Also sprach Zarathustra (intro.), Herbert von Karajan conducting, played on the exact same model turntable 𝘩𝘦 used in his opulent homes, the legendary Acoustic Research AR-XA, as seen behind him, here: 3.bp.blogspot....
I recorded this vinyl using a Shure M97xE cartridge connected to a Yamaha TSR-7810 receiver, acting as the phono preamp. I made it a point to upload in a format using high quality, uncompressed PCM stereo, although RU-vid still applies some compression on their end. Supposedly they use less compression these days than they used to, and this is especially true if you select the Quality mode "1080pHD" (click the gear icon below the video to access this), at least when using a high-speed internet connection.
I've additionally included a brief section beyond just the famous crescendo (part of what's called "Von den Hinterweltlern") so people can also hear how impressively quiet the AR-XA is when reproducing the faint, pianissimo musical passages, thanks to its 3-point floating sub chassis (to eliminate rumble) and low noise motor and platter bearing.
Discerning ears might notice some sort of odd, rattling, mechanical noise in the background for a few seconds starting around 59s, mostly in the right channel. [Could the podium or a music stand be shaking/creaking?] I don't know what it comes from, but what I can tell you is that it seems to be in the master recording itself and appears in the digital uploads of this same performance, from CD, at the exact same spot.
"The AR (Acoustic Research) Turntable" as it was often called, received numerous rave reviews from the audio press and a leading consumer magazine top rated it, also deeming it a "best buy". Hi-Fi News magazine (the largest and oldest audio magazine in the UK) called it "the single most important turntable of all time.", in May 2009. Similarly The Absolute Sound magazine staff ranked it as "Number 1" in their "The Ten Most Significant Turntables of All Time" (TAS 216), in 2011.
Like many top, high-end turntables, the XA is a minimalist design, fully manual, and with almost no features, but its sound reproduction quality was unsurpassed during its almost two decades of production in the 1960/70s. Even to this day it competes with the BEST of them, including ones costing many thousands of dollars, in fact it WON in a recent blind listening test I conducted: a poll of 60 Audio/Video Science forum members, comparing a Hi-res recording made from it against one made from a $500,000 TechDAS Air Force Zero turntable system. 35 of the AVS listeners picked the sound of the AR-XA turntable OVER the 25 who picked the $500K turntable! Details here: www.avsforum.c...
Also sprach Zarathustra, perhaps best known by many from Kubrick's film "2001: A Space Odyssey" is a classic audiophile favorite because of its incredible dynamic range and ultra deep bass, so it quickly separates the "Hi-fi" (high fidelity) systems from the "Lo-fi" systems. LOL. The deep bass is so low that many people are blissfully unaware this music starts with an 18-seconds long, sustained pipe organ note, with a fundamental at 32Hz, because their small speakers can't reproduce it! [Generally speaking, large woofers are necessary for such low bass.] So be sure to crank up your subwoofer or listen with full size headphones, otherwise you'll only be hearing the harmonics above 32Hz during the opening 18 seconds.
AR, incidentally, also made one of the first home loudspeakers capable of reproducing that 32Hz note cleanly, the AR-1 (with its ground-breaking acoustic suspension principle), and both Miles Davis and Herbert von Karajan owned the third generation of it, the AR-3(a), which additionally included the very first "direct radiator, hemispherical, high frequency loudspeaker ", as AR called it, better known to most today simply as a "dome tweeter", US patent 3,033,945. The AR-3 is on display at the Smithsonian and at one point the AR turntable was on display at the Museum of Modern Art.
This video, like the rest of my RU-vid channel, is un-monetized, however because this music is copyrighted RU-vid has informed me that the rights owner may optionally choose to place ads on this video. If so, sorry about the ads, folks.
10 сен 2024
