Soundlab Audiophile G9-7c: a 30-year odyssey fulfilled

[godofwealth]

We are listening to the “Mystery Sonatas”, by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber von Bibern, a German composer who lived from 1644-1704, a generation before J.S. Bach. His Rosemary or Mystery Sonatas for violin is a legendary composition, one of the earliest compositions that set new standards for violin playing. It uses extensively the technique of “scordatura”, whereby the traditional tuning of the violin in fifths is changed from one piece to another in combinations of fourths, fifths, thirds and octaves. The sonatas are grouped into “Joyful Mysteries”, “Sorrowful Mysteries” and “Glorious Mysteries”. I picked up this double album CD by Lyrichord at the Carmel Sunset Theater at the Bach Festival.

The recording was made in New York in 2010 at St. Peter’s Church in Chelsea. The violinist is Leah Gale Nelson who specializes in 17th and 18th century historical performances. She plays a violin made in 1737 by Sebastian Klotz in Mittelwald, Germany. She’s accompanied by Daniel Swenberg who plays a theorbo, a type of stringed instrument plucked like a guitar. Dongsok Shin also accompanies on the organ. The recording is nicely balanced with plenty of natural ambience.

On the big SL’s, the violin sounds not in the least bright or harsh, but no one would mistake it for a modern violin or indeed a lush Stradivarius. It’s remarkable how this composition by Biber from the 1670s was only discovered late in the 19th century in a museum in Munich. Biber rose to become Kapellmeister at Salzburg Cathedral in 1684, a whole generation before Mozart or his father. He was knighted by Austrian emperor Leopold I in 1690 for his services to music.

 

[godofwealth]

Here’s a picture of the bass lute called the theorbo from the Bach Mass in B Minor concert I attended last week in Carmel. It can be quite large, up to six feet.

 

[godofwealth]

We are continuing our tour of Bach’s music with a lovely recording of his sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord. This version is played by Yo Yo Ma on cello. The opening is one of most haunting pieces I’ve heard in classical music and will stop you cold in your tracks. You’d have to wonder how Bach was able to write such melodies 300 years ago. He had dozens of kids (from multiple wives!). He led a busy life. How did he write so much music?

 

[godofwealth]

No tour of Bach’s music can skip listening to his magnificent Suites for Unaccompanied Cello. Here we have Yo Yo Ma again, his first recording. Words cannot do this music justice, but I recently bought a whole book that explained the genesis of this piece, which was lost for centuries and then “rescued” by the famous Spanish cellist Pablo Casals. I have listened to many versions of these pieces and they never fail to leave with a sense of wonder. What was Bach thinking when he composed this three centuries ago? It has no place in the catholic liturgy. It has become in the past century the signature of every famous cellist, much as the Beethoven sonatas are played by every pianist.

 

[godofwealth]

This is the book on the Bach Cello Suites by a Canadian journalist who used to review rock music for a radio station and decided he needed a change of career! Amazing book.

 

[godofwealth]

Our Bach celebration continues. A fascinating question of any musical genius is where did he or she get their inspiration? In J. S. Bach’s case, genes clearly played a key factor. The Bach musical clan lasted for 250 odd years. It started with Johann Bach who lived from 1604-1674. This lovely Ricercar high res recording features music of three of J.S. Bach’s ancestors. Hearing it is very revealing. You realize J. S. Bach did not compose in a vacuum. Music of the sort he composed was in the air, so to speak. His ancestors were composers. He took the building blocks of their compositional structures and greatly expanded on it.

 

[godofwealth]

We are listening to string quartets today. There’s a certain austerity and intellectual rigor to quartets. You have only four stringed instruments: two violins, viola and cello. You’d think there’d not be much to say here. But every great composer since Josef Haydn has been irresistibly attracted to writing quartets. It’s like there’s an unwritten code among composers. The big bombastic pieces like symphonies or operas are pure showcase. Your mettle as a serious composer comes from your quartets. Beethoven poured his deepest soul into his string quartets in the 18th century as did Dmitri Shostakovich in the 20th century.

We are first listening to Franz Schubert’s famous “Death and the Maiden” quartet. There’s no better quartet for drawing you in with the first few dramatic bars. Schubert’s music is indescribably sad in many pieces including this one. He draws out a lot of pathos in his music. The Cleveland Quartet from their complete CD box set on RCA reissued by Sony Music plays the quartet beautifully but perhaps their tonal beauty gets in the way a bit here. There are other versions that get further into the soul of this music but are considerably grittier in their sound. It’s like singing. Louis Armstrong or Bob Dylan didn’t have pretty voices. But their singing has a depth that many other singers with far better voices fail to convey. There’s an emotional rawness that Dylan brought to his early albums that when some others perform his songs, fail to match. Peter, Paul and Mary sing Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind, but lack Dylan’s vocal depth and replace it melodic beauty. But music is not all about melodic beauty. Still, much to admire here in terms of the recording and the music. On the big SL’s, the strings are rendered with warmth and realism suitable to the music.

 

[godofwealth]

Moving on from Schubert to Robert Schumann’s quarters, we are listening to all his three quartets from Chandos Records played by the Doric Quartet.
Every composer since Beethoven had a serious problem writing quartets after the great master. How does one top the late quartets of Beethoven? Schumann to his credit walks a fine line between romanticism and classicism. He brings a depth to his quartets while keeping them from being too stark and bleak, like Shostakovich did in the 20th century. The Chandos recording is considerably more upfront and vivid than the RCA one above. It’s like you are seated in the first row next to the musicians. The effect is enhanced on the big SL G9/7c, which brings a magnifying glass to many recordings. Here we get the sonic effect of an IMAX presentation of a quartet. Very enjoyable if you like sitting right up close to the musicians in a live concert.

 

[godofwealth]

Would you listen to 14 hours of Bach, and not Johann Sebastian, but Wilhelm Friedmann? The world of streaming makes crazy stuff like this possible.

 

[godofwealth]

The San Francisco opera is performing Verdi’s famous opera Rigoletto in September. We are listening to the legendary Decca recording of this opera with Luciano Pavarotti, Sherrill Milnes and Joan Sutherland. This is an incandescent recording from the glory days of Decca in the analog era. The remastered 24-bit version sounds nice, but not quite as atmospheric as the original vinyl. It sounds a bit brighter and a bit compressed. But a great recording in any medium.

Rigoletto is the story of the accursed court jester who heckles a poor father whose daughter has been assaulted by the philandering Duke and gets cursed by him. The curse becomes true and Rigoletto pays dearly at the end. It’s a great opera, full of haunting arias and music. Huge thrilling dynamics. Can’t wait to see it live in September.

 

[ChrisSoundLab]

Just for something fairly (completely?) different ... all friends of this thread and Sound Lab are most welcome ... perhaps the Sound Lab might be even low on your list of priorities... but Japan is a very hidden but fascinating place - not easy to find except on the surface in major centers in Tokyo... but I have a bit of a window into the area's real rural Japan - having moved here 35 years ago. And it is most enjoyable to share some if the wonders of this country ... here is a bit of an insight if you might be interested:

 

[godofwealth]

Another day, another Verdi opera! We are listening today to Nabucco, the opera Verdi composed in 1842 that elevated him to international renown as a composer of opera. Opera is highly addictive, as addictive or more than the wonderful red wine that the 100-year-old Italian winery a mile from my house makes. Once you start drinking in, you can’t stop sipping more.

Nabucco is a historical opera based on the plight of the Jews as they were exiled by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar (or Nabucco in Italian). The most famous aria from the opera is Va Pensiero (loosely translated as “Fly, thought, on golden wings”), which became the unofficial anthem of Italy and was spontaneously sung by the hordes of Italians who followed Verdi’s funeral cortège upon his death in 1901. Verdi was in an extremely poor state mentally when he wrote this opera. His wife and two children had died leaving him heartbroken and destitute. The La Scala, Italy’s most famous opera house, commissioned the opera Nabucco from him. It saved him and made him a household name in Italy.

 

[godofwealth]

Ah, the famous chorus piece Va Pensiero is now playing. Even if you can’t listen to the two hour opera, listen to this one aria. It will melt your heart. It is what made Verdi world famous. Here are the lyrics with translation:

Goes, thought, on golden wings
Va, pensiero, sull'ali dorate

It goes, it places you on the slopes, on the hills
Va, ti posa sui clivi, sui colli

Where they smell warm and soft
Ove olezzano tepide e molli

The sweet auras of the native soil
L'aure dolci del suolo natal
He greets the banks of the Jordan
Del Giordano le rive saluta

Sionne's towers fell
Di Sionne le torri atterrate

O, my homeland, so beautiful and lost
O, mia patria, sì bella e perduta

O, memory, so dear and fatal
O, membranza, sì cara e fatal
Golden harp of the fateful prophets
Arpa d'or dei fatidici vati

Why does it change from the willow tree you hang?
Perché muta dal salice pendi?

Rekindle the memories in your chest
Le memorie nel petto raccendi

It tells us about times gone by
Ci favella del tempo che fu
O similar of Sòlima to the fates
O simile di Sòlima ai fati

You draw a sound of raw lament
Traggi un suono di crudo lamento

O may the Lord inspire you with a concert
O t'ispiri il Signore un concento

May it infuse virtue into suffering
Che ne infonda al patire virtù
May it infuse virtue into suffering
Che ne infonda al patire virtù

May it infuse virtue into suffering
Che ne infonda al patire virtù

Virtue to suffering
Al patire virtù

 

[godofwealth]

We are listening to the once-in-a-millennium voice of Andrea Bocelli, the Italian popular/classical singer who jets around the world filling stadiums wherever he goes. This particular DSD album of his holds special meaning for me. Roughly 10 years ago I was a college professor in New England and on a year sabbatical at IBM Research in their world famous T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. I shuttled back and forth each week between IBM and my university where a dozen PhD students depended on my guidance. This CD was almost always on my playlist.

Bocelli brings to each song an unforgettable atmosphere and his voice can send you into a tizzy. The recording has been electronically processed to cater to popular tastes, which means it’s a bit bright. But on the majestic SL G9/7c, that’s not much of an issue as these electrostatic giants are very forgiving of less than stellar recordings, unlike 99% of audiophile loudspeakers. A great album by one of the 20th century’s most gifted singers.

One last thing. He’s blind. Get that. He’s able to sing so beautifully without vision. Wow!

 

[godofwealth]

If you want to hear just one song by Bocelli, hear “Liberta”. An ode to the power of freedom. Lyrics below.

Andrea Bocelli - Libertà (English translation)

Andrea Bocelli - Libertà lyrics (Italian) + English translation: Freedom for t

lyricstranslate.com

Freedom​

Freedom for those heading into the blue
Freedom for those who
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/liberta-freedom.html-0

 

[godofwealth]

We are listening to a fancy Japanese pressing of a concert by the conductor Herbert von Karajan of a series of popular pieces, like Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor. This CD sounds astonishingly good, far far better than most high res streaming albums I’ve heard. The secret may be in the use of Rubidium atomic clocks in the CD mastering. The liner notes are all in Japanese, so I might need @ChrisSoundLab to translate them for me. If you look closely at the back of the CD, it shows the Rubidium symbol. This might be an Esoteric produced CD. It says S-HMCD on the back cover. I bought this CD at the Carmel Bach Festival a month or so ago.

The strings are stunningly gorgeous on the big SL G9/7c. Herbert Von Karajan was the most famous conductor in the world in the 2nd half of the 20th century and DG’s most famous recording artist. They pulled out all the stops for him in this 1984 recording. It’s 40 years old but this fancy Japanese CD pressing shows there’s plenty of life left in this now vintage digital medium.

 

[godofwealth]

Well, it’s another day and guess what, we are listening to another Verdi opera! Well, he wrote a lot of operas over a long life. Today’s is a whopper: Don Carlos, and it’s really long, around 3.5 hours.

This remastered EMI recording is from its glory days of analog during the early 1970s, when the Christopher brothers (producer and engineer) were turning out one sensational recording after another. It’s been reprocessed with ART (Abbey Road Technology), whatever that means. It’s a gorgeous recording and quite atmospheric. Verdi pulled out all the stops and it’s got a lot of bouncy lyrics.

Highly simplifying the story, at its core, the following snippet from Wikipedia gives the TLDR version of the opera:

The opera's story is based on conflicts in the life of Carlos, Prince of Asturias (1545–1568). Though he was betrothed to Elisabeth of Valois, part of the peace treaty ending the Italian War of 1551–59 between the Houses of Habsburg and Valoisdemanded that she be married instead to his father Philip II of Spain.

Opera is probably the hardest music to record and reproduce. Hundreds of singers, huge orchestra, and massive dynamics. Singers like the stars on this recording can produce 110 dB or more of vocal range. They need to fill a huge opera venue. It’s almost impossible to record opera faithfully. This recording does a good job considering its vintage. On the huge panels of the SL G9/7c, you’re not wincing at each crescendo. It’s rendered with a sort of ease that makes listening to opera enjoyable. Of course, nothing comes close to seeing opera live. You’re missing the huge stage and costumes and lighting. But it’s hard to hear the operas you’d like to hear live as it’s hugely expensive to mount a production. So, recordings remain the best way to enjoy opera. You’ll need patience. Streaming fans with twitchy fingers who want to switch tracks every few minutes will have to restrain themselves. This opera takes a whole evening to hear. But the rewards come with listening to the whole piece.

 

[godofwealth]

It’s fascinating to look into the past to see what music making was in the 18th century. Carl Philip Stamitz, whose six trios Opus 14 was published in London in 1777 with this announcement in a newspaper:

NEW MUSIC. MR. CHARLES STAMITZ, composer of Music, having the happiness to find that his compositions have met with universal approbation, begs leave to offer to the Nobility, Gentry, Music Masters, and others, a Plan of Subscription for the following Work, viz. SIX TRIOS for two Violins, or one Violin, a Flute, and Violoncello, which he promises to deliver to subscribers on the 15th inst. at 8s. and to non-subscribers at 10s 6d. […]

The recording we are listening is by Linn, the famous Scottish turntable company that also owns a record label. It’s a high resolution 192khz 24-bit recording. Stamitz was well-traveled. Before reaching London, Stamitz traveled to Paris, Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg, Prague etc. After leaving London, Stamitz traveled to The Hague in Netherlands in 1783 where he played a concert with a young Ludwig van Beethoven. Clearly the mid-to-late 18th century was a time that afforded easy opportunities for travel for musicians. London, then as now, was a center of music. The trios are played by a Spanish baroque group L’Apothe’ose using original instruments. Generally this means a brighter sound with little to no vibrato. Instead of a modern piano, we get a harpsichord. It may sound a little lightweight in the beginning, but you realize the music is not dominated by a clunky sounding modern piano. If you hear a piano trio, the piano dominates. It’s the boss. Here the harpsichord does what it’s supposed to do orivude accompaniment but not steal the show. The much gentler flute is allowed to shine without being bossed over by a modern piano.

On the big SL G9/7c, there’s plenty of natural ambience and space between the instruments. The recording was made in 2022 at the National Center for Early Music in York, England. The recording producer/engineer was Jerry Hobbs who’s made many fine recordings for Linn. Recommended for connoisseurs of baroque music. It’s from a time when music was an art, not a 3D laser show.

 

[godofwealth]

We are listening to a fancy Japanese pressing of a concert by the conductor Herbert von Karajan of a series of popular pieces, like Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor. This CD sounds astonishingly good, far far better than most high res streaming albums I’ve heard. The secret may be in the use of Rubidium atomic clocks in the CD mastering. The liner notes are all in Japanese, so I might need @ChrisSoundLab to translate them for me. If you look closely at the back of the CD, it shows the Rubidium symbol. This might be an Esoteric produced CD. It says S-HMCD on the back cover. I bought this CD at the Carmel Bach Festival a month or so ago.

The strings are stunningly gorgeous on the big SL G9/7c. Herbert Von Karajan was the most famous conductor in the world in the 2nd half of the 20th century and DG’s most famous recording artist. They pulled out all the stops for him in this 1984 recording. It’s 40 years old but this fancy Japanese CD pressing shows there’s plenty of life left in this now vintage digital medium.

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I found out more about SH-MCD in these links:

All About SHM-CD Format

Since its first release of 2007, SHM-CD format has gained much popularity and been highly-acclaimed by audiophiles around the world especially who put the importance on the quality of the sound the most. This page will show you all about SHM-CD format for further understanding on it. It would be...

www.cdjapan.co.jp

SHM-CD: An Improvement?

Diving into JVC Kenwood's Super High Material CDs

trackingangle.com

 

[Rexp]

I found out more about SH-MCD in these links:

All About SHM-CD Format

Since its first release of 2007, SHM-CD format has gained much popularity and been highly-acclaimed by audiophiles around the world especially who put the importance on the quality of the sound the most. This page will show you all about SHM-CD format for further understanding on it. It would be...

www.cdjapan.co.jp

SHM-CD: An Improvement?

Diving into JVC Kenwood's Super High Material CDs

trackingangle.com

Sorry for the off topic but aren't you the guy who started the 'Why oh why does vinyl continue blow away digital' thread?

What happened?