Another visit to Titian's

Yesterday I visited Titian down in Oberarth – perhaps that should be “up†in Oberarth, because it's at higher altitude than where I live, and it was a lot whiter than where I live (and that snow joke). Very pretty drive down the Autobahn.

The basic details of Titian's system are described here:

http://aca.gr/pop_rai.htm

This is a bit out of date, as his CD player is now a four-box (more accurately a three-box and something that looks like an escapee from “Star Trekâ€Â) affair, a Metronome Kalisto – and if you have to ask, no, you can't afford it.

The heart of the system remains the Nestorovic System 16 with its four speakers mounted in pairs (the ones you can see in the photo), its dedicated valve power amps and its two huge subwoofers, powered by an enormous Krell. Since I last visited, Titian has had some room treatment in his listening room up in the attic of the house. This consists of foam on the walls and various shallow boxes divided up by partitions into lots of squares on walls and ceilings. He's not entirely convinced that they're doing the trick he wants, so he's going to do some more work on the subject. The Nestorovics are now on attractive new plinths and the Fadel Arts cable boxes with their gold tubes no longer hang from the ceiling but are now seated on Finite Element Pagode plinths, matching the Pagode stands of the rest of Titian's gear. These look very attractive.

The system remains quite simply the best I've ever heard by a considerable margin. The highest tribute you can pay to any system is that you could be fooled into thinking that you're actually in a concert venue. Nothing I've ever heard comes as close as this system. In fact, it is in some ways too good. When we played Hilary Hahn's recording of Brahm's Violin Concerto:



I heard something I'd never heard before – in some places, as well as the note she was playing, I kept hearing something else, in time with the note. I think it was the actual sound of the bow smacking on to the string!

The system can play very loud without noticeable distortion or effort, and produce all the details at the same time.

Titian is a man passionate about his music, so hi-fi simply didn't feature in our conversation! Here's some of what we heard, with some notes on music and performance:




One of the reasons for the visit was that Titian wanted to hear some of Gardiner's SDG cantatas. We weren't disappointed. We played CD2, the cantatas for Reformation Sunday, BWV79 (Gott der Herr ist Sonn und Schild) BWV192 (Nun danket alle Gott) and BWV80 (Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott). BWV79's marvellous opening chorale, with its horns and drums was splendidly rendered, and the soloists in the individual arias were there and there. And Ein feste Burg, the mighty battle hymn of the Lutheran Church was wonderful, with the rasp of the bass sackbut (trombone) snarling and growling in the opening choral fantasia beautifully caught. Gardiner has really done the musical world a service by producing these beautifully-performed and beautifully-recorded performances, especially astonishing in that they were recorded on a weekly basis in all sorts of venues.

A bit of organ next (like myself, Titian likes the organ):



This is Marie-Claire Alain's most recent recording of all the Bach organ works, using, for the most part, organs of the time that have become available after the reunification of Germany.

We did the Dorian and the Passacaglia in C. I'd always thought Marie-Claire's Passacaglia lacked tension compares to some, but having heard it on Titian's system, I'll have to think again.

As mentioned, we did Hilary Hahn's Brahms, but then compared it with a vinyl version of Henryk Szeryng with the Concertgebouw. We agreed that the latter was better, as Szeryng played it as if he meant it, and the dramatic tuttis of the Concertgebouw were better than those of the ASMF. It was altogether a more dramatic, more satisfying performance.

Of course we had to hear this:

http://www.andante.com/boutique/Shop/index.cfm?action=displayProduct&iProductID=895

the latest Brandenburg recording from Concerto Italiano. The agreeable “roughness†of the original instruments shows up well – the slight braying tones of the horns in 1, the high-flying trumpet of 2, operating on the edges of possibility (it might have been taken just too fast).

I brought the classic King's College version of Allegri's Miserere with me:

Wonderful, but the recording shows its age – a lot of hiss and rumble and a bit flat. Such an accusation could not be levelled at this one:



La Bartoli should be on the World Heritage protected list – the woman is astonishing. The voice leaves you speechless, by turns tender and soft and then fiery and aggressive, long-held notes of gorgeous tone and quicksilver runs of notes, matching the instruments, all under perfect control. Some humans truly are more equal than others. All presented in a wonderfully vivid recording with real fire in its belly

Then there was this:


Ms. Isbin plays a mean guitar – the rendition of the slow movement of the Rodrigo is gorgeous.

Those are what come to mind at the moment. Many thanks to Titian for a great day of great music. As I've said before, if I ever come into enough money, I'm going to buy a house and a system like this!

 

Sounds like a great system and a good day out, but didn't you feel obliged to tell Titian how foolish he was to have wasted lots of money on expensive cables!

 

He well knows what I think of expensive cables, but, hey, he's happy with them, and that's all that matters.

P.S. I think those Fadel Arts cables cost more than all the hi-fi I own, so even if they really were that much better, I wouldn't be a customer!

 

Tones, many thanks for writing about this visit because you made me save a lot of time.
Actually I wanted to post it in the music section because over 99% of our time we dedicated it to music and when the system came into discussion it was only because we thought it could have interact with the judging of an interpretation.

I have posted the latest pictures of my system with the room here (scroll to Titian) so you donßt need to link to foreign sites especially when not updated since years.

The CDs Tones brought were absolutely fantastic and I will certainly will buy some / most of them. Now that I'm not planning any changes to my system for at least 5 years, I'll have enough budget for CDs. But also here I'm not going to buy "many" because I want to primarly hear the ones I have.
I was so amazed by the quality of the Brahms violin concerto with Szeryng on LP that I must hear more vinyl again. Especially the interpretation aspect of these famous players of the last century strucks me every time against this fixed idea of our days interpretation of producing, as highest priority, fabulous sound. I suppose this is a simple "reaction" of what we today want: perfect pure sound out of an instrument. Who cares if it the music comes from the "soul". This I also see when I hear the reaction of the people after a concert. First of all no wrong notes, then sound quality then technique....

Back to the CDs of Tones.

Yes the series of the Bach Cantatas I'll have to get. Unfortunately we didn't hear the other CDs of the collection...
Bartoli will also be on top of my list as well as the interpretations of the "Concerto italiano" conducted by Rinaldo Alessandrini (Tones, you didn't mention this ). This group remembers me very much about the other italian group "
Il Giardino Armonico" conducted by Antonini. The goal what they want to archieve is simalar but the technical, musical way to achieve it is different and therefor, even if the interpretation of these two groups appear quite simalar, there are interesting differences. After a concert of the "Il Giardino Armonico" I had the pleasure to talk nearly half an hour with Antonini about his interpretation and the italian baroque with its connections with Händel and Bach.

Sharon Isbin's interpretation impressed me quite a lot. I'm a lover of Julian Bream's or John Williams recordings but another kind of approach and of course a better recording quality will be very welcome in my collection.

Tones I was trilled about your visit and I hope we could regularly meet to continue this exchange of opinions and music.
In this occasion and for the same reason I also am looking forward to meet Graham again or anybody else who would like to present his music. This doesn't mean only classical. I love very much Jazz (I just had a visit of 10 days of a member of a german forum presenting Jazz music) and I'm not against Pop / Rock.

@Neville
I once told Tones that considering the fact of the Analog part, the cables, the racks and the CD-Player, my system could cost much much less and maybe he wouldn't hear a great difference.
I'm not here to justify my choices nor to tell somebody that he should go my way. Actually I feel great that I have something unique that nobody else has (point of view hardware) but I like to share the result with those who enjoy listening seriously to music (not Hifi). The question of cables and any other controvertial Hifi-points (voodoo) is for me clear and I have no problems with other points of view. Actually I like and accept critics to my system from those who were here indipendently who and with what education they were. Without those critics I couldn't have made the sound quality in my room better.

best regards

 

Hi, Titian, I confess I thought several times before putting the post here. As you say, it is an essentially musical post, but then, as most folk on ZG are turned off by the very mention of the word "classical", nobody much would read it. Which would be a pity as the general ZeroGain community should, I think, hear about a truly outstanding system and how it can strut its stuff. You have combined a collection of very different and very unusual elements into a wonderfully homogeneous whole. It's a masterful example of how we shouldn't buy only by brand but be prepared to use our ears. It helps of course to know what you're looking for - you wanted to reproduce a concert hall (as did GrahamN), and you both went about it in completely different ways and achieved your goals.

 

I think we are of a broad enogh church to be able to accomodate a little classical ! I certainly don't have a problem with it ....that said I can't get on with plinky plonky jazz, whilst I'm at it, rapp leaves met unmoved except to switch it off !

 

On this, we are totally and completely agreed! I often wonder whether the leaving of the "c" off the front of the word was accidental...

 

I think its normally a capital "C" too.....

 

I never heard rapp on my system. It isn't that I'm looking forward for it..
I don't think I would like it more than Tones.