cerchiamusic's system

TuneLand welcomes cerchiamusic !

Looking forward to tuning with you. If you would like to share your website please do.

Also I would like to invite our friends from  the Stereophile forum to join us.

http://www.stereophile.com/content/recording-distortion#comment-537470

test

testing

One two ... Michael, could we get a little more gain ... Couldn't resist

I love it  

To Michael & TuneLand

I listen to classical music. I am a classical composer and music engraver.  I recently upgraded a couple of components in my system. (Amp and CD player.) I figured by upgrading I'd get better sound as I was hearing some distortion. I have a pair of Paradigm Reference Studio 100s. I am now hearing alot of distortion coming from mainly the string section of the orchestra. It is consistent on almost every one of my CDs!(And when the full orchestra plays- forget it...)
The strings sound raspy...and almost unlistenable when the dynamic gets above a mp.
I am just sick. I upgrade to improve the sound and it makes my vast CD collection effectively unusable.

Has anyone had this experience? I took some CDs to a hi-end stereo store and played them there. The distortion was still there. The salesman told me I would just have to get used to listening to the distortion. These were recent Berlin Philharmonic Cds...supposedly high quality recordings.
I am at a loss of what to do. The joy of listening to classical music has been stolen from me.

HELP!

My System:

Speakers- Paradigm Reference Studio 100s v2

Integrated Amp- Yamaha A-S500

CD Player- Cambridge Audio Topaz CD10

Headphones – Sennheiser HD600

Ears- 63 year old Italian (the most sensitive part of my system!)

(I will post a picture of the system soon...have to clean up the office abit....)

For more info on myself: WWW.Cerchiamusic.com


thanks

Hi Rick

Thrilled to have you here   I love it when I can talk shop and I believe there is much we can learn from you.

The very first question is this. Do you hear any of this distortion when you are listening live to the real instruments and not recorded sound?

Second question, do you hear the distortion with the headphones?

I ask this because I want to paint the picture of what is going on in the recording and in playback, and show the difference between live harmonics and recorded harmonics. Also to show what happens when the harmonics are sqeezed due to something in the equipment. Many people try to find equipment to suppress the area around the distortion but we take a different approach because we don't want to lose music content while fixing problems.

Not only will we go after the problem, but lets have some music fun along the way.

I don't recall that I hear this distortion in live instruments- its been a while actually since I've been to an orchestral concert. Interesting question.  To my best recollection, no I don't hear it live. Especially the type I'm talking about. But then the acoustic in a hall and "stereo image"??? is not there.

I DO hear it in the headphones. Again, the strings are raspy and fuzzy- if that makes any sense. Like there is a  high harmonic hash type sound surrounding the tone. Listen to a reciever when its between radio channels. Its not quite that pronounced or loud...but just irritatingly THERE. And I don't have the ability to listen directly from the CD player. There is no jack for it.

I also have noticed this for some time in certain recordings. Take for instance the English Chamber Orchestra. They record in an extremely reverberant space. It works for their repertoire - but I've always noticed that raspy type sound present which ruins the experience.

My taste is extremely eclectic, but stays mostly in Jazz and classical (all eras). So the mix I'm used to is probably more 'natural" than most pop albums would be. I recently purchased a recording of Le Sacre du Printemps with Rattle/Berlin Phil. It is touted as the "BEST" recording ever of the piece. Sonically, maybe. I find the interpretation a bit stodgy and heavy. But other than that, it works my amp overtime. Talk about distortion....this coming from the full orchestra. Its probably a good demo disc for systems. (Or a lease breaker!)

I have a quick question about speaker cords. I spent about $100 for good speaker cords. The left speaker cord is much shorter than the right. Does that make a difference?

All for now, Thanks
Blessings

Rick Cerchia

Hi Rick

If you are hearing it in the headphones, this means that it is happening in the electronics or your power (electricity to your house) or as we talked about your hearing but if it was in your hearing you would probably notice this fairly regular.

On Stereophile's forum they suggested you push the direct button, have you tried this yet? This would tell you if it is going through the discrete stage or not.

After you let me know then we can keep moving forward. The speaker cable is something to look at later but if it is happening with both headphones and speakers we can narrow this down to the source, electric, your receiver or you.

What kind of instruments are playing at your rehearsals? Do you ever hear it there?

I have heard strange things from the Cambridge before so we are going to want to keep our ear on this as well. What type of interconnect are you using?

And one more thing, when did you start noticing the problem? Is this something that has been around a while?

Hi Rick

Welcome to another classical musick fan  

Sonic hopes that we, led by Michael, can help solve your problem. Do you have a tuner or an alternate source to see if the distortion is source caused.

If you were listening to LPs, such a problem is symptomatic of a misaligned cartridge assuming the stylus system is not damaged or worn.

For CDs, I think I know someone who had a problem like this. Is your CD10 new? An aging laser can cause all sorts of distortion -- the error correction in a CD player and interpolation on a continuous basis sounds awful -- or if the laser mechanism has been replaced and not aligned all sorts of distortion can be heard.

Since you hear distortion on the violins in a orchestral recording for certain there is something going wrong with the Left channel. Is the distortion equally nasty on both channels?

Sonic  

Dear Sonic,

My CD10 is new. And the distortion I hear is on both speakers...and the culprits are all the strings, not just the violins.

Michael,

I have pushed the direct button. It really doesn't change anything as far as distortion is concerned. It does bypass the bass and treble settings on the amp, but these are set fairly flat anyway.

I have heard this distortion for some time now...but not as pronounced. By upgrading maybe it made it more obvious...also perhaps because of heightened expectations in the upgrade I am now trying to actively address it.

If by interconnects you mean cables I am using heavy duty Audio Quest cables.

I am hearing no distortions in the instruments in rehearsals. Of course we don't have any strings in the pit either. Just a small ensemble- 2 keyboards, Guitar, Bass and drums.
One thing I have noticed also- when using my FINALE program for composing , the playback on the strings has the same distortion I experience with real strings. These are Garritan digital patches.

Hi Rick

Just curious, which Finale are you using?

Well, I'm pretty sure this is not your ears however you and I suffer the same fate and that is we are sensitive to harmonic structures, which I guess is a good thing on one end but a bad thing cause if the harmonics are out of balance it drives us crazy. For me when this happens I hear a buzzing, almost shattering sound. When I tune the harmonics back in line everything smooths out again and I can hear (and feel) the separations.  

I hear this problem even more moving up the High End Audio chain so maybe when you did move up the products you moved to were compressing these harmonics more and it became more noticable. People are going to say it revealed the problem more, but I take the opposite approach. It didn't reveal the problem more, it made the problem worst. A lot of system do what I mentioned earlier and also make a "flat line, one note effect" that you might be more sensitive to as well. I am. The problem with electronics is when they are over built or using certain types of circuit boards or part materials much of the signal from these boards that can't dissipate naturally go back up into the signal path and cause this distortion. Many products built in the 70's and 80's didn't have this problem, but in the mid 90's on it comes through loud and clear. This distortion is not being revealed on test equipment, and to be honest much new test equipment are built from some of the same materials on their boards. I'm not sure why designers are not picking up on this but it's horrible.

Now tell me what you upgraded from?

Michael,

I am glad we are on the same wave length.... You described perfectly what I am hearing and feeling audio-wise! I had an older multi channel Sony receiver that was for home theatre use. STR GX5ES, if that helps. It was doing weird things....half the time it wasn't even going to the right mode when you punched the button...Had to hit CD a few times for it to go into that mode. So I thought I'd better do something. Since I don't get good reception for FM where I live ( and any classical radio I listen to is over my computer now) I figured I didn't need the tuner section anymore. So I bought the Yamaha Integrated Amp instead of a receiver. I thought Yamaha made good equipment. I worked for Yamaha for 10 years..the band instrument dept. I made flutes from assembly to out the door. At the time I was able to buy anything they made at 60% off. So I used to have a nice Yamaha system years ago. (long gone) That was my instigation for choosing Yamaha this time around.
The Sony is now with a friend of mine who tinkers in audio equipment. He even built his own speakers in cement cabinets! Haven't heard them...interesting. He likes the old tube amps. He even rebuilt a Yamaha CD player and used tubes. Don't ask me for details. I'm not that tech savvy.

I worked for a music publisher in Florida for awhile doing music engraving. I still do engraving independantly. I use FINALE 2012. Haven't upgraded to 2014 yet. Been in the midst of some projects for clients and don't want to change version mid-stream. FINALE is extremely powerful. I even use it for composition. I have a couple of orchestral pieces of mine in the hands of JoAnn Falletta of the Buffalo Phil. She says she likes them and wants to use them sometime in the future. She seems like an extremely sweet person.

Anyway- I'm getting off subject. I AM finding that at certain volume levels a full orchestra will distort also, exactly the way you described in your last posting. Interested in where we go from here.
There is a store that sells Paradigm speakers in town. I'm tempted to go there and see what kind of system they have driving them. Would that be useful or not?

All for now.

Blessings

Rick

Hi Rick

This is excellent info trading. BTW I was the acoustical treatment guy (RoomTune) for UMI and Steinway. We might have met at one of the shows. Small world!

"JoAnn Falletta" that's magic   She has really put them on the map I think over the last while. Wouldn't that be something to have her use your pieces. I'd love to hear them.

When you get a spare 25 bucks, I'd like you to do something for me.

Pick up one of these https://tuneland.forumotion.com/t168-magnavox-dvd-player . I've been using one of these players to help me tune out the distortions. Stock it will sound so so, but if you take off the cover and loosen the screws and let it play a while it will really open up. It's very important what you set this on so when you get it we will want to talk about that. But this is worth getting.

Michael,

I assume you are talking about the Magnavox DVD player? There is also a Funai that you posted in that thread. Also- please explain the "bare essence power upgrade" What is it and are you recommending I get that also or just the Magnavox? ($25 is very do-able)

I just sent you 2 emails containing the MP3 file of the 2 orchestral pieces I referred to in my last posting.

Blessings

Michael,

You reccomended the Magnavox or the Funai? Both were in your thread. Also- what is the "bare Essence power upgrade" you refer to...or do I not need worry about that?
I found the magnavox on Amazon- but only used or refurbished.

I sent you 2 emails with MP3 files of the pieces I referred to in my last post

Rick

Hi Rick

The FUNAI is the Magnavox. At first they were marketed by the Magnazox name but now are using their own name FUNAI. If you looked on the bottom of the unit when they were Magnavox it says made by FUNAI. I would get the FUNAI since you don't want a refurb if you can avoid it. I've compared the two.

Same player!

I make cable that you can get and use for the power but if you want to do a quick fix pick up a cable PVC 22 guage or 20 from Frys or Radio Shack or somewhere they have copper cable with a PZC jacket. The AC connector I need to look up but you can get one at lowes. My Cable is 22 gauge copper/PVC rated at 600 volts. I heat tweak mine but the stock stuff isn't bad.

I don't see the plug I use on their site but it works like this one http://www.lowes.com/pd_423054-43469-4513_0__?productId=4068215&Ntt=electrical+plugs&pl=1&currentURL=%3FNtt%3Delectrical%2Bplugs%26page%3D2&facetInfo= I take off the extra material but I can not recommend this in public cause of liability if someone got shocked.

Hard wire the cable to the posts, put on the end, take the rubber tabs off of the bottom of the player and set the player on a good sounding piece of wood (many like my LTR Blocks) and let me know what you hear. I can guide you in from there.

I will have to refer to my friend to translate some of this tech stuff to me! LOL
I will keep you updated
Rick

Thanks for the music! I'll listen later.

Hi Rick

Listening to the first one "Gethsemane". This is outstanding  

"This is a tone picture of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane the night he was betrayed" how perfect and timely.

and “ Surrender-Ring”

please tell us about the pieces


A privilege to have you here!

Michael,
Here is the requested info about the 2 pieces I sent you.

“Gethsemane” was written out of some personal pain. I was advised by a friend to write through that pain and express it musically. About a 3rd of the way through I listened to it and felt it to be very dark…uncomfortably so, that I didn’t want to finish it. In prayer I heard the Lord tell me in my heart to call it Gethsemane. I balked at the notion. To compare my struggle and pain with Jesus’ wasn’t right. But the notion persisted and so I obeyed and finished it. So it stands pointing to HIM and what He did for us.

“Surrender-Ring” had an interesting start as well. In a church I was visiting, where no one knew who I was, I went for prayer afterwards. They pray for people after the service and speak what the Lord shows them. This person told me they saw me playing a clarinet in deep worship! They didn’t even know I had anything to do with music.
I pondered this for awhile and got the inspiration to write #1 for the clarinet showcasing it’s deep rich “chalumeau” register. #2= I also wanted to express something of the precious time I have in prayer and fellowship personally with the Lord. It may sound self serving, but I do know that I feel a sense of peace when I listen to it. My hope is that it does the same for others. The title came from a poet friend of mine who has a poem of the same name. When I couldn’t come up with an appropriate title he asked if he could name it and chose “Surrender-Ring”.

Great inspiration! I love the stories behind the music artist write, so many spiritual. Classical has some incredible roots.

When did you start compossing and what made you move in that direction?

Did you start in classical or move to it from somewhere else?

I started composing in High School...little stuff. Nothing that is still in existence. But my interest in music started way before then with my uncle. He was a professional guitarist - Frank Cerchia. He started off with and played almost exclusively with composer/arranger Norman Paris.

http://www.317x.com/albums/p/normanparis/card.html

I even got to be in some recording sessions way back when with him...just observing. This, of course, had a tremendous impact on me early on.

I studied classical guitar at his instigation. In my early teen years I was actually into folk music. (this was the 60s after all) My father loved jazz, so I listened to that alot in our house growing up.  My real interest in classical music came from The Swingle Singers! Their early recordings of Bach and Mozart were a revelation to me. It started me searching out the real versions of some of this music. The rest , as they say, is history.

Any Bluegrass? My cousin is the late great Doc Watson.