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Question for classical lovers

First of all, I grew up listening to classical and jazz, vinyl for the most part, I remember it being pleasant with no fatigue. Later, with low end gear, it was impossible to listen to classical CDs because of the edgy harsh strings. Now with respectible entry level or mid-fi gear that I have tried or auditioned, some of the recordings sound great but majority still suck. I have added tube preamps like AI modulus and Van Alstine in the chain but the problem still exists. So are the majority of CDs just bad digital recordings or transfers or is most gear out there just incapable of handling complex musical passages? Also, quite a few SACDs out there make me and my dog cringe!(must be the 100Khz response or whatever) Do I sell one of my cars and buy some exotic gear or ditch it all and get a TT?
rotarius

Showing 2 responses by rushton

rushton's avatar
rushton
2,445 posts
 
Rotarius, you've posed an issue I've resolved for myself by staying firmly with LPs in my classical music collection. At the same time, I have a number of audio friends who derive great pleasure from classical music via CD, such as Audigon members Texasdave and Trcnetmsncom.

Here are a few classical CD suggestions for you to try that I know can sound good with well-tuned digital front end (there are certainly others):

Rutter, Requiem, Reference Recordings 57
Bax, Symphony No. 6 or No. 7, David Lloyd-Jones on Naxos
Tchaikovsky, Violin Concerto, Wallenstein/LSO with Perlman on Chesky

None of these have the ease and naturalness of sound that I hear from a comparable LP on a decent turntable setup, but all have quite reasonable string tone. If they don't work for you, then either some work on your audio system is needed, or, like me and Albert Porter, you may just need to shift back to a turntable. ;-)

Vvrinc, glad some of the music suggestions have resonated well with you!
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rushton's avatar
rushton
2,445 posts
 
Rotarius, thanks for the summary of your equipment and room. I am a serious tube-aholic, but I'm not going to suggest you need to switch to a tube amp. While I'm not familiar with your particular Rotel amp, the Rotel gear I've heard has always sounded competent to me, not plagued by serious issues in the top end, and with adequately designed power supplies to meet most reasonable demands.

Instead, what I would encourage you to check first are your connections given your experience with the center pin locking RCAs. If you haven't done so, give all your connections a thorough cleaning (isoprophyl alcohol with cotton swabs is very effective, and a cleaner like "Kontak" is even more effective) and then apply a good contact enhancer (such as Caig's Pro Gold, or even better would be Walker Audio's SST or Extreme SST) as you re-connect everything. I'm consistently amazed at how much of a difference clean, tight contacts make in system performance, particularly with the high frequencies.

And then, it just may be that you need to join many of us by switching to a tube amp (and adding a turntable!) to reclaim what you once so enjoyed about classical music and the beauty and delicacy of great string tone. Good luck!
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