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The Music
Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra bring us a
remarkable performance of select masterpieces from Tchaikovsky, including the
well-known 1812 Overture, complete with live cannon recordings. These
cannons start firing their first round of shots at time counter 12:33, and continues
with additional volleys in the 6-channel DSD
(Direct
Stream Digital) recording at about 14:41.
Recorded with DSD's wide extra dynamic range, these cannon blasts are indeed
loud, so pay serious attention to the box's warning about setting the
playback volume
level conservatively during your first go at the title track. As
exciting as the cannons are, you don't want to find your speaker drivers on
the floor in front of your loudspeakers.  Joining in just for the title
track are the Kiev Symphony Chorus and Children's
Choir of Greater Cincinnati. The performance is awesome during
this title track, but the recording and resulting mix are just shy of
ideal. We'll get to the specifics of what we mean
in the next section.
The rest of the tracks feature the orchestra sounds of the
Cincinnati Pops Orchestra as they perform some of Tchaikovsky famous
works. My favorites among these would have to be: the Polonaise from
Eugene Onegin (Op. 24), Capriccio Italien (Op. 45), Marche Slave (Op. 31),
and the Waltz from Eugene Onegin (Op. 24). It wouldn't be difficult to
guess that Tchaivkovsky is one of my favorite classical music
composers. Thanks to SACD technology and the sensational performances
in this album, this is one of the SACD albums that has recently renewed my excitement in dedicated music
listening. I unequivocally recommend this SACD title for fans of
Tchaikovsky and classical music.
The Recording
The title track starts out beautifully with the Kiev Symphony Chorus,
which interestingly enough was actually recorded a year before (on
September 22, 1998) due to their busy touring schedule and the availability
of the DSD recording equipment and support team. Almost immediately, I
got a sense of the acoustic space
from the reverberations in the surround channels. Even the chorus seems to
float beyond the front walls of my listening room. Later in the piece,
the Children's
Choir of Greater Cincinnati joins in with the Cincinnati Pops
Orchestra. The orchestra was recorded on September 13, 1999 in the
Music Hall of Cincinnati, Ohio.
While the DSD recording of the cannons
sounds good in the title track, their sound levels were far too loud and actually detracted my overall enjoyment
of the music content in the
title track. I enjoyed the music at a reference volume level until the cannons
start firing some twelve and a half minutes into the piece. I then had
to turn down the volume to a lower comfortable level, since the cannon
blasts were recorded at extreme high levels, but that left the music too
soft to enjoy. Later, starting at about time counter 13:26, the choruses, the
carillon bells, and the orchestra were all simultaneously performing at crescendo
levels. The mix during this passage seems to have overwhelmed the recording. The
resulting sound was unclear and muddied, and lacks the usual details.
The rest of tracks are pure musical performances by the
orchestra (i.e., thankfully cannon-free!)
and were beautifully recorded in 6-channel. The miking was designed
to produce a multi-channel recording that would faithfully reproduce the
acoustic ambiance of the Music Hall in Cincinnati, Ohio. As a result
of this approach, the surround sound channels are used only to reproduce the
hall's natural reverberations. The sixth channel in this recording is
not reserved for low frequency effects (LFE) for the subwoofer. Rather, Telarc uses the sixth channel, which is
capable of full frequency reproduction, for a height channel,
implemented by a pair of small speakers placed high on the side walls, in
the middle of listening area. In my system, implementing a height
channel is not practical, so I did not review this recording with the 6th
channel, which Telarc considers optional anyways. Regardless, when I close my eyes or turn off the
lights at night, I do feel
transported into the acoustic space of the Music Hall even in the 5-channel
mode. The experience is mesmerizing.
If it weren't for the excessively loud cannons and the
muddy mix of the climatic portion of the title track, this SACD would have
received a perfect score for the recording. I had to penalize the recording
grade one notch, taking it down to an "A-". But overall,
this is a very good all-original multi-channel and stereo DSD
recording. The multi-channel version does a wonderful job of
reproducing the original acoustic space.
Bonus Materials
Tracks 8 through 13 on the multi-channel DSD recording are
dedicated to helping audio enthusiasts and audiophiles achieve proper
speaker
setup for multi-channel music listening. It's basically a channel
identification and pink noise signal source which can be used in conjunction with a
RadioShack sound pressure level meter to adjust and calibrate the volume
levels for each speaker, using the multi-channel balance adjustments of the
Super Audio CD player. A calibrated and well balanced multi-channel
audio system is essential in faithfully reproducing the multi-channel
recording. Major kudos for Telarc for
recognizing the need and for including this material! Telcarc should
add this bonus feature to more of their future SACD releases.
Disc Compatibility Notice
This Super
Audio CD (SACD) features a hybrid construction, with a layer for full audio CD compatibility and a layer for
high-resolution stereo DSD and multi-channel DSD recordings. The audio
CD layer can be played back on any audio CD player or CD-ROM drive, and will
have the sound quality like any other audio CD. To
hear the high-resolution stereo DSD recording, a stereo or multi-channel
SACD player is required with stereo analog output to a quality 2-channel
audio system. To hear the high-resolution multi-channel DSD recording,
a multi-channel capable SACD player is required with 5.1-channel (6-channel)
analog output to a multi-channel home theater audio/video receiver. The
high-resolution stereo or multi-channel DSD recording layer on this disc will not play in
an audio CD player, DVD-Video player, DVD-Audio player, or DVD-ROM drive.
Buy this SACD title from:
> Amazon.com
for $18.98
> Telarc
for $19.99
Support this site: buy through our links.
For additional information: visit the Telarc web
site.
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Associated equipment used in evaluation: Sony ES
SCD-C555ES Super Audio CD 5-disc
player, Sony
DVP-S7700 reference DVD player, Sony
KP-61V45 61" rear projection TV (4:3 screen aspect ratio), Sony ES STR-V444ES A/V receiver, four
B&W CDM 9NTs as left/right main speakers
and left/right surrounds, B&W CDM CNT center channel speaker, Monster Cable M-series S-Video cable MSV-500, Monster
Cable Interlink LightSpeed 100 (Toslink) optical cable, Monster Cable
Interlink 400 MKII interconnects, Monster Cable
Original speaker cables in bi-wire configuration with Monster Cable twist-on gold-plated banana plug
connectors, Lovan Sovereign T HiFi audio
rack, and Sony MDR-V600 studio monitor headphones. Our home theater equipment was calibrated
with the Video
Essentials DVD.
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