Thread: Q for Zeus: Prazak set of Beethoven quartets

Posts: 20
Page: 1 2 next

Post by brenda October 3, 2005 (1 of 20)
Dear Zeus, the new compilation of the Beethoven quartets on Praga appeared under "Recent additions" yesterday. Several questions, which i wondered if you could help me with. Firstly, the listing on this site excludes op. 131, which seems very odd. Is that a misprint here or is the set really incomplete? Slso, does anyone know the provenance of all the recordings. Whilst three have already been released on SACD, the others were obviously earlier recordings, - were they made in DSD or PCM 24/96 or else at a lower res. but just processed for SACD?
I would have emailed Praga direct but they're one of the few labels that the site doesnt provide an email address for.
Hoping you can help, Brenda.

Post by nickc October 3, 2005 (2 of 20)
brenda said:

Dear Zeus, the new compilation of the Beethoven quartets on Praga appeared under "Recent additions" yesterday. Several questions, which i wondered if you could help me with. Firstly, the listing on this site excludes op. 131, which seems very odd. Is that a misprint here or is the set really incomplete? Slso, does anyone know the provenance of all the recordings. Whilst three have already been released on SACD, the others were obviously earlier recordings, - were they made in DSD or PCM 24/96 or else at a lower res. but just processed for SACD?
I would have emailed Praga direct but they're one of the few labels that the site doesnt provide an email address for.
Hoping you can help, Brenda.

hi brenda
i noticed that as well - also opus 135 is missing. i assumed they haven't been recorded yet and hopefully we would see them in the future. 14 and 16 could probably fit on one disc.
i'm pretty excited about this set!
cheers
nick

Post by brenda October 3, 2005 (3 of 20)
nickc said: ....also opus 135 is missing. i assumed they haven't been recorded yet
dear nick and zeus, - op. 131 has definitely been recorded, - it was released on redbook coupled with op. 127, which IS listed. Also. op. 135 was released in 2002 coupled with 132, which is listed (whereas 135 is not). They're two of the reasons for my confusion. B

Post by zeus October 3, 2005 (4 of 20)
brenda said:

Dear Zeus, the new compilation of the Beethoven quartets on Praga appeared under "Recent additions" yesterday. Several questions, which i wondered if you could help me with. Firstly, the listing on this site excludes op. 131, which seems very odd. Is that a misprint here or is the set really incomplete? Slso, does anyone know the provenance of all the recordings. Whilst three have already been released on SACD, the others were obviously earlier recordings, - were they made in DSD or PCM 24/96 or else at a lower res. but just processed for SACD?

Woops, some typos now corrected. Above is the back cover.

As for the provenance of the recordings, all I know is four of the discs are from original DSD multichannel sources (presumably including the three already issued as single SA-CDs) and three are stereo (presumably PCM).

Post by csuzor October 3, 2005 (5 of 20)
Zeus, thanks for the image.
Is it possible to include images of back covers of new SACD albums in the future?

Post by zeus October 3, 2005 (6 of 20)
csuzor said:

Is it possible to include images of back covers of new SACD albums in the future?

I just happened to have this one, generally I don't. Where available, you can also click on the label URL for more information (which is why I provide it) ... Praga Digitals doesn't have one though.

Post by brenda October 3, 2005 (7 of 20)
zeus said: Above is the back cover.
Dear Zeus,
MANY MANY thanks, regards, B.

Post by Beagle October 3, 2005 (8 of 20)
zeus said:

...all I know is four of the discs are from original DSD multichannel sources (presumably including the three already issued as single SA-CDs) and three are stereo (presumably PCM).

IF Praga issues a 'Complete Quartets' cobbled together from new and recycled materials, THEN that strongly suggests that the Prazakova aren't going to record any more quartets in DSD. End of cycle, DOA, stillborn. I have a CD player that upsamples any old RBCD, so pardon me if I'm not suitably excited about this box. --Or is there something I'm missing? I'm a mere mortal.

PS: As a 2-channel curmudgeon I don't really care, but CAN one derive DSD multi from PCM stereo?

Post by zeus October 3, 2005 (9 of 20)
Beagle said:

IF Praga issues a 'Complete Quartets' cobbled together from new and recycled materials, THEN that strongly suggests that the Prazakova aren't going to record any more quartets in DSD. End of cycle, DOA, stillborn. I have a CD player that upsamples any old RBCD, so pardon me if I'm not suitably excited about this box. --Or is there something I'm missing? I'm a mere mortal.

Obviously if you had the current single SA-CDs plus the earlier CDs, the set wouldn't make any sense to you. The attractiveness here is the performances plus attractive pricing for the set (however the individual pieces were recorded).

Upsampling doesn't manufacture resolution ... in fact if it's non-integral (not a multiple of 44.1kHz) it could be argued that it's throwing information away. If the original PCM recording was better than 16-bit/44.1kHz there are still some benefits in the transfer to DSD.

Post by Beagle October 4, 2005 (10 of 20)
zeus said:
Upsampling doesn't manufacture resolution ...

Granted, but it does make harsh CDs listenable. The effect varies broadly from CD to CD, with the worst CDs benefiting most.

I look forward to ear-witness reports on the non-DSD quartets, but an end to the Prazak DSD cycle really is depressing.

Page: 1 2 next

Closed