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Yarlung Records

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  1. Thank you for this encouragement, BMoura, and this advice. Tom Caulfield, who compiles Yarlung's albums for release on NativeDSD, is one of our good friends (as are you) guiding us through this process. We'll be using five Unity Audio Signature One loudspeakers for this project, no longer made, unfortunately. They are blessed with what is touted as an almost perfect crossover, and they image very well. I think the results will be spectacular. (Incidentally, I am looking for one more of these speakers, should any of you have an extra sitting in your garage. I have to rob one of my stereo playback systems of one of its speakers to complete the five, which I would greatly prefer not to do! I'm taking Tom's advice and yours about five identical speakers seriously, because the two of you know what you're talking about and have so much experience in this arena. In addition, Tom is now our surround sound recording engineer at Yarlung Records. His recording of the Matheson string quartet was reviewed excitingly by Kal Rubinson in Stereophile before we released it. I look forward to hearing it in all of its glory! Bob Here is Kal's review (which included a lot of information about Merging's NADAC, incidentally: I have some unreleased files that demonstrated that the NADAC Multichannel-8 is on top of some formats still not widely available. Tom Caulfield, a Grammy-winning recording engineer who has worked for Channel Classics and other labels, recently sent me a multichannel DSD256 file from a session with Color Field, a group comprising musicians of the Chicago Lyric Opera and the Chicago Symphony, for a recording of James Matheson's String Quartet, to be released this year on Yarlung Records. The opening notes were startling—I had the disturbing but exhilarating feeling that music was actually being made in my room, not merely reproduced. The sound was no more "multichannel" than it was "stereo"—the four players seemed almost within reach, and my room seemed to expand around me. Caulfield had included a few photos of the session, held at the Segerstrom Center, in Costa Mesa, California. When I looked at them—by George, that's exactly what I'd heard. Not only was I completely transfixed: I kept thinking, If others could only hear this, hi-rez multichannel music would take off.
  2. Thanks so much BMoura. Yarlung happens to be in the process of building a new 5.0 playback system this month. For this we will be using the NADAC, and five identical speakers. I look forward to being able to report on the results soon!
  3. I think your approach is astute. I agree that one can do best by keeping the converters as clean and uncolored as possible, and adjusting your playback to your taste with your other equipment. This leaves you maximum flexibility for enjoying different styles of music and different qualities of recording. If your DAC is tilted in one direction, you're stuck with that sound for everything.
  4. Given that this is a big year for Yarlung, being our 10th Anniversary, I love the spell check! "Yearling" it is. I'll respond in more detail to your other comments too. Soon! Many thanks, Bob
  5. I didn't have the honor of recording with Jussi Björling (I may be long in the tooth, but not THAT long in the tooth), but I understand that for his best singing he need just the right amount of firewater in his veins. Too little and he didn't sing well; too much and, well, you know the stories too. Laura Strickling, the soprano with whom we worked on the James Matheson recording, got all excited about my special "singers tea" which I brewed for her every day during our sessions. Laura even made it a bit famous on Facebook. I don't know if it was the tea or Laura's extraordinary talent, but she sang a number of high D-flats without difficulty. We could have used any of those takes in the final recording. Anyone interested can find the results "of my secret tea" here. And for the record, it doesn't have any Whisky in it! goo.gl/9fTuAR Yes, Cookie, please do publish your essay on singers and how they warm up. The world outside the universe of singers won't believe it! --Bob Laura and Bob, Cooper Bates photography
  6. Thanks BMoura, for sending me the link to this thread. In support of what Brian and Cookie write above, yes, these converters make a big difference! Cookie and I spoke together on a panel a year and a half ago (it was David Robinson's DSD panel at The Show at Newport, so converters and formats were the main topic). Cookie and I joked about the myriad elements that contribute to or degrade the sound, including whether the musicians come to the session prepared and sober! We thought those were the two most important elements in making good music sound enticing in a recording. Hehehehe. That should come as no surprise. But to return to the topic at hand, my hunch is that the recording engineers who say all converters sound the same are probably working in studios with miles of cable (and perhaps lousy sounding cable) and mixers and amplifiers that add considerable noise to the sound they hear through their monitors. Cookie mentioned her conversation with Bernie Grundman (Yarlung works with Bernie to cut our lacquers). Beno has honed every component in the relatively short chain in Bernie's room such that differences in converters sound significant. We're working strictly in the analog domain in Bernie's room, but I've been there for friends' sessions working in digital. Both Merging Technologies and exaSound have worked with us at Yarlung to make and monitor our recordings. We are very happy with the "sounds" from both companies, whether DSD or PCM. We don't have any of the luscious-sounding converters in our DSD recording lineup because we want our product to be as little colored as possible. We are hoping for neutral, with as little "digital signature" as possible. But listening to playback on sweeter sounding converters is great fun for us as people who enjoy music when we're listening just for pleasure. Cheers, Bob Attiyeh Yarlung Records
  7. Thank you Chris! We do indeed want to release more albums that utilize SonoruS Holographic Imaging. As to "how" the SonoruS system works, I'd like to refer you to an article Arian Jansen wrote for David Robinson in PFO in 2012. Starting under the image, Arian discusses why he created Holographic Imaging, and what it does: goo.gl/hcQEqB (By the way! Note the posters on the wall behind Arian. These are Yarlung album covers hung on the SonoruS room at The Show in Newport, the year SonoruS and Yarlung won the Audio Oasis Award). Here is more from the SonoruS website: goo.gl/i5Kywu Chris, since you enjoy how SonoruS unravels the stereo image so successfully, please spread the word so other record companies can use this technology as well. Yarlung doesn't "own" this. We are just lucky enough to be able to take advantage of what Arian designed. Cheers and happy upcoming Fourth of July, Bob
  8. Thanks for your thoughtful questions, chrille. Let me take a stab at responding to some of these questions and comments. (As a note to other readers, your questions refer to the high res files available on HDTracks in PCM, but this same album is available in 256fs DSD on NativeDSD). The easiest first: Theodore Presser is Jim Matheson's publisher. The company is fantastic, and gave us permission to exceed the standard 30 second rule for music not in the public domain. Normally, copyrighted music is limited to 30 seconds for marketing purposes for demos like this, unless the music is purchased. We wanted you to be able to hear more than 30 seconds, which the publisher graciously permitted in this case. Depending on your system, the effects of hearing a full orchestra in SonoruS Holographic Imaging might be more impressive than listening to chamber music, chrille, not less. The sheer size of the ensemble in front of you enables the analog process within Holographic Imaging to capture and reproduce the width and depth in impressive ways. The levels are indeed different among our three formats for the Matheson recording. The music comes from three different originals, and while they should be relatively adjusted between the three pieces in each format, the levels were chosen and set by three different engineers, me in the case of the stereo recording, Arian Jansen and me in the case of the SonoruS Holographic Imaging version, and Tom Caulfield in the case of the surround sound version. The microphone for the stereo version of the snippet from the Sibelius piano trio on the www.yarlungrecords.com/sonorus webpage is the AKG C-24. Petteri Iivonen is indeed an exceptional violinist, and his performance of the Chaconne from Bach's D Minor Partita remains one of my all-time favorites on recording. We took this piece of the Chaconne from his debut album, titled Art of the Violin: goo.gl/0iME9H On DSD, the full D Minor Partita has not been released yet, but thanks to Gary Koh from Genesis Advanced Technologies, the full Chaconne is available on our second volume of Yarlung's Tenth Anniversary album: goo.gl/Zd7ETd If we see real enthusiasm for SonoruS Holographic Imaging from our initial offering (the James Matheson project) we will continue to release material in this format, including perhaps a version of the entire Art of the Violin at a later date. I enjoy SonoruS Holographic Imaging very much, and for people like you, chrille, who want an immersive 3D music experience from two speakers, there may be nothing better! For people reading this post, you can see and hear what chrille is asking about at www.yarlungrecords.com/sonorus Thanks! --Bob
  9. This is an exciting week for us at Yarlung Records. My friend the engineer Tom Caulfield lighted a fire under us when he recommended we expand to include 5.0 surround sound, and I'm delighted that we have. These November sessions capturing the String Quartet and song cycle for the Matheson project went so well that Tom returned to work with us again last March (same beautiful concert hall at Segerstrom Center for the Arts) for three more albums, scheduled to come out later this year. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy James Matheson. It is exciting superbly composed music, well performed. Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts violin soloist Baird Dodge and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Matheson's violin concerto, Color Field Quartet performs Matheson's first string quartet, and soprano Laura Strickling and pianist Thomas Sauer perform the enchanting and very beautiful song cycle Times Alone. All of this comes to you thanks to our tireless team at Yarlung Records, including Tom Caulfield our surround sound recording engineer, Arian Jansen who created our first SonoruS Holographic Imaging version of an album, our family at NativeDSD and our valiant executive producers J and Helen Schlichting, who not only underwrote this recording but commissioned the Matheson string quartet. I look forward to hearing what you think! https://yarlungrecords.nativedsd.com/albums/YAR25670DSD-james-matheson
  10. Thanks Adam! Wonderful to read your comment. Misha sure had fun making this recording and I think one can hear this in the sound. If you enjoy classical piano as much as jazz, you might check out our album Orion, which is not in DSD but is available in PCM on HD Tracks: goo.gl/7ka5v2 I thought of Orion because we're going to hear Orion Weiss in concert later today at a solo recital near Palm Springs. He's an extraordinary pianist and it will be fun to see him again. We don't get the chance to hear him play on the west coast very often. Misha was recorded in Cammilleri Hall at USC, about six minutes by car from Zipper Hall at The Colburn School where we recorded Orion. For you microphone buffs, Orion uses two Neumann U-47s, which gives the album a special quality. Enjoy and thanks again for the comment, Adam. For those of you interested primarily in DSD, here are more of our 256fs offerings: https://yarlungrecords.nativedsd.com/ Happy weekend, Bob
  11. Thank you so much, Brian. Cookie and I served together on David Robinson's DSD panel at The Show in May. First time I met her. She is as much fun in person as she is online and through her recordings. It is intriguing how many 256fs DSD releases David has inspired with his generosity. He is the one who lighted the fire under Yarlung Records to release our SonoruS Series analog tape recordings in this resolution, and now he has done the same for Cookie's incredible catalog. As mentioned above, Cookie and I have both used the Hapi converter from Merging Technologies in Switzerland, running Pyramix software. For people interested in the tape from which Yarlung's DSD releases come, here is the link: Analog Tape SonoruS :: Yarlung Records There is more of this same music currently available in DSD ( https://yarlungrecords.nativedsd.com/ ) but more tape will follow. Incidentally, the Yarlung DSD releases are less expensive than Blue Coast currently charges. Many thanks David Robinson, for the mischief you have inspired. We appreciate it.
  12. Dear Chris, Many thanks! We will look into it right away. Thanks for the heads up.
  13. Thanks so much Brian. Coming from you this is a real compliment.
  14. Thank you so much YashN. Let us know what you think! And a very happy weekend to you. Bob
  15. Thank you Brian! Yes, this is an exciting week and weekend for us. Gary Koh and Genesis Advanced Technologies underwrote the release of our 10th Anniversary quartet, a collection of recordings that makes me so proud of our musicians. There is indeed a special price for a few days, and more information is here (information not only about Yarlung's anniversary quartet but also about other new releases on NativeDSD): Happy Anniversary Yarlung Records! Enjoy, and please write in to let us know what you think. We are grateful for so much support this first decade. It is hard to believe a tiny record label could survive in this environment for the recording industry. But it shows that "very simple living" combined with generous underwriting can make a dream not only come true, but thrive. We are indeed grateful. For those of you audiophiles out there, we used the SonoruS ATR10 tape deck as our source for this anniversary quartet, then into the HAPI converter by Merging Technologies in Switzerland. Merging's Pyramix software captured the 256 DSD files for you, and they were then tagged and cut into tracks by the veritable Tom Caulfield in Boston. Many thanks to the entire NativeDSD team who worked on this project with us.
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