Submitted by pwhinson on Wed, 09/16/2009 - 17:58
Has anyone else downloaded the wonderful Stile Antico recording "Heavenly Harmonies" from the HD Tracks website. This is a Harmonia Mundi recording of really great singing (Tallis and Taverner. Does anyone else hear distortion 44 seconds into the first track, i.e. is this on the master or is this something my playback system is doing (or did, on the download). ANYONE?
We did all the Harmonia Mundi transfers and this is microphone preamp overloading. Once you hear the masters in hi-rez on a lot of material, from every label, things like this become apparent. Usually this would get burried in noise or background.
Regards,
Bruce A. Brown
Puget Sound Studios
Seattle, Washington
Thanks for replying. Its really a pity. The distortion occurs at several points during this recording.
I went back and loaded this cut into my workstation and all I can hear are ssssssssssssssssssss. Guess someone that recorded/mixed this piece should have used a desser.
Regards,
Bruce A. Brown
Puget Sound Studios
Seattle, Washington
To all: I received a personal email from the recording engineer on the Harmonia Mundi disc. Not only has he promised to send me absolutely free a copy of the disk, I got further word from him last night that he held it in order to get autographs on the disk from the New York premier of Stile Antico's performance of the program. He believes the distortion I was hearing was some other issue and assured me that its not on the actual recording on the SACD disc. I WAS SHOCKED AND SO PLEASED that I'm getting this kind of service from Harmonia Mundi. Apart from that, this music is absolutely amazing and whether this TYPE of music is something you would or wouldn't ordinarily listen to, you must really give it a shot. Buy the CD. The performances are amazing. Thanks.
I've had ever worse results from 24/88 files from HD Tracks. Their 16/44 and 24/96 material sounds as it should, but the 24/88 material doesn't like a change in musical dynamics or extreme treble. The result is weird noise and loss of fidelity. I think it's something to do with the transfer from SACD that most of these 24/88 files have undergone. The Harmonia Mundi Tokyo String Quartet album on HD Tracks sounds downright ugly, which does not match the reputation of this ensemble or its record company. I own many Harmonia Mundi discs, both CD and SACD and almost always their recording quality is top-notch; I think the fault is in the encoding/decoding process that is not as simple as exponents of computer audio have claimed.
-fm