Hi everyone. This is my review of the UltraAanalogue Recordings’ Sampler No. 1.
I bought the tape a few weeks ago and it arrived in its original box that the blank RMG SM900 tape comes in. Considering the $60 I paid on Amazon for that tape, the $250 cost of the UA’s recordings does not seem unreasonable given the small quantities, the work of making the recordings, royalties, labor and such. Of course it is still an investment and the question is whether it is worth it.
In a word yes! My first experience started with spooling the tape, hitting play and getting taken back with the level of fidelity in an instant. I had not even made it back to my listening chair! It was like, “wow, where did that come from?” The Passacaglia starting passage could not be a better choice than to showcase what is to come. The strings pull at your proverbial heart and audiophile ears like there is no tomorrow. I sat there mesmerized until the tape ran off the spool!
But we are getting ahead of ourselves a bit. This being a review from an engineer, it can’t be one devoid of technical analysis
. As mentioned on the UA web site, this tape by default comes in NAB equalization instead of the more common IEC. They will however make IEC version on request. Also different (?) is the recoding level. Given the SM900’s headroom, the recording is calibrated to a flux level of 250 nWb/m. My playback machine is an unmodified Otari B5050 which fortunately accommodates both. It has selectable EQ and three levels of Flux setting.
The tape nicely comes with a calibration tone at 1 Khz that is supposed to read at 0 dBu. Here is a shot of my meters when the setting is at *320* nWb/m:
As you see, it still reads hot. If I set it to 250, it is worse (peggs max). I am pretty certain this is an issue with lack of calibration in my machine. I plan to by an MRL measurement tape and get it in top shape within 0.00001 db accuracy. Fortunately none of this is material on playback as the flux rating just changes what the VU meters show. And there, most of the time they live below 0 dBu. I only saw it peg to the max a few times on dynamic passages.
Edit: turns out this is correct as the recording is not at 250 but 396. Please see Ed's note below.
Back to the content, this being a sampler, you get to hear the different recording settings. The second track for example has high enough gain where you hear the slightest movements of the musicians which is actually fun. Others are mic’ed at lower level so you just hear the music.
Here is the full list of tracks on this tape: Passacaglia, Czardas, Cassado-Finale, Liszt-Canzone, Meditation, Rachmaninov-Song. This brings me to a small nit. The web site has little detail on these tracks. I would have loved to read more about these compositions and the talent behind them playing in these tapes. No doubt they are described in far more detail in the respective tapes/concerts they were extracted. My suggestion is to add those descriptions to the sampler too. Fortunately the tape box has the names of the musicians and their instruments:
Here is the web site page for this sampler: http://ultraanaloguerecordings.com/wpsite/store/?cat_product=sampler-no-1. If you have a Reel to Reel deck and any interest in classical music at very high fidelity, this sampler from UltraAanalogue Recordings is a must have. Highly recommended.
P.S. I have no commercial interest in UltraAanalogue Recordings and bought this tape out of my own funds although Ed may have been kind enough to have shipped it for free to me.
I bought the tape a few weeks ago and it arrived in its original box that the blank RMG SM900 tape comes in. Considering the $60 I paid on Amazon for that tape, the $250 cost of the UA’s recordings does not seem unreasonable given the small quantities, the work of making the recordings, royalties, labor and such. Of course it is still an investment and the question is whether it is worth it.
In a word yes! My first experience started with spooling the tape, hitting play and getting taken back with the level of fidelity in an instant. I had not even made it back to my listening chair! It was like, “wow, where did that come from?” The Passacaglia starting passage could not be a better choice than to showcase what is to come. The strings pull at your proverbial heart and audiophile ears like there is no tomorrow. I sat there mesmerized until the tape ran off the spool!
But we are getting ahead of ourselves a bit. This being a review from an engineer, it can’t be one devoid of technical analysis
. As mentioned on the UA web site, this tape by default comes in NAB equalization instead of the more common IEC. They will however make IEC version on request. Also different (?) is the recoding level. Given the SM900’s headroom, the recording is calibrated to a flux level of 250 nWb/m. My playback machine is an unmodified Otari B5050 which fortunately accommodates both. It has selectable EQ and three levels of Flux setting. The tape nicely comes with a calibration tone at 1 Khz that is supposed to read at 0 dBu. Here is a shot of my meters when the setting is at *320* nWb/m:
As you see, it still reads hot. If I set it to 250, it is worse (peggs max). I am pretty certain this is an issue with lack of calibration in my machine. I plan to by an MRL measurement tape and get it in top shape within 0.00001 db accuracy.
Fortunately none of this is material on playback as the flux rating just changes what the VU meters show. And there, most of the time they live below 0 dBu. I only saw it peg to the max a few times on dynamic passages.Edit: turns out this is correct as the recording is not at 250 but 396. Please see Ed's note below.
Back to the content, this being a sampler, you get to hear the different recording settings. The second track for example has high enough gain where you hear the slightest movements of the musicians which is actually fun. Others are mic’ed at lower level so you just hear the music.
Here is the full list of tracks on this tape: Passacaglia, Czardas, Cassado-Finale, Liszt-Canzone, Meditation, Rachmaninov-Song. This brings me to a small nit. The web site has little detail on these tracks. I would have loved to read more about these compositions and the talent behind them playing in these tapes. No doubt they are described in far more detail in the respective tapes/concerts they were extracted. My suggestion is to add those descriptions to the sampler too. Fortunately the tape box has the names of the musicians and their instruments:
Here is the web site page for this sampler: http://ultraanaloguerecordings.com/wpsite/store/?cat_product=sampler-no-1. If you have a Reel to Reel deck and any interest in classical music at very high fidelity, this sampler from UltraAanalogue Recordings is a must have. Highly recommended.
P.S. I have no commercial interest in UltraAanalogue Recordings and bought this tape out of my own funds although Ed may have been kind enough to have shipped it for free to me.
