Modern Recorded Sound

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Culshaw and Legge were great producers, but they had the good fortune to find great engineers, notably Gordon Parry, James Lock, Kenneth Wilkinson, Christopher Parker, Douglas Larter and others.

This is, of course true, but in Decca's case, those supervised by John Culshaw are generally better than those with a diferent producer. The Britten operas are a good indicator of this.
Since those heady days, Decca's sound has maintained (and even enhanced) its clarity, but it has sounded increasingly 2-dimensional as time has progressed. On Monday, I was playing CDs of Britten's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" to my son. He was staggered when I told him it was recorded in 1966.

[Petrushka]

Some good posts here and glad I'm not alone in this. Of course, not all modern recordings are bad. Tonight I listened to another new disc: Beethoven 9 with Mariss Jansons and the BRSO recorded live in Rome in 2007. This is a thrillingly realistic sound picture, you feel you can reach out and touch the performers! Every strand of the texture is audible in a believable slightly resonant acoustic. Full marks to the engineers on this one. Jurowski's Planets on the LPO label is another superb modern recording.

I was expecting much more from the Gergiev recording of DSCH 11. The opening of the score is quiet, yes, but those all important timpani taps need to be heard. After several minutes of dead silence I checked to see if my speakers were still working. I'd nominate this as the worst recorded sound of 2010.

[PJPJ]

Ferret, congratulations to you on your fiftieth! A definitive history of the early stereo era would be very welcome, as would be reprints of Culshaw's books, especially "Putting the Record Straight". Surely there's a market for that.

[Bryn]

I recently bought Abaddo's Mahler 3 (Berlin Phil) & long stretches are in effect silent - I've listened to it on two different systems & on my MP3 player.

If by that you mean the 11 October 1999 'live' recording with Anna Larsson, I find myself wondering whether you might have spent too much time close to the speaker towers at rock concerts. Perhaps it's another Berlin Phil/Abbado recording you are referring to?

[Petrushka]

If by that you mean the 11 October 1999 'live' recording with Anna Larsson, I find myself wondering whether you might have spent too much time close to the speaker towers at rock concerts. Perhaps it's another Berlin Phil/Abbado recording you are referring to?

I suspect it could be the VPO recording. The posthorn solo sounds practically inaudible and may well have been outside the building for all we can hear of him.

[Bryn]

I suspect it could be the VPO recording. The posthorn solo sounds practically inaudible and may well have been outside the building for all we can hear of him.

In which case, not exactly a modern recording. I remember that, with less than appropriate singing style from Norman, in the LP era.

[Flosshilde]

If by that you mean the 11 October 1999 'live' recording with Anna Larsson, I find myself wondering whether you might have spent too much time close to the speaker towers at rock concerts. Perhaps it's another Berlin Phil/Abbado recording you are referring to?

No, definitely this one - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mahler-Symph...3823939&sr=1-1

& I never went to rock concerts, so that's not the cause of my tinnitus, & the latter isn't the cause of the inaudble stretches. I've heard the symphony live (in the Usher Hall this year) & while there are very quiet passages I c ould hear them. They were also audible on the radio.

I've subsequently bought a recording by Bernstein - I've not liostened to it yet; it'll be interesting to hear how tyhey compare.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

...& I never went to rock concerts, so that's not the cause of my tinnitus, & the latter isn't the cause of the inaudble stretches.

As an aside, even loud and intense classical music can bring on ear-strain and tinnitus. Playing the oboe in Sibelius 5 with the brass behind me was a nightmare. I use carefully chosen earplugs now.

[Bryn]

No, definitely this one - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mahler-Symph...3823939&sr=1-1

& I never went to rock concerts, so that's not the cause of my tinnitus, & the latter isn't the cause of the inaudble stretches. I've heard the symphony live (in the Usher Hall this year) & while there are very quiet passages I c ould hear them. They were also audible on the radio.

I've subsequently bought a recording by Bernstein - I've not liostened to it yet; it'll be interesting to hear how tyhey compare.

In which case it is clearly a problem related not to the recording, but to your aural perception. That BBC/DGG recording made at an RFH concert on 11 October 1999 has no silent passages, not even between movements. It does have its weaknesses though, for instance the way one can hear the fader being brought up to give greater prominence to the oboe just after the start of the third movement, but that's the sort of thing to be expected occasionally with a concert recording.

As with the 'problem' of more realistic dynamic range offered by DAB, the solution for those with hearing difficulties lies, I hold, with the application of dynamic compression at the reproduction end of the chain, not with reduce dynamic range for the recorded media.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Dynamic range is part of the music and recording engineers have strived to reproduce this faithfully - never easy in the days of LPs. Yet the late Trevor Harvey had a real bee-in-his-bonnet about what he called excessive dynamic range.

You can't please everyone. The Karajan Aida has already been mentioned as a problem recording, but others have found the dynamic range quite breathtaking.

Bose sound systems deliberately reduce the dynamic range, which some people, including Frau Alpensinfonie, find attractive. However, give me the Karajan Aida range of sound any time.

[Mahlerei]

There's no way one is going to recreate the Festival Hall in one's listening room, although there are plenty of die-hard audiophiles who think that is what we should aim for. Surely good engineers seek to convey the depth/scale of the performance in a way that seems most realistic/involving? The Karajan Aida and other discs mentioned here actually destroy that illusion because it's almost impossible to find a comfortable listening level.

Don't get me wrong, I'm just as averse to compression, which is also liable to kill a good performance. Listening to some high-res downloads from the early days of stereo is instructive. The dynamics are extremely wide, yet still comfortable, and there's a wonderful sense of unfettered energy in these recordings. Also, the aural illusion is enhanced by creating good perspectives - front to back and left to right. I've noticed how Fuga's Mika Koivusalo has managed to create a deep, wide soundstage for his organ recordings. Yes, the dynamics are impressive, but it's the extra spatial information that really helps to create the illusion of 'being there'

[Gordon]

As with the 'problem' of more realistic dynamic range offered by DAB, the solution for those with hearing difficulties lies, I hold, with the application of dynamic compression at the reproduction end of the chain, not with reduce dynamic range for the recorded media.

I fully agree - DAB has a very wide dynamic range capability and also has the means for the receiver to adjust it but no-one seems to implement the facility to enable this. Try your own DAB Radio and look for the DRC control - see if it has OFF, "half" and "full" as my Pure and a Grundig and a Roberts have - but none of them seem to do anything at all! It's possibly the case that it isn't switched on in the transmission. I have never understood why car radios don't universally have dynamic range control - it would be trivially easy to provide - even though Optimods are applied to FM. It's probably because classical music isn't considered by car radio designers, they assume it's highly compressed pop music that will be the main source.

Modern digital recording offers engineers a much greater dynamic range than analogue. Then it was necesary for the balance engineer to use his ears, experience and common sense to capture a realistic sound balance for domestic listening by judicious intervention. I don't think they bother any more which is more "correct" but leads to discomfort in a domestic setting. Perhaps we need Optimods in the mastering suite!!?? Better still a DR control in the playback equipment but it will never happen.

[Bryn]

It's not an ideal solution but back in the days of VCRs and Musicassettes I used sometimes to pass the signal from my vinyl discs through a VCR to make use of its AGC circuitry when preparing cassettes for playback in the car. As I say, not ideal, but it did tame the dynamics to a range more compatible with I.C.E. The same method could be used in preparing CD-Rs, I suppose, but I rarely listen to music while driving the car these days. Indeed, so rarely do I use the car I am considering selling it.

[Flosshilde]

give me the Karajan Aida range of sound any time.

Except that the 'Karajan Aida sound' ranges from the inaudible to too loud, in a domestic listening situation. It might work in the concert hall/opera house, but, as I've said before, what sounds wonderful live can sound less good on a record.

Bryn, I really don't think it's my hearing - I don't have similar problems with most recordings.

[Basil]

I don't think anyone has mentioned loudspeakers and the part they play in this yet.

So many only sound balanced when played at a very high volume.

Of all the speakers I've heard, Harbeth seem to solve the problem. I've had a pair for a couple of years now, one of the first things I noticed was all the CDs I'd written off as poor recordings due to what seemed to be excessive dynamic range, were now fine!