[Whazzzup]

Deadmouse five live in concert is wonderful in economy Via encores and an iPad hugo. Led zep at o also great.

 

[Rob Watts]

The ChromaMusic amateur orchestra performance of 19th March can be downloaded in full here.

The program is varied, with the centrepiece being the specially commissioned work Reflections by Jacob Smith. Also of note is Time by Hanz Zimmer, arranged by Jacob Smith. A very nice and welcome touch is the Ukrainian National Anthem.

My son Daniel did the recording, and it is a Blumlein recording with a single AEA R88 ribbon stereo mic, fed directly into a Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 with no EQ or processing of any kind. Everything was battery powered. The only editing was for start and stop of each track, with a fade to zero at the end. So this represents the simplest and most direct way of recording, and will accurately reproduce the sound at the mics - which is about 2m behind and above the conductor.

The recording was made live at St Catherine's Church, Gorseinon. The venue is rather dry and bright sounding; that is it's not very reverberant and is considerably brighter than a concert hall.

Enjoy, Rob

 

[feddar]

Now that I have good speakers, and am working on speaker cables, I am repositioning my HMS and TT2. I had them stacked before, and I noticed that playing speakers makes them heat up a little bit more than when just powering the headphones.

Is there a need to separate them? If so, how far should they be from each other? Or is stacking them just fine?

Thanks again.

 

[flyte3333]

My son Daniel did the recording, and it is a Blumlein recording with a single AEA R88 ribbon stereo mic, fed directly into a Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 with no EQ or processing of any kind. Everything was battery powered.

If you only need 1 channel, why not get an RME ADI-2 Pro, to record at PCM768kHz ?

 

[Christer]

Interesting suggestion considering that Rob has in the past both mentioned that recording at 768khz can show similar improvements as the Mscaler already on the market that many of us use, does. Not perfect but theoretically better than recording at 24/192?
And he has also mentioned that the sonic limitations he himself hears from this test recording in his system via Dave and I guess a "still secret" prototype XMscaler are indications of limitations of the ADC they used.
I was thinking of posting exactly the same question you just did.

But now having played through the whole Concert recording via my own electrostat speakers and via my humble Mscaler/Qutest, my take on it remains the same.
Good recording.
I hear an honest quite realistic sounding Blumlein recording in a dryish slightly bright acoustic with good instrumental timbres of all instruments and a coherent soundstage with some nice depth perception.
In other words a good stereo recording by the standard I judge recordings by. Does it sound close to how I guess, or know, things sounded live or not?
I was not there when it happened. But I have been at many concerts and also recording sessions in similar environments. And I can safely say yes it does. But also VERY clearly showing the limitation of recording in only 2 channels via speakers especially with the applause included which makes it so obvious how limited two speakers stereo is at REAL depth reproduction! The applause is heard as if coming from the orchestra or behind it, when in REAL LIFE one would hear it both from the sides and behind oneself as listener in the real space.
And in real life and MCH via speakers one would also hear how instruments can project sound into the hall behind the listener something "plain stereo" via two speakers fails do do.
And as I have said before if closing the gap between live and recorded sound is one´s ultimate aim one needs either MCH tech or binaural for headphone listening.

I wish I could be equally enthusiastic about the performance level and and the actual music recorded as I am about the purely technical part.
But I can not.
Both the level of execution and the music are NOT on a similar level as the recording unfortunately.
To me it partly sounds a bit like listening to a school orchestra playing music not all the time on a professional level.
Sorry, but I am VERY spoilt.
I get to hear a quite frequently recorded orchestra on a regular basis and I have been fortunate enough to have been at recording sessions with some World Class orchestras.
Here there is some promising instrumental music from a young Film composer?
And apart from that and the solo cello piece the rest does not really interest me much .
So all in all, I am afraid, I have to be CC ie "Controversial Christer" as far as the music and performance are concerned.
This is not a recording I will return to often for musical enjoyment, but more as a teaser of hopefully better things to come once Rob and Daniel begin making recordings with Davina at 32/768khz.
And when they do, I hope they approach Orchestras capable of performing on a more professional level than this. But all in all a good and promising first test, Rob and Daniel.
And thanks A LOT for posting it !
Cheers CC

 

[rkt31]

E1da cosmos adc is getting good reviews.

 

[Reactcore]

The ChromaMusic amateur orchestra performance of 19th March can be downloaded in full here.

The program is varied, with the centrepiece being the specially commissioned work Reflections by Jacob Smith. Also of note is Time by Hanz Zimmer, arranged by Jacob Smith. A very nice and welcome touch is the Ukrainian National Anthem.

My son Daniel did the recording, and it is a Blumlein recording with a single AEA R88 ribbon stereo mic, fed directly into a Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 with no EQ or processing of any kind. Everything was battery powered. The only editing was for start and stop of each track, with a fade to zero at the end. So this represents the simplest and most direct way of recording, and will accurately reproduce the sound at the mics - which is about 2m behind and above the conductor.

The recording was made live at St Catherine's Church, Gorseinon. The venue is rather dry and bright sounding; that is it's not very reverberant and is considerably brighter than a concert hall.

Enjoy, Rob

Thanks Rob for posting this!

Its nice to know how the ADC setup was made while listening.

One thing i noticed is how little change crossfeed on Dave gives with this blumlein recording. Ofc its bc left/right channels get intermixed naturally..

Another q. During pre recordings.. did you also tried to record on 44.1k and compared this Mscaled to 192k against 192k native from the same setup? Or does the ADC not have this option

 

[Rob Watts]

Now that I have good speakers, and am working on speaker cables, I am repositioning my HMS and TT2. I had them stacked before, and I noticed that playing speakers makes them heat up a little bit more than when just powering the headphones.

Is there a need to separate them? If so, how far should they be from each other? Or is stacking them just fine?

Thanks again.

If TT2 thermally shuts down then you need to separate them - but if it's just running a bit warmer then I wouldn't worry about it.

Thanks Rob for posting this!

Its nice to know how the ADC setup was made while listening.

One thing i noticed is how little change crossfeed on Dave gives with this blumlein recording. Ofc its bc left/right channels get intermixed naturally..

Another q. During pre recordings.. did you also tried to record on 44.1k and compared this Mscaled to 192k against 192k native from the same setup? Or does the ADC not have this option

I terms of lateral (left/right) imaging, Blumlein recording is no different to multi mic and mixing recording; they both encode lateral imaging by volume only - no phase information is used. But I spent a huge amount of time getting mic positioning just right so that the lateral encoding was perfectly linear (that is instruments from extreme left to extreme right are reproduced with a perfectly linear spread). So perhaps that is a reason. More likely is that Blumlein naturally encodes depth information - so you can hear the layering of instruments further back, and perhaps that means that cross-feed is not needed to get the out of your head feeling.

We can SRC to 44.1 (or better to decimate to 48k), but that wasn't the purpose of the recording exercise. I don't need to know how poor SRC with conventional ADCs are, as I already know that they have severe SQ problems. Perhaps when I get the decimation filters up and running I can create two 48k files - one from my decimation and one from conventional decimation.

 

[rkt31]

a bit off topic, any recommendation for low noise budget mic pre amps for condenser mics ?

 

[pkny]

Mojo 2 will give 99.5 dB SPL for the HD800, and 98.3 dB for Stealth. That's seriously ear damaging levels.

Mr. Watts,

Does the above dB SPL refer to 0 dBFS source? I often listen to bluray concerts, which are well below 0 dBFS. Recently, I have my eye on Stealth. I am wondering if Hugo 2 can drive Stealth to similar level with -10dBFS material without clipping?

Thank you

 

[Rob Watts]

a bit off topic, any recommendation for low noise budget mic pre amps for condenser mics ?

Afraid not - I have designed my own for the ADCs.

Mr. Watts,

Does the above dB SPL refer to 0 dBFS source? I often listen to bluray concerts, which are well below 0 dBFS. Recently, I have my eye on Stealth. I am wondering if Hugo 2 can drive Stealth to similar level with -10dBFS material without clipping?

Thank you

Yes those numbers relate to 0dBFS. So if you are using say video (which is seems always to have a lot of unused overhead) you can increase the volume above white without worrying about clipping.

I have used Stealth a lot with my Hugo 2 - and I have never gotten anywhere near white, so more than enough volume. A recent flight was with a noisy 777, and I still had plenty of headroom. So for me, Mojo 2 and Hugo 2 give more than enough volume with the Stealth.

 

[pkny]

Afraid not - I have designed my own for the ADCs.



Yes those numbers relate to 0dBFS. So if you are using say video (which is seems always to have a lot of unused overhead) you can increase the volume above white without worrying about clipping.

I have used Stealth a lot with my Hugo 2 - and I have never gotten anywhere near white, so more than enough volume. A recent flight was with a noisy 777, and I still had plenty of headroom. So for me, Mojo 2 and Hugo 2 give more than enough volume with the Stealth.

That is great to hear. Thank you for the information. By the way, have you compare your Aeon 2 Closed and Stealth? What do you think about them?

Thank you

 

[miketlse]

That is great to hear. Thank you for the information. By the way, have you compare your Aeon 2 Closed and Stealth? What do you think about them?

Thank you

will be an interesting answer. I bought the aeon flow closed, based on robs comments on head-fi, and i found that the low bass distortion allowed much interesting bass timbre etc to be revealed. If the A2C and Stealth improve on this, then maybe my next headphone upgrade will be clarified.

 

[Rob Watts]

So over the past couple of months I have been extremely impressed with the DCA Stealth. Upon first listening I thought that they were a touch bass light, but extremely pure sounding in the treble - a sense of lack of distortion, and purity due to lack of HF resonances. Depth and imagery were a lot better too. The bass is leaner than the Aeon 2, but actually is very well extended.

Doing the first recording session I was pleasantly surprised at how linear and accurate in frequency response terms they were when comparing live to reproduced.

So since you have asked, I just did a quick AB test, volume matched (you need to increase Stealth's volume by +7 dB). The Aeon 2 did not come out well - by comparison Aeon 2 sounded flat (in soundstage depth) with a muddled and softer bass. Instrument separation and focus is very much better on the Stealth too.

Another virtue of Stealth is timbre variation - being able to perceive very bright sounds simultaneously with rich warm instruments is exceptional.

So Stealth does indeed sound like the engineering that went into it - lower distortion and reduction in resonances has given big subjective dividends.

 

[griff500]

To me it partly sounds a bit like listening to a school orchestra playing music not all the time on a professional level.
Sorry, but I am VERY spoilt.
I get to hear a quite frequently recorded orchestra on a regular basis and I have been fortunate enough to have been at recording sessions with some World Class orchestras.
Here there is some promising instrumental music from a young Film composer?

Not what you expected from the The ChromaMusic amateur orchestra?