I ordered 3 tapes from Ed Pong’s UltraAnalog Recordings and received them today and have just finished listening to them.
I really enjoyed them and just ordered 3 more.
I find them very much like live music in a small venue, where you don’t get that pin-point type of imaging, but instead wonderful tone and intimacy and a sense of involvement and emotion and a more slightly diffuse presentation like reality. I feel I’m connected to the music. The performers seem to be present with me in the same space.
in my large listening room the music bloomed to fill the space nicely in depth, width and height, yet the scale was realistic. just a comfortable presentation for me.
2 mics, no compression, just truth.
different in a fresh way from typical recordings. Very non-hifi and unfiltered.
i’m not qualified to judge the playing technically, or the quality of interpretation, but I felt connected to the music so that is what mattered to me. I felt uplifted by the music and played each tape a couple of times…..each listening has caused me to dig deeper into the music. I expect to play these often.
the recordings have very low noise, really black backgrounds……and a very smooth extended top end and overall balance thru my Studer A-820 with direct head output to my King Cello output electronics. Tony Ma’s wonderful tube circuits seems to work the appropriate magic with the music and capture the essence of the music.
Bravo to Ed, Tony and the performers.
the three tapes I’ve just listened to are;
The Chaccones; Vitali, Bach, and Monti.
Beethoven Piano Trio No.4, Op.70 No.1 (Ghost), Trio No.5, Opus70 No.2
and….
Mozart Duo in G major, K.423, Handel-Halvorsen-Passacaglia, Debussey-Claire de Lune
i’m a big fan of Chamber Music and listen often to String Quartets and other small ensemble classical music both on Vinyl and dsd downloads. I have developed a taste for it over time and so these recordings are feeding an appetite that is important to me. I have some large orchestral tapes but nothing like this. I call this ‘Sunday Morning Music’ since it brings that relaxed positive vibe to my day when I play it and something essential I cannot define.
highly recommended for a fan of this type music or someone wanting to broaden their musical horizons.
Mike Lavigne