[
Top of Page ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Support/Wish List ]
[ Copyright © 2008, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
[ General ] [ Speakers ] [ Tubes ] [ Vinyl ] [ Digital ] [ Hi-Rez ] [ Video Asylum ] [ Cables ] [ Tweaks/DIY ] [ Music ] [ Films ]
58.169.81.218
Irritated (as so many of us are) by the mushy sound on many commercial discs, caused by poor engineering, using too many mics & mixers etc, the guys at HDTT went back into the archives and were delighted to discover excellent quality music on tape, some of which was 50 years old. In those days they observed the KISS principle using the minimal number of mics. HDTT use high quality Studer reel to reel recorders to play the tapes and convert to digital with impressive high end gear, finally laboriously burn each CD (or DVD-A) on high quality Taiyo Yuden, HQCD media discs with minimal jitter involved.
So how do they sound?
As with any recording mic quality, its placement etc all affect audio quality so the sonic signature of these tapes, coming from a variety of studios, does vary. That is not to say the sound is bad, it is not. Uniformly the soundstaging is superb on the DVD-As I purchased but just how good the reproduced sound will be depends on a very large number of factors.
This was driven home to me on first audition as I was initially not as gobsmacked as expected. But as the auditioning wore on the sound seemed to be getting better. Then the penny dropped, it was improving because the preamp and player had been powered on for longer! In the interests of the power bill, and to a lesser extent global warming, I had been powering this gear off inbetween listening sessions. Now those listening sessions had been becoming less in recent times and this is obviously the reason why.
So, I left the gear fully on for a couple of days and then went back for more serious appraisal.
I purchased the following 11 discs (all DVD-A except the sampler, but not all show the recording date)
Beethoven-Christ the Mt.
Dvorak New World Sym. Dorati
Great Russian Arias
Hoist The Planets Boult
Mahler 2nd Scherchen
Purcell Dido and Aeneas
Ravel Daphnis et Chloe Munch
Scherchen Scheherazade
Saint-Saens Sym #3
Tchaikovsky Sy. #2 Previn (incorrect labeling on this – the Symphony occurs last, not first)
Sampler
You can see details of these at their homepage.
To these ears the outstanding disc was Scheherazade. I have 3 other copies of this work and all pale in comparison both sonically and artistically.
But there are a couple of caveats to be aware of. One concerns the origin of the music on tape and there is evidence of slight wow in a couple of discs although I did not detect any hiss on any I purchased. HDTT are quite open about all this and warn that “defects might be audible on certain music tracks”. The second is the nature of the burned rather than pressed recordings. Theoretically the result is better, and should be so in most cases, but the very nature of burning, no matter how good the gear, has the potential for problems. The discs are carefully checked before being sent so this should not happen, but if it does, then there is no argument about sending a replacement.
So, do I recommend buying these?
The answer is a qualified “yes”. Qualified because you need the very best setup (left powered on 24/7) to fully appreciate the quality they are capable of producing. Also qualified because the particular interpretation of the work might not be to your taste, but that applies to any disc. I have been disappointed many times after buying as the result of a rave review.
However if you are interested to hear the very best reproduction possible from digital, particularly DVD-A, then you cannot go past these HDTTs. The clarity of the music is unsurpassed and no other SACD or DVD-A in this collection is better. They make it obvious that recording techniques went backward rather than forward as the technology improved and gave engineers too many toys to play with. Ironically recent financial restraints have forced a more minimalist approach to recent recordings and the quality is again improving. But HDTT offer a glimpse into the past to illustrate just how fundamentally sound were recordings made in the 1950’s. The recording engineers of today should take note.
John
Postscript: After penning the above I listened to the CD sampler and was also very impressed with the sound quality on 16/44.1. It was rather annoying that the track listings were only on the disc and not on a simple accompanying flier and that is something HDTT should simply and inexpensively attend to. Bottom line is that these tape transfers offer some of the best audio quality available on the silver platters and, IMHO, far exceeds anything possible with vinyl.
Sadly (or is it happily?) an incurable audio-video nutter with an indecent number of toys. Classical music forever!!!!
Follow Ups:
Top of Page ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Support/Wish List ]
[ Copyright © 2008, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]