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Solti Ring remastered in 24/192

Don't buy the download of Die Walkure from Presto Music for the moment - it hasn't been tagged.
Tags notwithstanding I just listened to Die Walküre Act 1 on Qobuz. It's very good and I will listen to the other Acts soon.

After listening I compared the sound at a few points to the Qobuz 2012 version. Sonically, the 2022 re-master has quieter backgrounds (but is that spaciousness real or artificial?) and cleaner, apparently expanded dynamics (that's better). Musically it is no different of course.

The sonic differences are moderately subtle but seem good to me on a single audition. I assume these days that the noise and non-linear characteristics of the tape and the tape machine used at the time can now be described mathematically and some degree of their inverses applied for correction in the re-mastering process.
 
Has anyone been bold enough to try the re-released Ring on LP yet? £129 for Walkure seems, well, keen, but I love it so much...
 
Tags notwithstanding I just listened to Die Walküre Act 1 on Qobuz. It's very good and I will listen to the other Acts soon.

After listening I compared the sound at a few points to the Qobuz 2012 version. Sonically, the 2022 re-master has quieter backgrounds (but is that spaciousness real or artificial?) and cleaner, apparently expanded dynamics (that's better). Musically it is no different of course.

The sonic differences are moderately subtle but seem good to me on a single audition. I assume these days that the noise and non-linear characteristics of the tape and the tape machine used at the time can now be described mathematically and some degree of their inverses applied for correction in the re-mastering process.

Removal of noise is interesting, and I'd like to understand how this works. Since the original tape noise is random, its instantaneous value can't be recovered mathematically, so its not just a matter of generating an inverse noise source & subtracting. I assume its removal must involve using some model of the musical signal to regenerate the sound (without noise), but would be very interested to hear from anyone who understands how this is done.

I think something of this nature was done to clean up & separate individual instruments from the mastertape mix for the recent release of the Beatles' Revolver.
 
One of these days I'll get round to listening to a Wagner opera all the way through...

Until then, I'm with Rossini: "Wagner has lovely moments, but awful quarters of an hour" :rolleyes:
Cheeky Rossini!

Neither my wife nor I were exactly Wagner fans - more like Wagner cynics actually, based on a combination of his historical associations and some pompous excerpts - but nevertheless a few years ago we saw that Opera North were performing the whole cycle on 4 nights over 6 at Nottingham Royal and booked. Gulp.

We expected it to be educational and good story to tell and a bit of an endurance test... but it was stunningly engaging througout. We still talk about it. We have listened since on CD and vinyl but neither has yet been a patch on the live experience.
 
Cheeky Rossini!

Neither my wife nor I were exactly Wagner fans - more like Wagner cynics actually, based on a combination of his historical associations and some pompous excerpts - but nevertheless a few years ago we saw that Opera North were performing the whole cycle on 4 nights over 6 at Nottingham Royal and booked. Gulp.

We expected it to be educational and good story to tell and a bit of an endurance test... but it was stunningly engaging througout. We still talk about it. We have listened since on CD and vinyl but neither has yet been a patch on the live experience.

I was there too! (2015 I think.) Stunning performance, and I vividly remember the sound of the steer-horns in Gotterdammerung.
 
Removal of noise is interesting, and I'd like to understand how this works. Since the original tape noise is random, its instantaneous value can't be recovered mathematically, so its not just a matter of generating an inverse noise source & subtracting. I assume its removal must involve using some model of the musical signal to regenerate the sound (without noise), but would be very interested to hear from anyone who understands how this is done.
I don't know the technology but exploiting information about the unwanted noise and about the wanted signal seems to be the key.

One thing that occurs to me is that with a stereo recording (or with the original multiple tracks that were mixed) you do have more information to work with than you may at first think. For example, two channels with somewhat correlated signal but random tape noise. With more information it strikes me that with a little bit of arithmetic it might be possible to reduce noise without impacting the signal too much.
 
Listening to Das Rheingold on Qobuz and comparing it to my much maligned 1984 vinyl transfer, it’s louder but I don’t think it’s better, may even be worse in louder passages.

I think the 1984 vinyl is dismissed because it says digital on the cover but as far as I know it’s a pretty direct transfer from the analogue tapes with little de-hissing and other messing about.
 
Off topic but a Brysonian adjunct to this experience is that, while waiting at Newcastle station for the train home I was looking at a chap, trying to think how I knew him. At the moment I saw a cello case at his feet and a violin case at his partner’s feet I realised he was a cello player from the concert. That was the moment he caught my stare so, rather than come over all stalker, I sauntered over and congratulated both on their performance that week. They were very gracious and we boarded the train in the fullness of time, only to find we had adjacent tables. I was well behaved and left them be save a cheerio as we left the train to change at York.
So did they.
As we settled at adjacent tables on the train from York we shared a lift of the eyebrows to acknowledge the coincidence.
When we all alighted at Retford I broke the ice saying, ‘this is getting spooky now’. Turns out they live two villages over from us but choose to train it to work in Leeds and afford a much better house in north Notts.
It’s a small world.
 
Found this on another well known site:

index.php


Seigfried's funeral march, top 1984, bottom 2022. Make of it what you will.
 
Much as I admire the engineering ofSolti’s Wagner his conducting has always been a problem for me. I find him exciting but relentless in most music. I much prefer the Bohm set.
 
Much as I admire the engineering ofSolti’s Wagner his conducting has always been a problem for me. I find him exciting but relentless in most music. I much prefer the Bohm set.

Agreed, though the audience noise, particularly at the beginning of 'Rheingold' can be distracting at times.
 
Siegfried recently released. Like the others, superficially impressive but too hot.
 
Found this on another well known site:

index.php


Seigfried's funeral march, top 1984, bottom 2022. Make of it what you will.

I can't believe that's hard clipping in the 2022 mastering- it would sound terrible! (Though I havn't listened to it, maybe it does..) Maybe the clipping occurred in the measrement?
 
Just measured the orchestral prelude to Siegfried from a 24/48 Blu-Ray edition versus the 24/192 2022 remaster - the BR reports a true peak level of -0.1 and an RMS of -23; the remaster a TPL of -0.5 and an RMS (average L/R) of around -20. The BR reports a dynamic range of about 18.6; the 24/192 of 18. One anomaly is a spike in the 24/192 signal at 77kHz - the stereo too seems much wider than the BR issue. Just my two penneth - DGP
 


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