Sound Quality/Music Reviews and Comments on SACD/DVD-A - Page 10

That's great Bill, by all means post your thoughts, hope you like it as much as I do . Great value too, this one is dirt cheap.

Just ordered this SACD for 8.08 from amazon .

Thanks for the heads up guys

Mark

X2...thanks for the review Pet. Eight more till I hit 300

Just ordered mine as well.

Jay, thanks for the review!

OOOOOOOOOOOhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 300, that will earn you the rank of SACD Spartan warrior! Obviously you've not been attending your meetings, or conversing with your sponsor .

I DO NOT HAVE A PROBLEM... ...And de nial is a river in Africa.

I spit in the general direction of all SACD anonymous meetings ever since I was shunned from MY treasurer position.

I have to agree, I am somewhat overly interested in the format.

I have to stop starting my sentences with "I"

Problem aside, Martin, please do all of us poor addicts a favor, pull out a rare jewel that you consider an obscure straight 10 at a good price, and do a review! Your loyal subjects (or is it fellow OCD members?) await!

In fact, I propose a competition whereby all interested parties post a review of an obscure straight 10 (currently available at a reasonable price), the winner gets the coveted SACDBA Treasurer position LOL!

Good thought...I'll go through my list and see what I can find.

Title Info: Laurence Juber - Guitar Noir, AIX/80018 ...$25 direct from AIX
http://aixrecords.com/catalog/dvd_av...d_av_prem.html

Format: Hybrid DVD-A, 2.0/5.1 DVD-A/5.1 DVD-V (stage/audience)

Review: MCH/stage layer reviewed only.

Genre: Acoustical Jazz

Background:
From the AIX site – “… won multiple Surround Music Award nominations, topped the DVD Etc list of "The 20 Best Sounding Multi-Channel Releases" AND won the 2005 "DEMMY" award from the Consumer Electronics Association for "Best High-Resolution, Multi-Channel Track".”

Audio Quality: 10
To achieve true lifelike sound, it must first be captured and recorded with as little error as possible. The recording process for this title is simply flawless, captured in true 24 bit/96Khz from the start. When reproduced using hi-res capable MCH systems, you can hear the faithful reproduction of the original performance. The instruments are perfectly placed in the soundstage. The performance becomes “alive” again in your listening environment. The speakers disappear. The affect is not subtle, you feel as if you’re in the recording studio. Not any gimmicky surround stuff going on.

Technically this recording uses state of the art equipment/mics to capture every nuance. The acoustical performance makes it easy for listeners to hear the guitar, bass, and/or percussion. Additionally, this setting allows access to not just the instrument, but the micro-details in the fingers against the strings, the attack and finesse used by each artist. You can clearly hear the details in the tone and dynamic range of the performance. It’s perfectly captured. There’s not a lot of distracting sounds or instruments adding multiple layers. The end result in my experience is amazing clarity with the ability to hear each note on each instrument. It’s really a thing of beauty…nothing but the artists and their instruments. There’s something very pure about this recording.

MCH execution: 9
A reference recording that will highlight just how realistic hi-res MCH music can sound. Acoustic guitar highlighted left-center, percussions background center/right-center/right, stand-up bass primarily background center/some right-center. Surrounds do a great job of widening and adding depth to the soundstage without being overbearing or unrealistic…balanced just right. If I was forced to critique anything, it’s the placement of the percussion/bass. I may have moved the percussion more to center and the bass more to the right, but we’re splitting hairs.

Performance: 10
This is somewhat an obscure acoustic jazz recording due to the artists and production/marketing machine used; not necessarily “mainstream.” There’s not a major brand name behind the product to draw major interest. No Miles Davis or Ray Brown to real them in …that’s a shame considering the depth of artistry and the accolades this recording has captured. It’s simply acoustic jazz that soothes the soul. Mr. Juber can flat out play the guitar; wonderful tone and rhythm. Sometimes it sounds more like two guitars than one. Base/percussion with taste, never overbearing and flawlessly complements the virtuoso guitar work. The bass at times intermingles so well with martin guitar (In Your Arms), they become an extension of each other.

Artists
Laurence Juber, Signature Series Martin Guitar
Steve Forman, percussion
Domenic Gnova, bass

Stereo, Audience 5.1 not reviewed

System Info
Pre/pro/AVR: Outlaw 970
Main Amplification: Outlaw 7125
Player: Oppo BDP-95

Speakers
FR/FL: Aperion Verus Forte Towers
Center: Aperion 533 VAC
Surrounds: Aperion 532L/R
Surround angle from CC: 100 deg.
Sub(s): Aperion S-10

Martin excellent review, love your method of scoring the disc.

Thanks

Dan

Sir Paul's Wings guitarist's AIX title is certainly a worthy one! Great review.

Mr. Juber also plays the acoustical guitar work in the AIX Allstar Band titles, including the amazing "Moonlight Acoustica", and the Christmas album, both of which are also superb.

I've been really enjoying the AIX/Goldberg Variations Acoustica bluray lately, which is outstanding. Juber and other great musicians on this disc.

Good review Jeff...recieved today and on top of great musicianship on very familiar classics, Telarc did a great job on the mastering. A lot of value in this disc.

Who's Jeff?

Very nice to get some feedback, I was starting to think maybe my tastes were somewhat skewed as nobody has offered an opinion on any of the titles I've recommended!

As a point of interest, Monty Alexander was, from what I understrand, a child prodigy playing gigs at quite a tender young age.

Jay's brother from a different mother.

Ordered surround 2 disc sets of Morph the Cat by Donald Fagen, and also Laurence Juber - Guitar Noir, AIX/80018 (a double sided disc); both include a 5.1 DVD_A side/disc.

I couldn't get the AIX site to take my credit card, so I called their 800 number to place the order. They included their "free" sampler disc (not sure if it's double sided, but apparently it is 5.1 DVD_A) whereas generally you need to buy two of their titles to get the sampler for free.

Also got a used CD of My America by Monty Alexander for only $6 total as I wasn't sure I wanted to spend the extra money for the hybrid SACD.

Tip of the hat to Bill Mac and USAFChief.

Hope you enjoy as much I did/do!

Warning on their "free" sampler disc...it's a teaser/partial song and may lead to not so free additional purchases. I did not regret the additional purchases either.

Just listened to Dire Straits - Brothers in arms - sacd - 20th anniversary.
One of the best I've heard so far, too bad all music isn't recorded and transfered like this. Thanks for the advice.

I've been revisiting ELP - Brain Salad Surgery - DVD-A
Before, I couldn't stand this disc. Now I'm running 7.1 full range in a more acoustical room. Just amazing.

Owning this DVD-A is a real treat and also has something the SACD doesn't offer.
The SACD lacks the *stunning* DVD-A bonus track surround mix of 'Lucky Man'

It has a few strange sounding things in the mix, most noticeably it seems to me they messed up the level or equalization of Palmer's kick drum on the KE-9 suite. It just has a strange artificial sound to it.

Compared to the original vinyl and low rez stereo releases I've heard, the biggest improvement IMO is they brought up the bass so that it has some real weight when it's there, whether on bass guitar or keys/synth. Anyone who saw them perform this album live in 73-74 time frame or has heard WBMFTTSTNE will recognize this difference compared to the stereo BSS releases.

Overall I think it was a fantastic job of modernizing the recording of what to me was an album that formed a lot of my musical tastes at a young age. It's still a bit frustrating that they didn't completely nail it.

I have to put in a good word for the HDTracks.com 192/24 download of pianist Bill Evans' classic album Waltz for Debby with Scott LaFaro on bass and Paul Motian on drums. This is not available on disk anywhere - you'll have to put it on a disk yourself. (More about that below.)

This is a legendary album hailed for the "telepathic" relationship of the three musicians. When I saw that HDTracks had it in the choice of 96/24 or 192/24 I bought downloads of one of the tracks available ala carte, "Some Other Time," which is the Bernstein tune that Evans famously got lost in the first two chords of on his debut album as a leader, Everybody Digs Bill Evans, creating his classic track "Peace Piece," because even the on-line 30 second demo sounded far superior to the original LP.

I bought that track in both versions, 96/24 and 192/24, and burned them to a DVD-Audio disk, alternating them a few times. I played them on my Denon 2910, listening with the lights out - it's that kind of album.

The difference was clear. While the 96/24 sounded far better than the LP, the 192/24 sounded even better - the instruments sounded much more solid and real. Scott LaFaro's bass was warm and round and like a big guitar - he was a very melodic player. Paul Motian's brush work on the cymbals had a palpable sheen, and Evan's piano sounded clear and clean or lyrical as the moment dictated.

This is a stereo record, but tying the front and side speakers together with my AVR's "6 Channel Stereo" mode filled the room very satisfyingly. This is a nightclub recording, so you'll occasionally hear the clink of glasses at the bar and hushed conversation in the audience.

So I went ahead and bought the whole 192/24 download. It is all good. Cirlinca's DVD-Audio Solo pointed out that it was a bit too big to fit on a DVD-Audio disk, so I omitted the alternate takes of tracks (they weren't on the original LP), but kept the one tune that was not on the LP at all: "I Loves You Porgy." I put it in next-to-last, where it fits the flow of the original LP, which ends with the upbeat "Milestones." The tracks are thus:

My Foolish Heart
Waltz for Debby (Evans' most famous original)
Detour Ahead
My Romance
Some Other Time
I Loves You Porgy
Milestones

The alternate takes are of Waltz, Detour, and Romance - they're very good also, and I only had to omit one track to make it fit, but I didn't feel that it was right to override the artistic choice made by Evans of which version to release.

I used the free demo download of DVD-Audio Solo for this (you get to make up to 5 disks!), and then discovered that the same company's only a little more expensive HD Audio Solo Ultra can do even more interesting tricks, like downsampling 192/24 to 96/24 to make a DVD-Video music disk playable in any DVD player, and making Blu-ray disks - and also Blu-ray-formatted AVCHD DVDs at 192/24 playable in Blu-ray players that don't speak DVD-Audio. (It can even make a Redbook CD from a 192/24 download.)

In fact, while DVD-Audio disks can do 192/24 only in stereo and are limited to 96/24 for 5.1, a Blu-ray or AVCHD DVD or memory card can handle full surround at 192/24.

So I used the free demo download of the HD Ultra version to make a 96/24 DVD-V and a 192/24 AVCHD DVD of Waltz for Debby. The only thing that held the latter back sonically was that my Panasonic BD50's analog audio output section is not quite as good as that in my Denon 2910. It was the difference between "great" and "fantastic": the localization of the instruments was still excellent but it lacked some of the warmth and three-dimensionality of the Denon's output. (If you're bitstreaming the PCM over HDMI, both versions should sound the same.)

Waltz for Debby deserves its reputation as a landmark recording. Get it.

If you read the write-up at HDTracks.com of this pair of downloads, they discuss at length how they used a playback tape deck with custom modern electronics to get every bit of sound off the tapes. I suppose that this may have been the same transfer as used for some other version, but there was no mention of using DSD with its megahertz sampling rate - instead they specifically said that two separate passes were made to capture at 192/24 and 96/24 rather than downsampling.

I am not, personally, a fan of matrix-derived surround - it seems to me that it causes artifacts that can give the music a hollow or muddy sound. Unless there was a multichannel master, a performance recorded in stereo tends to sound best played back in stereo. That's why I prefer to simply send an unmodified copy of the stereo pair to the surround channels and apply - at most - bass and delay management.

This was a field recording at a jazz club in 1961, not a studio date. The likelihood that it was recorded in more than two channels is very low - which is particularly evident if you listen to the original LP, which was sonically sub-par and sounds, compared to the HDTracks version, like it's coming over an office intercom. The sound that later engineers have been able to extract from those tapes is nothing short of miraculous.

I've been a fan of Bill Evans since my teens, when one the first real jazz records I bought was a copy of his Trio 65 at Sam Goody's record store near Penn Station in Manhattan - a place where the employees had to use ladders that rolled on rails up at the ceiling to fetch albums for customers.

I've been an amateur jazz pianist for a while, and I know I'll never be anywhere near as good as Evans, McCoy Tyner, Ahmad Jamal, or Chick Corea - but it's still great fun.

[quote=Bill Mac;21818916]
Go back to my post yesterday and do the same experiment. Go to HDTracks.com, search for Waltz for Debby and buy the 96/24 and 192/24 versions of "Some Other Time." That'll set you back $2.50 for the 96/24 and $3 for the 192/24 version.

Then go to Cirlinca.com and get the 30-day free trial of DVD-Audio Solo, which lets you make 5 disks larger than 700MB (disks smaller than that don't even move the counter - they encourage you to make small disks to learn how to run the program).

Make a DVD-Audio disk that alternates the two versions a few times and listen to them with the lights out. (Use a silver-topped disk - I've found that writing with a Sharpie on a white "inkjet printable" DVD can bleed through enough to make it unreliable, even though that doesn't cause any problem with CDs.)

If you can't hear any difference or any improvement over your CDs, fine - but I suspect you will.

Otherwise, there'd be no point in buying DVD-A or SACD reissues of albums made before digital recording became common around 1980.

Even Mark Waldrep (Dr. AIX) doesn't go that far - he agrees that they can sound better than CDs, but objects to calling them high resolution because he wants that term reserved for modern digital recordings.

- Phil

John Pizzarelli Trio - Live at Birdland SACD sounds fantastic.
It will put you in the middle of the crowd.
One of my demo SACD.