I do not know why people are fighting, arguing and spend money and time in search and improving of for better sources for audio playbacks.  I listen to edgy and mechanical digital, to amorphous and temporarily tapes, to the tacky and fastidious LP, to metallic and provisionally 78s and again and again I catch myself with a conclusion that real reproduced music comes only from FM “live” broadcasts.

If you live within a location with a good reception quality of a fine classical FM radio station and if you have a reasonable tuner then you able get out of FM the quality, and consequentially listening experiences, that are unmatched by any other media. Yes, there is NOTHING in audio that can much a listening experience of  a “live” FM Broadcast!

A “live” Broadcast is obsolete Mecca of sound reproduction. The definition of “audio quality” itself has very different appearance during the “live” Broadcasts and many of the bogus things that we artificially invented in audio juts do not exist while we are experiencing “lives” Broadcast.  The time is hanging in air and the immediacy of the moment becomes a strong catalyzer of the performing event. Something certainly happens with our awareness when we feel that the event is “live”. This little pose after the announcing, then they turn of microphone… and suddenly room is filling with absolutely tangible “presents of event” and your own cooperation with the event. There is no sound yet, but already there is smell, taste and the feel of own participation in the ceremony of creationism…

We in Boston are really spoiled with WHRB, WGBH, WBOQ, WCRB and so. The “live” broadcasts from MET and form our local orchestras are wonderful; thanks God out local orchestra become tolerable. I’m sure that there are many folks out there who live within the good classical FM. The good tuners and good antennas cost nothing nowadays. Go FM! This is a really ultimate and everlasting source to bring music in your home. You will save a LOT of money from Symphony Hall’s trips and get for your playback a source that will force  you to look again at the value of pre-caned music.

Rgs,
Romy the Cat

It is amazing how much lives in the FM broadcasts. Just now the WHRB transmitted in their “Tuesday-Thursday ’s Nights” the Radio Amsterdam’s broadcast of the Royal Concertgebouw with Bernard Natick played the Debussy’s “La Mer” and Shostakovich’s 8Th Symphony. They are both the peaces that I would hardly listen under normal circumstances – they just not “my” music. However, these time the Concertgebouw “did it” to me. They play Shostakovich amazingly beautiful and intelligent without the typical ‘kovich vulgarity, that actually made this Symphony for a first time to have some sense to me.  Also, on the different note,  the wildness and openness of the Concertgebouw’s Concert Hall combined with astonishingly stunning ability of Sansui TU-X1 to throw phenomenal “SPACE” made any other media I can play in my room a real mockery of sound reproduction. I hate to admit it but I will pick a few Shostakovich’s 8th… who would believe!!!

Rgs,
Romy the Cat

clarkjohnsen wrote:

As it happens, I tuned in on the second half of the Eighth and couldn't recognize the music for a while, it was so astonishingly well- and differently- played. I've asked around and no one I know recorded it. Pity.

The Cat

Chris,

If you live there and do something with audio… then did you know Rob Sibie?

Rgs,
The Cat

No, I don't think I know him. Is he a fellow audiophile or a designer?

Chris

This became really insulting: the FM broadcasts from a consumer quality radio delivery in my listening room the level of audio quality at absolutely unmatched level.

I’m not kidding. The Sansui TU-X1 that I use is a consumer machine made without any so-called high-end-proved parts: the cheapest caps, cheapest indictors, cheapest resistor, cheap power supplies and so on. I use very ordinary room-located antenna, listing basically in a basement (!) of downtown of a major industrial city (!!!). The Sansui was not modified: juts bypassed the output attenuators. So, where this magnificent level of musicality  AND audio quality is coming from and particularly if the guys at the radios station play the music materials from the cheapest possible sources?

Anyhow, I do not know if it was the FM itself or the tuner unit but if you have change to buy, steal or borrow this TU-X1 then do it whatever it takes and whatever it cost. The funny part is that the TU-X1 is saving me a LOT of money as, believe me or not, but since I brought it home I bought much less music then I use to, however I listen much more then I use to.

FM, rules, literally!

Last weekend the electricity here in Boston during a day way quite miserable. I mean really-really miserable, making sound compressed but in the same time aggressive and harsh and converting violins info scratchy torturing mashies. However, what whatever mystery reasons this effect did not spread to the FM sound. Well, if kind of mildly did affect FM making it more compressed then usually but it was no aggressiveness and no ferociousness. Quite in contrary it was as usually very soft and very “elastic”.

This quality of FM compare to out CD and LP is really keep insulting me…

It looks like the best “audio source EVER” begin to get less shiny. I being to observe that the FM classical stations that I ordinary listen got substantially noisier over the last year. It might be because the stations begun to add digital high definition components to their broadcast frequencies. I am not familiar with HD FM and never heard it but it looks like my analog FM is a subject of suffering and degradations… Very unfortunate….

I was wondering how different would be my audio habits if I “discover” the FM in Boston earlier. I lived in Boston for a few years and did not acknowledge the highly available wonderful word of FM broadcast. I think that if I “FM-wake up” early in the mid of 90s when I just moved in Boston from Philadelphia then the profile of my playback system would be much different. I have somewhere near 1.5K CDs, probably near 15K records, a few hundred tapes, the evolved means to play CD, LPs, Tapes and so on… With my today’s views, if I started today from very beginning then I would probably would not built up the other means to get music beside FM.  Probably the ideal playback would have a very good amplification, very good acoustic system, as good as possible tuner and recording options. The LP, CD, Tape options probably would be not as extend as I have now. I do appreciate an opportunity to play CD and LP with better result but how much efforts I shell spend for LP and CD playback if FM makes over 80% of my listening?

The diversity, the quality (sonic and artistic) of FM is truly overwhelming, leaving practically no time or interests for other avenues to “get music”. For instance the WGBH last month transmits live-to-tape recordings from different Music Festivals around the world. They are the local Massachusetts festivals, the US festivals as well as the recording of Europeinian Radio Broadcasting. Some of that festival performances are remarkably good and those moments of the chamber groups or individual artists I would hardly ever find on the “industry sponsored” CDs.

For instance during the last few weeks the WGBH broadcast the highlights from:

Ambronay Festival
Rockport Chamber Music Festival
Yellow Barn Music Festival
The Newport Music Festival
Warsaw International Piano Festival
Aspen Music Festival
Rockport Chamber Music Festival
Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival
Prague Autumn Festival
Lugano Festival
Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival
Kingston Chamber Music Festival
Montreal Chamber Music Festival
Boston Early Music Festival
Monadnock Music Festival
SoHIP Summer Festival
Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival

BTW, today in UK the Proms Festival is opening:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2008/whatson/season/

The FM will  not be syndicated in US as far as I know, and usually Proms do not have too refine artistic quality but they do live web podcast and it will be a wonderful in-office listening.

So, I perfectly can see an extremely elaborate and highly capable audio installation that uses only an FM tuner as audio source. At least if I start from scratch then I would most likely go for this direction.

The idea has always been to get at a wide selection of the best available music whenever you want, right?  How nice for you that your available FM stations actually deliver on that score.

For some time, I've basically thought of my system as the least means to acceptable ends, with the ends being great music, to the point where I have been willing to compromise performance to get some comfort during development and use.  So far, vinyl delivers the best fix, then CD.  Sure, FM might beat CDs IF it was consistently good here; rather, it is consistently bad in terms of both program and broadcast quality, so no practical sense in going overboard for the odd gems.

But the kicker for FM, of course, is the programming.  I have maybe 2,000 LPs, and only a few CDs, so my surprises are limited to what I can mine from the best performances I am +/- familiar with, or I can pay my money and take my chances on new material that often as not winds up like the Rosbaud Debacle (qv).

Basically, you just can't beat FM for the wonderful element of surprise, which is probably the ultimate kick, IMO.

Best regards,
Paul S

Talking about spontaneousness of FM radio... Where else it possible to hear something like this? (a small 3 megs mp3 file)

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=ddefb24e284be68dd2db6fb9a8902bda

yoshi wrote:

Last night, I got an oppotunity to hear what Romy's been screaming about the quality of FM broadcast.  Yes, it is in an "insulting" level.  The biggest surprise was the harmonic integrity live-broadcasts presents us.  Not only with orchestral works (well, especially with orchestral works), but even with solo piano or violin pieces, the richness and the integrity of harmonics are amazing.  Compared to these live-broadcasts, the other recorded medium (CDs & LPs) sounds more or less like an androids created by chopped body pieces put together by mad scientist.

Yoshi, you might partially consider this:

http://www.GoodSoundClub.com/TreeItem.aspx?PostID=8020

Also, I do not agree with you that there is ANY difference in harmonic integrity between my live FM recording and most of the recorded CD/LPs. The harmonic integrity is not something that sets the live FM apart.

yoshi wrote:

Is the difference inherent to the recording/mastering process?  I don't know and Romy says he doesn't know either, but if it's mainly the result of the ignorance and stupidity of recording/mastering engineers, they should be hung for the crime against humanity!

Well, you begin to sound like me but it is no surprise. I did not demonstrate to you my live FM recordings and then to play the very same performances released commercially on CD. It would be like VERY different music. Yes, one of the advantage of live FM that all that superstructure of idiots-professionals who do “mastering” is left with live broadcasts out of prentices… Also there are no medium problems as the live feed A/D directly on my side, whey I have control and where I do not use barbarian methods to kill sound.

yoshi wrote:

Well, my wording may not be right.  What I meant by "integrity of harmonics" is more like "integrity of space where harmonics are presented", which I do not hear in CD/LPs.

What "live" analog FM does with space is absolutely unseen in any recorded media. The power of “space” is so great that overrides absolutely anything. Pay attention, Yoshi that reversed CD channels were instinctually alarming but the reversed FM channels were WERE much more bearable and non-annoying. I do not stress harmonics in the sound I am getting here. Harmonics in my system were done once properly in a way they shell be. Harmonics are managed by loading the individual channel’s plate with output transformers ratio. So, the harmonics integrity comes from amplification and speaker but the way how the harmonics relate to the boundary of space is totally different subject. Sure, better played material gives to playback more options to deal with harmonics. Sill, with bad electricity  not the harmonics  but space dies first… At the day you were here the electricity   was bad and only FM had a chance to be played with “space”. With better electricity the CD/LP do much better, and of cause the FM  with better electricity flys all over the roof…

I was sitting quietly and without bother anybody, listening my new discovered and wonderfully-different played Tosca by MTT and Hungarian State Symphony and suddenly I realized that it was Thursday evening and WCRB shall be broadcasting live from Frazer Studio on Thursdays. The Rohde & Schwarz is always on tune to 99.5 and my antenna was pointed North.  As I was sitting in my chair I just hit the button on my preamp and the room got saturated with absolutely marvelous sound of vocal quintet singeing Elgar.  Bitch whatever you want about FM but with very first note it was auditable that it was LIVE sound. I flipped the Pacific A/D on and recorded the rest of the broadcast.

It was Leipzig-based St. Thomas Boys Choir “Amarcord: with the following program:

http://www.wgbh.org/articles/-2557

How after this Sound one can listen CD, LPs or whatever…. The file is 88/24.  It is slightly degraded as I was forced to converted it from 64 bit to 32 bit WAV file but it still have most of original sound.

http://www.mediafire.com/?4udwa45iusxbm6y

mats wrote:

As I write this, WFMT is playing The Planets,  Sir Andrew Davis conducting the BBC Phil, and it is rather amazing. Complex passages resolved as I would expect were I using my Goldmund transport. I prefer the digital out, 24/48 is the maximum currently, and I believe that my Lavry DA-11 dac is the factor of sonic character.  It appears that the tuner responds to whatever it is being fed.  I can find no limitation from the RBRX1. The ULF right now is just phenomenal thru my tapped horn. It is very exciting to listen to.  I can't describe any sound, except it does have some of that "FM-magic".

I have described this effect multiple times and I have no explanation to the effect. In some cases the CDs broadcasted over FM sound much more musicals then CD played at the very best CD playback. As now WCRB is playing Brahms’ Double Concerto. It is the celebrated Chicago Symphony recording with Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma. I have this Teldec CD and know Sound from there quite well, I was recorded live. Still I never hear it so “interesting”.

People do not get it generally. At My Playback section I wrote that I have 70% of my listening from FM, (it was a few years back, now it would be less). Over the years, reading the comments of idiots about my playback section, I saw many remarks that I must be a fool having Micro 8000 and CECT-TL0 as the sources still consider the shitty FM as an acceptable sound source.

Well, the people who do not know just do not know. Meanwhile turning FM I am getting something like this:

http://www.mediafire.com/?o29xzkimezd

… and it is not only like this but it is each day new…. Bite this, the soldering Morons….

I wrote about it many many times but it keep shook me, primary because it very much violates all intellectual provision I can extend against what I am saying. Today FM again flew my socks off and it was not special FM but objectively crappy FM.

Today WCRB broadcasted live-to-tape concert with Chicago Symphony Orchestra lead by Ludovic Morlot.  It was Martinu’s  “The Frescoes..”, the Debussy’s unavoidable La Mer, Tchaikovsky’s  Violin Concerto with  Chicago concertmaster Robert Chen and Mozart’s Concerto No. 21 with Jonathan Biss. It was not live broadcast but Chicago Symphony Orchestra Radio Broadcast from WFMT Radio Network. They do not do live broadcasts and their stream edited with overlaid announcers. Most likely the WCRB get data from via shipped CD or over a phone. I will not be surprised if it was some kind of MP3 feed – I do not know how they exchange data. Plus it was FM – compressed, limited, noise – you name it….

Still, the Sound of music in my room was just phenomenal. I was not home and I scheduled the recording (Schwarz–Pacific). I got home, turn it on and what an experience!!! It does not have that hi-tech sound that that we get from high-performing CD, LP, tape but it t offer a phenomenal readability of music and it has that euphoric liquidity and connectively of musical events that are so hard to get from CD/LP. Honesty, this type of Sound I can listen all day long.

I have seen people at different audio forums make fan on me, mocking my admiration of FM and presuming that if I appreciate the crappy FM then my references about Sound are very questionable. The irony is that I do not disagree with them, FM is crap, and still there is some exoteric force with FM sound that I can’t get over. I do not mind to post a fragment from today concert and you can see yourself, but you shall  not play it at stinky computes headphone – only you do not need to blow it up at your big systems and to hear it in full glory.

I am not exactly the person who would listen the Tchaikovsky’s  Violin Concerto and appreciate it too much, particularly in Robert Chen overly simplistic approach. Still, I almost was tempted to play it again as it was insanely pleasant.  A few years ago an audio guy I know stopped by at my home and had a long listening session in my room. I played to him records and CDs, it was fine, he liked it and then as played the very first FM recording he said “Amassing!” I asked him what he found amassing. He replied:”I just felt as someone gave me a food massage”…