I tried to find an email address for Alexandra Evrard.... without success.

This month's edition of 'Diapason' has a review of the Praga Digitals issue of Balakirev's 1st and 2nd Symphonies (Philharmonia/HvK; Moscow RSO/Rozhdestvensky), of which the cover has 'Genuine Stereo Lab' emblazoned on the cover. The reviewer, while recognising that the HvK 1st is musically superb, is a bit sniffy ('not convinced') about the sound, which, to paraphrase, is reprocessed mono in which the 'spatialisation' and the added ambience make it sound artificial - and a good deal less satisfactory than the 2014 Warners remastering (for the HvK complete edition). So, for those of a certain age, the spectre of Decca Eclipse 'Stereo' arises - sometimes genuine stereo but, rather too often, 'Electronically Reprocessed Stereo', about which I seem to remember Bryn railing against in a post of yore. That being said, Praga, from what I've heard (the Bartok Vegh, some Fricsay, some Richter) clearly do take care with their remastering, although their use of the word "Genuine" is a bit naughty.

[jayne lee wilson]

At least that GENUINE STEREO LAB Balakirev issue says "remastered from original monaural and stereo tapes" on the back of the CD.
According to your French review it seems to be similar to Pristine's "AMBIENT STEREO" which while often producing very good results, actually sounds like....ambient mono.
(I sometimes preferred the straight mono when I compared them...)

Very enjoyable but you wouldn't mistake it for stereo itself, would you? Possibly the same with that Balakirev (nowhere online to try out that I can find...).
The trouble with the Praga Vegh Bartok is their claim that it is "remastered from studio first stereo recordings"; the lack of specifics about those sources; and lack of evidence - historical obscurity of them if you search.

It is pretty convincing as stereo (often strikingly so - just listening again to the allegretto pizzicato of No.4 & Burletta of No.6) and the studio acoustic spaciousness sounds very natural (not like Ambient Mono at all).... so if it had been produced from the mono tapes the implications (for future possibilities) would be faintly worrying to say the least.
But admittedly, the longer we go on without reply to our enquiries the worse it looks. Hopefully Rob Cowan will cover it in Replay soon for another view.... did the BBC MM (May issue, I think, brief quote on Presto) have anything to say about it technically?

Incidentally, what about the pre-echo I mentioned, often audible on the Praga set (see #319 above, e.g. also No.6 Burletta 4.45 - 5.00)? Has anyone heard it in other transfers like Scribendum or Music & Arts? It's definitely not on the very good mono BnF issues streamed on Qobuz, which are very present & well resolved. There's often more surface/background noise on those though.

[retroman]

You can't create directional information from a mono source. Period. What can be achieved is summed up in the (I think) Electrola banner "Breitklang" - literally "wide sound" - there are spreaders which place selected frequency bands to right or left of centre, and of course a wash of stereo reverb adds to the impression, but real stereo it ain't and never will be. Some add L-R phase shift, which is a recipe for disaster.

There was one Eclipse issue which met the label requirement for stereo spread without compromising the mono - it had the output of an echo plate fed to the difference channel only, so pressing the mono button restored the unadulterated original. Clever...

[Bryn]

At least that GENUINE STEREO LAB Balakirev issue says "remastered from original monaural and stereo tapes" on the back of the CD.
According to your French review it seems to be similar to Pristine's "AMBIENT STEREO" which while often producing very good results, actually sounds like....ambient mono.
(I sometimes preferred the straight mono when I compared them...)

Very enjoyable but you wouldn't mistake it for stereo itself, would you? Possibly the same with that Balakirev (nowhere online to try out that I can find...).
The trouble with the Praga Vegh Bartok is their claim that it is "remastered from studio first stereo recordings"; the lack of specifics about those sources; and lack of evidence - historical obscurity of them if you search.

It is pretty convincing as stereo (often strikingly so - just listening again to the allegretto pizzicato of No.4 & Burletta of No.6) and the studio acoustic spaciousness sounds very natural (not like Ambient Mono at all).... so if it had been produced from the mono tapes the implications (for future possibilities) would be faintly worrying to say the least.
But admittedly, the longer we go on without reply to our enquiries the worse it looks. Hopefully Rob Cowan will cover it in Replay soon for another view.... did the BBC MM (May issue, I think, brief quote on Presto) have anything to say about it technically?

Incidentally, what about the pre-echo I mentioned, often audible on the Praga set (see #319 above, e.g. also No.6 Burletta 4.45 - 5.00)? Has anyone heard it in other transfers like Scribendum or Music & Arts? It's definitely not on the very good mono BnF issues streamed on Qobuz, which are very present & well resolved. There's often more surface/background noise on those though.

This afternoon I got a much delayed reply to my email to Praga Digitals regardiong the provenance of the "Genuine Stereo Lab!" transfers of the 1956 Vegh Bartok Quartets.

I quote it in full, bar the name of the sender:

Sorry for the delay.
We have only taken back the stereo tape. The original LPs, Columbia UK,
has always hidden that these SAX 1245, 1267, 1285, had a stereo
counterpart that had to be exploited by Angel US.
If you listen our CDs, you will realize that this can not be a
"stereophonization".
We always work as serious professional and not like M..&A.. with this
f....reissue of 2005....

I find the dig at Music & Arts curious. As to the Pre-echo mentioned by jlw, I guess that could simply be print-through. What is the periodicity, and does it change from occurrence to occurrence? It could also be an artefact of 'stereo' processing from mono. I am tied up with rather a lot of recording and editing are the moment so can't devote the time to check. When I look at the waveforms of the 2 channels, I just find my aural suspicions reinforced. Ah well, I still enjoy listening to them, whether originating from stereo masters recorded in parallel with the released mono or not. No stereo version was ever released on Angel US, that's for sure.

[jayne lee wilson]

Well apart from being miffed that they haven't replied to me, this is some news indeed.... Bryn - if you could pm me the sender's name I could try them again... if you don't want to, well OK. I'll just send my earlier one again (for the third time...)....

If you recall, I compared the Praga one with the Qobuz BNF mono ones and there was no sign of print-through on those whilst tape noise was if anything slightly more obvious (see quote above...)....

Looks like someone else is getting in on the act now....

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-String-Quartets-Beethoven-Bartók/dp/B073SM545D/ref=sr_1_2?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1502402563&sr=1-2&keywords=bartok+vegh