I recently purchased reel-to-reel tapes from UltraAnalogue. When I ordered the tapes, I spoke with Ed Pong, owner of UltraAnalogue. During our conversation he invited me to attend one of his concerts near Toronto. I took him up on his offer and flew to Toronto and attended a concert on June 23, 2024.
Ed holds these concerts in his beautiful home and records them live. Before the concert started, I went to his home to get a tour of his recording space. Ed has determined through experimentation where the best spot is for microphone placement for recording strings and piano. He only uses two ribbon mics that feed directly into a custom amp designed and built by Tony Ma. This amp uses WE437A and WE300B (1956) tubes. Ed has two Studer A80 tape recorders. One to record and another for playback. The amp provides signal to the Studer A80 used for recording. This Studer uses an NAB EQ and nothing else to record to tape, very minimal. The recording session was taped by Roger Ginsley who was the Studer tech for Canada for the last 30 years. He calibrates the Studer A80 for every performance.
The performance was held in the pool room of Ed’s home. The pool room is 40” x 50” with a varying height ceiling. The concert hall (i.e. pool room) is built with beautiful brick and cedar. The acoustics in the hall are outstanding. In the same way that choral music or organ music is enhanced in a cathedral, chamber music in this hall is enhanced. The sound in the hall is immediate and has wonderful reverberation. The nuances of instruments can easily be heard.
Three classical pieces were performed; one by Schubert, one by Chopin and one by Haydn. Yun Yang Lee played piano and Hayoung Choi played cello. Both are professionals and it showed. Even though they had only practiced together for a day, their playing was seamless. The warmth and tone of the cello drew me into the music. The attack and force of the piano was stunning. The musical experience was immersive and conveyed the subtilties of chamber music. After the concert, Ed took the performers, friends, my wife and me for a delicious lobster and king crab dinner. A perfect end to a fantastic day.
A coupled of days after the performance, I visited Ed again to listen to the master tape of the performance. The master tape was played back on his second Studer A80. When he played it back I was stunned how realistic the music sounded. It was all there. It had the same air and nuance as the actual performance. The bowing of cello and the impact of the piano were evident. Listening to a master tape of a live performance was a revelation. Needless to say, I bought a copy of the master tape.
After listening to the master tape of the concert, we listen to other tapes Ed had recorded. They were all very musical and involving. Ed’s playback system was custom designed by Tony. LPs played on his system were also very enjoyable. His phono preamp was over the top! Each tube in the amplification path had its own power supply. He used an electronic crossover with exotic tubes to drive three different amplifiers. One amplifier was used to drive Quad 63 electrostatic speakers. A second amplifier was used to drive a bass bin build by Ed and a third amplifier drove tweeters. The tweeters were perched on top of the Quad 63’s and the Quad 63’s sat on the bass bins. These were time aligned.
We listened to music through his system for several hours then we got some lunch. We listened for a few more hours then it was time for me to head back to the Toronto airport. I had a fantastic time both days listening to music and hanging out with Ed. Ed and his wife Amy were gracious hosts and made my wife and me feel welcome the entire time.
John P.
thereeltoreelrambler.com
