Peter finally came ashore from his summer sailing adventures long enough to let me listen in person to the Peggy Lee cut on his system, which I wished to hear as a comparison with the sonic impression given by his eponymous YouTube video.
The impression was Extraordinary for what it taught me.
First, this recording, on this system, provided the most natural-sounding presentation of plucked string bass I have ever heard. I didn't muse about 'extension' or 'air around the instrument': I felt the performance, its nuances and what it gave me musically and emotionally.
Second, if I were a recording engineer, I feel some confidence that I would be able to identify both the microphone used for Peggy Lee's vocal, and the console level setting for the reverb added to her voice, such was the combination of natural sound rendition, technical excellence and most importantly, perhaps, transparency of the presentation to the original performance.
Third, and this is discernible to a surprising degree in the YouTube video, there is genuine shock value in the percussive punctuation that follows Ms Lee's vocal lines. Believe me when I say this effect is stunningly, even memorably better presented through the system when heard in person.
Finally, the shimmer of symbols, and their seemingly perfect sound throughout their sound's decay is mesmerizing. And -- other than noting the reverb added to Ms Lee's vocal track-- I didn't comment upon her voice because I didn't note anything to comment upon, such was the transparency of the presentation. I should mention that this song's vocal presentation is stronger than many, if not most, songs: its explosive leading edge labials and rapid, effortless decay are powerfully exclamatory, like punctuation.
In small aspects of the differences between the Ortofon and the vdH cartridges, there were some details that are perhaps worth a mention. Both gave a strong impression of the recording venue: the vdH was the more delicately nuanced of the two to my ears, but with the power of this recording, that refinement might not be an advantage.
Finger snaps with the Ortofon, by contrast, sounded as though they might have been recorded separately and dubbed in, where with the vdH these snaps sounded fully integrated into the sound track. Vocally there were differences, but neither cartridge seemed to stand out over the other in this frequency range. Bass was stunningly presented by the Ortofon, authoritatively. The ambiance of the recording venue, in my opinion, was differently depicted by each transducer.
For my listening preference, and not knowing the recording that Peter graciously played at my request ( specifically because I had recently listened to the YouTube video ) I feel the Ortofon just flat out had balls. While I did not *by any means* dislike the van den Hull's presentation, the Ortofon's presentation better suited this recording's stringent sonic demands by a substantial margin. I found this one of the most informative comparative demonstrations I've experienced in this hobby.
I remain surprised that so many of these distinctions can clearly be discerned in videos that are easily made with technology that is accessible to most of us. The fact that the differences can readily be heard is due in part, I hypothesize, to the most uncommon resolution capability of Peter's system, carefully assembled around components that match each other with Exceptional, Elusive and Exemplary complementarity. It's like a musician whose licks seem effortless when they result from decades of listening and perfecting one's 'sound', or as Ansel Adams used to say, "Yes, it only took 1/60th of a second to make the photograph.... and forty-two years”.
