Re: Toscanini's Bruckner 7 - restored and online

Walter Traprock wrote:
Andrew Rose <andrew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

ansermetniac wrote:
The mp3 is in joint stereo so it could not be PURE mono.
Here's a man who listens?

There's a bug in Nero 6 - it won't accept mono MP3s with cue sheets. Give it a stereo MP3 and it's fine. Joint stereo does not make a mono MP3 into a stereo file.

Really? It's natural to be suspicious, because mp3s or flacs that
are of mono material should be encoded in mono. Joint stereo is
great, but not for mono, and could be used to cover up phony mono.
You also have released fake stereo, as well as other people in this
group.

When I issued Fischer's WTC as mono MP3s a number of people complained that Nero would not write them to CD using the cue *** method. I investigated and this proved to be the case - I did contact the software company to draw their attention to this but my comments met with little response. When I re-encoded the files as joint stereo MP3s the cue *** CD writing method worked properly.

Joint stereo is fine for mono, near-mono and full stereo, and brings added sound quality to the first two as little or nothing is encoded in the 'stereo' channel, allowing a far greater effective bit-rate for the mono channel.

Personally I don't and can't get hung up on the issue of "100% pure" mono in a world where the vast majority are listening on two speakers or stereo headphones.

Yes, a few years ago I did experiment with some considerable widening of the stereo field, but ultimately concluded that it was neither worthwhile nor desirable. However I do find that for headphone listening in particular a really sharp '100%' mono can be unpleasant whereas as a very slightly looser mono - i.e. a very slight "blurring", if you like, of the point source - makes for more comfortable listening. Done carefully it should be fully mono-compatible, be unnoticeable to the listener, and have no degrading effect whatsoever on the music.

To call this 'fake stereo' is a misnomer. I do not attempt to fake stereo, and do not wish to do so. Instruments are clearly in the middle of the soundstage when heard on stereo replay equipment, and only by using phase analysis software can the listener tell whether or not the recording is 100% pure mono or very slightly 'blurred' mono (a poor way of describing it as it suggests that in some way the musical performance itself is being blurred - it is not). In the current case of the Burckner 7 the recording is pure, absolute mono, and is rendered so despite its online delivery as a joint-stereo MP3.

By contrast, my previous Toscanini release, of the 1938 Barber Première concert, originated from a two-track reel-to-reel transcription. As such the tape hiss was "stereo", in that it is random noise from two channels. After much experimentation I chose different routes for the two discs, which had come from different sources, both of which involved a considerable narrowing of the stereo field, but for technical reasons required to maintain as much sound quality as possible, neither of which involved final delivery as 100% pure mono, as doing this actually degraded the sound quality through phase cancellation.

In neither case did I add any reverb (occasionally I find it necessary to use a very small amount where noise reduction has robbed a recording of its natural ambience, with the aim of putting this back - if so it's tailored to the recording and designed to be non-obtrusive), and I never indulge in using harmonic 'exciters' in order to artificially generate upper harmonics - it can work to some effect in pop music but sounds terrible in classical.

It's of course possible to get very purist about this issue. I would rather concentrate on what works best, and treat each recording on its individual merits - an enormous number of judgements come into play when restoring and remastering recordings, and these are just a couple of examples of this. If that makes someone "suspicious" well I'm afraid that's potentially their loss.

I always post extensive samples of all my work and invite you to use your ears to reach a judgement on a recording, rather than accepting or rejecting a recording on the basis of its technical format, or through reading the rantings and ravings of a certain deluded contributor to this newsgroup.



--
Andrew Rose - Pristine Classical

The online home of Classical Music: www.pristineclassical.com

.