March 4, 2013
I got a chance to listen to the tape this weekend (as well as three others that I had ordered and one short selection that Ed sent as a bonus). Besides having the sense of total realism of the double bass and cello (and piano in the Gliere), the pieces are a lot of fun and not to be found in the standard or even unusual repertoire. We had the pleasure to hear a double bass live in our home last fall. Members of the San Francisco Symphony played the Schubert Trout Quintet which is one of the only popular chamber pieces (maybe the only one) that has a double bass. Ed has also recently (more recently than the double bass recording) released a recording of the Bach Cello Suite 6, with the very talented Sieste-Jan Weijenberg. I also got a magnificent recording of the Brahms Cello Sonata 1 with Sieste-Jan in this most recent order. I have not found a bad tape in the 10 or so that I have ordered from UltraAnalogue.
If your system can handle it, I would second Tony’s comments about ordering the high output recordings. Ed and Tony also prefer NAB EQ to CCIR which most folks are using for their 15ips 2 track releases (like Tape Project and Opus 3). Since my tape preamp does both NAB and CCIR, I did the NAB. I just have to remember to switch the EQ!
Larry