The new Steely Dan LP reissues are excellent. They just came out with Katy Lied. Aja was so well produced back in the day too. Great test of vocals and instruments on your system.
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@billpete Perhaps not so lucky with this one:
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I didn’t see Steely Dan in concert until they made a comeback with their last couple of albums. They sounded excellent because they had top players that could reproduce the album cuts. That’s supposedly what stopped them from touring in the 70s after they stop being a band and were 2 guys with session musicians. I love their music. Great songs with top musicians well recorded. That’s what it’s all about. |
You definitely have a 1971 or 1972 reissue. Does it say anywhere who it was printed by? Possibly on the inner sleeve. But I am not sure. If it says who it was printed by that will narrow it down. Also does the ILPS9135 on the labels not the cover, have a hyphen ILPS-9135 or just a space ILPS 9135? That will narrow it down. Since it appears that only one issue did not have the hyphen on the labels. I would need the dead wax matrix info in order to pinpoint it. |
@bassbuyer I don't think that many people saw the early Steely Dan concerts since they quit touring very early in their career. I also saw the first tour after they released Two Against Nature in 2000. I saw them at "George at the Gorge" in Washington State. The outside venue sits right on the edge of the gorge that has been carved by the Colombia River. It is near the small town of George, Washington. Located in the south eastern part of Washington State. In the middle of nowhere. They released a live album of that tour. And the cover photo was taken from that show. I have since seen them a number of times. |
Inside the gatefold, at the bottom, says Printed and made by the E I (I think) Day Group, London and Bedford. The ILPS-9135 in hyphenated on the label. In the wax, I can read the same ILPS space 9135 A-3 u. It also says Sterling in very small print as well as RD Sounds like a re-issue? All I can say is, it sounds better than the A&M's. Too bad my 180G has the off-center hole. |
@billpete I believe that you said that it came with a blue inner sleeve. I know how difficult it is to read dead wax. Is there a chance that RD could be LH? The Sterling LH should be stamped not etched. Or can you find LH somewhere? In either case I believe that there is a good chance that this is your pressing. Take a look at the photos carefully and compare them to yours. If you find discrepancies note them and I will look further. https://www.discogs.com/release/1141587-Cat-Stevens-Tea-For-The-Tillerman?redirected=true |
Yes, LH is right by Sterling. I thought I included that before but I guess I forgot. LH and RD look to be stamps. The RD is written sideways and is very faint, halfway out from the label edge. Everything else is written in the same direction as the grooves. Even the stuff that is sometimes hand etched, looks to be stamped as it is so perfect. It is much larger than all the rest and is the same number as the jacket and label with A-3u added. Hope this helps. And yes, the inner sleeve is blue paper with pink lettering. |
@billpete The RD might be someone who was etching it. Who knows? The dead wax matrix catalog is far from complete. There are many variations that have not been recorded. Many times you just have to combine all of the information along with the closest match to the matrix that you can find. The blue inner sleeve was a clue. That is why it is important for you to study the photos and compare them with your album. There can be subtle differences in the covers. Or the labels. Like the missing hyphen on one of the pressings. So click on the link that I sent. Read the information under Notes: Many times they will tell you about little things that you should look for. And click on photo in the upper left hand corner. It will bring up additional photos. Usually at least the front and back cover and both labels. And if it is a gatefold. It will show the inside. Sometimes the inner sleeve. Carefully compare looking for any discrepancies. I think that there is a good chance that the link that I sent is your pressing. But without having the album in my hands. I cannot be sure. The smallest difference could lead me to the right one. Missing printing where there should be printing. Anything. That is, if you even care to know the exact pressing. Otherwise we have it narrowed down to pressings done between 1971 &1972 And as far as the Island pressings sounding better than the A&M. You are far from alone in that opinion. I have read that many many times. There are numerous reasons that that could be the case. Depending on the facility that pressed it. Their equipment may not be maintained as well, or is old. Plus, those production metal pressing plates do have a life span. They do wear out. That is why first releases are sought after. You know that the plates were new. The more pressings the more toll it takes on the plates and the less likely that the pressing will sound as good. The US is a big market. A&M would have had multiple facilities pressing that album. For example, some will prefer a Monarch pressing to a Pittman pressing. All of those factors come into play. However, it is still unclear to me if the solid Pink labels were pressed correctly and the others weren't. I am highly skeptical of that being the case. Simply because those original production plates were being shipped all over the world just as fast as they could produce them. However, I am not familiar with their work flow. They could have produced multiple production tapes from which to make the metal pressing plates. And maybe only some of those tapes were flawed while others weren't. And like I said. Some countries were using solid pink labels at the same time that other countries were using pink rim labels. I must do some research of the difference of a repress and a reissue. Does a reissue use new production plates? Whereas a repress is just another batch of pressings from the same plates? What is the standard for the maximum number of pressings before the plates should be replaced? Is there even a standard in place? Many questions still are unresolved in my mind. If I could get my hands on a solid pink label UK 1st pressing. Then I would be able to tell within the first song. However, I don't have the cash to take that gamble. And there are no NM solid pink label UK pressings for sale anyway. I still stand by what I said. It is a beautifully recorded album. I just want to make sure that I am hearing all of its beauty and not a technically flawed one, simply because someone forgot to flip a switch. |
From the link you provided, it looks like I have the second version of the second release 1972. It matches the wax A-3u and B-3u. Everything else matches as well, gatefold etc. It remains my best sounding copy, at least as I recall. I have no idea if my copy is "correct", "corrected" or ? It always sounded very good to me. Fooling around with some new gear so will have to give them all a listen to see what I think. There may be 1 or 2 that I've never even played. |
@billpete I covet your Cat Steven's collection :) I managed to snag a NM 1970 A&M first pressing of TFTT for a decent price last night. It is on its way. I hope that it actually is in NM condition. I will just have to live with that for the time being. At least I will know that it was pressed with relatively new plates. If you should find that you have multiple copies of pink rim label Island pressings and would be inclined to part with one. I would be happy to take it off of your hands for a reasonable price :) Happy listening. |
If I had more than 2 copies, I would consider it. I only have the one on Island from the original stuff. I need to try the A&M dbx copy to see if it is different. I may have never played it, can't remember. I wish the 180g was playable. It might have been a good one. Need to see if it's possible to fix an off center drill hole. For whatever reason, TFTT is one record that I have more of than any other. It is one of my favorite albums, that's for sure. To say what is an absolute favorite, I could not do. I have 4 or 5 copies of Tori Amos, Under the Pink. In the beginning, it seemed hard to track down a decent copy, even on pink vinyl and new/sealed. I have 3 or 4 of them and not one is perfect but one is the best, (quietest). It's a shame because it is such a good recording. Had a black vinyl copy but was a totally washed out version of the original. Gave it away. I generally have multiple copies of anything that I am likely to play a lot, such as my reference LP's. Can never have too many. :) Happy listening to you as well. |
@billpete I would be interested to know what you think of the dbx copy when you get around to listening to it. dbx is another form of noise reduction different than Dolby A. If Dolby A had been used already. Why would you apply noise reduction again? There is something about this whole "Dolby A saga" that doesn't play out correctly in my mind. One other question in my mind. Why is Michael Fremer making the decision? He is just a reviewer! If they had a question about it. Why did they not contact Yusuf himself? Why didn't they send him examples and ask him which one was correct? I'm sure that he would have been glad to help, since it is his music. And he was present during the whole process. It would have been the only sensible thing to do before going forward. And why is there not more information out there about this enormous screwup, that supposedly affected every copy made for 35 years? There isn't any information out there, that I can find. Some huge pieces of this puzzle are missing. And I am not buying into it at this point. |
I'll try to get to it tonight. Still evaluating new gear so lots of listening ahead. I have no idea as to why things went the way they did. It would seem that Cat/Yusef was very much involved so no idea how things could have gone so haywire. I know damn little of the recording industry or how it works. You and others here know a great deal about it so I read on and enjoy all the chat. I'm happy to have stirred this up and have learned a great deal. Thanks to all. |
OK, so I gave the dbx copy a listen last night. It is undoubtedly one of the worst recordings that I have ever heard in my life. It may be the worst. For starters, there is a loud hiss that you can hear even over soft passages of music. It is present for the entire recording and stops to dead silence between tracks so you know it is recorded hiss. If it is tape hiss, it is the worst and loudest I have ever heard. I thought I had a tube going bad or something until it got past the first song and went dead quiet. Furthermore, it sounds very thin and tinny as though it was recorded in a large trash can or something. Has an almost echo quality, that sounds terrible. His voice is nearly unrecognizable, instruments as well sound terrible. There is a level of detail that shows at times but it all sounds terribly unnatural. The only reason to own a copy of this that I can think of would be to illustrate to people just how badly it can go. It is a terrible injustice to Cat Stevens and I'm shocked that it ever made it to the stores. It is the only copy I've ever seen but I would certainly never look for another one either. It will stay in my collection but only as a pure novelty item. My wife heard it with me and agreed from the very beginning, that this was something truly awful You would have to hear this for yourself to believe it. My son showed up about halfway through it and he was shocked to hear that it was vinyl. He knows the album well, just not this copy. On the bright side, it is a perfect example, not a single tic or pop on all of side one. None of us had a desire to hear side two. Unbelievable. So..........went to the Island copy immediately after. The strength and clarity of his voice was back. The bass was back, the clarity of the guitar was back. The drums sounded more real. I tried to pay particular attention to the drums and cymbols since our drummer friend @bdp24 told us that they missed the mark. I have to admit cymbols were very faint if you heard them at all. Something I had never noticed before, simply not knowing what to look for. I still feel that this recording is better than the others, 1000% better than the dbx copy. I will check the other A&M copies next. As I said before, they used to be my reference point and I never found them to be lacking in anything. I'll post my findings. New gear, new details still being discovered. |
After you brought this to my attention, I did a bit of reading on dbx albums. It seems that many enjoy them with the proper gear and it may be preferred over Dolby. I'm not likely to take that step.but never say never. When I had Dolby on a cassette deck, I never used it as it seemed to me to take away from what I started with. There was a time when I taped every album when it was new, put it away and listened to the tapes to preserve the LP's. Haven't done that in many years. I am much more careful with the records these days. Well cared for, they can last a lifetime. In the case of this record, I assumed it was just something that was done in the recording process, not thinking I would need "proper gear" to listen to it. They (dbx pressings) are few and far between so I guess it never became a "big thing" or at least not the norm. Thanks for setting me straight though. |
@billpete @cleeds is correct. The album is dbx encoded. You must have a dbx decoder in order to listen to the album correctly. It works on the same principle as Dolby A, B, and C. Dolby A was created for professional studios. When cassettes overtook the old cartridge 8 tracks. Remember them?:) Dolby saw a marketing opportunity in the consumer market. And so they developed Dolby B and eventually Dolby C. Soon all cassette decks were being built with Dolby B and C encoding/decoding capabilities. dbx came out with their own version and went after the same market. You could purchase outboard dbx encoders/decoders. Some receivers would have dbx decoding built in. To listen to a dbx encoded recording without decoding it. You will get garbage. Like Dolby encoding. dbx increases the high frequencies in the recording. Since tape hiss is essentially white noise. It is most noticeable in the upper frequencies. When the recording is decoded. It decreases those frequencies in the same manner that it increased them. By doing so, it also decreases the tape hiss which resides in those frequencies. Causing the recording to be much more free of tape hiss and also the inherent noise caused by the electronics. Neither Dolby A, B, C or dbx is truly transparent. It is effective at reducing the noise. But it also affects the actual sound of the recording. So it comes at a cost. I was never a fan of analog noise reduction. Especially on the consumer level. Until, to Dolby's credit, they improved on the original Dolby A that was being used in professional studios. They introduced Dolby SR. The SR stands for Spectral Reduction. It was a dynamic form of noise reduction, that was capable of choosing what frequencies were enhanced and by how much on-the-fly. No one but Dolby knows exactly how it worked. It was a closely guarded secret. But it was truly remarkable. Instead of using it on the master mix down copy. You would use it on every channel of the multitrack recorder. I worked with a Studer 2" 24 track machine. At 15 ips (inches/sec) 24 tracks of tape hiss is a lot of hiss. If you ran at 30 ips it was even worse. I had 24 Dolby SR encoders in-line with the input of the tape machine and 24 Dolby SR decoders in-line with the output of the tape machine. The results were truly remarkable. At that time, I doubt that there was any recording studio of quality that didn't use it. It was a game changer. But it was relatively short lived. Because digital recording was beginning to raise its ugly head. Not just with the appearance of CDs on the consumer end. But in the studios as well. Sony introduced the first multitrack digital recorder around the same time. They were very expensive and very few studios could afford them. They recorded at 48K/16bit. I have already discussed what I think of a 16 bit word depth. But that is when you started to see albums that would say DIGITALLY RECORDED. It was used as a marketing tool. A big deal. Dolby was quick to realize that analog was going to be a thing of the past. And began putting all of their research into digital formats. Which was a very smart move. Because Dolby's AC3 format which they named Dolby Digital would be chosen by the FCC to be the standard audio format for digital TV. Within the years that followed, tape would give way to hard drives. And nonlinear editing. Such as ProTools. I was in charge of audio for a PBS facility. I did audio for video. I worked through the conversion to digital television. If you think that the audio world was impacted by digital. You should have seen what it was like in the video world. When the FCC announced that it was remapping the frequency spectrum and announced a deadline date when all television would be broadcast digitally. It impacted even the smallest TV stations. Rendering basically all of their equipment archaic and useless. It also impacted the consumer. Basically rendering their televisions archaic and useless. I worked through that transition. It was a nightmare. The technology wasn't even developed yet. And it would change from day to day. If a station invested in a piece of gear at the wrong time. There was a good chance that it would be rendered useless within a matter of months. Obviously, TV also includes audio. And so audio was impacted just as hard. It was my job to choose the correct equipment and when to buy it. The speed at which technology was changing the landscape increased to a point that it became impossible to keep up with it. From that point on it never relented. Up until the day that I retired. I knew that the day that I walked out of that facility that my knowledge of the landscape would be obsolete within months. It was a sad day for me when I was forced to wheel my Studer 24 track 2" analog tape machine equipped with 24 channels of Dolby SR out of the door to be taken to the garbage heap. I loved that machine. It was truly a thing of beauty. Once again I apologize for the digital history tutorial. I found your dbx copy on Discogs. But it doesn't have a date for the release. Do you happen to know when you purchased it? Without a decoder it is useless to you. Although I am sure that there are people that collect dbx encoded vinyl. So it might worth quite a bit. I didn't even know that they made dbx encoded vinyl. I thought that they had used the dbx encode/decode at some point in the chain before pressing it. And was just using it as a marketing ploy. Had I known that it was pressed encoded. I would have warned you. It wasn't until I found it on Discogs that I realized that it was actually encoded and that you would need a decoder. You might be able to find one on eBay for not much money. They are basically worthless. But who knows? Maybe they are coveted by collectors. If nothing else. It is a unique and probably rare album to have in your collection. I just checked on Discogs. There are only three NM copies for sale in the US. And one NM for sale in Bulgaria. They are selling for around $100 + shipping. In the spirit of this discussion. Last night I was thinking that we haven't yet heard the 2008 remaster that Island Records did and was only distributed in the EU. I looked and I was able to purchase a NM copy of it for $40. And so I did. Just out of curiosity. It sure beats the $200 that I would have to spend for an Analog Productions remaster. So I have both an A&M first pressing and a 2008 Island remaster on their way to me. It will be interesting to hear both of them and compare. Have fun with your new gear. I hope that you are happy with it.
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@rudd2004 thanks for the recommendation for Masterpieces! Sound is gorgeous (I'm listening on Tidal through a Marantz 8b), and the story of the recording is fascinating. For anyone else who's interested: https://slate.com/culture/2014/12/duke-ellingtons-best-album-masterpieces-by-ellington-reviewed-on-the-new-vinyl-lp-reissue-from-analogue-productions-it-sounds-better-than-ever.html |
Cleeds is often correct, he'd probably say always. :) I am always amazed by the knowledge base here, yours included. I thoroughly enjoyed your explanation. I remember 8 track days and how they littered nearly every highway as the decks would eat them while going down the road. I had one in my car almost as soon as they came out. They didn't sound bad but cars might not have been the best place for them and laying sideways lent itself to channel overlap or bleeding over, whatever you guys would call it. My dad had one in his home stereo. I moved to cassette before ever getting 8 track in a home system. Less trouble, sounded good and I also had one in a new Taurus in 89. I guess CD's were just getting started about then. I don't think I ever had a piece of gear that would decode dbx and the TFTT is the only dbx record that i think I've ever owned. I believe I probably bought it as new/sealed around 20 years ago. It still has the cello on it and is in perfect condition. There is a store tag that says PS 1058. If I had paid attention, the label on the cello says that you need a dbx decoder to play this record. I find that hilarious, I just thought it was the worst recording ever. I do see that some people collect and love them and I saw the copies for sale used at $100 or so. I also found something, a pink label Island copy (says first pressing) in the UK and it looks to be NM at least. It was about $150, shipped to the US. I had to have it. It will be interesting to hear it after all this info. I also see some remasters on clear vinyl with Island label. I may get one of those sometime. I guess you just can't have too many copies of TFTT. :) |
@billpete Please let me know if you can hear a big difference with the pink label. I would like to get the Analog Productions 45 rpm remaster. The 45 rpm albums that I own have remarkable frequency extension and a much wider image than their 33-1/3 counterparts. But it is a bit annoying having to turn the record over every 2 or 3 songs. However, I bet that the dynamics of TFTT would be amazing! The bass would be huge. TFTT is a perfect candidate for 45 rpm mastering. I can't think of a better candidate. But they are so expensive! |
I am into classical, just getting back into vinyl, so the latest vinyl releases from Hyperion suit me, especially their new recording of Beethoven Triple Concerto and their recent vinyl release of the Shostakovich Piano Concertos. I have used the SACD of the latter for years, especially the slow movement of the 2nd, to judge how much 'air' a system could reproduce. |
It would be nice if discogs were more fussy about mentioning DBX status. I once got an LP that had the CBS CX noise reduction on it. That was said to be playable without the decoder, though there would be some compression. It was acceptable, but I also had the CD of that album and it did sound better! |
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I will let you know as soon as I have it. Probably a couple weeks out. I also have some 45rpm remasters. They sound really good but agree, it's a pain to have only 2 songs to a side or so. I have a few 33's that only have 2 or 3 when they have been made into double LP's. Easier to make maybe? Not sure. Just got an Alan Parsons one like that on clear green vinyl. It is really well done. |
Not sure if I've ever had a CBS CX LP but it doesn't sound familiar. I do have a fair amount of LP's that just sit in the collection though so you never know. When CD sounds better than LP, something went wrong. I have a few that way myself but it's very rare. One that comes to mind is Alice In Chains, Jar of Flies. It's on clear colored vinyl, double album and is completely washed out compared to the CD. I don't know why. It wasn't cheap either. |
Umbrella - D2D albums - esp Rob McConnell big band Sheffield Labs - D2D - Harry James, Tower of Power, Thelma Houston Original Source - new label from DG - classical music re-issues; re-masters from the 1950's, 60's, 70's - incredible sound and performances BS&T #2 - 45 rpm from Analogue Productions Steely Dan Aja - 45 rpm from AP SRV - 45 rpm from AP - any of these - box set - all of them are great Miles Davis - 45 rpm from AP - from the original Prestige tapes - this is a box set, and all are great enjoy! |
Umbrella was a surprise to me. All thrift store finds. Really good recordings and pressings. Have one that I won't really listen to, not my kind of music but I had to admire that it was well recorded "crap". Sheffields are really good, have a few. Didn't know Original Source but have quite a few DG's. Always good. Going to have to look for AP stuff. It keeps coming up and I can't think of any that I have. |
@billpete I would assume the reason for splitting the album up into two vinyl disks with only two or three songs per side would be to avoid using the inner grooves of the record. The sound deteriorates as the circumference becomes smaller. The linear distance in which the information is carved is much greater at the outer grooves than the inner grooves. So it becomes more difficult carve the same amount of information into a smaller linear distance. The higher frequencies begin to suffer as a result. I believe it is known as "inner groove distortion". Someone such as Allan Parsons, an audio engineer himself, would be aware of that. And my guess would be that he chose to avoid that issue by splitting it into two disks. Thus avoiding the inner grooves for fidelity reasons. That would be my guess. |
Great suggestions! Thanks. I rediscovered October Project for one. As for my go-to albums, they're all vinyl -- here they are: 1. Sara K -- Waterfalls (check out the track All Your Love Turned to Passions -- outstanding) 2. Marc Cohn -- Marc Cohn (album title) -- Great piano, guitar, vocals. 3. Hugh Masekela -- Hope (by now, it's an old audio show demo but the range on the track "Stimela" by itself makes it a great listen. I like the AP's 4 LP Box set) 4. The AP 45 RPM re-issue of the Nat King Cole series is outstanding for quality voice and arrangements. 5. Yes, Cat Stevens -- Tea for the Tillerman is an all-time favorite. I have several copies but after reading all the posts, I'm going to do some research on which versions I actually own! Happy listening everyone! |
I have thought about that regarding inner groove distortion. Especially when it is common to leave a best song for last. Not always but it is common so that thought is probably the main reason. I don't always hear IGD but sometimes it is evident. Not sure how or why that could be. You'd think the physics of it would make it a constant. Just sayin" And yes, Alan Parsons being an AE, is very particular and it shows. This new album of his "Time Machine" is really very good. Probably not new at all but new to me. I hadn't bought a new AP album in many years. Glad I picked this one up. New/sealed around $30, money well spent. |
Don't have most of yours but we all have our go to's. It's been interesting and I'm glad to see how many appreciate Tea For The Tillerman. It is one of my all time favorites. Doesn't see as much play as it used to but every now and then, gotta hear it. :) First enjoyed 55 years ago, just as good today as it was then. Lots of us going through our collections to see which ones we have, learning more and being inspired to seek out more. All good stuff. Happy listening to all |
@bilpete if you like classical definitely check out the Original Source re-issues and also AP reissues of early Decca, EMI, and others. Amazing sound from recordings from 1950s and 1960s. WOW. Also Impex, Chesky, Testament labels - they have a few classical reissues. And check out the Tracking Angle - Fremer's website - excellent reviews of all vinyl re-issues of all musical genres. And I have been collecting and playing early Decca recordings from 50s, 60s, 70s. Especially those recorded by Ken? Wilkinson in Kingsway Hall. WOW. |
On the Shostakovich, the pianist is the brilliant Canadian Marc-Andre Hamelin. The newly released vinyl is a tariff short of the original CD / SACD release - it drops the Shchedrin concerto, which is a pity as it includes a jazz band. The digital versions were released in 2003. Hyperion is one of the best British recording labels for classical, and seem to be just getting into vinyl! The Beethoven Triple Concerto I was thinking of features Nicola Benedetti (violin), Sheku Kanneh-Mason (cello) and Benjamin Grosvenor (piano) but is a new Decca (London?) release, not Hyperion. My mistake. I have ordered the new vinyl stampings of the 2001 recordings of Saint-Saens Piano Concertos from Hyperion with Stephen Hough, but they have not arrived yet. These recordings all get top reviews from Gramophone magazine and are available from Presto at https://www.prestomusic.com/ |
Going through old classical part of my collection. I came across a 3 record set on Vanguard Op. 3 from 1964. Says L'ESTRO ARMONICO Op.3 Vivaldi with Chamber Orchestra of The Vienna State Opera, Mario Rossi conductor. Not sure where I got it but probably a thrift store find. The records are very stiff like old 78's. They do say LP so I guess they are 33rpm? Each record is in a gray paper sleeve with Vanguard recordings in white lettering and some white artworks. No jacket other than a clear plastic envelope that is marked Simply Vinyl S160 vinyl LP. Also says Classic Albums, 160g virgin vinyl pressings. The outer sleeve can't be original, has a web address. simplyvinly.com. The records are stamped Rock Valley College, which was a Jr college back in the day, now part of NIU. They must have sent all their records to a thrift shop at some point. Just glad I never made that mistake.:) |
Most of my classical collection is made up of very old records (50's 60's and 70's) and a few cds. I would pick them up at garage sales and thrift stores, looking for certain labels, artists and conductors whose name I recognized. I was amazed at how many perfect copies and even sealed copies of very old records that I would find. I found that quite a few even very old recordings could actually be very good. Most of my newer stuff will be Telarc, Crystal Clear or any other D2D that I could find. Quite a lot of Deutsche Gramaphon too RCA had several different types, dynagroove and red label maybe were their premium ones? RCA probably ruled back in the 50's and 60's. Columbia was around but their recordings were not very good. Look at an old Columbia and the grooves all look identical and thin, zero dynamics. Look at the Telarc 1812 Overture and you can literally see the cannon blasts. Can be tricky to track. EMI can be very good and some are EMI/Angel, also can be good. London Phase 4 and London ffrr are both good. Decca also. I'm not a real classical aficionado like yourself but I grew up listening to it and have a fair collection of classical LP's that I listen to from time to time. The bulk of what I collected in classical was organ music, pipe organ that is and Virgil Fox is my favorite organist. Pipe organ is excellent to test your stereo system. No other single instrument even comes close in the range of what it can do and nothing plays deeper bass other than possibly some modern digital synthesizer. Theoretically, I suppose digital can reach lower than anything but the lowest I've ever heard (felt) recorded was 16hz from a pipe organ. I don't think my speakers can quite get there but they do reach 18hz and that's pretty close. Cd's cut off at 20hz, still very low but not quite as low as some vinyl. No idea about what streaming can do, possibly no limit? I don't know. Sorry to ramble. |
I took a vinyl copy of the Telarc 1812 when I auditioned the Holbo turntable! Almost all my vinyl pre-dates CDs, and I have a few dbx companded records which I can no longer play because my dbx capable player got stolen, together with everything else just before I did a round-world business trip. I listened to Quad speakers in LA and Salt Lake City, then visited Peter Walker of Quad in the UK who told me he thought classical CDs were brilliant. I bought Quad pre-amp, amp and ESL 63 speakers in the UK and an early Philips CD player in Singapore, plus every CD that I could find. I went through Australian customs with the amp in my suitcase, the pre-amp in my briefcase and declared the CD player. The customs officer invited his mates over, and as they opened the box, about 50 CDs fell out. It was the first CD player they had seen. No worries, mate, enjoy! I had to ship the speakers, and there was plenty of weight available, so my dad gave me his old Garrard 301 which I have just started to restore, hence I am buying selected vinyl again. (Wollongong City Library had a huge selection of classical records which they lent for free so not much need to buy any in my good old days). There is one Decca (London?) vinyl recording which I would use for auditioning, if I could get one at a reasonable price. It is Benjamin Britten's recording of his Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra which dates back to Decca's heyday around 1963. It has never been out of the catalog, at least in its digital form. Under 20 minutes long, it covers every instrumental section, until subsiding to almost inaudible triangle tickles then rising to a crescendo of complex cross rhythms. A serious critic has said it is his favourite piece of classical music, to boot! It is the only piece of music I needed to play when considering purchasing my KEF Reference 1 speakers - my dealer had it already queued up on his streamer! |
The latest Stuart and Sons 108-note concert grand piano also hits a very low 16-Hz - see Audiogon Discussion Forum on pianos! As far as I know, there is no technical reason why CDs should not go very subsonic - close to 0-Hz. |
