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Post by jandl100 on Feb 17, 2021 13:56:30 GMT
Quad 606ii power amp now installed. Another really, really good amp. Someone shoot me, please, if I buy any more amps. The 3 Quad power amps I now have, all with distinctive presentations, all excellent, are the only amps I need. I just need to keep reminding myself of that! I have a kind offer of a trial with a Quad 909 power amp, but not at all sure I'll be doing that. Seriously considering getting rid of my Primaluna valve amp. Just no real point in keeping it. Ditto my 1kWpc class D monos. Can I lose the box swap habit? No, probably not!
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Post by jandl100 on Feb 17, 2021 8:58:24 GMT
Oooo, and four and a half hours of concertos. The violin concerto is starting off rather well.
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Post by jandl100 on Feb 17, 2021 7:01:27 GMT
Wow, thanks for the Rautavaara nudge, Jules. This album for cello and piano is amazing.
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Post by jandl100 on Feb 17, 2021 6:54:14 GMT
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Post by jandl100 on Feb 17, 2021 5:08:46 GMT
The opening section (or song, as Spotify calls it) of Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra. Otherwise known from 2001 A Space Odyssey. I heard it at the age of 12 when the film came out. Totally blown away.
I rushed out to the local record store to buy it, and was really disappointed to find it wasn't on the LP I bought. For reasons fairly understandable to my young and uneducated brain, I thought the music came from Holst's The Planets.
I got it sorted out in the end, and I think that started me off rattling down the classical tracks for ever more.
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Post by jandl100 on Feb 17, 2021 4:50:18 GMT
...pretty much everything except opera (maybe one day). Try Akhnaten by Philip Glass. One of the very few operas liked by this opera hater (others are Xerxes by Handel, and Mozart's Magic Flute).
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Post by jandl100 on Feb 17, 2021 4:46:59 GMT
Well, I totally fooked up that post, I'll try again...
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Post by jandl100 on Feb 17, 2021 4:21:19 GMT
I've sampled the Rautavaara sound world previously and not liked it at all. This Hahn piece is the first that I've quite liked. I wouldn't have recognised it as being by Rautavaara. I'll have to give her music another try. Edit Ah, no, that was complete cobblers. I was getting my contemporary Scandinavian composers completely muddled up. I was thinking of Saariaho. Easy mistake to make. Lot of 'a's in both. Yeah, this one, Rautavaara, is a bloke and is quite accessible! Try this - nature inspired and nicely atmospheric if a bit formless and meandering.
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Post by jandl100 on Feb 16, 2021 16:29:28 GMT
OK, that's 3-5am tomorrow taken care of.
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Post by jandl100 on Feb 16, 2021 13:29:44 GMT
I also wonder if the 303 gradually fades as it gets older, hence its modern rep as P&S. Give it a refurb to return it to its original glory? Then there's the DADA updates as well. All very complex!
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Post by jandl100 on Feb 16, 2021 12:40:06 GMT
I wonder how their latest gear compares? Latest Quad gear? Hmm, no, that doesn't seem to be the direction I'm going in! Latest Quad Rig Update .... A fully refurbed and DADA updated 303 power amp has been added to the mix. I guess I was expecting some luscious laidback smoothness. Nooo. It doesn't do that at all. Vivid, palpable, shockingly fast and explosive on transients. The imaging is very 3D and real. Just now listening to some orchestral on Chandos - and a solo flute came in - it was so palpably there it made me blink. Low timpani roll just now - Whoa!!! - fabulous texture and sonority and sheer thwackiness. Then a scalp-tingling slow crescendo with loads of blatty brass. A bit ssshhhhhy at the very top, cymbals and similar - but I think the refurb has yet to fully run in properly. This Quadness is turning into a very interesting journey. More Quad newness tomorrow and Sunday.
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Post by jandl100 on Feb 16, 2021 4:37:26 GMT
^ I skim-read the Guardian article.
One term stood out for me - vanity project. All of them. My goodness, the ultimate in crazinesses. They all deserved to fail. Those levels of spend are unnecessary and can't be justified imo.
The whole concert hall creation thing seems to have turned into an international my genitals are bigger than yours contest.
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Post by jandl100 on Feb 16, 2021 4:17:55 GMT
I do feel it deeply that I haven’t responded in the intended spirit of the thread. But I've tried and I really struggle to get beyond the justification for each one of "I really love it, it moves me." Each of mine generally represents a prime example of a genre that I like - beyond that, I dunno! Actually, I might be able to manage a Martin-style description - musical rather than personal attributes and associations. I'll give it a try.
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Post by jandl100 on Feb 16, 2021 4:07:17 GMT
Waking up at 3am, I've been playing all of Pete's, John's and Martin's choices.
I've got a lot in common with Martin. Some of John's tastes (which are amazingly varied) definitely match mine and others are interesting and absorbing. And others.... Well, we can't have everything in common. Pete,if you ever invite me over for a session of your favourites, don't be offended if I think of an urgent appointment elsewhere. And I guess you meant Ruby not Rosie.
An interesting, varied, absorbing and repelling hour and a bit - Many thanks!
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Post by jandl100 on Feb 15, 2021 18:59:26 GMT
A thousand million Euros? Wtf!!! - sounds like some typical EU graft and money syphoning going on there!
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Post by jandl100 on Feb 15, 2021 17:43:01 GMT
I do feel it deeply that I haven’t responded in the intended spirit of the thread.
But I've tried and I really struggle to get beyond the justification for each one of "I really love it, it moves me."
Each of mine generally represents a prime example of a genre that I like - beyond that, I dunno!
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Post by jandl100 on Feb 15, 2021 17:08:36 GMT
Sorry about this, I feel partly responsible.
Whoops, I overlapped with Paul, saying pretty much the same things!
This is a bit difficult for a classical fan as individual tracks (movements) often can't really be sensibly heard in isolation from the full work. So I'll assume I'm allowed full works for classical.
Actually I'll cheat and have a classical and a non classical selection.
* represent schoolboy/youthful influence
Mostly chosen just cos I like the music. Nothing deeply personal. I don't seem to do that. And with non classical usually because they exemplify a particular genre for me.
Classical Pettersson 7th symphony - Segerstam Bruckner 6th symphony - Blomstedt Beethoven string quartet op. 131 - Orford * Mahler 6th symphony - Inoue * Bach Partita #2 (keyboard) -...? Mozart piano concerto #23 - Kempff * Schubert string quartet D. 887 - ABQ Schubert piano trio #2 - Bylsma etal Sibelius 6th symphony - Berglund Berlin RSO Vaughan Williams 5th symphony - Spano
Non Classical Loreena McKennitt - Breaking the silence Deep Purple - Highway Star * Wishbone Ash - Leaf and stream * Disturbed - Sound of silence The Buggles - The plastic age Nazareth - Please don't judas me Stranglers - Princess of the streets Melanie Safka - Someday I'll be a farmer * Gene Pitney - Somethings gotten hold of my heart * Emmylou Harris - All my tears
If I'm only allowed 10, I'll keep all the classical. (I can remember the non classical well enough anyway).
It's interesting that there aren't any vocals in my classical selection!
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Post by jandl100 on Feb 15, 2021 14:44:28 GMT
Can a moon have a moon of its own? Yes, but the constraints are quite onerous. None have yet been seen in our own solar system. It has to be inside the Hill radius - which I hadn't heard of before - the distance beyond which the body being orbited no longer dominates gravitationally. Interestingly, our own Moon could have a moon of its own but doesn't seem to have one. astrobites.org/2021/02/15/a-moons-moon/
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Post by jandl100 on Feb 15, 2021 12:50:18 GMT
Marvellously atmospheric, the whole album. Britten, Bridge & Bax - the British 3Bs
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Post by jandl100 on Feb 15, 2021 7:30:59 GMT
Ooo Ooo, I've got a Plan for 2021 after all.
Investigate Quad electronics.
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