I like the cello playing of Pieter Wispelwey. His Bach sonatas are still among my favorites, and this recording features friends Richard Egarr and Daniel Yeadon in works such as the “gamba” sonatas with Wispelwey on the piccolo cello. BWV 1027-1029 (the last in G minor, my favorite of the gamba suites), plus some odd choices to fill the recording, such as the slow movement of BWV 1053, and some preludes (BWV 99, 846, 1007) and the largo from BWV 1056.

In the hi-fi scene, I’ve been playing with an alternate playback app on my Mac Pro, called Audirvana. I have it set up to upsample tracks to 24 bit, 96kHz, in addition to taking over the audio circuitry of the computer to maximize the sound. It’s hard to judge what these players are doing that iTunes is not, but there does seem (as I have written here and elsewhere before) less fatigue on the ears, using both headphones and the speakers.

But back to the recording…

Egarr uses a variety of instruments, in all, piano, organ, and harpsichord. Now, I just recently purchased a recording of Paolo Pandolfo performing Bach’s cello suites on gamba, so, here, we get the opposite: cello playing the gamba suites. You might know know it, listening to BWV 1029, as Wispelwey’s violoncello piccolo has that winey (as opposed to whiney) sound that gambas get, which I know is an odd term to use, but the tone of many gambas make me think of wine (the drink). I am not sure where the association comes from, but wine has richness, and you can see through it… what’s left is the color and texture as it bounces around in a glass… somehow this image and experience to me equates to the singing quality of a gamba.

And Pieter has it going on with his cello.

Of course, you might call me crazy… because sometimes it’s quite clear he’s playing a cello.

I like BWV 846 and the opening to the cello suites, but I’m not a big fan of the remaining slower movements. This is not bad music, nor a bad performance, but they simply fail to energize me like the gamba sonatas proper.

The closing number, the Bach “arioso” that I’m intimately acquainted with, is a delicious piece of music, but why did Egarr try playing an organ and a piano at the same time? (Yes, he did that.) It’s an odd texture, and the piano simply sounds out of place. It’s a failure in orchestration. More appropriate would have been some luxurious organ playing, as we get with Bruno Cocset’s opening to his recording of BWV 659 in his release of the gamba sonatas…

In the end, this is not a must-have release if you already have one or more satisfactory copies of Bach’s gamba sonatas. Wispelwey is a master cellist, and brings to this recording his A-game, but there are already a lot of players in this field. I enjoy this disk, but if you’re looking for a more complete package, likely Bruno Cocset offers a better value with his release on Alpha.

One of my small pleasures I sometimes have the opportunity to engage in is a Saturday visit to the local library. I really like the Tuckahoe library near us, it’s not the closest one in my county, but it’s 2 stories. On the first (higher) floor, they have a great magazine area, and I grabbed a copy of Stereophile. I usually stay long enough to completely read 1-2 magazines. Many times I also grab food magazines.

I’ve been known to make a “photocopy” of something of interest, like a recipe, with my iPhone while reading. And this time around, I read something about some “iTunes bypass software.” Hmm. I’d seen pictures of Amarra before… but what is this software, and why might I need it?

One of the players on the Mac is Pure Music. Like their webpage advertises, I’m trying the software for free (I’ve got 8 days left, I think). I had problems with it running on my MacMini music server with 1GB RAM using all of the program’s features, but I also installed it on my main work computer in my home office, a MacPro with 8GB of RAM.

I can’t find a really good explanation of what this software does on the surface. Technically, it lets me choose songs from my iTunes library, but then instead of letting iTunes “play” the music and make the audio, it does that. I currently am running it in the following configuration:

• no Gapless support
• Memory play
• upsample to 96kHz with MaxFidelity
• audio hog (blocks all other audio on system)

Memory play purportedly loads tracks into RAM and plays them from there. I am not sure what technically prevents something in memory from being written to disk with virtual memory. But supposedly since the we’re reading RAM, the music is more “pure.”

Upsampling takes music presented at one frequency rate, say 41.1KHz and changes this rate to something like 96kHz. More samples is more precise, but since the music wasn’t recorded with those samples, some math is involved in filling the gaps. Some folks say upsampling makes stuff sound better.

I am not sure what audio hog does really, except avoids the pesky web pages from interfering with my sound while listening. In theory, it means the pipe to the audio output (in this case, I’m using the built-in digital audio out) is alone reserved for my music. Isolation sounds like a good thing.

Then I read something called “bit perfect” music… this in effect is a measure of what the music says on the computer is what is reaching the DAC sitting above my computer. Is the stuff on one device equal to the stuff on the second? If iTunes was bit perfect, then there’d be no real reason to have something like Pure Music on my computer!

The software can do more, too. But specifically I am interesting in their “playback algorithms” and the “playback engine.” How is this different from what iTunes do? And which one(s) are bit-perfect?

Computer audio is a fascinating topic. There are a lot of issues at play for audiophiles using computers today:

• how did you rip or acquire your music?
• what formats is it saved in (Apple Lossless, FLAC, MP3, AAC, etc.)?
• how are you outputting your music to a digital to analog converter (DAC)?
• which DAC are you using?
• how do you connect the DAC to an amplifier or pre-amplifier?

The equipment to squeeze more “quality” into the listening experience can be wallet-rattling. I’ve been happy with my current set-up on this computer for awhile, and I’d categorize it as a “midrange” setup. It’s hifi to some, not to others. I’m not using tubes, silver cables, or clean power.

I am, however, using a digital TOSlink cable from my Mac to a DAC. I’ve set my Mac to output all digital signals at 24 bits, 96 kHz (the maximum for this DAC and optical out). I can enjoy this native resolution with some music I’ve purchased online, but most content is ripped lossless at 16 bits, 41.1 kHz. It gets upsampled.

I use fairly good headphones into a integrated amplifier. When not using headphones, I use the same amp to drive some bookshelf speakers. Both the speakers and the Rotel RA-970BX were a gift from my parents when I graduated college in 1996. They still are serving me well.

So, when a $130 piece of software comes along and might improve the sound quality profoundly, I’m listening. It’s great the company is offering a 15-day trial, and they’re quick to answer questions via e-mail.

The first time around, I couldn’t tell a difference. Then the more I thought about it, I did hear differences, but I wondered if they were psychological. You read what other people say “certainly better than iTunes!”, but what’s the difference?

Then I had some problems. It skipped. It skipped a lot on the music server downstairs. So I went back to an earlier version of the software that seems more stable. I turned off the gapless support. Good times.

I picked some favorite tracks, including ones I’ve used each time I’ve gone into a hifi store when auditioning equipment. The music certainly sounds good. It’s filling my ears, it’s rich, it’s beautiful. But it wasn’t until I forgot and stopped listening to the music – doing other things on my computer like Web surfing – that I realized there was in fact a change to the sound.

My ears were less fatigued.

I could also turn up the volume more – and it was louder sure – but it was less… sharp. I suddenly thought I understood what people were saying about “air” to sound… the music had some buffer around it… it was less confrontational, perhaps a tad more smooth sounding.

But then I began asking the questions…

• why was it this way?
• was this better?
• am I sure?

If you haven’t invested any money into a sound system, then… you might not care. Your equipment might not be able to pick up the subtle differences – and I should note that with my equipment – the differences are subtle. But as you invest in more sensitive and more capable equipment (speakers, cables, DAC, etc.), you might be looking for something that profoundly improves your listening experience.

I still need time to figure this out… but for now… I can safely say that Pure Music makes listening with headphones less fatiguing to my ears. I listened for several hours at one sitting, and when I got up, there wasn’t the relief I hadn’t realized I enjoyed when the cans came off…

Or… either I’m only listening more intently because I’ve installed a new gizmo.

Downstairs, in one of the larger rooms of the home, I have a 2-channel system set up with a Mac Mini, a DAC, monoblock amplifiers, and of course, speakers. I have no headphone capability there. Upstairs, I use my computer and I have a set of bookshelf speakers, although more and more, I find myself listening via headphones.

This holiday, I received a new pair of headphones which immediately, with 0 hours on them, sounded more open and telling. They had a far more focused detail. They are very similar to my last pair, same manufacturer, just another step up in the line.

But the connections in my upstairs setup are far from ideal: I am taking the music from an analog headphone jack (mini jack), to an integrated amplifier, to the headphones. What I need is another digital to analog converter (DAC) to get more sparkle and detail about of the music.

So, I began looking to replace the downstairs DAC. My desire there is to eliminate the preamp altogether, and drive the amplifiers with a DAC that includes a digital preamp function. While I search for the perfect solution, I’ve moved the downstairs DAC upstairs, and am still breaking-in the new headphones.

All I can say is—I am once again re-discovering my music collection. The amount of detail I am getting out of this setup is incredible. You can hear details you never knew existed. At the same time, I’m discovering my iTunes library was slowly becoming corrupted. I rebuilt the library (by eliminating the iTunes Library file, and then re-importing the iTunes Library.xml file), and as I listen, I’m amazed.

I am also finding some CDs that were never “upgraded” to re-encodes at lossless or 320kbits (remnants of my original ripping project in 2001 at 160kbits). Maintaining a library of music on the computer is efficient and fun, but it also requires some maintenance from time to time.

For those that don’t know me well, I enjoy listening to music in two primary locations: in my office and in our Salon de musique family room. Each of the two rooms contains important assets.

1. The office has my workstation where the media files are stored.
2. The family room uses the better loudspeakers and a more sophisticated hi-fi system.

A computer-based hi-fi system isn’t atypical today. I’m currently taking analog audio from my computer and passing that into an integrated amplifier. That, in turn, drives two bookshelf speakers on either side of my head here in the office. I use iTunes to drive the music, available in varying qualities, from 256kbit MP3s to lossless files ripped at 750-800 kbits.

I used to stream music downstairs to an Aiport Express using a Toslink cable plugged into a rather clear-sounding digital to analog converter. This little box is magic, and in a future upgrade, it will find its way upstairs with the computer.

Needless to say, since upgrading to iTunes 8.1 (and unchanged in iTunes 8.2), I noticed some sound quality issues downstairs. The music, especially with certain types (say, solo violin) became strident and ugly. Extensive testing revealed the “bad” link was the Airport Express. That’s not to say another cable might not have helped, but using the same cable, going directly from computer to DAC revealed correct-sounding music.

Some reading indicated it may be a problem with clock jitter.

I therefore upgraded the system from an Airport Express to a Mac mini computer. Because i fancied running the mini headless (without a monitor), and I want to keep the media on my main workstation in the office, I set up an auto-mounting function in Mac OS X Leopard called autofs. This auto-mounts the media volume from the workstation on the mini. I made a copy of the iTunes library on the mini. Now, when it plays music, it’s “streaming” it over the network. The machine also goes to sleep and wakes up on a schedule. The jittery-problems have not surfaced.

The issue then becomes, “What’s next?” Obviously, this solution needs maintenance (upgrading the library to the auxiliary mini). However some point to USB as a superior communications medium between the computer and the DAC. Wavelength Audio’s products especially look enticing.

The iPhone works as a great remote control, operating volume, track selection, and start/stop.

I began listening to the first track of every album (I didn’t get too far), and it was an interesting way to sample them. When you hover over each album, you can click a “Play” button to start that one off. You can also view albums according to genre, composer, and artist… and re-size them accordingly to fit more or fewer in the browser.

When you view things this way, you begin to realize just how much music you have. Seeing that biberfan.org began as biberfan.com and was principally about music (not to mention creative stories), 2008 presents us with more options than ever for music. According to iTunes, I now have 1,101 albums. My favorite statistic? 43.9 days of start-to-finish playback. That’s a silly number, but would work out to be 44 days x 24 hours x 60 minutes to come up with the number of minutes, right? Anyhow, that’s more than a month’s worth of content.

I started collecting music on CD in 1990. 18 years, 63,000 some minutes. That works out to 3,520 minutes a year. In 25 years, at that same rate, I will have collected 88,000 minutes worth of music. That’s roughly 2 months worth there. That’s if, of course, if my musical tastes continue to develop and classical/baroque music continues to be recorded.

What’s interesting, I think, is the question as to whether or not we need to collect all of this data (i.e., “software) for ourselves. At some point it seems to become silly. I mean, some big server out there could hold all the recordings. When I hit “play,” does it need to come from my hard drive? There were advantages to this up until recently.

Subscription models are being tried now with some musical services, of course, but require a monthly rental fee. How much would you pay for access to a collection of every CD? And for how long?

Let’s do some basic math. Let’s round down my CDs to 1000. Lots of folks who collect music have reached and surpassed this number. Let’s also assume I paid $15 for each one (in some cases, this is too low, but let’s just stick to some basic math). $15K for my collection. I don’t own every CD, mind you (or recording), but I have about enough. Add maybe 450, and I’d have everything I’d ever want to listen to. This of course is from around 1950-present day. What about the recordings made next year? And after that?

Let’s say my “useful” collection grows to 2000 CDs by the time I’m done collecting, and let’s say this cost me again, $15 per CD. I’ve spent, then $30K for my music collection. I’m 70 years old now, I’ve got this nice collection.

If a music subscription service cost $15/month (Rhapsody is $13) (basically the cost of a single CD), I’ll have 2000 months to listen for my $30K. That’s roughly 133 years worth. Another way to think of it: for the price I’ll have paid for my music, I could have rented it for 133 years. It seems rental might be more economical, despite not being able to “own” the music in the way I currently do with iTunes.

There are ways to mess with my math and scenario here, of course. A resource like Rhapsody might prove to be more valuable by offering more than the 2000 recordings. They advertise 6 million tracks, as of this writing at Rhapsody, so… while the numbers may be in my favor, practicality may not.

Are all albums equal in value? How much time do I really have to listen to a library of over 6 million tracks? How does the human brain organize and make sense of 1,000,000 or more tracks?

Here’s a thought: what if my collection doesn’t grow any more. I already feel the number of tracks I have is too many to really listen to them all. The iTunes interface is nice because I can “see” what I have, because I’m still stuck (mentally) on this whole CD/album concept.

I have a feeling our capacity to remember/like/listen has real limits. There’s likely a number of “new” stuff we can take-in each month. There’s a holding area for favorites… but there’s likely to be a mechanism for the neglected stuff to fall-out of the system.

Question: what’s the most ideal system to accommodate our needs/tastes/abilities for listening? All the virtues of iTunes are likely to be implemented today on the Web… so as long as you have an Internet connection, you can have your library (any size), organize by search or visual, and maintain stats for keeping track.

I think the future of music is going to get more complex. Today we have iPhones/iPods/computers/CDs to “hold” our music. What happens when our headphones connect directly to the Internet?

I read the other day someone was really enjoying the random tunes via Pandora. Pandora is like your bottomless-jukebox playing tracks at random. Right?

Despite what I know is on the horizon, I kind of like the idea of owning my music. I like having rows and rows of silver-colored platters in plastic holders (CDs) stored in the back room. I like my iTunes. Despite the expense and hassle, I like keeping track of my own music media. How long will it last?

I started with three complete CDs:

• Mozart Violin Concertos (Andrew Manze, English Concert)
• Gluck: Trio Sonatas, Musica Antiqua Köln
• Keith Jarrett: Dark Intervals

I was surprised to find that the Mozart was missing a track. When I went back, I found out that unknown to me, one slow movement was “unavailable.” Like, you could preview it, see it, but you could not buy it. What the hell? I guess I saw it before I bought “the entire” album, but I figured it wasn’t available alone, but only with the full album.

I was damned.

The sound quality of the MP3s is good. It’s not, however “256 kb” as they announce. Instead, all three CDs featured VBR-encoded tracks. This isn’t necessarily bad, but not one track was above 256… I am not sure this is kosher to say one thing (256) and get a track that averages at another (213).

The MAK disk was released on Challenge Classics, not DG Archiv. Same went for their Dowland release I bought on CD (I didn’t much care for it.) This Gluck release is more to my taste, and a review should be forthcoming.

Long ago I enjoyed Jarrett’s CD called Dark Intervals, it was in fact, a favorite. I had bootlegged it onto tape from the public library (thanks, Bay Village Public Library, Ohio). But since the digital days, I had longed to own this. So, thanks to Amazon and ECM I now own this solo concert from Japan, recorded in the late 1980s.

The most disappointing was the Manze CD. Yes, he does a few interesting things, but the tempi he chooses too often are too slow for my taste. EGalante with Biondi did a better job at their recording of concertos 1-3; Manze records 3-5 (thankfully, #3 is a real favorite). Both offer some “personally authentic” touches that the full set by Standage and the AAM lack.

So far, I’m happy with Amazon’s new service. Higher quality files than iTunes, without the silly DRM.

I think a discussion about my experiences are warranted. Especially so now, I feel I have something to say, with regards to this latest “addition” to the phone, the concept of “ringtones” and buying music online through the iPhone itself.

First, the iPhone+iTunes is flawed for a user like me. When I sync the phone, I want iTunes to do some heavy lifting (like it already does with my iPod Shuffle) by re-encoding the tracks I sync on the fly to their lower-resolution cousins. Instead, iTunes does not do this, and I have had to manually create a sub-set of tunes specifically for the phone.

This functionality is not necessary with my larger iPods that store data on hard disk drives.

With this flaw aside, it is a very nice iPod; in fact, I’d say it’s near perfect: it allows me to browse the cover art, change tracks, and sort by composer or by CD. Yes, I cannot use audiophile headphones with an adapter, but… I use it more for casual listening anyhow, waiting for something, at the gym, etc. Small flaw.

The news that you will soon be able to buy songs online through the phone ,and at Starbucks locations, is not necessary, but welcome. Why not be able to buy music while you’re sipping coffee, with a magazine, work, or just hanging out? (And furthermore, why not use the trusted system iPhone is using to purchase other products?) The idea that the actual song that is playing will be identified on my iPhone is pretty darn cool. Kudos to Apple and Starbucks at making a partnership that seems pretty sophisticated, under the counter.

Mind you, I don’t purchase many iTunes tracks (I’m fussy and like to buy CDs), but the power to purchase is convenient, for when I do.

So, yes, to start: the iPhone gets 4.5 stars from me, and these further developments this past week help cement the iPhone as a solid product that I like.

We needn’t mention the price drop. Ouch. But the store credit is better than nothing, and will silence my initial shock and disappointment.

But I will speak-out against the Ringtones scheme. iTunes doesn’t need more bloat by adding a sound editing piece to custom-make your ringtones! And the idea of double-paying for a ringtone? Outrageous, by any stretch of the imagination.

I realize they have to do this because the recording industry has convinced someone at some point that artists deserve cash for their songs used as a signal rather than as music to be enjoyed. I don’t agree with it. A sound recording is a sound recording. If I can legally play it, then I want to legally play it.

So, I was happy to hear of a new “fix” with iTunes that allowed folks to create their own MP4 audio files, and change the extension to “.m4r” to make the audio file a ringtone. iTunes would do the lifting and install it for you. Simple enough, if you have the sophistication of knowing how to edit sound files.

I don’t necessarily want pre-recorded music on my phone as a ringtone. I might want my own voice, or my own music, or my own sound effects. And Apple’s now going to change the software so I can’t do this?

It seems silly that Apple makes software to allow you to make your own music/audio (Logic, GarageBand, SoundtrackPro), but won’t give you the tool to move that audio file to their own phone. We know its technically possible.

But now they won’t let it happen. Yes, I know, I’ve read of ways to “make it work again” but their intent is still there. Copyright law does include a provision of protection for the owner against “public performance” of their works; but why isn’t a 10 or 15 second ring tone “fair use”? Why is a short clip of music on a phone considered “public performance” when many phones have such lousy speakers to make the ring-sound only audible by a small group of people in a crowded room?

Who knows… but I personally find any measures taken my companies to manage how I enjoy my (purchased, legal) media suspect and discouraging.

I then drew-up this diagram. It’s not scientific at all. But I used the purple wedges to show sound coming out of the speaker. It may in fact not widen as it travels; it may also be wide as soon as it comes out. A course in physio-acoustics would be in store for me.

But the lines show how I aim the speakers. The left speaker is aimed to the right-most part of the sofa, the opposite for the right speaker. What I’ve created is a type of criss-cross of direct lines. I swear to my maker I can hear the cellist right now (happens to be Chrisophe Coin performing Vivaldi sonatas with Christopher Hogwood) right in the center of the two speakers. And he’s in the middle of the room.

My guess is… the closer your speakers are to one another (back, green triangle) the less toe-in that is required. The further apart, the more toe-in.

I’m learning Google Sketchup, and decided to model what I’m talking about. Looking at hi-fi set-ups online from places like Audiogon, where folks are uploading pictures of their setups, makes me gasp. Too many folks are putting speakers too close to walls, and some are not using toe-in. I’ve demonstrated toe-in in the graphic, above. It’s where you angle the speakers inward, towards the listener. You can see what I’m referring to, here:

So, the triangle design defines your listening space. The point of the triangle defines a so-called “sweet spot,” where imaging happens, the channels converge, and your ideal vantage point lies in the room.

I have seen changes in adjusting toe-in levels (angle) before. But a big, comfortable leather chair has been positioned between the two speakers. And this, I feel, has introduced a problem.

The sense of a three-dimensional space that can be achieved with 2-channel stereo was mostly lost. What happened when I moved the chair further back, and the speakers forward? It was like getting a whole new stereo! I am talking a change in mere inches. The whole presentation of sound was richer, more focused, and musically, more satisfying. For the lack of a better word, I’d say there was more synergy. I know that means nothing… but it sounded now like the two speakers were working together to produce music, not mere sound.

I have read folks who say that speaker placement and room treatment changes can be more profound than upgrades in cables and equipment. And now I believe it.

I had fun creating this model. I modeled the speakers after my B&W 703s; it’s not exact, of course, as the 703 has 4 drivers and a bass port, but I never intended to get this close. I should have painted my sofa red, its real color, too.