Videos - oomph, tympani, menace, power
- Thread starter bonzo75
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I tend toward your consideration in this regard Ron , However for the moment the thread appears to have morphed into a game of ‘Which pale imitation of a recording of a live event replayed on a home audio system then mangled via a YouTube upload do you prefer’
Hard to judge anything unless you know the exact recording each used. Go listen to the different recordings yourself…a couple have very deep and heavy bass without much definition like Tim’s and some sound taugh and lighter where the tympanies can be more clearly heard. Some sound distant and recessed, some brash a bit harsh and in your face…etc.
If we find ourselves agreeing with particular members more often than not, I guess we can trust their opinion more than those we disagree with on a regular basis.
Good please share the version of Fanfare you used (please again if you did already so I don’t have to dig for it). THX!
are you not really criticizing Stehno for posting the four videos and asking the members of your forum to comment?
I think somewhere some time ago, Stehno told us that his system videos represent the sound he hears in his room, as long as you crank up the volume.
How ludicrous can it really be? You post videos of your system evolution playing Fields of Gold for anyone who cares to watch them. You also post many videos of show systems.
Yes I agree we can't determine whether the harsh sound of the trumpets/trombone at 2.02 in Stenhos vid, for example, is due to the version he's playing or the system.
Doesn't stop us making a judgement as to what sounds best to us though.
To an extent … however I would still maintain that Remote Voyeuring of hifi via compressed YouTube soft porn to be somewhat more falible than not .
Presumably, Stehno posts his videos for comparison because he thinks they represent the sound he hears in his room and he wants to share that with us to support his point of view.
Fwiw, I also include identifying info in youtube with the video.
Telarc DG-10078 LP
Thx! These three on streaming has the heaviest bass drum and weight in the low end
Other recordings were lighter in lower regions…some for the better , some for the worse (some sounded kind of harsh).
In my post of the video I included the orchestration for Copland's composition along with the LP's catalog number. My system is available through the signature link. A further analysis of the piece is included at the review link where I used its music in evaluation.
Imo the orchestration of the music is very important for evaluating a recording because it tells you what instruments are used for the performance. Knowing the instruments tells you what sounds you should be hearing, assuming you know what the instruments sound like in an acoustic space -- not just from another video. In the Copland piece the orchestration is relatively simple compared to a symphony.
For a further enlightened evaluation, look at the score where you can find the frequency and timing information along with markings for dynamics. Does what you're hearing in music or a music video correlate with the instructions for performing it? Granted - many people cannot read a score, but it remains a valuable tool for evaluating a system's playing of a particular piece of music. For example if a note is accented in the score and you hear that note as soft then either the conductor is not following the score, or the system is not representing that sound assuming it was recorded.
I'll do a relatively detailed dive into the music that I write about when describing a component or system in a review, but I rarely evaluate other's videos here on-line, beyond simply liking them.
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I also have the second entry (Oue/Minnesota) and will take a listen to that one. With the timpani, bass drum and tam-tam at double-forte and forte, it is a challenging piece of music.
edit: does any one of these offer the timpani as holding their own against the bass drum, such that you can hear the two notes of the timpani with some clarity?
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Well, there is that but he wrote a somewhat lengthy comparison that goes beyond. Imo simply posting his video and letting others assess would have been sufficient.
Not really…you kind of hear they are there but not really in their own space. I can tell you later ones I found that had much clearer timpani but at the expense of some weight and power. Some of those did a good job of not sounding overtly thin though…some just sounded thin…
Sure but it doesn’t tell anything meaningful about what the systems are doing right or wrong
I have to agree with your assessment – at least in part.
The video I shared in my prior post (no. 1) is the same digital interpretation but digital version of what Tim played. Tim’s was from Telarc and mine from Reference Recordings but same live performance.
The bass was the point of that post otherwise I would not have posted that less-than-desireable engineered recording. I like to think or hope the brunt of harshness is from the recording perhaps from an inferior analog-to-digital conversion? And I suspect the less-than-stellar engineering negatively influenced Tim's video also to some extent.
I have at least 3 or 4 interpretations of this same piece and I wasn’t sure which one matched Tim’s video so that night I recorded the 3 I quickly found.
Anyway, videos no. 2 and 3 seem easily more musical and better engineered than the first video. IMO, no. 3 is the best engineered.
The label says Telarc Digital so this is a digital recording and all versions would be from the same analog to digital process. Question is, was the original recording harsh and needed to be tweaked to sound good, probably.
Edit, although it was recorded in 1982 so I might be completely wrong, lol
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Actually, Peter, i think my videos are reasonably representative of the in-room presentation. Reasonably being the keyword here. After all, I'm using a tiny $150 stereo mic that plugs directly into my iPhone and I'm sure I'm bumping up against some of its limitations at times. Not to mention my own recording engineering limitations.
More importantly, for me anyway, it's just not possible for me to capture much more than a remnant of the overall gestalt of the in-room presentation. Would be nice if I could. But most everything else I'd say is reasonably represented.
And you are correct in that I often use my videos to substantiate points I try to make because I'm convinced words by themselves in an audio-only industry are rather meaningless.
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