Re: What are you listening two?
Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2018 11:21 pm
I have a great many SACD classical recordings in my collection which I wasn't able to fully appreciate prior to purchasing my new Esoteric. These are all wonderful Redbook recordings but I have read many reports concerning the superiority of the SACD transfers. The quality of Channel Classics' SACD recordings are legendary and I have been listening to two favourite recordings today.
The first was Ivan Fischer's radiantly beautiful reading of Mahler's Fourth Symphony. The SACD transfer is exquisite - smooth, warm, rich and deeply satisfying. The orchestral details are presented very natually and the SACD recording creates a deeper soundstage and a wider frequency range. It just feels so much more textured and rounded. Gorgeous, just gorgeous.
Many of these aural qualities are also present in the SACD transfer of Jos van Veldhoven's majestic reading of Bach's St. John Passion but what I also hear is just how well the Esoteric reproduces the human voice, whether it is in isolation or in a massed choir. There is a resonant quality to the articulation of a phrase which is particularly impactful and which commands your attention.
Perhaps the most striking feature of the Esoteric is its ability to present the emotional temperature and tonality of each recording as separate and unique entities. As I have moved from CD to CD this weekend, sometimes across different genres and sometimes staying within the same genre, I have been confronted with a myriad of different acoustic environments and emotional micro-climates, all of which have have been reproduced as vividly as the musical instruments and voices. This tells me that the Esoteric engineers rely as much on listening as they do on measurements and, considering just how much emotional information is preserved from the original musical performance, perhaps they value listening most of all.
The first was Ivan Fischer's radiantly beautiful reading of Mahler's Fourth Symphony. The SACD transfer is exquisite - smooth, warm, rich and deeply satisfying. The orchestral details are presented very natually and the SACD recording creates a deeper soundstage and a wider frequency range. It just feels so much more textured and rounded. Gorgeous, just gorgeous.
Many of these aural qualities are also present in the SACD transfer of Jos van Veldhoven's majestic reading of Bach's St. John Passion but what I also hear is just how well the Esoteric reproduces the human voice, whether it is in isolation or in a massed choir. There is a resonant quality to the articulation of a phrase which is particularly impactful and which commands your attention.
Perhaps the most striking feature of the Esoteric is its ability to present the emotional temperature and tonality of each recording as separate and unique entities. As I have moved from CD to CD this weekend, sometimes across different genres and sometimes staying within the same genre, I have been confronted with a myriad of different acoustic environments and emotional micro-climates, all of which have have been reproduced as vividly as the musical instruments and voices. This tells me that the Esoteric engineers rely as much on listening as they do on measurements and, considering just how much emotional information is preserved from the original musical performance, perhaps they value listening most of all.
