Help me choose the best 'natural sounding' speaker for orchestral classical...

For many reasons (in Vinyl also but for other reasons) the dynamic range is cut and the entire music compressed - also for the benefit of making it sound good on radio. But these are mostly POP recordings which benefit from huge radio time. What about recordings made in the early 90s when the potential of the CDs was just realised?

I believe compressed recordings for radio are done by the radio station engineers and not the ones mastered on commercial CDs.

Correct me if I am wrong?

Regards
 
For the sake of the Dynamic Range discussion, I pulled out the CD, "My Disc" where Tracks 33 to 41 demonstrate this explicitly.

Track-33: This track contains a 45 sec sample of music recorded at a normal transfer level. It is to be used as a reference for the following tracks 34 thro' 40. In each of the successive tracks, the record level has been reduced in increments of 10dB. Playing these tracks while subsequently increasing the volume for each track will give an indication of the ability of your system to accurately resolve low level signals - the most difficult task for digital systems. This is also an excellent test to demonstrate the quality of D-to-A converters. The farther your system can go without excessive noise or distortion, the better. Even Track 40 at -70dB can be clearly heard on an excellent system.

Track-34: Recorded with transfer level -10dB

Track-35: Recorded with transfer level -20dB

Track-36: Recorded with transfer level -30dB

Track-37: Recorded with transfer level -40dB

Track-38: Recorded with transfer level -50dB

Track-39: Recorded with transfer level -60dB

Track-40: Recorded with transfer level -70dB

Track-41: This track is a recording of "digital black or 0 bits". Ideally this track should be reproduced as total silence. This track can be used to calculating the noise floor of components or a system.


Therefore - a digital system, be it 16Bit or 24Bit, should be able to resolve low level signals such that the system overall can exhibit a dynamic range of above 40dB.

hi audio_engr,

i looked in amazon for "My Disc" - it has been discontinued and no longer available.

please guide me to a similar test cd which does what "My Disc" does

regards, suri
 
So, a photocopy of the Inlay booklet should accompany the CD-R.

regards
@audio_engr It is embarrasing to admit that i cannot find the inlay card :eek: ..if possible would you be able to scan a copy ? ill pm you my email id if you need it..
@suri that the reason the inlay card is missing with the CDR:sad:
 
Heard the Dali Lektor 1, Lektor 6 @ SKS:somewhat impressed.

Hi,

I visited SKS on Sunday and heard the Lektor 1 and Lektor 6.

Lektor 1 impressions:

Nice midrange... lacking scale and bass depth... fairly small soundstage.

Treble seemed a bit unrefined compared to the Diamond 9.1 and AKG K701 phones.

Lektor 6 impressions:

Scale of presentation large, but not excessively so...
Bass tight, but my K701 goes lower.
Bass quantity greater than my AKG.
Nice midrange... full, lush... but lacking the outright resolution and transparency of the AKG.
Treble very similar to Lektor 1... same tweeter?

I also brought by K701 and headphone amp along and tested the Creek Evolution CDP... which to my ears sounded a bit more musical than my 640C.

I had gone to hear the higher-end Dalis... which, unfortunately, SKS did not have on display.

Sadly, the Diamond 9.1 is no longer on sale anymore(though I never intended to buy one... :p )

The Diamond 10.1 is selling like hot cakes now... but that rear port makes the bass muddy in small rooms and near rear walls.
 
Re: Heard the Dali Lektor 1, Lektor 6 @ SKS:somewhat impressed.

Hi,

I also brought by K701 and headphone amp along and tested the Creek Evolution CDP... which to my ears sounded a bit more musical than my 640C.

BTW How much did he quote the creek Evo for?

Regards
 
. Since we were also discussing about DR on this thread & thought some of you might be interested.

Over this weekend I had gone to my friends shop in Surat. He was calibrating a HT for demo.

I asked him to measure the DR he was getting on his set up.

The set up:
Dune Blu ray player.
Onkyo 5507 Av controller
Mc2 750 power amp
Tannoy Defination Install DC12i
Velodyne DD18.

Measuring System:
Goldline TEF 25 sound analysis system with TEF 04 microphones (Freq: 20-15KHZ +/- db, 15khz-20khz +/- 1db).

His demo room is NC 35, but due to the projector fan, ac noise & some work going on in the building we were getting a reading of NC40. The room noise level was 52 DB.
The ref volume was set at 75db at a listening distance of 4ft.

We only had one disk with the ref quality recording i.e Manger demo disk.

Im dont recollect which classical recording we measured but we observed the reading
of 60 db on the silent part. On the parts where there was music playing the reading varied from 65-97 db.

On the Jazz recording on the disk we observed the reading form 68-99.

We also played the Delhi 6 cd & we observed the readings in the range of 75-102 db. The 75 db reading was only during the initial few secs, after which it was mostly 95-102db.

The DR of 30db was observed even with an ordinary bluray player & an HT set up, but one thing working in favour was that the an isolation transformer was used & the ground of the electrical connection is at 0.5ohms.

Wanted to observe readings on a dedicated stereo set up & a live room without an isolation transformer but did not have enough time.

I applogise to BT for going of tangent.

Cheers
 
The 60db was at the start of the recording so it could be under the effect of fader controls. The silence in the middle of the western classical track was arnd 62/63db. We didnt observe a 60db recording on the Hindi recording even in the beginning of the track. One more imp thing that i forgot to mention was that the dac used was of the onkyo pre.

IMO the goldline is an overkill under the current circumstances, acc to what an installer gets paid to calibrate a set up.

Cheers
 
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@ audio engr.
The owner is quite the opposite form what you've deduced. He has also gone ahead & done his training at the HAA, THX & is going to get some further training on acoustics & video calibration all for the love of this art.
But IMO any art has to be at least appreciated let alone make a decent living.
Cheers
 
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