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In Reply to: Favorite recordings to show of your (tube) system posted by tuber on July 29, 2002 at 11:04:18:
Everybody has one or two recordings that "do it" for them, and mine only work with tube gear.Anyway, Stravinsky's "Rite Of Spring" (Pierre Monteux and the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra, RCA Victor LM-2085, 1957) is mine... I have three copies of this (2 16S/17S and 1 19S/19S pressing), and each is unique. When rendered by a Rega Planar 3 through an Audible Illusions Modulus 3A and a pair of Dyna Mark IV's I get shivers and the hair on the back of my neck stands up.
Another record that has this effect -- with tubes only -- is the 1955 RCA Victor LM-1913, "Delibes Sylvia and Coppelia"; Monteux again, this time with "members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra" as the jacket says.
My solid state Rega Elicit is good, but it can't do these records justice. Both of these are mono recordings -- the latter with a single mike directly over the maestro's head. I'm not a mono fanatic, but these recordings paired with my EL34 based system... well, they do things to me. Air, imaging, soundstage... all of this is still important in the monaural domain. These disks have it, and the EL34's reveal it (David Hafler's transformers probably have a bit to do with that as well!).
A friend posited that it may be ideal to match up the recording and playback technologies -- tube with tube, and ss with ss. I wish I could remember the specific example, but he had an orchestral recording that was cut entirely with tube equipment, and if played through ss gear gave one the rather unsettling effect of hovering above the orchestra.
Follow Ups:
Here I go showing my ignorance again, but I had no idea that a mono recording could recreate a soundstage at all!? I thought it required two mikes to create the illusion of width, depth and placement (the same way having two eyes allows us a sense of depth, but with only one we do not perceive depth nearly as well.....so do two ears/two speakers do the same with sound....or am I way off base here)? I don't think I have many mono recordings but I'm sure I have a few in the blues category (I'm just beginning to really appreciate classical music so my collection is quite small). I'll have to pull a few of those mono's out and listen on tubes, as I don't think I have done that since converting.
If you close one eye you'll see that you still have depth perception, and likewise, stereo is not a requirement to capture aural effects of the recording environs. Of course, without the notion of left/right there is no sided-ness. If you adjust your expectations a bit and listen to a few high quality mono recordings I'm sure you'll "get the picture." I suspect that the best effect is had from vinyl in this catagory... I have very few mono recordings in a digital format, and so can't say for certain.You can usually find relatively nice mono RCA Victor "Shaded dogs" (the LM-xxxx catalog numbers) and blue label Columbias at your favorite used record emporium, as monophonic vinyl has yet to come into vogue amongst the collector crowd. Just stay away from MY favorite dealers ;-)
Sure, I'll stay away from your favorite dealers. You'd better make a list of them so I'll know which ones to avoid! Just use my email link and lets not clutter up this thread any more than we have to;-)!Indeed, with one eye closed we can still perceive depth ;-(, but not nearly as well as with both eyes open :-), especially when any kind of motion is involved. Our hearing, as I understand it, is more lacking in the ability to perceive depth than our vision. I found a good explanation of our visual depth perception here, which briefly mentions hearing:
http://www2.iicm.edu/0x811bc833_0x000dacca
BUT, better yet, there is an interesting page on depth perception in hearing and recording, specifically adressing mono recordings vs stereo recordings here, which DOES support your observations:
http://www.digido.com/depthessay.html
Thanks for bringing this to my attention Tom!
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