The Sound of the new February 11 2017 UltraAnalogue Narita & Yun-Yang-Lee Recordings

earlinarizona

Well-Known Member
Jul 17, 2010
173
44
1,583
Dr. Pong again was kind enough to send me some new cuts since the update to the recording chain. He has made some tweaks along with now using two of the famous WE300b Tube.
How would I classify the new sound? Remember years ago when you went to the movies and waited to see the special effects. Stephen Spielberg said we will have reached nirvana when your forget about the production chain and all of the effects become invisible. That is when the trade has accomplished the goal.
With the latest changes to Ed Pongs recording the recording chain is now just not there anymore. Invisible and not heard. No need to comment on this or that because it just does the music as it sounds in person. No more and no less. No harshness and no overly romantic artifacts but just real. Just like some top rated amplifiers have gone invisible with just gain by reviewers, the same has happened here. No solid state sound anywhere to be found but no sloppy overly tube sound to be found. This is the greatest compliment anyone can give an audio product. I listened to Beethoven Violin Sonata Number 3,5,8 along with Tatsuki again playing Meditation and Sarasota Zapateado. I think a recording made on a standard studio Studer would have trouble being compared to this now. Tony Ma worked his magic with silver in the recording stages just like Kondo and Audio Note UK use silver for a magical sound. Did I forget to say that Tatsuki Narita, the violinist in the recordings is a rising super star that will surpass the greats like Heifetz while connecting with a younger audience.
 

tony ky ma

Industry Expert
Aug 21, 2010
630
5
930
Whitby Ontario Canada
Thank for the appreciation key point of this time is the pure DC (battery) power supply, if you can compare the last time Beethoven violin sonata no.9 same Tatsuki & YY, WE 300B is the same but not battery power you will know the difference , in this point I would like people can understand that improvement can be less money also has good return
enjoy the music
tony ma
 

Edward Pong

Industry Expert
Jun 24, 2013
386
195
348
Locust Hill, Ontario
Actually the Beethoven 9 Kreutzer had the new production WE300b in the mic-pre amp. Only the recent recording of the Paganini 24 Caprices had the vintage 1956 WE300b in the mic-pre.

However, these 3 new tapes have both the DC battery supply to the record electronics & the vintage WE300b in the recording of the master tape...
Ed
 
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Edward Pong

Industry Expert
Jun 24, 2013
386
195
348
Locust Hill, Ontario
Review by Steve Deckert of Decware High Fidelity Engineering - of these new Feb 2017 tapes....

UltraAnalogue Recordings Review

04/14/17 at 18:34:05 Can you imagine what it would be like to have a Steinway piano and violin in your listening room? ...Both made of the wood from this earth and free of the parasitic contamination of transistors, microprocessors, plastics and electricity and amplification?

Such an experience transcends even the live event because the illusion of reality is so overwhelmingly strong that even though it is being reproduced in your listening room, it is somehow still completely real. How, you ask?

Well, if you've been following the steady upgrades to the UltraAnalogue recording and playback process you know that a new level of fidelity has been achieved.

Some new tapes from UltraAnalogue now featuring this ultra refined level of playback are now available on their website!

These new recordings have become my personal reference for absolute purity in analogue recordings. No other LP or Tape that I own from a technical sound quality perspective is this refined, therefor it raises the benchmark to a new level.

Make no mistake about the fact that having such refinement and perfection of recording is a complete waste of time without musicians that are equally exceptional. No one wants a holy grail recording of something that's not impressive sounding to begin with. It only makes sense to match the worlds best live 2 channel direct to tape recording chain with some of the world's best musicians. While I have never shaken their hands, Tatsuki Narita & Yun-Yang Lee are simply mind numbingly good at what they do. I feel like I know them both because their presence was felt during the playback of the tape.

As a result of this type of refinement, the emotion of the music is communicated in a way that moves well beyond what is possible when watching the videos! That's correct, the powerful visual of seeing these performances on video can not compete emotionally with hearing only the sound from our tape machines... and that is saying a lot because we all know that video will make mid-fi sound much better than it actually is and a YouTube digital compressed video is mid-fi..


The first of these new tapes I had the pleasure of experiencing contained Beethoven Violin Sonata #8 and Sararsate Zapateado & Meditation. Playful, Dynamic, Delicate. I had to listen to this tape three times back to back, then took a break to let it sink in and then spun it one more time before bed. It's that good.

The second tape I enjoyed was Zigeunerweisen and Brahms Hungarian Dances, specifically Zigeunerweisen is paired with Beethoven Violin Sonata #3 and Brahms Dances is paired with Beethoven Violin Sonata #5 (Spring).

These are fun pieces to listen to and exceptional for anyone with a short classical attention span. Again, I have listened to this reel 6 times so far, and just beginning to remember the music on it having been so completely distracted by the fidelity. I mean, when something sounds REAL in your listening room and it's not there, well, that's pretty distracting so you have to listen to the tapes many many many times and it's certain to be the most fun you've ever had when that happens.

These recordings are so over the top good, with the blackest inky backgrounds that when the violin goes soft and subtle it does so in such a contrast to the black background that it's power is increased not diminished. It's a new experience in stereo playback and I look forward to a lot more of it.

You can see these recordings as they happened in these 3 videos on Youtube...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE7UCBf_9v4&t=242s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5rAXnnrJTo&t=556s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eid2NfmPdYo&t=508s

These tapes can be ordered from UltraAnalgue Recordings web site at this link:

http://ultraanaloguerecordings.com/wpsite/store/?cat_product=tatsuki-narita-yun-...

Steve

http://www.decware.com/cgi-bin/yabb22/YaBB.pl?num=1492191245
 
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