Soundlab Audiophile G9-7c: a 30-year odyssey fulfilled

[godofwealth]

Roon’s latest update has screwed up my system, so what’s new? This has been happening for at least five years, I’ve given up assuming Roon will ever get its act together. My Mola Mola Makua no longer shows up on the device list. Go figure.

Meanwhile we can enjoy good old Redbook CD’s which will outlive Roon. Here’s a beautiful old Chesky Jazz CD featuring Phil Woods. Beautifully recorded in the Chesky fashion with wide soundstage exceeding the speaker width. On the big SL’s, the sound is exquisite. I’m playing this through my ARC Reference CD8 player, a warhorse if there ever was one.

Roon may be here and gone, but Redbook CDs will last forever. Thank heaven for that.

 

[godofwealth]

This is a very oddly recorded CD because the musicians are gathered in a circle and the single point microphone is placed in the center. Needless to say, very few jazz recordings are made this way. Phil Wood’s clarinet sounds a bit out of phase because of the extreme width. Because SL’s are true phase loudspeakers that lack any crossover the effect is magnified. But a high quality recording in all other aspects. The double bass is for once recorded right. It sounds natural, not bloated. The piano is for once recorded correctly as an almost mono sound source on the extreme right and your head is not buried inside the piano’s mouth as most jazz recordings of late do (and classical piano recordings as well). One has to wonder if recording engineers ever attend live concerts when they are in the audience? Who hears a piano with their head buried inside it?

 

[godofwealth]

Another Chesky Jazz CD from the Cuban born saxophonist Paquito D’Riveria. This is a large ensemble recording that’s nonetheless recorded at a fairly low level. This may initially sound a bit lifeless but when the crescendos hit, you get realistic dynamics and not the usual compressed MP3 garden variety stuff. Recorded in the legendary RCA studios in New York City like the Phil Woods release. These recordings were made in the late 1980s but have aged well largely because they used premium microphones with no compression.

It’s interesting how dynamics sound on large panels. It’s not like the bass heavy sluggish box loudspeakers sound that seems to always have a phase lag to it. Here bass transients are lightning fast. The percussion sounds natural and all the intricate details come out. Paquito’s alto sounds gorgeous on solo portions. The guitar portions sound delicate and intimate and soft. The strings of the guitar sound like nylon strings. A beautiful recording as you’d expect from Chesky.

 

[godofwealth]

Jacques Offenbach is well-known as the composer of gaudy French operas and can-can music for vaudeville shows. He was also a highly accomplished as a cellist, impressive enough to earn the nickname “Liszt of the Cello”. He wrote a tutorial handbook of a set of pieces for two cellos in 1839, six of whom are featured on this beautifully recorded album. If you’ve never heard these pieces, you’ll be blown away by their depth and melodic beauty. On the big SL’s, the cello is reproduced with both body and harmonic integrity, so it doesn’t sound like a quivering mass of protoplasm as it sounds on my Harbeth Monitor 40.1’s, which is prone to resonate on bass heavy instruments. Subwoofers are a disaster for reproducing the cello, so turn off your subs before listening to these delightful pieces.

 

[godofwealth]

We move now to the music of another French composer, Francis Poulenc, especially his quirky but delightful wind music of which he composed a lot. Poulenc seemed to oscillate between writing melodically and irreverently. He seems to be constantly pulling your leg in some ways. But his chamber music is often full of profound insights. Played here beautifully by the Ensemble Arabesques. The recording is closely balanced. The liner notes helpfully gives you the microphone arrangement. For my taste, too many microphones and placed too closely to the instruments. There’s not much ambience. But the big SL’s capture the wonderful finality of all the woodwinds and the piano, which sounds quite percussive in contrast.

 

[godofwealth]

Incidentally I did find a workaround for my Roon problem, when it failed to find the Mola Mola preamp as an endpoint. I’m going through the Lampizator DasKomputer server to the USB port on the MAKUA preamp. If you’re expecting me to dwell on the sonic differences between the two, you’re reading the wrong thread. I’m not a big believer in huge differences between digital media servers. Theoretically one should not expect much if any. The mathematics of bit transport ensures error-free and jitter-free transmission. That’s how it sounds to me. I’d rather focus on the real problems in high end, which have always been around the choice of speakers and the design of the listening room. USB jitter on the Mola Mola is around -140 dB. That’s at the level of thermal noise of electrons moving across a resistor. There’s just no point wasting time on irrelevant problems. Back to the discussion of speakers and the sound of the big SL’s!

 

[godofwealth]

We return to the music of Claudio Monteverdi, his famous and legendary 1610 Mass that he wrote as his calling card for the dream job of Choirmaster at the world famous Basilica of St. Mark in Venice. If you have visited this site, you might know that Napoleon Bonaparte called it the drawing room of the world, the most beautiful courtyard he’d ever seen. For once he was not exaggerating. It’s so resplendent that it was shamelessly copied in Las Vegas at the Venetian. Skip that pale imitation and see the original. This beautiful recording by Harry Christopher and The Sixteen, a world famous early music group in Britain uses a much smaller chamber sized group for a chiral piece that’s usually performed by much larger ensembles. What you get in return is a much cleaner rendition. The recording was made in a church and has plenty of natural ambience. The voices and instruments sound magnificent on the big SL’s.

 

[Lee]

This is a very oddly recorded CD because the musicians are gathered in a circle and the single point microphone is placed in the center. Needless to say, very few jazz recordings are made this way. Phil Wood’s clarinet sounds a bit out of phase because of the extreme width. Because SL’s are true phase loudspeakers that lack any crossover the effect is magnified. But a high quality recording in all other aspects. The double bass is for once recorded right. It sounds natural, not bloated. The piano is for once recorded correctly as an almost mono sound source on the extreme right and your head is not buried inside the piano’s mouth as most jazz recordings of late do (and classical piano recordings as well). One has to wonder if recording engineers ever attend live concerts when they are in the audience? Who hears a piano with their head buried inside it?

View attachment 140051

I started working at Chesky as a production assistant just a little bit after this recording was made in BMG Studio A. Bob Katz and Jeremy Kipnis kept refining the technique fairly quickly but the reason for this was to use as few mics as possible for better sound. Eventually we moved the drum kit farther out and improved the mics, mic cables, and electronics. A better example of sound quality is McCoy Tyner’s New York Reunion album which came out in 1991and rose to #4 on the Billboard Jazz chart.

 

[Lee]

Another Chesky Jazz CD from the Cuban born saxophonist Paquito D’Riveria. This is a large ensemble recording that’s nonetheless recorded at a fairly low level. This may initially sound a bit lifeless but when the crescendos hit, you get realistic dynamics and not the usual compressed MP3 garden variety stuff. Recorded in the legendary RCA studios in New York City like the Phil Woods release. These recordings were made in the late 1980s but have aged well largely because they used premium microphones with no compression.

It’s interesting how dynamics sound on large panels. It’s not like the bass heavy sluggish box loudspeakers sound that seems to always have a phase lag to it. Here bass transients are lightning fast. The percussion sounds natural and all the intricate details come out. Paquito’s alto sounds gorgeous on solo portions. The guitar portions sound delicate and intimate and soft. The strings of the guitar sound like nylon strings. A beautiful recording as you’d expect from Chesky.

View attachment 140057

Paquito’s guest appearance on Clark Terry’s Live at the Village Gate is not to be missed either. That was my first recording session and I had to ask smokers to stop smoking as it interfered with the AKG C24 custom mics.

 

[godofwealth]

I think I have the original Live at the Village Gate CD as well. I’ll try to find it to listen to it tonight. Great to hear of your connection to Chesky Records!

 

[godofwealth]

Delos is another of the great labels of yesteryear that is sadly no more, like Dorian. John Eargle was their main recording engineer and he really created some terrific recordings like this one of the American composer David Diamond. His string piece Rounds is one of the best string symphonies to have been composed in the US and compares favorably with those by European or British composers. It features some really deep bass that comes across amazingly well on the big SL panels that reproduce bass without the annoying single note bass that plagues moving coil box speakers. Delos recorded quite a few of Diamond’s works including his symphonies. Well worth hearing. The musical language that Diamond composed in is strictly classical. No strange discordant sounds here or 12 tone Schoenberg type of adventurism. So, if you like to be jarred by sudden wild strung notes, you won’t find that in Diamond. But it’s lovely to hear well written string music that’s made in America.

 

[godofwealth]

I once lived in the same small Hudson Valley town, Mount Kisco, as the famous composer Samuel Barber, although I suspect he was after he was long gone. Here is his delightful piece for wind quintet performed dazzlingly well by the Reykjavik quintet on a Chandos CD. Woodwinds are great for pointing out loudspeaker colorations. The big SL’s show how beautiful well recorded woodwind music can sound. Barber was one of America’s most melodious composers. He like Diamond composed in a strictly harmonic language but wrote much music that is worth hearing.

 

[godofwealth]

The Anonymous Four is an American choral group that’s had a lot of popular recordings, all on the Harmonia Mundi label. I’ve found their recordings challenging for loudspeakers to reproduce as the voices are all female and pitched at a high enough treble range that causes trouble for both moving coil tweeters as well as my Quads panels due to resonance. On the big SL’s panels, no such problem occurs, I’m happy to report. The voices sound pure and natural with no resonances or brightness. It’s a relief to hear this album without having to wince at the resonances that I used to hear before. This album features music composed around 1200 AD, and sounds amazingly beautiful. It’s hard to believe music of this sophistication was being written eight centuries ago. This recording was made at the Skywalker Ranch, George Lucas’ studio where Harmonia Mundi produces some of their best recordings.

 

[godofwealth]

Good news, my Mola Mola Makua preamp has started showing up again as a Roon endpoint. I don't want to ascribe sonic differences between media servers, but I must confess I like the direct LAN input into my Makua over going through the USB input.

 

[godofwealth]

Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt, based on a poem by Henrik Ibsen, is one of my favorite pieces, particularly in the full version with vocal soloists and chorus. This DG recording with conductor Neeme Jarvi is a delight from start to finish. Unusual for a DG recording, the recording is well balanced and sounds splendid on the big SL’s. The voices are not spot lit and sound natural with no brightness or sibilance. The chorus sounds great. The dynamics are nicely captured including the big bass drum. I won’t try to explain the story of Peer Gynt. You can find a detailed synopsis over at Wikipedia. It’s considered a literary masterpiece that anticipated many of the issues facing the world from globalization. The music is filled with beautiful melodies and the orchestral suite version is Grieg’s best known work performed by orchestras over the world. The strings are lush and warm on this lovely performance. It’s a gorgeous piece of music. Listen to the Arabian dance for a sampler of the beauty of Grieg’s music and then Anitra’s dance. I also love Solveig’s song

Peer Gynt - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Bso]

I must confess I like the direct LAN input into my Makua over going through the USB input.

You very well might. Besides, confession is good for the soul.

 

[godofwealth]

Here’s a beautiful album of Gesualdo’s madrigals from the famous Les Arts Florissant group who have made many famous recordings for Harmonia Mundi label. But before getting to the music and the recording, it would be remiss of me to not share some fascinating and rather morbid details of Gesualdo’s life. He was born into a fabulously wealthy family in the 16th century, and was a contemporary of Claudio Monteverdi. But he was the second oldest child, destined for the church as his elder brother would get the entire wealth of the family. Even in the church, he was very well connected: one of his relatives had been a cardinal who voted in the election of 7 Popes, and his mother was a niece of a Pope. But fate intervened. His elder brother died at 20, and Gesualdo’s future changed from being a clergyman to being the head of an immensely wealthy family. As was common practice at the time in the 16th century, his marriage was arranged to a beautiful woman 5 years older than him, who had been twice widowed. Here’s the clincher. After marrying Gesualdo, she carried on an adulterous affair with another nobleman. Gesualdo had little choice: divorce was simply not an option in those days for someone of his stature and wealth. So, he took a more dastardly option. He told his wife he’d be leaving for a hunting trip, but returned with his entourage to find, no surprise, his wife in bed with her lover. Both of them were brutally murdered by his entourage, no doubt at Gesualdo’s orders. He stood trial for the murders, and was acquitted given his wife’s infidelity. This was the 16th century. ‘Perhaps they took a different view of marital infidelity. Perhaps his wealth made a difference.

Shocking as it may sound, Gesualdo composed these beautiful madrigals a few years later after he remarried. He was much admired by composers like Stravinsky, who viewed Gesualdo as a pioneer in the invention of dissonance in music. This recording sounds quite beautiful on the big SL panels, miked a bit closely, but Harmonia Mundi is a master at this genre.

 

[godofwealth]

Ensemble Organum is a choral group from France founded in 1982. The group made this dazzling album in 1985. I can quote the New York Times who raved about this album. The recording is of an exceptional quality and the Byzantine chant is haunting from start to finish. It is striking to hear what sounds like to my ears a very Arabic strain to the melody. On the big SL panels, the recording creates an unforgettable sense of ambience in a church with each piece accompanied by drone chants where the principal vocalist sings his part while the rest provide a constant drone chant. Made forty years ago, it still sets a high bar.

Marcel Pérès and his Ensemble Organum have made a fascinating collection of re-created Roman Church chants of the 7th and 8th centuries, before Gregorian codification had repressed the florid, middle-Eastern influences of Byzantine chant. The disk is compelling on a historical, intellectual and emotional level.” – New York Times

 

[godofwealth]

From the 16th century Italian nobleman and composer Carlos Gesualdo who ordered the execution of his wife and her lover, it seems strangely appropriate to move ahead 300 years to the fascinating film score of The Anatomy of a Murder by Otto Preminger set to music by none other than Duke Ellington. What can one say about The Duke that hasn’t been said before? A genius no doubt. Much more though. A creator of jazz music par excellence. Undoubtedly but even that’s clutching at straws. A great ensemble leader. But he was undoubtedly one of the 20th century’s greatest musical personas who simply cast a giant shadow. In this film, where Lee Remick plays a flirtatious woman married to a US army lieutenant charged with murdering a bartender who he claims molested his wife. Jimmy Stewart plays the boozy small town Michigan lawyer. The movie stars Lee Remick, George C. Scott and other Hollywood giants. The music is vintage Ellington, with hints of dissonant jazz, classical and chamber music all interwoven. The band includes giants like Clark Terry and Johnny Hodges. The 24-bit 192khz remastering sounds splendid on the big SL panels. The brass sounds natural and not bright in the least. It has bite without stridency. A great film score of what has been called one of the greatest film depictions of a courtroom trial.

 

[godofwealth]

Here’s my all-time favorite Duke Ellington album, Jazz Party. I have the 45 rpm vinyl reissue but I’m playing the Tidal MQA 4.1kHz version. What a party! It features no less than nine (yes, nine) percussionists with marimba, xylophone, vibes, and timpani. Dizzy Gillespie, Johnny Hodges, Paul Gondalves, and even Mr. Five by Five, the incomparable Jimmy Rushing makes a solo vocal contribution on the last track that’s unforgettable. Every track from the opening Malletoba Spank to Rushing’s final Hello Little Girl is unforgettable. I love the Toot Suite. Tymperturbably Blue begins with crashing piano chords. And it then has some amazing percussion medley.

Why in the world is there not a high resolution version of this album? Sacrilege! Sack the folks involved in making thus decision not to release a high res version.

This recording can sound a bit bright and overbearing on the wrong loudspeakers. It’s recorded at a high level. It’s a high energy brassy recording. On the big SL panels, it sounds simply divine. Play it as loud as you want. It does not sound bright in the slightest. It’s in your face as it should be. It’s full of Ellingtonesque foot tapping tunes, but the haunting pieces like Rushing’s Hello Little Girl with its plaintive blues melody is equally striking. A desert island disc.

Soundlab should use this as a demo disc. They’ll sell more of their loudspeakers.