Every day I dope-slap myself with the question, “Why the hell have I never heard of this before?” And it just happened with IPI - I got an email from HDTT and previewed a few tracks, and even on my Apple Studio Display I could hear some of the most amazing reality and presence I"ve ever heard. I am so taken by their sound, I’d love to meet these people and I’ll be in Chicago later this week for AXPONA. But of course, I’m way too shy to try and contact them. But man…
So are they basically ceasing operation as far as recording, but allowing HDTT to continue distributing their materials?
Yes. Jonathan retired last year. When he retired he withdrew his catalog of recordings and HDTT had to take them all down. Bob has been encouraging him to make the catalog available on HDTT again, and Jonathan finally agreed to do so. The files (albums) from a year ago are now back at HDTT for distribution.
Last week, I acquired the HDTT release of Eric Dolphy’s 1963 recording Conversations. The clarity of each instrument, then their combined blend on the soundstage, have a kind of “jazz reality” that I am really learning to enjoy. Similar to the engineer Roy Dunann, working around the same time for Contemporary Records, the engineer for this recording is Bill Schwartau who was production supervisor and chief engineer of Sound Makers Studio in New York City. I just learned that he engineered the phenomenal album Money Jungle with Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, and Max Roach (sure wish HDTT would do that one), which is also spectacular from an audio perspective. Schwartau’s capture and reproduction of Dolphy’s sound is so stunning to me that the last track “Love Me,” a totally unaccompanied sax solo is perhaps surprisingly my favorite on this release. How he gets this kind of soundstage from a single instrument is baffling.
I just posted the following review on the HDTT website. It’s about a new transfer of the 1961 Frank Sinatra recording Come Swing With Me! featuring Sinatra with a big band conducted and arranged by Billy May. The only quibble I had with it at all, nothing HDTT’s fault, is it’s just a bit TOO stereo, sounding almost like different ensembles spread across a 300-foot stage.
I’d heard this album many times before. Not Frank’s greatest, but certainly good. But this HDTT recording does something a little differently for me. Normally with a recording like this, I’d set the volume very average, about live performance level. But I decided to “goose” it just a little more than I normally would and I began to hear a lot more “punch” in everything - not just louder, but more defined and refined. That left channel and the great capture of tuba, the low brass on the right. Sinatra’s not a “punchy” singer, but the slightly louder volume seemed to bring a kind of center-channel life. Then I went to see whether this was true for other versions and I didn’t feel it nearly as much. It’s got to be something in the tape transfer. Go ahead, crank Frank up a little!
And of course it started a day after I downloaded 3… grumble.
I did want to say something about one that I downloaded: Art Pepper Gettin’ Together!. I really like the work of engineer Roy DuNann for Contemporary Records, but there’s something even better about this one. It’s rare that I hear a recording from that era (1960) where the realism of the artist - in this case Pepper - puts him literally in the room with me. It’s great music already, but that sound accuracy and presence is phenomenal.
Every so often, a music release occurs that is of such historical and musical significance that time must be made to mark its arrival. So it is with this amazing restoration of the BBC’s 2-microphone live recording of Jascha Horenstein’s Mahler Symphony No. 8 “Symphony of a Thousand,” recorded live in 1959 in Royal Albert Hall, London. If you are a classical music lover, this music and this performance must be part of your listening experience. Here’s my review:
This list is “My Top of the Pile” from analog tape for sound quality. It’s probably 80% HDTT albums, but also IPI, Desmar, DTR, and Yarlung recordings from their master tapes.
Hi @Rushton. Am I imagining this, or at one time did the HDTT site have Bernstein’s Mahler 7th with the NY Philharmonic? I thought I’d seen it at one time, but if I did it now doesn’t seem to be there.
Bob may have listed it once upon a time and then removed it. I never saw it. But, the recording was released in 1966, and Bob has gotten more conservative about the time frame he uses before decided a recording is now out of copyright. As you likely know, most of what he releases are recordings now out of copyright, with some exceptions where he has rights to transfer from the master tape. There are a number of titles that he had in his catalog that he has since withdrawn out of an abundance of caution to stay outside the copyright time limits. At this time, he seems to be releasing up through about 1963-1964.
So I just got through running some room evaluation software to create convolution filters in Roon, I describe this journey in more detail in the new Rooms & Treatments section of the forum.
After going through my favorite test tracks and verifying that everything was working better than expected, I decided to try something new… well, new to me. Having recently bought several titles during HDTT’s 50% off sale, I decided to check out the 1965 Andrew Hill album Compulsion. Like many jazz audio fans, I have listened to a lot of recordings engineered by Rudy Van Gelder, but this is one I had never heard. I was a little skeptical about trying this because I wanted to test out the new room filter and I had no previous experience to compare. But I was elated; this is one of the best RVG recordings I’ve ever heard. His capturing of sax, drums, and bass were on-par with his other records, and Hill’s piano was a little too far back in the mix for my tastes (typical also of Van Gelder). But the way he worked with the percussion in relation to everything else on the soundstage made things uniquely 3-dimensional. I felt totally immersed in the music. The best track in my opinion is “Legacy,” as it brings out everything I just described but every voice even more exposed. I would love to hear a vinyl pressing of this to hear how this transfer compares.
For those of you who follow the HDTT releases, here are reviews of two newer releases and four older gems that were in my Pure DSD256 from Analog Tape: Top of the Pile list but for which I’d not previously written up a review.
