State of the industry - Roy Gregory Editorial

[howiebrou]

Yes he has the "Gift of the Gab" --as some say very important in this game

I've mugged the Blarney Stone so I'd be ready to take on all comers too!!

Ah sad on his health--we've lost a couple of the mainstays lately

Thank you for the update there Howie!

BruceD

Sorry Bruce. May be I shouldn't have used such colloquialisms. Rude Health in the UK means good health.

 

[awsmone]

I was responding to Awesome's comment, not Qvotrup.

Streaming surely can have it's downfalls. There are many, many poorly made and processed recordings. The quality can be un-predictable. That being said, there is such a vast universe of music available, that it is easy to reject the crap and collect a huge collection of high quality streams or downloads. Looking for a great recording of Beethoven late quartets? You can listen to 20 and probably find 2 or 3 with excellent sound quality. With a well set up network, power supplies, server and dac, I believe carefully selected streaming is the equal of well recorded CD's. It takes some work, like anything worthwhile.

I am a bit confused as I haven’t even watch the Qvotrup Video lol
i would agree that not all recordings are equal I download a few suitable recordings, mainly those I don’t have eg Kogan violin
I would agree there is a plethora of musical content
quartet recordings and their reproduction is challenging in any circumstances or medium

in my personal experience it’s hard to find great digital string quartet recordings, but others may correct me as I am only recent exponent of Qobuz

i personally made a bit of a sonic breakthrough with digital string tone, but need further evaluation time before expanding further

I think the early arrival of digital before technical maturity has led to many decades of anguish for people who appreciate good sound , this may be less relevant in a non classical/acoustical context not my area of experience personally

 

[BruceD]

Sorry Bruce. May be I shouldn't have used such colloquialisms. Rude Health in the UK means good health.

Ha!- Ah I get it--No worries-well he must have had the Ops--good outcome then !

BruceD

 

[MarcelNL]

I am a bit confused as I haven’t even watch the Qvotrup Video lol
i would agree that not all recordings are equal I download a few suitable recordings, mainly those I don’t have eg Kogan violin
I would agree there is a plethora of musical content
quartet recordings and their reproduction is challenging in any circumstances or medium

in my personal experience it’s hard to find great digital string quartet recordings, but others may correct me as I am only recent exponent of Qobuz

i personally made a bit of a sonic breakthrough with digital string tone, but need further evaluation time before expanding further

I think the early arrival of digital before technical maturity has led to many decades of anguish for people who appreciate good sound , this may be less relevant in a non classical/acoustical context not my area of experience personally

Forget the recording, and aim for performance.. I see a good recording as a bonus...I have a recording of Strauss conducting Strauss, heavily edited (Dutton) but the performance is SO nice. Currently I'm frequently listening to oldies such as Elly Ney, Karl Suske etc where digitization is hit or miss...Also sometimes Qobuz has a couple of versions of the same work, there appears to a tendency that is telling me to hit the oldest version (a bit like first pressing), for example modern jazz quartet 'pyramid' has three versions- just listen to all three for like 10 min each and see which you prefer.

digital to analog reproduction of a.o. strings IME is all in the overtones, and leading edge (ability to separate the first contact with a string from the tone and its overtones)..getting those right is a challenge but possible, a kindof a Mazlov pyramid for sound reproduction seems to exist.

 

[awsmone]

Forget the recording, and aim for performance.. I see a good recording as a bonus...I have a recording of Strauss conducting Strauss, heavily edited (Dutton) but the performance is SO nice. Currently I'm frequently listening to oldies such as Elly Ney, Karl Suske etc where digitization is hit or miss...Also sometimes Qobuz has a couple of versions of the same work, there appears to a tendency that is telling me to hit the oldest version (a bit like first pressing), for example modern jazz quartet 'pyramid' has three versions- just listen to all three for like 10 min each and see which you prefer.

digital to analog reproduction of a.o. strings IME is all in the overtones, and leading edge (ability to separate the first contact with a string from the tone and its overtones)..getting those right is a challenge but possible, a kindof a Mazlov pyramid for sound reproduction seems to exist.

I wouldn’t deny your opinion, but I also think there is a “body“ of the instrument to it that often missing.

my recent experiments suggest the body of the instrument is there and can be retored, but might have less to with recording than reproduction in general

 

[MarcelNL]

I wouldn’t deny your opinion, but I also think there is a “body“ of the instrument to it that often missing.

my recent experiments suggest the body of the instrument is there and can be retored, but might have less to with recording than reproduction in general

forgive the omission! of COURSE the body needs to be there too!

 

[andromedaaudio]

I m enjoying a lovely lunch on the beach in Bilbao .
Can we get back on topic disussing elite horn superiority versus cone speakers please

 

[howiebrou]

I m enjoying a lovely lunch on the beach in Bilbao .
Can we get back on topic disussing elite horn superiority versus cone speakers please

Must be a pretty boring lunch?

 

[andromedaaudio]

I m enjoying a lovely lunch on the beach in Bilbao .
Can we get back on topic horn superiority versus cones

Must be a pretty boring lunch?

Yes just technical talk about screwconveyors / rotary cookers i need some entertainment

 

[Tango]

Must be a pretty boring lunch?

My Hokkaido Milk cream donut must be way more interesting.

 

[andromedaaudio]

My Hokkaido Milk cream donut must be way more interesting.

I will think of something to get it going again

 

[rbbert]

Thank you Howie for posting this. It was very interesting, despite its long length. The discussion of digital at the beginning and how they settled on 44.1 is fascinating.

I pretty much refuse to watch videos (reading is so much faster and more informative). Does he relate the true story? That it was due to the Sony U-matic VCR's frame rate (this bit of history is well-documented)?

 

[rbbert]

I suspect many of us have had experience with systems using horn speakers similar to mine. Over the past 15 or so years I have heard about 35-40 systems like this; none have had what I would call outstanding sound. A handful have been very good with some outstanding sonic characteristics, about twice that many have been almost unlistenable, and the rest more ordinary (enjoyable but no more so than many other systems using other types of speaker systems.). Sure, it's easy to say that it's due to setup problems, etc., at shows, but some of these systems have been in homes.

What led to me becoming an audiophile though, rather than just another teenager loving music, was the chance to listen to a friend's father's system with Klipschorns and a LaScala center driven by Marantz tube electronics in a big room (this was in '68 - '70). Another good friend in the mid-'70's had a home built system using University and Altec drivers with horns and Mac tube amps (before they were so avidly sought after); not great sound but outstanding for the cost. I am not inherently anti-horn.

 

[andromedaaudio]

My Hokkaido Milk cream donut must be way more interesting.

Wait till u read my 2022 MOC horn show report coming out in couple of weeks , may be i t ll be interesting '... may be not.

Anyway expect no mercy lol

 

[wil]

Forget the recording, and aim for performance.. I see a good recording as a bonus...

That's interesting, because I have to have good sound quality as a foundation. For me, bad sonics poison everything else. The quest, of course, is to find both in the same recording!

 

[MarcelNL]

That's interesting, because I have to have good sound quality as a foundation. For me, bad sonics poison everything else. The quest, of course, is to find both in the same recording!

preferably both in one, but that can be rare...in those cases I rather listen to a less than stellar recording of a great performance than vice versa.

 

[cal3713]

preferably both in one, but that can be rare...in those cases I rather listen to a less than stellar recording of a great performance than vice versa.

Agreed. Such a shame when the pursuit of high end audio results in the missing of great music.

 

[wil]

Agreed. Such a shame when the pursuit of high end audio results in the missing of great music.

Fortunately, it's rarely an either/or proposition.

 

[MarcelNL]

Fortunately, it's rarely an either/or proposition.

Luckily you are right though it can take a while searching

 

[the sound of Tao]

preferably both in one, but that can be rare...in those cases I rather listen to a less than stellar recording of a great performance than vice versa.

Listening to poor music for great sonics is like drinking instant coffee while having your fingernails slowly pulled out. There’s such an archive of musical treasures available to us and so many wonderful performances waiting to be explored… life is just too short for second rate music or mundane musicianship. After years of playing at getting both perfect I’ve settled as a musicphile first with the audiophile me running a close second.