New Octave release (Temporary Circumstances)

Forgot to tell ya something…my wife’s name is Cris.

M

Chris,

Thanx for the email. Found out by watching Paul’s videos that you used to work for BG. Very kewl. I’m sure you know, if you watched the video of the speaker contest I entered the JP Stacks in, that the midrange I used was a BG NEO 10. I am not a speaker company, even tho PSA has JP Speakers on my mailing address. I have made 4 sets of speakers for my own use, and am working on another. Even tho you know a lot more about speaker design than I ever will, would you be interested in me dropping you an email from time to time, and bounce a few of the building ideas and theories I’ve come up with? Not at all trying to pick your brains about PSA’s designs or ideas. Would not expect or want you to give out company secrets, just give you a few of mine to comment on, maybe even shoot down. I could even send some pics (jpeg), to show you what I mean.
I know you are a busy man, and I’m just an old retired fart tinkering in his woodshop, so let me know if you are interested. If you haven’t seen the video of the speaker contest, do a Google search for JP Stacks.

Sonically yours,

James K. Polk (Mongo)
Peru, IN

Sorry for the flood, gang. I’ll get my email figured out, someday.

Embarrassed,

Mongo

Hey James,

I’m messaging you directly and am happy to answer emails. My email here is chrisb (at) psaudio.com.

My copy arrived today. I’ve listened to it twice straight through and a few select tracks a third time, first off it is a real nice recording, good job Gus! On my system at least, not a huge amount of space, more of an intimate recording. Jessica’s voice (and what a voice it is!) is very well recorded and for me determined the appropriate volume. I think I was listening a little too low the first time through, a little more volume for the second listen improved the overall experience. Music wise, it’s close, but not quite in my usual musical lane. It’s an enjoyable listen, all the musicians are quite good, just not pulling me in fully. This is not a criticism, just a statement of my musical preferences.

Some music comments (please don’t assign too much weight to these):

All tracks; it was commented above that the piano is too forward, I don’t agree. After the first listen and before I reread the comments I thought on many tracks the piano may have been a bit recessed or less prominent than I would have thought. Perhaps this might be because I’m assuming the singer is also the pianist and expecting more piano being picked up by the mic. Looking at the liner notes I don’t see the piano player listed in the “players” section but elsewhere Jessica is noted as a piano player and singer, so I assume she played the piano. Of note, it does say the piano (only) was recorded at a different facility, so obviously the singers mic would not pick up the piano (unless it was a very good mic!).

Track 2 has a few low bass notes, is this Chris on an electric bass? On my system it’s kind a drone, probably very close or right on a bass peak in my room. Any idea what frequency this is?

Track 4; About four seconds in there is a “hiccup”, not sure if this is a pressing issue or in the master (which doesn’t seem likely). After hearing this I thought I heard a few more things, maybe they are edits? I did notice while checking this that the timer on the DMP was not doing anything … arrrggghhhh. Paul, one more firmware fix please?

Track 7; I believe this is the track that Paul likes so much. I can understand, but doesn’t have the same impact on me.

Track 10; The vocals, at least initially, seem fuzzier than Track 6, maybe some distortion perhaps? The rest of the instruments sound the same as Track 6 (original take)

A few general comments. First, Waymanchen11 above said there are two discs. I only got one disc, says it’s a hybrid SACD so there must be a 44.1 layer there, just haven’t fiddled with the DMP to listen to it. Apparently the other resolutions are only available via download? Not a problem for me, just making sure I understand. Second, for those wondering where their disc is, mine (and presumably all mailed to US addresses) was mailed USPS Media Mail, so it may take a while to arrive. Interestingly, there is a tracking number, but as pointed out by James above it’s not provided to the buyer. I would presume that is an extra cost item, no sense in PS Audio paying for it and not using it. Finally, I can see (hear?) this disc being a good system set up disc. I heard a few things that made me think my room is adding/subtracting to the music, I’m way overdue for some room treatments so maybe this is the year.

Thank you Gus, Paul and the all the musicians!

2 Likes

I got my copy yesterday after going down the mountain to Loveland to get our mail. Got to listen to it this afternoon and I think it”s wonderful. You can tell that everyone involved with this project had their heart in it. I don’t want to dissect it like some people seem to want to do; I just like the work as a whole. Jessica kind of reminds me a little of Carole King. For me, that’s a good thing.

All in all, a good piece of work! Looking forward to the next release!

Yes, I had played electric bass on the album and, in response to the bass note frequencies from track 2, the first bass notes go from from B-flat1 to D1, with the low D1 having a fundamental of ~36.7 Hz. That is the lowest bass note of the song and is played a number of times.

On electric bass, it is common for the 2nd harmonic to be about the same level as the fundamental (or even higher, depending on technique and pickup settings) and so the mode you’re describing may be around 73 Hz as well.

Hope this helps.

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Thanks Chris! I took some room measurements a while back, don’t recall if there was an issue around 37 Hz, but I know there were some peaks down that low.

The first release came with two discs, one SACD and one data disc. I wish they would do the same on this release, but on this release, the SACD is released separated from the file downloads. You can get one or the other, or buy both and paid twice. But the files comes DSD 64, 24bit 192khz, and 24bit 96khz all bundled together.

This is what I was referring to. Now that I notice it was written 12 days ago, I may have misread it. Did you have the physical disc or just the download at this point?

If you read carefully, I’m saying they should do like the first record, that would be ideal.

Arrived today!

“Unboxing”:

Listening to follow.

Still nothing after placing the order almost two weeks ago, and I called the customer service who basically implied that it will get here when it gets here since they were “overwhelmed”. Taking two weeks to get a CD is borderline incompetent these days.

If it’s left there facility then it’s in the hands of an already understaffed USPS before Covid-19 and what has become a “mail-in” Presidential Election. During the best of times the Denver Regional Facility is slow and this is certainly not the best of times.

While a little frustrating, we all knew it would be slow before placing the order. Your copy will arrive.

What surprises me the most is not even able to tell if my order was shipped or where it stands to be shipped.

I feel the pain on ordering, I waited a very long time for “Out of thin air” and complained about it a bit on this forum. But I also came to learn that PSA, esp guys like James and Paul himself, DO care about the experience people have with PSA and they are genuinely concerned about the difficulties in doing all of this, not only for the 1st time, but in the midst of a global Pandemic as well.
I found it was just easier to try to relax and it will come. I’m sure they hear us when we have issues and try to improve.

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Two things, FWIW:

  1. PS Audio is a newbie when it comes to this recording producing, marketing and distribution thing (they don’t have all of the moving parts sorted yet) and
  2. There are “supply chain”/logistical/staffing issues all over the world that have slowed things down and interrupted commerce and temporarily (IMO) impacted the “click it and ship it” world we consumers have gotten used to.

Respectfully yours,

Yes, this can be frustrating for sure. We’re slowly but surely building up our procedures and processes. This is an all new venture for us and shipping hundreds of items a day through the mail is new.

With Grusin’s album it took weeks. In some cases, more than a month. We didn’t know what to expect and silly us thought we’d just have our shipping department handle the (what we thought) would be a few dozen a day. It quickly became hundreds per day. Game over. Everything but the great recording went wrong with Grusin’s (including being a financial disaster). To make it work Jim, the president of our company, personally shipped out nearly 1,000 with the help of his wife and daughter.

With Temporary Circumstances we were better prepared. Every order has been shipped out within a few days of being received. Still the only way we can afford to ship these for the fee we charge is through the US mails. The media rate we pay does not allow for tracking.

We’re working hard on getting better with each release. Our next will be the great Otis Taylor. I trust that release will be even smoother, though I am pretty happy with how this last one went.

Thanks for the patience and understanding.

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I am in Ohio and I got mine days ago. Most Usps mail is normal here or no more than 1 day late

My SACD showed up yesterday. I had an appointment so I was only able to listen to a couple of tracks. From what I heard @Paul and team have done another fantastic job.

I like the fact that not only is the music tight, Jessica is a great song writer.