Recent content by astrotoy

  1. astrotoy

    OJ Simpson dead at 76,

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_I_Did_It:_Confessions_of_the_Killer Ghost written, supposedly with the cooperation of Simpson.
  2. astrotoy

    New Reel-to-Reel Titles - 4-Track?

    I just found this thread and my two cents worth is that one would need to have very significant volume of production, with the kind of very high speed duplication that Ampex used in the 1960's through early 1980's in producing 4 track stereo tapes to make any business sense. That certainly is...
  3. astrotoy

    New Reel-to-Reel Titles - 4-Track?

    My main experience with opposite direction cross talk has been with some of the Barclay-Crocker 4 track stereo tapes, which are almost all classical recordings. Those which have very loud passages on one side across from very quiet passages on the opposite side can be quite evident when...
  4. astrotoy

    Reel-To-Reel Panel Seminar

    Nice panel. Looking forward to seeing the video. Volker Lange (of Horch House) told me he is attending Axpona this year. Larry
  5. astrotoy

    Actual number of tapes??

    One late comment on this thread. I do have several tapes that were made from digital masters or analogue tapes made from digital masters. For the tapes I have, I believe that the digital masters were never released to the general public, only CD or other lower resolution digital versions...
  6. astrotoy

    Is this 'GOLD CD' of Bach Goldberg Variations (Glenn Gould 1981) any better?

    I played my GG tape of the 1955 Goldberg Variations. Sonics are quite good for the 1955 mono recording, though definitely not at the modern standard like my other Goldberg Variations tape (Ito Ema's wonderful, though less dynamic and eccentric performance that Todd Garfinkle did on his MA...
  7. astrotoy

    Is this 'GOLD CD' of Bach Goldberg Variations (Glenn Gould 1981) any better?

    I have a tape (actually 2 reels 15ips 2 track) of the 1955 Gould Goldberg Variations. It is a dub from a European engineer's copy of the CBS distribution master. Don't have his 1981 redo. Critics are mixed on which they prefer in terms of performance. I'll give the tapes a listen today...
  8. astrotoy

    What are you currently listening to (Classical)?

    I heard Ozawa conduct the Asterism by Takemitsu with Takahashi as pianist, with the San Francisco Symphony. It was before Ozawa became music director of the SFS, so probably in 1969 or early 1970. It was quite memorable, mostly because Ozawa and Takahashi had to stop somewhere in the middle of...
  9. astrotoy

    State-of-the-Art Recordings of Classical Works (SACDs)

    We heard Matsuev play the Prokofiev PC2 with the Mariinsky Orch and Gergiev back in 2017 in Berkeley when they were on tour in the US. Fabulous pianist. I think this is the first time we had heard the Mariinsky Orchestra under Gergiev. We had heard Gergiev many times conducting the LSO in...
  10. astrotoy

    Steinway & Sons Spirio Self-Playing Piano

    When I interviewed Grammy winning Decca recording engineer Mike Mailes for my Decca book a decade ago, he told me that the recording he was most proud of doing was with Wilhelm Backhaus playing the Brahms Piano Concerto 2 with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by the great Karl Boehm (on Decca...
  11. astrotoy

    Steinway & Sons Spirio Self-Playing Piano

    Back in 2019 when we first heard the Spirio R, I remember they had a piece played by Josef Hoffman, whose recordings date from 1920 to late 1930's. Larry
  12. astrotoy

    Steinway & Sons Spirio Self-Playing Piano

    The Spirio concert was this afternoon. I did take a video of about 1 minute of the concert, but it is 96MB in length and I don't quite know how to email it so I can link it here. There was a very large flat screen TV set up to the right of the piano (a Steinway B - 6'10" long) that was the...
  13. astrotoy

    Steinway & Sons Spirio Self-Playing Piano

    I somehow acquired (probably 20 years ago or so) a set of 8 commercial tapes (7" 7.5ips 4 track stereo) of recordings made with the Welte Vorsetzer, a device that sits over the keyboard of a piano and presses its 88 "fingers" plus 2 "feet" to play the piano. It was developed at the beginning of...
  14. astrotoy

    Steinway & Sons Spirio Self-Playing Piano

    The information from the pianist's piano (that is the key strike and pedal information) is being transmitted to the local piano in real time which is then is duplicating the pianist's piano. In addition a live video of the performance is being sent to the local locations, so the image of the...
  15. astrotoy

    Steinway & Sons Spirio Self-Playing Piano

    Just received an invitation from our local Steinway Store to attend a live Spiriocast from NYC with pianist Wei Luo playing a concert that will be played through the local Steinway Model D (9 foot grand) with Spirio and a large screen video showing her playing in NYC with a similar Model D...
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