Long Playing records of the Lost recordings from Devialet and Fondamenta

There has been a fair bit of conversation, lately, in the HIFI press and on HIFI blogs and forums about the lost recordings. These recordings from the 1960s and 1970s have been restored using sophisticated  analogue and digital techniques. I bought the digital versions of the Sarah Vaughan, Dave Brubeck, Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans Trio albums - all about 17 Eur a piece. The Bill Evans digital recording was only available as a download from Fondamenta.

All of these artists are simply great and the recordings are reproduced at a very high quality. Fondamenta are to be congratulated for tracing these lost recordings and restoring them; but Resonance Records and Pristine Classic are doing a similar job with similar results.

Why did I decide not to buy the limited edition LPs distributed by Devialet? The LPs were transcribed from 24 bit/176.4 KHz digital masters which originated from the restored analogue tapes.  From a technical point of view, the LP format sound quality cannot exceed that of the digital master tapes. Therefore, I am not missing out, as far as high fidelity is concerned, provided that I use a good quality DAC.

More to the point, however, why would I want to open my wallet to spend £80 on the Bill Evans Trio “Live at Hilversum” LP, when I could have bought the Resonance Records LP, “Another Time”, which was mastered from the very same lost recordings, but for just £19? Perhaps, the price difference is accounted for by the cost of promotion which involves Devialet hiring the Royal Albert Hall and other prestigious locations to play and sell the analogue nitrocellulose “acetates” to an admiring audience. By buying digital I am saving lots and lots of money.

So, what about the nitrocellulose lacquer “acetates”? Some of the younger contributors to the audio forums are making accusations that these are the playthings of wealthy middle-aged audiophiles, who have got nothing better to do with their money.  In some sense they are right; the “acetates” are used in the LP making process to produce the vinyl that enthusiasts really want to listen to. Selling the “acetates” is therefore a bit of a gimmick. If I were to go off my head and spend £6,300 on the set of “acetates” of the Sarah Vaughan “Live at the Laren” performance then I would do so for investment purposes only. And, I would not play the record only to destroy it immediately unless a surfeit of Bollinger got the better of me.

The possession of the “acetates” has been likened to an investment in fine wine: but not so. The nitrocellulose starts to deteriorate in quality immediately. The “acetate” can only be played once or twice before the sound medium is destroyed. Forget about it, unless pride of ownership gets the better of you.

Fine wine from Bordeaux will improve with age and its investment value will no doubt increase. £6,300 will buy you a case of 2009 Chateau Gruaud Larose, with some spare change to spend on lots of records. But, if the bottom falls out of the wine market you still have 12 bottles of great wine to drink with a good meal and some good friends, who like listening to an Oscar Peterson lost recording, of course, but from a digital file.

https://www.devialet.com/en-gb/the-lost-recordings 

https://musique.fnac.com/a10446459/Sarah-Vaughan-Live-at-Laren-Jazz-Festival-1975-Digipack-Inclus-un-livret-de-16-pages-CD-album

Hi-Fi is mostly about your ears and perception

Last week I was walking across a field in France with my wife and her sister and cousins. The five of us are all older than 50 and my ears are now 66. As we walked across the field we noticed that it was full of grasshoppers of all sorts of species. I asked my wife if she could hear them, '"just about" she said. My sister-in-law said that she could hear them everywhere. My wife's cousins could not hear the grasshoppers either. Even when I cupped my hands over my ears I could not for the life of me hear a grasshopper.

Grasshoppers stridulate at 10 KHz or above. The older members of our group therefore had problems hearing high frequencies.

Later on we did a very non-scientific test of our hearing by downloading some test frequencies. My wife's sister could easily hear a 12 KHz tone. The rest of us had problems though but my wife's younger nephew could hear above 15 KHz.

When I returned to London I tested myself again in the quite of my office. Through headphones I could easily hear a 8 KHz tone; but I had to turn up the volume to hear 10 KHz and 12 KHz  tones. I could not hear a 14 KHz tone even with the volume turned up full.

You may well ask "what has this got to do with Hi-Fi?". Well the generally accepted range of hearing for frequency in humans is 20 Hz to 20 KHz. This range is for younger people only; for as we get older our ability to hear the higher frequencies diminishes. Luckily, I can still hear the difference between a clarinet and an oboe when listening to an orchestra live. This is because I can still hear the principle harmonics of both the oboe and the clarinet as  they are lower than the 8KHz limit that I am still able to hear clearly. A CD can reproduce sound between 20KHz and 22 KHz . The upper limit is far beyond the hearing capacity of most people even children. An LP record really starts to tail off its frequency response at 15 KHz; but its upper frequency response is still above what most people in their 40s and over can hear easily.

You may ask yourself why older audiophiles are prepared to pay big sums of money for moving coil cartridges that can reproduce frequencies well above the limit for human hearing. You may ask why some older audiophiles insist that they can hear differences between CD quality music files and "HIRES" music files when all other parameters are equal. A 24/96 "HIRES" music file can reproduce a tone of 48 KHz!

Why do we need DACS, speakers and amplifiers that are capable of reproducing frequencies that no-one can hear? We would not produce a television system that could broadcast UV light as it would be a complete waste of resources, so why do it with Hi-Fi? Some Hi-Fi enthusiasts are being confused by a numbers game.

You may well ask why older Hi-Fi journalists have somehow defeated the ravages of time so that they can really distinguish between PCM, DSD and MQA.  And why they don't need to turn up the volume to listen to the grasshoppers just like the rest of us old ones.

Downloading "HIRES" files - what a drag

The other day I bought some jazz music on the internet which was not available on CD. I made the mistake of downloading the 24/176.4 "Hi-Res" file rather than the 16/44.1 version. Once I had realised my mistake, I had already paid 12 EUR.  I knew that my 4 year old main Hi-Fi CD, come external DAC, player could only play up to 24/96 music files. I let the download run on though.

The download was slow enough for me to water a medium sized garden and make a cup of tea with time to spare.

VLC on my computer could play the zipped files but my secondary music player which can play 24/176.4 files would not respond. I therefore had to unzip the files and it was time to make another cup of tea and read the paper.

The unzipped files would now play on my secondary music player but what about the player in the car? It would only play 16/44.1 files. And what about my main Hi-Fi?

I decided to convert the files to 16/44.1. I then compared the CD quality files to the "Hi-Res" originals. I could hear no difference, and no one has come forward to prove that they can hear the difference as part of a peer reviewed double blind test either. It was ,therefore, unnecessary to  down sample the files again, this time to 24/88.2, to play on my main Hi-Fi as 16/44.1 would do the trick.

To keep things simple I have stored this music on my hard drives in 16/44.1 format for all playback.

The  original downloads have now been backed up twice.

My conclusion is that it is better to buy music in 16/44.1 format when downloading. The files are much easier to handle and store and can be played on all music streamers and computers etc. You can make your own CD easily as well.

I have just bought some music from "Pristine Classic" on the internet but on a CD. A company like "Pristine Classic"is unlikely to mess around with loudness equalisation, so that you can be sure that the music will not be compressed like a Meatloaf album. "Pristine Classic" also provide an MP3 download for playing the music on a space restricted smartphone. It is all very simple and you are ready to go straight away.

There really is not much need for "Hi-Res" downloads even for classical music and for most pop music you might as well buy a 256 kbps MP3 download.

Raumfeld Connector Two

It was not my intention to write about Hi-Fi equipment but I could not resist writing about the Raumfeld Connector Two. It was a Christmas present and it replaces the laptop computer which I was using to stream internet radio via my WiFi  router. The laptop also played all my ripped music from a hard drive.

The Raumfeld Connector Two was easy to set up, from an Android app which controls the device, once I figured out that it does not accept a WEP key but rather a WPA2 key. Using  WPA2 meant that I had to reset all the other devices which were using my router, of which there are many.

The box itself is small and can be easily hidden. It is simple to use, it can read digital music files stored on a NAS drive by WiFi or via an ethernet cable. It reads and plays back all the major music file types including WAV, MP3 and FLAC. It also handles "HIRES". It will also read music files from a USB hard drive directly attached to the device. I have all my music stored on a portable 1TB HDD and it catalogues this drive quickly and reads it easily.

The device has its own built in DAC and analogue line outputs; these work very well when linked to my amplifier.

In my case, I use the digital optical output to connect to my external ESS Sabre DAC. The technical quality of the music played from a FLAC or WAV file,in this way, is second to none.

The Connector Two even accepts line analogue inputs and converts them to digital. The Connector Two can be used as part of a multi-room system to broadcast the music via your WiFi to Raumfeld active speakers rather like a Sonos or a Yamaha Multicast  system. Technically, it it would be possible to broadcast an LP around the house via the digital connection. I have  not tried this as I use the Connector Two in a stand alone mode.


The Raumfeld Connector also has built in internet radio and Spotify; all controlled from an Android or  an Iphone app.

I have a Yamaha Music cast system in another room. This system recognises the Raumfeld Connector as a server attached to the WiFi router and will playback music from the attached USB hard drive. The Raumfeld Connector Two is therefore acting like NAS drive.

This is a versatile and brilliant piece of equipment which can replace a laptop for streaming music. All this for about £140 and available directly from Teufel in Germany. I recommend it.

https://www.teufelaudio.co.uk/raumfeld-audio-streaming/raumfeld-connector-p9527.html