What are you listening to right now?

[richidoo]

Another Sunday evening, another episode of "Preview" on WCPE.... this week my mind is blown by this rendition of Schumann's Kreisleriana, Op. 16, a solo piano work. 8 movements of pure bliss. This is one of the best recorded pianos I've ever heard. Incredible deep bass, played softly and slowly. Played very tenderly and insightfully on this very intimate piece by American pianist Nicholas Angelich.

A "Gramophone Choice" recording, whatever that means.

From ArkivMusik notes:
"One of the most respected pianists of his generation, American Nicholas Angelich has a firm reputation as a soloist and chamber musician. Having made his concerto debut at the age of seven, he went on to study at the Paris Conservatoire with such renowned artists as Aldo Ciccolini, Yvonne Loriod, and Michel Beroff. He is a laureate of Casadesus and Gina Bachauer International Piano Competitions, as well as a recipient of the Schallplatten Prize and the Young Talent Award at the International Klavierfestival Ruhr, blablabla

"As the title suggests his the repertoire Angelich has selected comes full circle, by way of dedications from and to three of the 19th century's greatest pianist/composers – Schumann's Kreisleriana dedicated to Chopin, two of Chopin's Op.10 Etudes dedicated to Liszt, and Liszt's B minor Piano Sonata dedicated to Schumann."

[richidoo]

WCPE  "Preview" show sunday nights

This one really is a preview, not released until 8/26/16. Awesome, exciting take of Beethoven's Kruezer Violin Sonata, re-arranged in 1832 for string quintet.  Zuill Bailey big cello star. Can you guess which one in the picture?

[richidoo]

My Dad (Richard Sr.) passed a few months ago. I picked up his last small stack of LPs from Mom's a couple weekends ago.  This is one of his favorites of all time. I cleaned it and played it during dinner tonight. My son (Richard 3rd) was home from school tonight for dinner. I told them this was Grandpa's favorite record. "Oh that's nice..." not really their cup of tea.



Stereo LP

After 60 years it's still perfectly flat, perfectly silent, great SQ top to bottom.

[tmazz]

The Jimmy Buffett concert at Jones Beach Theater being broadcast live on the Sirius Radio Margaritaville channel.

We couldn't go this year because the date conflicted with getting our daughter back to college so we are doing the next best thing and listening to the show live while she finishes her last minute packing.   

[tmazz]

Stokowski: Rhapsodies - Symphony of the Air



Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue - Fiedler/Boston Pops



A friend of mine found a good deal on the RCA Living Stereo 60 CD box set and asked me if I knew how the SQ of that set compared to other available releases in the Living Stereo series.  I had purchased the set as a gift for my mother  and ended up getting it back when she moved int the nursing home and since I also had both the original CD release and copies of the SACD Hybrid discs of both of these albums I thought IO would sit down and do some critical comparisons among the versions.

I was very surprised at how much better the box set CD sound when compared to the original releases. The originals sounded very muddy and cluttered in comparison. The detail on the box set discs was much clearer and the lateral soundstage much better defined.

That said, listening to the CD layer of the hybrid SACDs brought the SQ up even another notch further. On the SACD the spacial cues were much clearer and the sound stage much more three dimensional. In addition to projecting more depth in the stage the hybrid disc also gave each instrument a much more realistic sense of existing in its own space. In general just a more realistic presentation.

In terms of the magnitude of these difference I think even a casual listener would easily here the difference between the original and the box set discs. The differences between the box set and the SACD were more subtle and while they would be fairly easily pick up by and audiophile listening on a decent quality system, I not sure if they would be so apparent to John Q. Public who A) would most likely be listening on a lower resolution mass market type system and B) would not have the trained ear of an audiophile, who is used to listening for these types of attributes.

And lastly, this phenomenon of the CD layer of a hybrid disc sounding better than a single layer CD pressing of the same album has occurred in every comparison I have made cutting across classical jazz and rock albums. I am not sure if it has something to do with the physical media and how it is made or with the mastering process for SACD releases, but I have yet to find a case where it did not hold true. Anybody have any thoughts as to why this may be?

[richidoo]

Interesting observation Tom! Hmmm, some reading about hybrid disks is in order me thinks.

Glad to see you posting music!

[richidoo]

This infotisement pdf says that the CD layer on SACD can sound better than traditional CDs.

http://www.muszeroldal.hu/assistance/SACD1.pdf

Two different discs are likely mastered differently anyway. Even the SACD stereo layer and the CD layer on the same hybrid disc come from different digital "masters," which may only differ by sample rate and bit depth, or they may be truly different mix/masters in the traditional sense.

This thread mentions a dsotm SACD where the CD layer has much more dynamic compression than the SACD layer. I know you collect DSOTMs, maybe you have that SACD?

[tmazz]

Do I have the DSOTM SACD????? Did you really have to ask? 

However, I never listen to the SACD layers of any of my hybrid discs because they sound markedly inferior to the CD layer. Not because of any intrinsic defect in the SACD format, but rather because of my equipment. I use a Denon 2910 universal DVD player as a transport, which does a nice job passing off a digital signal to my EE DAC for D/A processing. But because of copy protection concerns the SACD format does not allow the outputting of a digital signal for external processing. This means that in order to play the SACD layer of a disc I must use the analog outputs of my Denon analog with the cheap opamp driven analog section that it contains. While an SACD played via these outputs sounds better than the CD layer played through those same analog outputs it cannot keep up with the sound quality of the CD layer played via the external DAC. Any again that might come from the higher bit rate file is more than lost  by pushing through the inferior hardware. If I had a big buck SACD player I am sure it would be a different story, but given the equipment I am living with right now, I never use the SACD layer of  of Hybrid discs. (and quite honestly with the small amount of SACD software that is out there IMO it just would not be worth it for me to spend several thousand dollars on a top shelf SACD player just so I could make 2 or 3 dozens discs sound better.

But I do find it interesting that without exception every case where I have both hybrid disc and a matching CD only pressing The CD layer of the hybrid disc sounds better that the CD only disc when both are played via the external DAC.

As an engineer I am somewhat curious as to why this is, but quite frankly as a music lover I really don't care I am just happy to take advantage of the better sound.

[tmazz]

Hey Rich I just noticed that you hit the 10,000 post mark tonight!   

I feel honored that you passed the big milestone replying to one of my posts. 

[richidoo]

woohoo! Thanks

Wore out a laptop or two on this site...

[ejk]

.

[Bob in St. Louis]

Keb' Mo' is awesome!
I've not heard of that album, but will check it out.

Right now, I'm streaming my Zero 7 channel on Pandora. 

[Emil]

[Triode Pete]

In a related matter...

[Bob in St. Louis]

New live album from Keb' Mo'.
Good blues.

That Hot Pink Blues Album
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwpOVBjsIUaVk_Mxr-BRYLYOtTRE_CGAA