BaL 1.04.23 - Rachmaninov: Symphonic Dances

[Master Jacques]

Same here. I recall the time when I had the best equipment I could almost afford for the reproduction of my beloved collection of LPs. But all I seemed to hear were the faults: mistracking due to surface/stylus dirt, static electricity, recording overmodulation, background hiss, etc. On the other hand, listening to Radio 3 never seemed to cause any distress, even through indifferent equipment. This obsession largely evaporated on 1.03.1983, when I bought my first CD and player, though doubts still persisted when listening to early DG discs.
Over time, I’ve become increasingly aware that the difference between sound systems is really quite small: very low bit-rates are easily identified as inadequate, but the higher you go, the less significant the differences become.
Expensive cables? The tooth fairy?

Of course, there are differences between different audio platforms/equipment/software, but not enough to seriously alter one’s appreciation of a performance. I spent a large amount of money before realising this.

A post which should be written up in tablets of gold. Spot on, sir!

[Ein Heldenleben]

Same here. I recall the time when I had the best equipment I could almost afford for the reproduction of my beloved collection of LPs. But all I seemed to hear were the faults: mistracking due to surface/stylus dirt, static electricity, recording overmodulation, background hiss, etc. On the other hand, listening to Radio 3 never seemed to cause any distress, even through indifferent equipment. This obsession largely evaporated on 1.03.1983, when I bought my first CD and player, though doubts still persisted when listening to early DG discs.
Over time, I’ve become increasingly aware that the difference between sound systems is really quite small: very low bit-rates are easily identified as inadequate, but the higher you go, the less significant the differences become.
Expensive cables? The tooth fairy?

Of course, there are differences between different audio platforms/equipment/software, but not enough to seriously alter one’s appreciation of a performance. I spent a large amount of money before realising this.

Of course one of the reasons that CD’s sound good on radio 3 is that they have (or used to have ) top of the range CD players and amplifiers (sound desks ) that lie way beyond the price range of hifi buffs. My big problem with modern hifi is build quality . My fifty year old speakers and tuner amp are still working fine , the twenty year old cd and cassette player are all missing buttons. The other problem is finding speakers that aren’t over bright.
As with wine there’s a sweet spot where big increases in price bring only marginal increase in quality . Though for some that sweet spot lies in the £10,000 range (hifi not wine )

[RobP]

Many thanks for the link to the HDTT blog page. The excerpt from the Horenstein Fairfield Halls Mahler 3rd has made for an interesting listen. Your comment about, "far more space and better instrumental ... timbres", might equally apply. Mightily impressed with what has been achieved so far. I put some occasional oddities of balance down to the original 4 track recording. Wonderfully 'natural' sounding. Truly a labour of love but well worth it. Much looking forward to the complete release.

Yes it should be tremendous, the editing of the very large number of takes has been extremely time-consuming I am told. You mention natural sounding and that is the key with DSD, although the excerpt on the HDTT website is obviously lower-res PCM. There are several excellent introductory articles on why DSD is so good on the NativeDSD website.

Certainly the Channel Classics - as they were then - DSD512 of Fedorova playing (for want of a better term) Chopin is startlingly good.

Sorry if i sound evangelical about DSD, but there is a tangible difference in quality, which even DXD can't equal.

[jayne lee wilson]

Yes it should be tremendous, the editing of the very large number of takes has been extremely time-consuming I am told. You mention natural sounding and that is the key with DSD, although the excerpt on the HDTT website is obviously lower-res PCM. There are several excellent introductory articles on why DSD is so good on the NativeDSD website.

Certainly the Channel Classics - as they were then - DSD512 of Fedorova playing (for want of a better term) Chopin is startlingly good.

Sorry if i sound evangelical about DSD, but there is a tangible difference in quality, which even DXD can't equal.

As I said in my #100, you cannot describe 24/96 as "lower-res" PCM; it is a very widely used hi-res standard for recording and streaming or selling music.
It is difficult to compare the processing chains of DSD and PCM, but 24/96 comes in around DSD 64 - again, hardly lower resolution. "Lower rate" should surely be reserved to apply to lossy codecs, as CD itself is capable of very refined resolutions of detail, acoustic spaces and dynamics etc. Not to mention the fact that a 1963 mastertape (of whatever mysterious 2nd or 3rd generation provenance...) may not have much UHF content to benefit from hi-res sampling rates, though of course remastering can improve the sound in other ways.

So again I feel any perceived differences in digital processing and their audible outcomes is more due to the individual design of the processors, DACS and ADCs; power supplies, output stages....
But above all, in how the rest of the system deals with all that; there are obvious differences in how SACD/CD players or streamers present the various recorded balances. (I enjoy CD processed through the DSD conversion, but not exclusively; all is relative and I remain eclectic). If you use ATC or Harbeth Monitors you'll usually hear more of the recording than if you sit before large, corner Klipschorns, however hedonistically immersive the latter experience may be.

Anyway, I've just received a rare 2ndhand CD of the P-Jarvi Symphonic Dances, and very glorious and highly resolved it sounds; so that's next up. After which, I think I need a break from Rachmaninov! Sibelius, to cleanse the musical palette....(P-Jarvi in Paris - yes, off of CD a serendipitous rediscovery due to this thread.......)..

[jayne lee wilson]

Of course one of the reasons that CD’s sound good on radio 3 is that they have (or used to have ) top of the range CD players and amplifiers (sound desks ) that lie way beyond the price range of hifi buffs. My big problem with modern hifi is build quality . My fifty year old speakers and tuner amp are still working fine , the twenty year old cd and cassette player are all missing buttons. The other problem is finding speakers that aren’t over bright.
As with wine there’s a sweet spot where big increases in price bring only marginal increase in quality . Though for some that sweet spot lies in the £10,000 range (hifi not wine )

Well, CD Players and especially Cassette Decks (a box of wheels...) do have more moving parts and buttons, so tend to need the servicing occasionally. But my customised Marantz CD63 MKII KISig (1998/modded 2005) is doing fine after 25 years....
Good overbuild is still out there with newer designs, but you have to look a little harder for it now.

Bright speakers? Take a look at Harbeths or Spendor, or the recent revival of BBC LS designs, like this one....

https://www.hifinews.com/content/rogers-ls59-classic-se-loudspeaker

They might get you to where you want to go....

[RobP]

As I said in my #100, you cannot describe 24/96 as "lower-res" PCM; it is a very widely used hi-res standard for recording and streaming or selling music.
It is difficult to compare the processing chains of DSD and PCM, but 24/96 comes in around DSD 64 - again, hardly lower resolution. "Lower rate" should surely be reserved to apply to lossy codecs, as CD itself is capable of very refined resolutions of detail, acoustic spaces and dynamics etc. Not to mention the fact that a 1963 mastertape (of whatever mysterious 2nd or 3rd generation provenance...) may not have much UHF content to benefit from hi-res sampling rates, though of course remastering can improve the sound in other ways.

So again I feel any perceived differences in digital processing and their audible outcomes is more due to the individual design of the processors, DACS and ADCs; power supplies, output stages....
But above all, in how the rest of the system deals with all that; there are obvious differences in how SACD/CD players or streamers present the various recorded balances. (I enjoy CD processed through the DSD conversion, but not exclusively; all is relative and I remain eclectic). If you use ATC or Harbeth Monitors you'll usually hear more of the recording than if you sit before large, corner Klipschorns, however hedonistically immersive the latter experience may be.

Anyway, I've just received a rare 2ndhand CD of the P-Jarvi Symphonic Dances, and very glorious and highly resolved it sounds; so that's next up. After which, I think I need a break from Rachmaninov! Sibelius, to cleanse the musical palette....(P-Jarvi in Paris - yes, off of CD a serendipitous rediscovery due to this thread.......)..

Lol. So much of what you have said I would disagree with, but we are never going to agree on this, so I'll leave you to your silver discs - I find they make excellent drinks coasters:-)))) - and PCM.

[Bryn]

Lol. So much of what you have said I would disagree with, but we are never going to agree on this, so I'll leave you to your silver discs - I find they make excellent drinks coasters:-)))) - and PCM.

https://producerhive.com/ask-the-hive/does-dsd-sound-better-than-pcm/

So there seems to be something of a hint of snake oil to DSD.

[richardfinegold]

I had missed the audiophile discussion that broke ot in this thread. So a few observations:
1) Keep in mind that we are arguing over asymptotically vanishing levels of performance. 24/96 PCM, DSD, all can sound amazingly good and while the differences from 16/44 Red Book are clearly audible, the differences between the two higher resolution formats are more subtle.
2) I prefer DSD simply because it is a tick more natural, and I have had several DSD discs, primarily chamber music, where if I close my eyes I really do think the performers are in the room with me. I think the difference narrows on Orchestral recordings. For example, I have yet to hear anything that can improve on the Nelsons/Boston SO Shostakovich in high res PCM. Having sat in that hall, I can tell you that is what it is like to be there. However, not all PCM is that distinguished. If I picked 100 DSD vs 100 high res PCM orchestral discs at random, I am sure that I would give the nod to DSD the majority of the time.
3) I have bought several HDTT recently. They are all an improvement over the standard red book fare, primarily in hall ambience and space between the instruments. Are they revelatory? Can’t say they are, and probably won’t buy another until the Horenstein M3 is released

[richardfinegold]

https://producerhive.com/ask-the-hiv...tter-than-pcm/

So there seems to be something of a hint of snake oil to DSD.

Please, the snake oil resides with the vinyl obsessives

[Bryn]

Please, the snake oil resides with the vinyl obsessives

There's more than one group of snake oil salesmen out there, but yes, the vinyl junkies have fallen hook, line and sinker for one such group's wares.

[RobP]

There's more than one group of snake oil salesmen out there, but yes, the vinyl junkies have fallen hook, line and sinker for one such group's wares.

What you're saying here is that you believe there are listeners out there who don't know what they are listening to and have been duped. However if you speak to vinyl lovers - and having over 10,000 LPs that includes me - they might point out that when CDs were launched the sound quality was so bad that in fact large numbers of music-lovers were conned into buying them etc. by brilliant marketing.

I certainly have severe reservations about early pre hi-res download digital sound, but I'm not going to turn my back on Kovacevich playing Schubert etc, because of the sound-quality and there aren't huge numbers of vinyl only purchasers out there. Vinyl sales have rocketed, but apparently only 50% of buyers have a turntable!!

With regard to DSD, a small number of people buy downloads - and the number interested in very hi-res is very limited - but I have spoken to numerous audiophiles and most prefer DSD, because it is more natural and - as another contributor mentions above - there is more space etc. None of these people have been conned into this belief, they have listened to different formats and come to this conclusion.

To put this into perspective. On May 5 Pentatone will release an album of music for tenor and guitar, Broken Branches, by Karim Sulayman and Sean Shibe, which was recorded in 24/192. The sound in this format is superb in terms of presence, projection, internal and external balance and certainly more alive than in 16/44.1 CD quality. The last work on the album is Britten's Songs from the Chinese, which was written for Pears and Bream, who the great recording engineer Ken Wilkinson recorded in 1963 for Decca on behalf of RCA, in the Library of Kenwood House, London and a straightforward comparison with a first label Decca pressing shows very clearly that the LP has even more natural timbres than the 24/192 and a wow-factor that draws you into the performance.

If you then go to 840, a recital of 20th century guitar music by Enno Voorhorst, recorded in unedited DSD256, by Tom Peeters for Cobra, on the DSD512 download, the guitar sound has the same wow-quality as the vinyl and yes if you go to the PCM downloads, which are still superb, that quality isn't quite there.

Therefore all I would suggest is that talking about snake-oil doesn't add anything to the debate.

[Nick Armstrong]

Kondrashin and Svetlanov are essential listening but.....

...now it would be....
Paavo Järvi
and
Orchestre de Paris
For Me!

It really is stunning, get a listen anyway you can.... I hope Marina F-W considers it as she usually does a good job, and writes well and wittily for Gramophone too...

Rarely can a result have been so accurately predicted! Any ideas about the Grand National, jayne?

I heard this BaL earlier - can’t really understand some of the negativity here about MF-W’s survey. A good listen, and it deepened my appreciation of a work I’ve always placed high up in Rachmaninov’s output.

A quick search suggested that this hasn’t yet featured in this thread: the recording she referred to, of SR playing and singing large parts of the piece to Ormandy:

[vinteuil]

A quick search suggested that this hasn’t yet featured in this thread: the recording she referred to, of SR playing and singing large parts of the piece to Ormandy:

... is this the one referred to by RobP at #79 supra (et various seqq)-

Just saw this. Marston released an astonishing 3CD set of Rachmaninov playing the Dances for friends, recorded, probably covertly, at Ormandy's home, coupled with Mitropoulos' version of the work and other works conducted by Stokowski and Ormandy etc.. Once heard you will never hear the work in the same way again and it's hardly surprising so many rate him the 20th century's greatest pianist, this is piano playing off the scale.

.

https://www.marstonrecords.com/products/rachmaninoff

https://www.amazon.com/Rachmaninoff-Plays-Symphonic-Dances-Discovered/dp/B07HGHG4GX

.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

However if you speak to vinyl lovers - and having over 10,000 LPs that includes me - they might point out that when CDs were launched the sound quality was so bad that in fact large numbers of music-lovers were conned into buying them etc. by brilliant marketing.

That simply isn’t true. I started collecting CDs on the day they were launched in Europe and most of that first batch of CDs were very fine indeed. Some of the DG ones weren’t up to the mark - Franck: Symphony in D minor (Bernstein) & Strauss: Eine Alpensinfonie (Karajan) - in terms of audio quality, but that was the same on the LP transfers too.
Meanwhile, some detractors at the time suggested that taping the CDs resulted in a “friendlier” sound - meaning people liked what they were used to: a degraded sound, complete with hiss and distortion.

[gradus]

That simply isn’t true. I started collecting CDs on the day they were launched in Europe and most of that first batch of CDs were very fine indeed. Some of the DG ones weren’t up to the mark - Franck: Symphony in D minor (Bernstein) & Strauss: Eine Alpensinfonie (Karajan) - in terms of audio quality, but that was the same on the LP transfers too.
Meanwhile, some detractors at the time suggested that taping the CDs resulted in a “friendlier” sound - meaning people liked what they were used to: a degraded sound, complete with hiss and distortion.

What I welcomed with CD was the silent background when the music demanded it, something rarely if ever achieved for long on LP despite the Dust Bug, Parastat and other Cecil Watts inventions. Similarly tracking highly modulated grooves as the pickup neared the centre of the disc could produce sounds even less pleasant than digital glare as physics asserted itself over engineering. Of course vinyl could occasionally sound terrific but I wouldn't go back to it.