Thanks, Dave. The job of every interpretive musician is very much to bring
the music to life, so to speak, to give us the full range of human emotion
and experience encompassed in the music, to make it move us and affect us
the way that every composer has always intended that it should. The notes,
rests, barlines, etc., printed on the page are NOT "the music." They are
just symbols, a system of indicators, as to what "the music" should be.
The music is the sound that hits our eardrums. If all you can do is
translate the symbols into sounds, without applying human understanding,
you are not performing the music. A machine can do that. It's just like a
pianist who can get all the notes right. That is just the beginning of
what needs to happen, the starting place.

I can get off my soapbox now. Boulez may be a nice guy--he has certainly
made his influence felt i the world, and more power to him. But among all
the things he is, we should not be mistaking him for a great orchestral
conductor.

Best, John




On Sun, Apr 5, 2015 at 10:13 AM, David Lewis <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> My two cents on Pierre Boulez. I met him in 1995 and still have the t-shirt
> DGG circulated on his behalf during that tour. I like Pierre very much
> personally;
> he is absolutely fearless, confident and actually thrives on negative
> criticism in a way I never could. I like many of his old Domain Musicale
> recordings and
> even some of his earlier, un-tampered with compositions. His DG of "Le
> Sacre" is as the 1947 score appears on the page; it sounds more or less
> exactly as
> the score reads. And that's my problem with it; it lacks personality and
> fire. I agree more with Dorati and especially with Igor Markevitch who
> preferred an old,
> outdated version of the score and raised a lot of hell with it. I have
> issues with Boulez' various announcements about where Western music should
> go, and
> what really matters in music today. I heard a radio interview with him the
> other day and I hated all of the musical examples that they chose. Pierre
> is 90,
> best regards to him, but that doesn't mean I have to like what he's done.
>
> Thanks,
>
> David N. Lewis
>
> On Sun, Apr 5, 2015 at 8:48 AM, Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
> > Hi John:
> >
> > I think what you're hearing with 96k is the 24-bit word length. I am not
> > convinced that the super-high sampling rates capture anything audible
> above
> > what 44.1 or 48k capture, but I do think that the Nyquist filtering and
> > other factors make the audible top end sound better. However, many DACs
> > up-sample 44.1k before filtering and converting anyway. For instance, the
> > Benchmark design, of which there are many variants, up-samples everything
> > to three hundred and something kiloHertz, re-clocking so as to strip out
> > jitter, then converts to analog.
> >
> > Here's a "white paper" about Benchmark's DAC1 approach:
> > http://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/white-papers/13127453-
> > asynchronous-upsampling-to-110-khz
> >
> > For the DAC2 series, the describe the "improved" system this way:
> > -------------------------------------------
> > UltraLock2™ Jitter Attenuation System
> >
> > UltraLock2™ is an improved version of the UltraLock™ system used in the
> > DAC1 and ADC1 product families. DSP processing is 32-bits, DSP headroom
> is
> > 3.5 dB, sample rate is 211 kHz, and jitter-induced distortion and noise
> is
> > at least 140 dB below the level of the music - well below the threshold
> of
> > hearing. Benchmark's UltraLock2™ system eliminates all audible jitter
> > artifacts.
> > ---------------------------------------------
> >
> > Up-sampling and over-sampling DAC designs have been around for a long
> > time, but I do think modern designs are more sophisticated in how they
> > strip out jitter from the source. The consumer high-end designers first
> got
> > the jitter-rejection religion, especially when they started recognizing
> > consumer demand for USB interfaces (USB is notorious for jitter due to
> > inconsistent clocking built into typical computer CPUs). Companies like
> > Benchmark and Mytek and Lynx, which have feet in both consumer and pro
> > audio, have put out well-reviewed and good-sounding, to my ears,
> > jitter-rejecting products in recent times. The other focus where I think
> > some strides have been made recently is the analog stage after
> conversion,
> > there are some super-quiet and near-transparent designs out there now. A
> > modern digital system should operate so quietly that it essentially has
> no
> > audible noise floor in even a quiet real-world room.
> >
> > A simple test would be to convert some well-known analog material at
> 96/16
> > and 48/16 and see if you hear a difference. Then 96/24 and 48/24, and
> then
> > compare the 24-bits to the 16-bits. I think that's where you'll hear the
> > differences.
> >
> > To my ears, 24-bit makes a difference, especially with "air and space" in
> > something like an orchestral recording. Just transferring in 24-bit
> makes a
> > difference, if you've got a good dither-down conversion system to get to
> a
> > CD master.
> >
> > -- Tom Fine
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Haley" <[log in to unmask]>
> > To: <[log in to unmask]>
> > Sent: Sunday, April 05, 2015 2:44 AM
> >
> > Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] SACD "surprise"
> >
> >
> > CORRECTION. When I said "catching a whole octave above 48 kHz in
> >> frequency," I meant "catching a whole octave in frequency above what is
> >> captured by a 48 kHz sampling rate." Sorry about that.
> >>
> >> Best,
> >> John
> >>
> >>
> >> On Sun, Apr 5, 2015 at 2:38 AM, John Haley <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >>
> >> Thanks for posting the NY Times Boulez article, Tom, which could have
> >>> been
> >>> entitled "A bunch of famous musicians sitting around kissing up to
> Pierre
> >>> Boulez." They remark how "influential" (i.e, famous) he is. That he
> is.
> >>> Does that make him a great conductor? Nope. I loved the Gunther
> Schiller
> >>> quote. Obviously, Boulez has occasionally succeeded with a piece of
> >>> music. Like they say, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. And
> >>> many
> >>> great orchestras could occasionally deliver a great performance even
> >>> while
> >>> ignoring a monkey on the podium.
> >>>
> >>> If DGG digital recordings had max resolution of 48 kHz, as you know
> that
> >>> is not an appreciable difference from 44.1 kHz. The difference in
> >>> frequencies (pitches) those sampling rates will capture is the
> difference
> >>> between 22,500 and 24,000 Hz. Way up there, that is a difference of
> >>> only a
> >>> note or two (think extended piano keyboard). I have never been able to
> >>> hear the slightest difference between a recording at 44.1 kHz and one
> at
> >>> 48
> >>> kHz. Recording at 96 kHz is a whole 'nother thing, catching a whole
> >>> octave
> >>> above 48 kHz in frequency, but also seemingly able to capture more
> detail
> >>> based on double the number of samples. Or maybe I should say capture
> the
> >>> detail with greater accuracy.
> >>>
> >>> Since we routinely make hi-def dubs (at least 96/24) from analog master
> >>> tapes these days that can sound really great, I have to wonder if, all
> >>> else
> >>> being equal, those results will outshine an original digital recording
> >>> made
> >>> at only 48 kHz.
> >>>
> >>> I am another one who has never felt that your average DGG orchestral
> >>> recording captured a lot of the sheer excitement of the sound of a
> great
> >>> symphony orchestra.
> >>>
> >>> Best,
> >>> John
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Sat, Apr 4, 2015 at 8:21 PM, Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Hi Mark:
> >>>>
> >>>> So from what you're saying, I gather that the maximum resolution of
> that
> >>>> Boulez/CSO master would be 48/24?
> >>>>
> >>>> -- Tom Fine
> >>>>
> >>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Donahue" <
> >>>> [log in to unmask]
> >>>> >
> >>>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> >>>> Sent: Saturday, April 04, 2015 6:13 PM
> >>>> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] SACD "surprise"
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> On Sat, Apr 4, 2015 at 10:31 AM, Tom Fine <
> [log in to unmask]
> >>>> >
> >>>>
> >>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I can't recall if it was Yamaha or Studer digital consoles, but I
> >>>>> think
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> you are correct in your descriptions of "4D". being a true DDD
> system
> >>>>>> in
> >>>>>> that the last time anything was analog was when the mic plugged into
> >>>>>> the
> >>>>>> console and the mic preamp went to a ADC.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Tom,
> >>>>> The DG 4D system was comprised of a stagebox containing custom remote
> >>>>> mic
> >>>>> preamps and Yamaha converters that connected digitally at 24
> >>>>> bits/44.1/48k
> >>>>> to an RTW bit splitter that allowed them to record 24 bit 16 track
> on a
> >>>>> Sony3324. The signal was also distributed to the input of a pair of
> >>>>> Yamaha
> >>>>> DMC-1000 digital consoles. The normal orchestral kit that I would
> see
> >>>>> here
> >>>>> in the states was a pair or three stage boxes with a pair of machines
> >>>>> for
> >>>>> 32 track recording. It was basically modular and could be scaled for
> >>>>> the
> >>>>> job.
> >>>>> All the best,
> >>>>> -mark
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
>