yoshi wrote:

Well, my wording may not be right.  What I meant by "integrity of harmonics" is more like "integrity of space where harmonics are presented", which I do not hear in CD/LPs.

What "live" analog FM does with space is absolutely unseen in any recorded media. The power of “space” is so great that overrides absolutely anything. Pay attention, Yoshi that reversed CD channels were instinctually alarming but the reversed FM channels were WERE much more bearable and non-annoying. I do not stress harmonics in the sound I am getting here. Harmonics in my system were done once properly in a way they shell be. Harmonics are managed by loading the individual channel’s plate with output transformers ratio. So, the harmonics integrity comes from amplification and speaker but the way how the harmonics relate to the boundary of space is totally different subject. Sure, better played material gives to playback more options to deal with harmonics. Sill, with bad electricity  not the harmonics  but space dies first… At the day you were here the electricity   was bad and only FM had a chance to be played with “space”. With better electricity the CD/LP do much better, and of cause the FM  with better electricity flys all over the roof…

I was sitting quietly and without bother anybody, listening my new discovered and wonderfully-different played Tosca by MTT and Hungarian State Symphony and suddenly I realized that it was Thursday evening and WCRB shall be broadcasting live from Frazer Studio on Thursdays. The Rohde & Schwarz is always on tune to 99.5 and my antenna was pointed North.  As I was sitting in my chair I just hit the button on my preamp and the room got saturated with absolutely marvelous sound of vocal quintet singeing Elgar.  Bitch whatever you want about FM but with very first note it was auditable that it was LIVE sound. I flipped the Pacific A/D on and recorded the rest of the broadcast.

It was Leipzig-based St. Thomas Boys Choir “Amarcord: with the following program:

http://www.wgbh.org/articles/-2557

How after this Sound one can listen CD, LPs or whatever…. The file is 88/24.  It is slightly degraded as I was forced to converted it from 64 bit to 32 bit WAV file but it still have most of original sound.

http://www.mediafire.com/?4udwa45iusxbm6y

mats wrote:

As I write this, WFMT is playing The Planets,  Sir Andrew Davis conducting the BBC Phil, and it is rather amazing. Complex passages resolved as I would expect were I using my Goldmund transport. I prefer the digital out, 24/48 is the maximum currently, and I believe that my Lavry DA-11 dac is the factor of sonic character.  It appears that the tuner responds to whatever it is being fed.  I can find no limitation from the RBRX1. The ULF right now is just phenomenal thru my tapped horn. It is very exciting to listen to.  I can't describe any sound, except it does have some of that "FM-magic".

I have described this effect multiple times and I have no explanation to the effect. In some cases the CDs broadcasted over FM sound much more musicals then CD played at the very best CD playback. As now WCRB is playing Brahms’ Double Concerto. It is the celebrated Chicago Symphony recording with Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma. I have this Teldec CD and know Sound from there quite well, I was recorded live. Still I never hear it so “interesting”.

People do not get it generally. At My Playback section I wrote that I have 70% of my listening from FM, (it was a few years back, now it would be less). Over the years, reading the comments of idiots about my playback section, I saw many remarks that I must be a fool having Micro 8000 and CECT-TL0 as the sources still consider the shitty FM as an acceptable sound source.

Well, the people who do not know just do not know. Meanwhile turning FM I am getting something like this:

http://www.mediafire.com/?o29xzkimezd

… and it is not only like this but it is each day new…. Bite this, the soldering Morons….

I wrote about it many many times but it keep shook me, primary because it very much violates all intellectual provision I can extend against what I am saying. Today FM again flew my socks off and it was not special FM but objectively crappy FM.

Today WCRB broadcasted live-to-tape concert with Chicago Symphony Orchestra lead by Ludovic Morlot.  It was Martinu’s  “The Frescoes..”, the Debussy’s unavoidable La Mer, Tchaikovsky’s  Violin Concerto with  Chicago concertmaster Robert Chen and Mozart’s Concerto No. 21 with Jonathan Biss. It was not live broadcast but Chicago Symphony Orchestra Radio Broadcast from WFMT Radio Network. They do not do live broadcasts and their stream edited with overlaid announcers. Most likely the WCRB get data from via shipped CD or over a phone. I will not be surprised if it was some kind of MP3 feed – I do not know how they exchange data. Plus it was FM – compressed, limited, noise – you name it….

Still, the Sound of music in my room was just phenomenal. I was not home and I scheduled the recording (Schwarz–Pacific). I got home, turn it on and what an experience!!! It does not have that hi-tech sound that that we get from high-performing CD, LP, tape but it t offer a phenomenal readability of music and it has that euphoric liquidity and connectively of musical events that are so hard to get from CD/LP. Honesty, this type of Sound I can listen all day long.

I have seen people at different audio forums make fan on me, mocking my admiration of FM and presuming that if I appreciate the crappy FM then my references about Sound are very questionable. The irony is that I do not disagree with them, FM is crap, and still there is some exoteric force with FM sound that I can’t get over. I do not mind to post a fragment from today concert and you can see yourself, but you shall  not play it at stinky computes headphone – only you do not need to blow it up at your big systems and to hear it in full glory.

I am not exactly the person who would listen the Tchaikovsky’s  Violin Concerto and appreciate it too much, particularly in Robert Chen overly simplistic approach. Still, I almost was tempted to play it again as it was insanely pleasant.  A few years ago an audio guy I know stopped by at my home and had a long listening session in my room. I played to him records and CDs, it was fine, he liked it and then as played the very first FM recording he said “Amassing!” I asked him what he found amassing. He replied:”I just felt as someone gave me a food massage”…

mats wrote:

A couple of nights ago WFMT re-broadcast a concert I had attended some weeks earlier.  It was the Emerson SQ performing in the lovely Martin Theater at Ravinia.  On the program were the last quartets by Haydn, Bartok and Schubert.  I sat about 20 rows back, and a little off to the side.  The performance was good, but ultimately only moderately satisfying.  Maybe I was too far back, or the dinner too heavy, or the folks around me a bit dull, but I could not get very excited. Then came the WFMT broadcast, produced by Kerry Frumkin and recorded by Hudson Fair.  What a difference!  Two microphones, in what must have been the absolute sweet spot of the hall, captured the large, detailed and very exciting sound of the Emerson.  It was a great blend of bold scale, integration, dynamics and tone, much different from my live experience.  So often we hear about the disapointment of coming home from a concert to our stereos, but here was an example of how the, surely different, sound of a recording could lead to something very good.  I think Romy has written about the goal in audio not being to recreate the sound of the performance, but to generate a meaningful event.  Well, this evening with WFMT validated the efforts by musicians, recordist, producer, radio station, equipment makers, and system integration.  Most satisfying art!

I think to a great extend it is due to the fact during the FM broadcast the sound is mixed for the microphones that are hanging just above conductor.  When you are in the hall then you can get any mix and it will be greatly depends from where you sit.  No further than last weekend a local friend of my was complaining that BSO was planning last weekend Beethoven 7 an brass was flooding the whole sound. The FM broadcast quite in contrary presented so phenomenal brass balance and quality that it made me to speak about it publicly:

http://classical-scene.com/2011/06/24/wcrbs-tanglewood-coverage/comment-page-1/#comment-7167

I do feel that in many cases the FM broadcast is more palatable for consumption then live event, at least after FM broadcast you do not need to stay 2.5 hour in traffic jam in the Tanglewood exit of MassPike…

I truly love that. Sometimes in the randomness of internet audio idiocy there are events where I become sort of epicenter of bashing.  I say “sort of” as they do not discuss my personally or what I stay for but instead the intent Morons mostly share with each with each other their fears how bad I might be. I am sure that someone having interest in the fields social group psychosis would write a PHD dissertation about it. I personally have great amusement reading pages and pages of white trashes from some kind audiokarma or stevehoffman forums discussing that they understood from the pictures from my site.

I mention the pictures from my site as 95% of those white trashed do not invest themselves into anything deeps then to look a few pictures and to browse “for sale” section of my site. There are however 5% of the intellectuals who do try to read my site. They have enough efforts to read a part of “my playback” page and then they share their idiotic “expressions”.  My beloved “expression” that I absolute adore is the following: If he invest all those efforts and then listening FM radio 80% of time then he is a fool who have no idea what he listens.

Well, as I told. Each of the internet idiots express opinion restricted by own ignorance, own stupidity and own fear, thankfully all of it exes in great volumes in internet audio.  The reality is that FM radio is a phenomenal source, as the subject of this thread suggests.

Let take yesterday for instance.

Early morning it was The Bach Hour with Brian McCreath, the Harpsichord Concerto in E and two cantatas. Brian play CDs, he knows Bach well and I a few times bought some CDs when I liked what Brian played. Then there was life broadcast from Fraser perfuming studio with renown harpist Ina Zdorovetchi plaing harp. I do not care too much about solo harp play but I need to admit the Liszt’s Piano Consolation converted to harp was very nice. Then there was a repeat from last night live broadcast of Marc-Andre Hamelin celebrated the Liszt’s 200 birthday. How many chances the mortal Morons have to have pianist of Hamelin caliber to play for them a private recital, including the Sonata in B minor? Then there was re-broadcast of Saturday live performance of Boston symphony with Brahms Second piano concerto and Third symphony. Then a program dedicated to Franz Liszt 200th Anniversary with semi-live broadcast from a dozen concert hall around the world with pianists palsy Liszt music. I said semi-live as it was a synchronous translation in studio of the host from different countries.  Then there was Arias and Barcarolles programs with most of WGBH own recordings in New England and one track from Dorian CD.  Then there was a program with historical recording of Toscanini with BBC Symphony. Then there was live broadcast of Verdi's Rigoletto from Washington National Opera. Then I was trying to listen last night’s live broadcast from Sanders Theater of Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra but it was too much for me.

You got to be kidding yourself if you feel that this density of LIVE programming is “not enough”. I know, I know, the Morons complain about the “quality” of FM that they accustom to get in their cars. I can only assure you that the sound I am getting in my room from FM is much more interesting then 1000s of white trashes out there are getting from their LP and SACDs. I am very much not kidding.

I truly enjoy reading the different internet audio idiots expressing their “wisdom” about what I do.  There is a site out there filed with typical audio white trash and they suddenly developed a desire to criticize my admiration of FM based upon the allegation that FM has limited bandwidth. One idiot proclaimed: “How FM might be good if it never goes lower then 40Hz?”

Well, that certainly requires some commentary from me. First of all am very much convinced that even 40Hz bass is NOT reproduced by great majority audio morons but it is not the point.  The bandwidth of my TU-X1 is from 10Hz and up. The bandwidth of stock Roden-Schwartz receiver is 40Hz but after my modifications it is 2.8Hz. This takes care about the prejudices about receivers.  Mind you that this is true bandwidths that I measured driving modulated sweeps.

Now about the signal. Sure, the FM standard is written from 30Hz but the reality is way not like this. In fact FM that I am getting has MUCH more ULF signal then most of the CDs. Do not forget that I have my ULF channels running by Yamaha B2 and this amp has very high quality and very well calibrated large modulation meters. The B2 sits behind high order crossover (18dB and 24dB) at 20Hz, so by looking at the ULF power amps meters I can absolutely objectively judge about the LF bandwidth of the signal. I can only assure that there is very few CD I’ve ever seen that has as much LF information as FM broadcasts.

I do not insist that FM bass is the best but with all my humility and modesty I truly do not see need to explain to most of the typical ignorant audio idiots the specific of bass reproduction. However, even in quantitative would, the only world that most of audio fools understand, the statement that FM has no bass below 40Hz is absolutely faulty.

Like many other audio-trashes the retards from Audiogon forum have express this “oponoin”

“I read somewhere that 80% of his listening is FM radio. That says a lot...lol”

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1319292658&openflup&35&4#35

I do not what that it says to that “Rockitman”.  As far as I concern he can only kiss me in the ass, right along with his rest of the dead life forms cultivating at Audiogon.  What I do know is that while the audio trash convince each other at Audiogon that they just about to miss the current stupid hype of the week I have been listening my miserable FM. Just 20 minutes ago Ludovic Morlot finished his broadcast with Harbison’s Symphony No. 4,  Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, Suite No. 2  and Mahler’s Symphony No. 1. The sound I got was at the level that good luck to get this presentation of BSO live on CD or LP! What the idiots. 

Here in Boston the WCRB has a program “Drive Time Live”. The idea is that on Friday night when people drive home, at 4PM, then invite musicals in Fraser studio and let ten to play life  (and for sure to promoted the upcoming concerts during weekend). The quality of play wary but the quality of sound is the same: FM LIVE. I made many comments about the idiots out there who laugh that I spend too much time with FM. I am who I am. Here is argument from today broadcast.

http://www.wgbh.org/articles/Pianist-Olga-Kern-and-Violinist-Vladimir-Spivakov-5578

Olga Kern played horribly and her interview was even more moronic but if you are interested about the objective quality of FM I am getting then here is 88/24 bit file. It is Rohde & Schwarz receiver with Schwarz decoder and into Lavry Gold A/D. Copllain.

http://www.mediafire.com/?t05ggksnju32bc2