Hi-Rez Highway: Water Lily Russian Recordings and turning the other cheek.... by music@waterlilyacoustics.com New high resolution SACD releases, players and technology.

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Posted by music@waterlilyacoustics.com (M ) on July 24, 2005 at 02:14:51

In Reply to: Re: Water Lily Russian Recordings and turning the other cheek.... posted by Chris from Lafayette on July 23, 2005 at 22:09:50:

If we follow this logic then there should be no recording made at all, since the choice of mikes, mikes pre amps, cables and the recording medium will all impose their own color and character unto the original sound and will reflect the personal "taste" of the one who picked them! A recording is always the result of technical and artistic decisions made by the one who makes it. Yes, a very personal choice based on that persons priorities and the credence he gives to such matters as tonal purity, spatial cues/stereo image/instrument localization, overall sonic balance and dynamics. The original balance in the hall as perceived by the one who made the recording, how else could it be? Thus there is a Decca sound, an EMI sound, a Mercury sound and an RCA sound. It is my opinion that though entertaining, the "house sound" of these forementioned labels, are highly colored and in no way represent the real sound of an orchestra. Nevertheless, what needs to be kept in mind is that the difference between these "house sounds", that were deliberatly derived through a combination of mikes/miking technique and EQ/compression and the "purist" approch of say Water Lily, which has no "house sound" in that it is deliberatly arrived at as through a formula, but is rather the result of an attempt to capture the sound of an acoustical event as "accurately" as we know how. Now, our version of "accuracy" may not sit well with you, for this or that reason, but it can not be denied that the Water Lily approch is free of ornamentation, embelishment and artifice.
"My minions"? I find that utterly insulting and take offence.
Dr. Robert Greene is a professor of math and acoustics at UCLA and a dear and respcted friend and certainly no "minion" of mine. He is also a very accomplised violinist, with a vast amount of knowledge in matters audio and music.
And yes, me and my "minions" do by far prefer single point stereo recordings for the simple reason, that to our ears they tend to be much more realistic. Spaced omni recordings, even with just two mikes, just do not produce the precise stereo image that we prefer and they do also introduce colorations due to comb filter effects that single point stereo pairs are free of. If you and others like you prefer the sound of spaced omni recordings, that is your choice. But certainly not mine. I find ALL spaced omni recordings, old and new, employing two or more mikes, to be utterly confusing. Since the ability to spatialy localize sounds varies with individuals and is partly based on their pinna structure, with some people utterly incapable of preceving stereo at all, it is very likly that some of us are more accutly sensitive to the spatial "deformation" caused by spaced omni mike techniques.
So now we have come around to even commenting on the layout/art work?! Let me just put it to you bluntly, in case you forgot to read the credits, the cover has a reproduction of a Wassily Kandinsky painting courtesy of the Hermitage.
I never mastered my Latin in boarding school, but I do love the Persian Sufi poest Rumi who once said "Counterfiet exists because there is such a thing as real Gold". How appropriate!

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