Accuracy of replay in CDEs and LPs

Mike

You are starting an argument with someone who agrees with you (George) - so that was controversial!

Jim

Bugger....I can't help myself....you are absolutely and totally wrong! A classic case of the musical expert loving "perfect sound forever" it seems.

Jim

The topic is really more complex for me, as the bulk of new classical recordings are released on CD. It makes perfect sense. It's how I ended up with so many LPs.

Specifically what I hear is a more accurate articulation and the full range of overtones on Red Book CDs.

CD mastering technology for classical music has been improving are refining itself for over two decades. Some of the music recently released that demonstrates these qualities is astounding.

For example, the Boulez/Vienna DGG 2008 of Mahler Symphony No. 2 reproduces a beautiful string tone, and a clarity in the winds I have never heard before.

But the winner this year for me is Angela Hewitt playing Bach's Well Tempered Clavier on Hyperion, the 2008 recordings. I have spent a few months with these, and I am still finding new joys in this performance. I can truly say that listening to them has expanded and enriched my musical horizons.

As if that wasn't enough, the recording is a milestone. If I may digress for a moment. My wife has tuned and rebuilt pianos for the past 30 years, and we have attended a number of national conventions. At these conventions, the piano makers display their instruments.

These instruments are tuned to such a level. I have never heard a purer octave. The first time I heard a Fazioli, it made me wheel around and walk back, to give it a proper listen. It was so translucent :-)

That sound has stuck with me.

By coincidence, Hewitt plays her Bach on a Fazioli, a 10'8" Grand. This recording has that sound to both our satisfactions.

This is a first for us.

Only available on CD. So, heard on a CD.

Dear Mike,

As I am sure you know, I never have felt that vinyl long player records were more than the best that could be offered in a world that had abandoned the supreme quality of the short sided 78 rpm direct cut recording, which naturally kept the listener busy turning records over, but actually was demonstrably better than anything on vinyl and recorded on tape, even if the shelac was noisy in commercial releases.

The master parts reveal a quality not equalled until digital recording at last restored musicality to commercial releases [at least on CD].

I still find it quite staggering that people should somehow imagine that LPs are some how superior to CDs if the concern is music rather than ritual in replay.

Here is a link to a thread in the Hifi corner wher from page four onwards I explain the simple issues that seem to me pertinent.

ATB from George

http://forums.naim-audio.com/e...385/m/5012943627/p/4

Mike...I'm not sure that the whole cd or lp question is really that valid in reality.

If the question is if cd (played on a 555) is superior to an lp (played on a top spec TT), then it would (possibly) shine a little torch into a dark corner. BUT, in reality (in most folks systems) replay will not be equivalent.

In my home, I've never met anybody who prefers cd (played on my Rega) to vinyl (played on my LP12)...it's night and day. In my system vinyl is more enjoyable...but some way. No doubt if you went around to somebody with a Rega 2 and a 555, then the results would be different.

I've not listened to anywhere near the amount of kit some folk on here have, but I've not yet heard cd sound as good as vinyl on my LP12*.


*the cd being in a compact disc player of some description.

Mat,

I guess my main point is that the music I want to hear is on CD, and that automatically disposes me favorably toward that medium.

Both CD and LP are distortions after-the-fact. But they are completely unique from each other.
You have to adjust to a whole different scale of defects when you switch from LP to CD. It is not intuitive to look back to the original performance for a reference point, when responding to such differences.

If the listener focuses his attention on articulation, pitch and meter, relative to the live sound of that instrument, with CD I believe the careful listener will find vast improvement in the CD over the LP.

Even if that is simply an aspect of personal preference, it is inescapable reality that I must remain favorably inclined to CD, as that is where my music resides ...

The recordings i cited in this thread, the Mahler (corr. 2006) and the Hewitt (corr. 2009) , I think represent a fundamental step closer to perfection than any recordings I have heard before.

I guess there is that as well Mike...in certain parameters, one may outperform the other in most instances. In your example cd seems to win the day. But there are other things to listen to, so again preference comes into it.

There's a leftfield element as well. Cd's on my system do not tend to make the hairs on my arms stand up (and my Rega Apollo is a lovely little player), but on vinyl (with the same material) they do. No idea why...and others agree (especially the hirsute).

Availability of music is probably the most decisive thing, as you point out. It concerns me that the time may come when I can't buy a physical medium (a cd or lp) at that time...I wonder if I'll lose touch with new music? I'd suspect I will...if that day ever comes (and I'm not convinced).

I have grave misgivings about downloading my music. With the physical object (CD/LP) I have complete control, and can pass them down to my daughters.

I don't think this new digital revolution is for me. I am of a different time.

The music that I do have and love on LP is always enjoyed when it is played.

It is a complex issue.

For me, if I am able to focus all of my attention on the music itself, by which I mean the articulation, pitch, meter, dynamics, and all the other components of phrasing, then an astounding transformation takes place. The composer and performer conjure the living spirit of the composer, and he looks into your eyes! Time becomes a material presence, shimmering and pulsating with all the rhythms of life itself.

If some stray thought passes your mind, the spell is broken, communion is interrupted.

I have had this reaction to both LPs and CDs, but lately more frequently on CD. In the last 6 years, the quality of that experience has increased sharply. That kind of advance is not being made on classical LPs.

Well I enjoy both CD and LP replay.

I understand the proposition that a lot of modern recordings are only available on CD and have no problem with this argument in favor of CD. I would point out that the reverse is also true. I have quite a lot of Jazz recordings on original LP that are NOT available on CD which means for my musical choices there are equally occasions when LP is the only current source of the music I seek.

I find my preference is to LP listening perhaps because a lot of what I listen to is analog all the way...no digital in the process and it is simply editted which are factors that outweigh for me the purity discussion that has been started in favor of CD. On these old analog recordings from the 50's & 60's, which BTW have excellent recording quality, hardly any serious multitracking or splicing in of the 'best bits' from multiple attempts to produce THE performance occur. Note that I say hardly because I recognise there were relatively small edits. For Jazz recordings for example they often did another whole take and the improvisations were new each time. I have some 'alternate take' recordings which amply demonstrate the freshness of each improvisation in the takes.

I recently bought a new CD which included a DVD showing the artist and the mastering engineer in front of a computer proudly picking individual bits of multiple digital recording files and putting them together to create the CD I had just listened to. All terribly antiseptic and disheartening as we move further away from spontenaiety which actually includes the warts and all of a live perfromance.

I would also like to pick a couple of George's quotes from the earlier disussion he bookmarked

quote:

...and also precision previously impossible in respect of pitch and one soon sees just how inadequate the LP was as a medium....

quote:

The great thing about a digital restoration is that the issue of absolute pitch accuracy, stability is addressed and so therefore is timing and rhythmic accuracy ... And if the restored master is issued in a digital form this restoration of the original pitch and rhythmic aspect of the performance may be appreciated as the original artists intended, rather than merely accepted was the best that could be achieved in the analogue media and its replay

. I see that this is obvious correct thinking for pure digital processing but I think for a lot of the remastered works on CD it is dangerous to assume the original tapes had perfect pitch in the first place. I have yet to come across a tape recorder that revolves with absolute pitch over time.

Certainly now it is better since modern electronic control techniques can give near perfect pitch control to electric motors ( the TW one I use is claimed to control speed at the the Nanosecond level)which means that TT's can ahve darn near perfect pitch which to my insensitive non musicians ears sounds on tune all the time.

As an interesting aside I have a pretty recent issue CD version of tha most (in)famous Jazz recording 'Kind of Blue' which has the following liner note. "If you happen to be a musician you may have already noticed a problem when you tried to play along with earler versions of this recording. Three tunes are in the wrong key because the original recording was done at the wrong speed. This is the first remaster to correct those errors and present the pieces 'in tune'"....so basically the remastering engineers bllthly went on merrily not noticing that the original recording was not done at the correct speed. I guess they would not be worrying about absolute pitch accuracy.

Finally on a recent visit to the 2nd hand record racks I came across this gem of a Box Set:



Thw EMI CD reissue is currently selling for approxm 35 Euros. I paid 5 Euros for what is in fact a pristine set of 8 LP sides with an excellent clarity and depth. Actually I also picked up LPs of:

Trevor Pinnock & the English Concert - playing Handel's 12 Concerti Grossi
Rubenstein- playing Chopin
Richter - playing Tschaikowsky
Annie Fischer - playing Mozart
Pollini - playing Chopin
I Musici -playing Vivaldi

The total cost for what are all excellent condition LPs was 25 Euros in other words 2 box sets and 5 single LPs for less than what the CD of just one of the above would cost me.

Considering the high level of musical enjoyment I get from LP in spite of its apparent faults AND the amount of money I save which retirement has made important I am happy to take advantage of LP replay.

regards
geoff

Yes Geoff, your habits as a collector have a lot to do with how you end up using your sources.

For me, I am trying to collect the music I love from each decade of my life, which keeps the focus on new performances and recordings.

That in effect chooses CD for me.

Still, I wouldn't want to be without my LPs.

Every decade counts.

I left out an important point that I want to re-emphasize. I think some classical CDs are being miked and mixed in a manner totally superior to anything that came before them, right now.

The Boulez/Mahler and Hewitt/Bach being two good examples.

Since this thread is not going anywhere, I thought I might sum up my thinking, then let the river take this thread downstream.

CDs have superior (i.e. more so than LPs) resolution of articulation, pitch, meter and dynamics when done well. I primarily collect new classical recordings, which tend to be available on CD and not LP.

Finally, some new classical CDs are the best classical recordings ever made for any replay medium.

As always, others results may vary.