In 2003 I had 2 young children and no SACD player. I now have two grown up and moved out children and still no SACD player, but I do have a Pizarro download.
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I must say this is the fastest Pathetique in history. Even faster than Gould. The sound is a little dry, but excellent, more to do with the piano than the venue.
I found this via Tidal. . . . Have to say I enjoyed it.
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Music by Vivaldi, Telemann, Pachelbel, Michael Haydn, and Heinrich von Biber.
All the Northstar recordings of the Challenge label are of Great sound quality.
Reference Recordings pushed out a fair bit of HDCDs at the time which is not surprising given Keith O. Johnson’s involvement in the standard. I guess HDCD has since been added to the alphabet soup of digital standards that never were to be.
A label I’ve never heard of as well.
All roads lead to PCM, as the Romans would have said. My kids growing up distracted me from the format wars, my first was born in 1997 just before SACD turned up and I got back to looking at audio in 2009 to move to streaming, all 16/44 PCM. The format wars were only something I found out about later and realised how lucky I was to have missed them and the “need” for new hardware. I’ve never even heard an MQA file. UDCD sounded like some type of milk.
Listening to another Challenge Classics recording over Tidal, and enjoying it quite a bit . . . . This label was a nice discovery.
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HDCD worked very well. And Reference Recordings does a wonderful job.
RR has come up with some spectacular vinyl releases over the years, most notably probably being RR-11 (Symphonie Fantastique by Berlioz) which actually comes with warnings that it may blow your speakers. That’s probably more marketing than reality, I guess if your system is bound to clip it will clip on any record if player loud enough, but the dynamics of RR-11 is impressive.
Unfortunately RR is not unlike many other audiophile labels in that while the recordings are top quality, the performances often leave a bit to desire. Not the least because the material that suits audiophilic fireworks is not always musically most interesting.
Pretty much the only RR I listen to these days is RR-39. One of my favourite records.
I like SACD but also admit that well made modern CDs do sound very good, comparable to SACD.
Back to the topic and back to Jennifer Pike.
The good news is that I have a Devialet unit that has software that protects your speakers from getting damaged.
I’d not heard of “Hammersmith”. I should have as the album cover is a painting of the sign from the train station I used for 8 years of school from age 8. Holst was a music teacher at the school for most of his life. I see it was dedicated to APH, at least I knew his book. APH lived in Hammersmith Mews, which was opposite the school and the location of one of our two school pubs, The Rutland Arms. Holst and APH probably drank there. If you saw the film Bohemian Rhapsody, the terrace scene where Queen sign their first contract was filmed at the pub.
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My favorite Reference Recordings CD (which also happens to be HDCD). . . .
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Jennifer Pike may well be my first post-current-lockdown gig. It’s either her or Nicola Benedetti. Interesting programme planned.