Comments on: Bybee/Nuforce/VTL event at Audible Arts

By: crsc

crsc — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 03:08:18 +0000

Here is the music I played in the small room with floor to ceiling shelves of records on either side known as the “vault” (literally used to be a bank vault).

* Skip James – Today!
Hard Times Killing Floor Blues
Crow Jane

* 10,000 Maniacs – Blind Man’s Zoo
The Big Parade
Trouble Me
Headstrong
Dust Bowl
Hateful Hate
Jubilee

By: Bob Stern

Bob Stern — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 02:27:09 +0000

Listening notes for Usher Be-20 and VTL MB-450 amp:
1. On one of the initial jazz selections having two female singers and boomy bass, the softer female was wonderfully clear in spite of the louder music from the other singer and the instruments.
2, On the jazz selection having a cornet & saxophone, the cornet sounded fantastic, but the sax was muffled, with none of the bite or reediness you expect from a sax. I have no idea to what extent this was due to the recording or the equipment.

By: Bob Stern

Bob Stern — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 02:16:44 +0000

Listening notes for Usher Be-20 and NuForce amp:
1. Shostakovich cello sonata: Piano’s transient attack over-emphasized at expense of body of note, sounding more like a percussive instrument with pitch difficult to discern. Cello lacks body.
2. Ben Heppner (powerful tenor aria): Perfectly clean, with no distortion or compression.
3. Strauss “Die Frau ohne Schatten”: High, loud, massed violins extremely shrill.

By: Bob Stern

Bob Stern — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 02:03:35 +0000

Bob Stern’s excerpts played during demo of Usher speaker & NuForce amp (not necessarily in this order):
1. Bach, Art of the Fugue, Emerson String Quartet [DG]
2. Shostakovich, sonata for cello & piano op. 40, Wispelwey cello & Lazic piano [Channel]
3. Berlioz aria “Nature Immense” from “Damnation of Faust”, Ben Heppner tenor, from “Ben Heppner Airs Francais” [DG]
4. Strauss “Die Frau ohne Schatten”, Solti cond. [DG]. (This was the loud orchestral piece.)

Played on Podium speakers after most people had left:
1. Schumann, Fantasie in C op. 17, Jonathan Biss piano [EMI] (Overwhelmingly emotional & technically brilliant.)
2. Sibelius, symphony #1, Leif Segerstam, Helsinki Phil. [Ondine]
3. Brahms, symphony #2, Abbado, Berlin [originally DG, but Musical Heritage Society has exclusive US rights]

By: Bob

Bob — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 23:08:14 +0000

Bob’s songs played:

1. Flamenco/Pepe Romero [Philips Digital Classics]
2. Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong/Summertime [Verve]
3. Janis Joplin/Summertime [Columbia Legacy]
4. Deep Purple/Soldier of Fortune [EMI]
5. Taj Mahal/Honkey Tonk Women [House of Blues]
6. Lyle Lovett/North Dakota [MCA]
7. Judy Collins/Amazing Grace [Elektra]
8. Herbie Hancock/Watermelon Man [Columbia]