tubes-in-audio

Thoughts on tubes in audio.

Observations on RCA’s Chamber Recordings

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Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Titles Available Now

What do the best copies of this album sound like?

The sound is RICH and TRANSPARENT, and unlike a lot of RCA’s chamber recordings, not dry.

The tonality is also Right On The Money.

The performers are present and the transients of their instruments are not in the least bit smeared.

A case of good tube mastering?

On the best pressings, absolutely.

(More on the subject of tubes in audio here.)

Classical Shootouts

RCA is justly famous for its chamber recordings, which tend to be somewhat rare for some reason. Let’s be honest: we did not conduct this shootout with a dozen copies of the album. (It would take us at least twenty-five years to find that many clean pressings.)

What we had were quite a few other Heifetz RCA chamber recordings, as well as some favorites by the Quartetto Italiano and I Musici that we are very fond of and know well.

After thirty two years in business selling vintage vinyl, by now we’ve played scores if not hundreds of good violin recordings. We have no problem recognizing good violin sound (as well as correct violin tone, not exactly the same thing) when we hear it. In the past our top Hot Stamper classical pressings would go directly to our best customers, customers who want classical recordings that actually sound good. not just the kind of Golden Age Recordings that are supposed to. Now that we are able to do classical shootouts on a regular basis, we hope to have enough superb sounding classical recordings for all of our audiophile customers.

I’ve commented often over the years of the benefits to be gained from listening to classical music regularly. Once a week is a good rule of thumb I would say. I love rock and roll, jazz and all the rest of it, but there is something about classical music that restores a certain balance in your musical life that can’t be accomplished by other means. It grounds your listening experience to something perhaps less immediately gratifying but deeper and more enriching over time. Once habituated, the effect on one’s mood is not hard to recognize.

Orchestral Music Is Hard to Record, Master and Press, Apparently

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“This BBC film on audiophiles in 1959 is a masterpiece”

Here is a link to the video itself.

“Do they like music? Or are they in love with equipment?”

The excellent BBC Archive account on Twitter has unearthed an audio gem.

A 1959 film called ‘Hi-Fi-Fo-Fum’ purports to reveal the burgeoning audiophile scene, with more than a little tongue-in-cheek humour for good measure.

“There is a man in Wimbledon who will go on adding to his equipment until he can hear the sigh of the conductor as the piccolo misses its entry,” says the introduction. He sounds like our kind of man.

“Is it a religion or a disease? An American psychiatrist calls it ‘audiophilia'”, reveals the voiceover, as men – and it’s largely men – shuffle in and out of hi-fi shops before rushing home for earnest listening sessions. It was ever thus.

“Do they like music? Or are they in love with equipment?”, wonders our narrator, as one excited punter buys a new tweeter for “6 pound 4 pence”.

And while much has changed – you don’t see many shops with individual listening booths nowadays – much has stayed the same. “A dream of perfection… of machines more sensitive than the ears they play to,” reminds us that arguments about audio frequencies that the human ear can’t hear are nothing new.

The video also shows the early music critic. “With a dozen different recordings of every work, how do we find the best?” wonders the voiceover. “Rely on the critic, nothing escapes him,” comes the reply.

His verdict? “Comparisons are odious but inevitable…”

Well, I guess they are!

The ARC SP3A-1 Tube Preamp – A Giant Leap Forward for Me, Circa 1975

Our Playback System (and Why You Shouldn’t Care)

Here’s a stereo blast from the past.

In the commentary below I talk about buying the Audio Research SP3A-1 tube preamp (with built-in phono stage, as was the rule in those days) and what a difference it made in the ability of my system to reproduce music at a much higher level.

Naturally, my ability to enjoy music increased dramatically as well.

I was running Crown gear at the time, the DC-300 amp and the IC-150 preamp, so you can imagine that this tube preamp was a real game changer for me.

We talk a lot about Tubey Magic on the site and on this blog. This preamp is the very definition of that sound.

You could call my old Crown system BTM (Before Tubey Magic) and my new Audio Research-based system WTM (With Tubey Magic), if you wanted to be cute about it.

The improvement in the sound was far greater than anything I could have imagined.

Now we provide the same effect to the audiophiles of the world through our Hot Stamper pressings. Better sound than you can imagine. It’s practically our credo.

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The Glorious Sound of Tubes (60s Tubes, That Is)

More of the Music of Thelonious Monk

On this record, more than most, the tubes potentially make all the difference. 

Keep in mind that we are referring specifically to 1963 tubes, not the stuff that engineers are using today to make “tube-mastered” records.

Today’s modern records barely hint at the Tubey Magical sound of a record like this, if our experience with hundreds of them is any guide. We, unlike so many of the audiophile reviewers of today, have a very hard time taking any of the new pressings seriously. We think our position is pretty clear, and we have yet to hear more than a stray record or two that would make us want to change our minds.

If you’ve ever heard a pressing that sounds as good as this one, you know there hasn’t been a record manufactured in the last forty years that has this kind of sound. Right, wrong or otherwise, this sound is simply not part of the modern world we live in. If you want to be transported back to Philharmonic Hall in New York circa 1963, you will need a record like this to do it.

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Listening in Depth to What We Did On Our Holidays

More of the Music of Richard Thompson

This RARE Island Sunray British Import LP has Hot Stamper sound, full of the Tubey Magic you expect from a British Folk album in 1969 (and the unavoidable sonic shortcomings you should expect if you know much about this band and their records).

It’s without a doubt the nicest copy we have ever seen, the acquisition of which was purely a matter of luck, as early pressings are virtually impossible to find in anything but beat-to-death condition. 

The “haunting, ethereal” vocals of the lovely Sandy Denny (or Alexandra Elene McLean Denny as she’s listed on the sleeve) are sublime on this British early copy.

Some of you may recognize her voice from a ditty called ‘Battle of Evermore,’ found on a grayish ’70s rock album that no one even bothered to name. Wonder what ever became of that group? No doubt by now their story is lost to the sands of time. I have to say I thought the music was pretty good though.

The sound varies greatly from track to track. We played the first three songs on each side and guessed that the rest would fall in line with the average of the three we heard.

Side One

The third track gets the balance of tubes and clarity about right.

The second track has a Fleetwood Mac bluesy sound with grungy guitars and surprisingly sweet and breathy vocals.

The first track has too many tubes and sounds “dubby.”

Side Two

Again, the first track is rich but a bit too tubey.

Track two gets it right — still Tubey Magical but clear and clean, some of the best sound we heard.

Track three is the same way, rich and sweet and maybe a bit fat but that’s the way these British Folk Albums are supposed to sound, if our experience with dozens of them can serve as a guide.

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