Jim Tavegia
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2496 DVD pcm files
RGibran
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Jim, that link appears broken?

Jim Tavegia
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I will research the problem and get back to you.

http://web.mac.com/mlutthans/iWeb/Site%2054/Jim%27s%20Recording.html

Thanks, Jim

RGibran
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Thanks Jim,

That link worked.

What a wonderful detailed response with examples from Matt.

I don't know the first thing about recording but Matt's response seemed very grounded in real world techniques.

I have unfortunatly only had time to listen seriously to the first couple of tracks of your recording and am looking forward to set some time aside to give the whole program my attention as it is clear you have done a fine job this outing.

struts
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Jim,

Are your recordings downloadable anywhere or do you have to ship physical media? Would love to hear them, please let me know how I can get hold of them!

Jim Tavegia
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Robert,

Thanks. I am just looking for incremental improvements, but now that I have a good gig with some excellent players the future looks very promising and very interesting.

John Bleuel at UWG was very excited about the quality, which is a good thing for me, or their previous recording were very substandard. LOL I do know as I said in my note that the student who was doing another recording was upset about the redbook file size and it made me laugh. I didn't even bother to tell him about my 2496 files. He couldn't wait to convert them to MP3. I told him to try and stay close to 320, but I doubt it.

More later. Thanks, again.

Jim

Jim Tavegia
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On the way tomorrow by postal.

struts
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Many thanks for sending Jim, arrived yesterday.

Congratulations, this is really nice work! I read Matt's comments and agree with his subjective observations - although I doubt I could have come up with them unassisted. In the context of your comments in the 'Live sound' thread I would say you have definitely succeeded in creating the effect you set out to achieve.

On the bigrig the disc throws a large soundstage with a good sense of instrumental placement and a nice sense of the (clearly unsympathetic) acoustic. I certainly don't get a 'hole in the middle'. Particularly impressive is the 'audience perspecitve', the players are nicely laid out in front of me yet the applause genuinely seems to be coming from all around me. I really liked the tonal balance which strikes me as top-to-bottom seamless, I am not aware of anything being recessed or sticking out. The dynamic range is great, really capturing the huge dynamic swings a couple of these pieces contain. Did you have to use any compression?

The Percy Grainger pieces were a nice surprise and I thought the arrangements for the saxophone ensemble were very nicely done - I have previously only heard these works performed on piano. I found the Maske pieces fascinating, if a bit challenging! The playing throughout is very nice (although at times, e.g. 0:08, 1:11, 1:36, ... in Mo Nighean Dubh, one of the tenors(?) seems to be having a bit of trouble keeping their instrument under control!) I was constantly impressed by the tightness of the ensemble, particularly The Hunter in His Career.

My only queries concern the introduction and acknowledgements before the Lucie Robert piece. Clearly the speaker was not standing optimally in relation to the microphones as what he is saying is quite hard to make out. However, his voice seems to 'fly' around the soundstage somewhat like a small bird trapped in a large room, swooping into and out of focus and panning dramatically from left-to-right and back again - a strange, almost supernatural, effect. I am curious as to what might have caused it, any ideas? Also, it seems there are edits at 5:00 and 5:34 where the spoken intro appears to cut to a tune-up and then back to spoken acknowledgements. Was this your intention?

However, bottom line is a nice live musical event extremely well captured. Thank you very much for sharing!

PS Do you know the programme for the April 13th concert? Anything more 'mainstream'?

Elk
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Quote:
. . . yet the applause genuinely seems to be coming from all around me.. . .

I am impressed that you noticed this. Most people stop listening once the notes end and do not hear ambience and other room sounds.

This is one of the great things about using omnis or a well set up Blumlein pair; everything comes across as natural.

I find jarring the sound of applause as captured by an X/Y or ORTF pair. The musicians are tidily placed in space between the speakers. Then the applause starts and sounds as if it is coming only from the sides with a hollow sound in the middle.

While this makes sense as cardioid mics reject much of the sound to the sides and behind them, where the audience is, it is a jarring push back into recognizing that the recording is a delicious illusion.

Jim Tavegia
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Struts,

Thanks for the comments. I have no idea what is coming up Tuesday. I'll find out at 6pm when I get there early to set up. I hope it is more mainstream, but...

John Bleuel is actually walking around somewhat as he speaks. I should have carefully edit out more of that, but since it was not for commercial release I left some of it. He actually went behind my mikes to get closer to the audience as he had no amplification in which to address the crowd. I think the audience applause definition is a clue as to how much 2496 can do.

What I am most pleased with is that both you and Keld had no problems playing the PAL burned DVDs that I sent you. I know Audio DVD Creator is only a $40 downloadable program, but it is critical to insure that universal player disc playback is not an issue.

It is becoming clearer to me that THIS needs to become the defacto Hi-Rez audio format. I know that with better equipment and DSD/SACD discs the quality would be way better, but we are still stuck with this major hurdle of a dedicated player that the mainstream has resisted and will continue to resist buying even a Marantz 8003 SACD or Oppo BDP 83 player.

I do know that from JA's measurements the jitter in the Echo Indigo IO card is fairly low and is a pretty remarkable 2496 interface, especially considering the money. I paid $150 for mine years ago and even the new price of $229 is bargain for upgrading the sound of a loptop/notebook if you have the slot. I think that one of their Audiofire 2 or 4 models may be the next step now that they have drivers for Windows 7 that my wife is enjoying in her new desktop.

I will be buiying a new laptop soon and many do not have the CardBus slots for the Echo IO card. Balanced ins on the Audiofire products would be a plus anyway.

Yes, there was a squeak early in the ensemble performance. I know that player has probably not stopped thinking about it. If it had been for commercial release it would have required "take 2" for sure. I also think that the ideal placement for the ensemble would have been to put the grand piano dead center and split the ensemble (under 25 players) evenly spaced left and right. I would have placed the quartet dead center and moved their seating after their performance. Live and learn. I think it would have suited the audience better as well. I use no compression.

More to come after Tuesday evening's 8 pm performance. I should have mentioned that all the players in the quartet have PHds which makes this amatuer gig even more remarkable for me. I'm just glad they are pleased.

Thanks again.

struts
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Jim,

I should have mentioned, I forswore silver disc as a music source several years ago so I was a bit surprised (I know, I shouldn't have been) when you sent a 'playable' CD and DVD. I was expecting 16/44 and 24/96 FLAC or WAV files on a regular DVD. In that sense I guess I am not your ideal test customer!

I ripped the CD (so now it is in AccurateRip ) and listened to it both on the bigrig which is driven by a streamer and my headphone rig which is driven by a PC with a Lynx L22 card.

I listened to the DVD via the headphone rig using WMP to play it from the PC's DVD drive, and via my HT setup which consists of an Arcam DVD player and a Yamaha soundbar (so unfortunately not really much use for critical listening). I can confirm that the DVD plays fine in both environments however they are both PAL and NTSC-compatible, so maybe not the acid test you were hoping for. This also meant I was only really able to assess the soundstaging using the CD version.

I am looking forward to comparing the 16/44 and 24/96 versions more carefully but haven't had time to do that yet.

I really have had tremendous fun listening to this. Thanks again, and good luck on Tuesday!

Jim Tavegia
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The DVD I sent you was in PAL format, so the fact that it plays is a good thing. Glad you sorted out the discs and can listen later.

I know that my next player will either be a much better DVD player or a Cambridge DACMagic driven from what I own.

Thanks,

struts
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Good luck tonight Jim, and please post the program for the concert or a link if it is posted online anywhere.

Jim Tavegia
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Thanks. From what I understand this program is more mainstream and most should find this performace more "melodic" for want of a better word.

I will try and procure many additional copies of tonight's program to pass along with the discs.

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