The biggest problem with DoP is that it requires some additional processing power to convert/deconvert the signal on the fly. Some earlier DACs had challenges with it (the processing load creating additional noise and jitter), but probably no longer an issue.
The other problem was that because it works in PCM frames and most DACs only went up to 352.8kHz, DoP was thus limited to DSD128 not DSD256. If I have the multiplier right, DSD256 would require 705.6kHz which I assume some DACs now handle (mine does not).
I wasn’t quoting anyone, it crossed my mind based on what my father told me about a car he owned until fairly recently. It was an American thing, a 5L Ford. You must have far fewer corners than we have, and you don’t have mini-roundabouts, which were the death of this particular car.
I am interested to read that until recently you listened almost entirely to classical on vinyl, which means you have not exposed yourself to much if any of the last 40 years of recordings. Although you did say elsewhere:
“And a special bonus coming from our choice of digital playback equipment—this new system is allowing us to enjoy standard 16/44.1kHz files (Redbook CD resolution) to a degree I never expected would be possible. Just the other day, Ann came enthusiastically exclaiming, “I’ve just listened again to the wonderful 1980 performance of Mahler’s Second Symphony with Solti and the CSO. It sounded SO good. And it’s a standard CD file, too!” Since a huge portion of our music library is still standard CD resolution, the ability to get good sound from ripped CD files is very important to both of us.”
I had the same experience with 16/44 files and dCS almost 10 years ago.
Solti was one of my favourite conductors. I remember three performances in particular, one of which was Mahler 2 at the Festival Hall (I forget the orchestra) in 1983 or 1984 that was quite astonishing. The others were Beethoven 3 also at the RFH and La Traviata at Covent Garden with Angela Gheorghiu in December 1994, her breakout role, and which they then recorded.
Remarkably, the leader of the royal Opera Orchestra in that Traviata in 1994 was Vasko Vassilev, who was leading again last night. It being a Diamond Anniversary Gala evening, with a lot of pieces, he was called also called on to play first violin in Death and the Maiden and as soloist in the Saint Saens concerto. I don’t know if they recorded it, but it was one of the finest performances by the orchestra in ages. Last week in Alcina they were poor. On Tuesday we have Mayerling, the score being a John Lanchbery arrangement of Lizst.
Yes, indeed, a large portion of our music library today are 16/44.1 files. And it is very gratifying to find that they can sound quite good with the excellent digital processing that has evolved over the past decade and a bit more. But I admit to feeling a bit of a cringe from the photo you shared of the digitally sourced Decca LP from very early on. In my vinyl days, I refused to purchase them after being burned by the first several. But, then I found some that started sounding good – as digital improved, so did the LPs sourced from digital. And today I am digital-only due to our chosen living space constraints.
And I am indeed enjoying the pleasures of discovering many artists from the past 40 years that I’d not heard (and knew that I was missing them) while gratefully adding to my library many superb high resolution DSD256 and DXD transfers from R2R tape of vintage 1950s and 1960s recordings that once filled my shelves in the LP incarnations.
Your story of the Ford 5L resonates here. Actually, it is how I described to my wife a Chevrolet Corvette from the 1970s that we saw recently: “great on the straight away, but can’t navigate curves.” It is a common recognition/expression among American sports car enthusiasts. But, recent entries to the marketplace, like the Corvette Series 8, have gotten better I understand.
Thank you for your stories of the live music events you get to enjoy. It’s not a practical reality where we live, so I truly enjoy hearing about your opportunities to listen to world class live music.
Well, this season started on 14 September at La Scala, not over yet, but the highlight was an Indian/Chinese pairing that was a huge success at the Edinburgh Festival and came down to London for some performances. The music was magnificent as well.
This was obviously quite derivative (Akram Khan, Sidi Larbi, Russell Maliphant, Lin Huai-Min - for those who know their dance), but quite beathtaking. You see it once and that’s it. No videos, no recordings, it’s all in the moment. The underlying style is Kathak, which is improvisational anyway.
Ballet we see old and new. Romeo & Juliet I have to see every year or else I feel deprived. Like some people have to see Springsteen. The biggest decision is the choice of cast, R&J may have up to 8 different casts. Opera there are usually 2 casts. So La Tosca on 5 December has Malin Byström in the lead, a major international star, later in the month a less well known but usually excellent signer takes over. I’m going to that, we then have Handel’s Messiah (The Sixteen) the next night at St Martin’s in the Fields, a lovely venue, possibly by candle-light, and the night after that we have a play with a musical theme about a Nazi played by Dr Who (who’s a superb stage actor).
Whilst hifi derives from media sales (if there were no recordings there would be no hifi), contemporary dance has no media sales. It works by having productions jointly funded by multiple international venues and then they play those venues and tour others. It’s my main source of experiencing new music, rather than being continuously buried in the past.
Thank you for sharing this! Sounds wonderful. I envy your coming concert with The Sixteen a St Martin’s in the Fields. I’ve only ever walked through the venue, never hearing a performance there.
Well, if you can bear PCM, The Sixteen’s recordings on their label Coro are generally great. Part of the reason is that quite a few are recorded at a church called St Augustine’s in Oxford. It has a lovely acoustic and a chap I know uses it for a week long music festival. Curiously, over the road from the church is the running track where Bannister ran the first 4-minute mile. It is difficult to make their recordings as they have to get them sponsored.
One big attraction for the Messiah is a countertenor called Hugh Cutting. He’s only about 25 and has the most amazing voice. I’ve heard him twice this year in Bach (cantatas and St Matthew Passion) and he’s in the Messiah. You might want to look him up on Hyperion.
He’s my last Messiah, still on my phone, Trevor Pinnock at the harpsichord, Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, and the tall guy walking on stage left is the director if the Zürcher Sing-Akademie, who were amazing. I sat next to him, he took it all very seriously.
I have very much enjoyed recordings by The Sixteen and Harry Christophers over many years via their recordings for Meridian and Hyperion. At this point, unfortunately, the only recording by them that I have is this:
As to Trevor Pinnock, he’s been one of my musical heroes since his days of recording solo harpsichord for CRD. Wonderful to see he continues so actively!
Of course he’s just recorded the Bach 48, so he’s not dead yet. In fact he’s not that old.
You might be surprised that he’s also recorded Mahler, a project he recently did with the Royal Academy. It’s really good - on Linn Records - their usual supremely good recording quality.
To move this thread back to the original topic of “DSD mastering and quality”, has anyone been listening to the Hunnia Records releases? They record and release in Pure DSD256 – all solo instrument and small ensemble, combination of jazz and classical.
Most recently I’ve been listening to these albums, with more “on the shelf”:
We were meant to be meeting friends for drinks at the second interval yesterday, but were talking to a very old lady, must have been 85+. Full of beans. She had been to the ballet as a child. Her husband liked watching sport. She never watched the TV. He died. She was flicking through the channels and found Sky Arts, where they broadcast quite a lot of ballet. She watched it, then decided to go to the ballet, and has never looked back. Joined a ballet society. Made friends with a leading Russian dancer and his parents. Could have just stayed at home and waited to die. The most amazing person.
Birthplace of Andras Schiff, one of my favourites, and his playing of his fellow native Bartok, who spent a lot of time travelling around Hungary collecting the native folk music. It’s not something I know much about, I just get the feeling that culturally it lies somewhere on it’s own, not Western European, not Slav, probably quite parochial. Kurtag is quite unique and brilliant, his old mate Ligeti confounds me. Of course there’s Liszt, I recently bought this DSD64:
He’s playing it here on Wednesday, a pretty heavy duty programme:
Sitting still for a play is pretty torturous for me, so I rarely go, but I did see David T in Hamlet at the RSC.
He was good (if manic) but I was far more starstruck by the fact that Hamlet’s father was played by CAPTAIN PICARD!!
He’s been at it for ever. I saw Captain Picard in Antony & Cleopatra in 1978, it was my O-level Shakespeare text. Dr Who’s Hamlet was well reviewed, didn’t get to see it. Dr Who certainly knows how to sell tickets, at £100+ a go.
There was another great play about Nazi’s and music, about Furtwangler, Daniel Massey (Furtwangler) and Nigel Pennington. I forget the name of the play. After he was cleared, Fw got a job at the Hungarian Opera.
Not just London, it’s spread around the UK. I suspect Germany and certainly the Netherlands fare equally as well, and Scandinavia. London does not have a good large concert hall.
The best hall is in Birmingham. I saw that Hugh Cutting, the countertenor who I mentioned earlier, is doing a Messiah with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra a few days after London. Talk about being in demand.
I that’s what you want, then you can you can get your fill in New York, Chicago, … Lots of theatre transfers between London and New York, both ways.
I am not questioning her talent but… last night I watched/listened to one of her videos… autotune was all through her recording. I get it, it is now part of the style of the times… a new instrument… the new DX7 or fuzz box. It still annoys the living crap out of me.
There is something about female voices that… interact with our brains. I suspect it is child-mother programming. This makes us hyper-sensitive to nuance etc… for some reason, when autotune is applied to the female voice, it invokes a gag response in me.
