Even Less Is Even More, by Max Wilcox--A Discography for the Audio Purist: Part II (Vol.2, No.1: Winter/Spring 1979)

Even Less Is Even More, by Max Wilcox--A Discography for the Audio Purist: Part II

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Our ground rules for this series of record reviews were explained briefly in the last issue; we left out, however, one important point. It concerns the new category of “audiophile” or “super high fidelity” records, often though not invariably direct-to-disc, sold at a huge premium and marketed much the same way as esoteric audio components.

We wish to make it clear that such records should under no circumstances be assumed without prior knowledge to be superior to the regular releases of the major commercial labels, especially to the European imports (Deutsche Grammophon, EMI, Philips). The audiophile jobs are, as a class, amateurish in musical performance, microphone placement and general producer savvy, even when their tape and lacquer channels are exceptionally clean-which they aren't always. There are some notable exceptions and we certainly intend to single them out here, but on the whole the Mitch Cotter or Dick Sequerra type of boutique-made audio component doesn't have its qualitative counter part in phonograph records; it just doesn't seem to work out that way.

One particular branch of the premium priced, super-audiophile record market has us especially worried, as it has been hailed the wave of the future and doesn't live up to that billing in our opinion. We're talking about the new digitally recorded discs, such as for example the recent releases on Telarc (distributed by Audio-Technica). The digital recording process used to generate the master tapes for these records has a sampling rate of only 50,000 samples per second, which appears to be the currently accepted unofficial standard but lacks the high-frequency resolution of state-of-the-art analog recording. We must admit that the bass definition and dynamic range of the digital recordings are phenomenal, but we hear some unmistakable top-end degradation through our Reference A system. We estimate that 100,000 to 120,000 samples per second with 18-bit en coding/decoding would realize the ultimate sonic potential of digital recording, at which point analog techniques would definitely be put in the shade. There's not a thing wrong with digital recording as a concept, but you can't do it by halves. We'll have a lot more to say on the subject in future issues.

Meanwhile, we want to tell you about just a handful of recently issued discs of “ultimate” quality, without resurrecting this time any of our older favorites. There will be plenty of opportunity for that as this series continues; this particular issue is much too crowded to leave room for anything but the choicest items of cur rent interest.

Proprius

Our small collection of reference-quality records is getting top-heavy with the Proprius Bocker & Musik (books and music) label; it just so happens that this little-known Swedish company continues to manifest higher and more consistent standards, both technically and musically, than any other record maker we can think of. (See also our comments on this in the last issue.) It seems that every time we want to eliminate the program material as a potential source of sonic obfuscation in a A-B listening test, we reach for a Proprius record. Enough said.

Dalakoraler och Brollopsmusik (chorales and wedding music from the Dalarna region of Sweden). Bengt Granstam, organ, on the two Magnusson instruments of the Stora Tuna church. Proprius PROP 7763 (made in 1976).

This is just about the most real-sounding organ record known to us, utterly transparent and totally delineated. Just listen to those 8-foot Spanish trumpets en chamada. Whew! And the bass from those 16-foot stops goes all the way down, without distortion. Add to that the excellent, highly musical playing of Bengt Granstam and all that's missing is J.S. Bach.

But the Dalarna church music is yoost fine for pleasant listening.

Jazz at the Pawnshop (recorded live in December 1976 at Stampen in Stockholm). Arne Domnerus, alto sax and clarinet; Bengt Hallberg, piano; Georg Riedel, bass; Egil Johansen, drums; Lars Erstrand, vibraphone. Proprius PROP 7778-79 (two-record set).

If we were allowed to name only a single example of what we consider to be flawless, natural-sounding recording, this would be the one. It sounds like a jazz quintet in a night club, period. You're sitting at one of the tables and they're right there, before your very eyes and ears. Most of the latest crop of direct-to-disc jazz records sound utterly phony and crudded up next to this elegantly taped production.

The fact that the jazz played here is strictly mainstream and relatively tame (“Lady Be Good” and suchlike) is rather beside the point.

Excellence in recording and musical originality have seldom gone hand in hand in jazz. The playing of these five Swedes is quite slick, smooth and expert, in any event; the results are thoroughly stylish and musical, even if not ex citing. Get this album just as a standard of comparison.

Laudate! (Sacred music of the 1600's from the Uppsala University library collection.) Uppsala Academic Chamber Choir; Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble; Anders Eby, conductor. Proprius PROP 7800 (made in 1978).

This is an even better choral record with soloists than the Cantate Domino we reviewed last time or the Kor we also mentioned. Better in sound, that is; in musical interest it's a bit more specialized. But there's no tape hiss or modulation noise; the cut is cleaner; the texture is even more transparent-and on top of it the chorus is better, with more secure intonation.

That makes the record just about State of the Art for this sort of thing. It couldn't sound more natural. Obviously, the Proprius people keep improving their already formidable technique.

Reference Recordings

First Takes. Andrei Kitaev, piano, Bill Douglass, acoustic bass. Reference Recordings, Jazz Series, RR-6 (45 RPM, made in 1978).

A typical super-audiophile label if there ever was one, RR never particularly impressed us with their older “Limited Edition, Classic Series.” This new Jazz Series release seems to take another tack, which includes 45 RPM and a different recording engineer. The results are spectacular, to put it mildly.

This is the best jazz piano sound we've ever heard off a piece of vinyl and one of the few piano records regardless of musical content that we find truly clean. It may have something to do with the Grotrian Steinweg Imperial concert grand, but the impact, dynamics and delineation of the piano are simply stunning. No shattering ever, from the first groove to the last.

The acoustic bass is also beautifully recorded; both the fingernail transients and the lowest fundamentals are audible and clean at all times.

A magnificent job. Musically the record is also interesting.

Andrei Kitaev, a conservatory-trained Russian in his late 20's, cites Oscar Peterson as one of his influences, and his music-making reflects it.

This is no meatball, Eastern-bloc imitation of contemporary American jazz. It's talented, idiomatic and exuberantly musical improvisation in the best jazz tradition. The excellent American bassist is a big help, of course.

What's really remarkable, though, is that this was supposed to be a test take for a later recording session, by two musicians who had just barely met each other. The tape rolled for an hour and this was the result. That's jazz, baby.

-Ed.

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[adapted from TAC]

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Also see:

Various audio and high-fidelity magazines