STUDER A810 REEL TO REEL TAPE RECORDER
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My experience with the Reel to Reel Tape playback experience continued with my latest acquisition from Analogue Productions Ultra Tape, “Winds of War and Peace” (Wilson Audiophile Recordings/ RRAP 0012). I decided on that tape because it’s vinyl record was one of my favorite high rotation test record for scale, dynamic, bass and (reproduce) realism.
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Upon first play of that tape, I felt that the presentation was ‘alien’ to me. Instrumentations sounded ‘softer’, which may be deemed more natural,…compare to the aggressiveness cum excitement from my usual vinyl record playback of the same album. However, within that ‘softer demeanor‘, there was more details, resolutions, layers, colors and dimensions to any one tone. The impression given was that each tone was given time to bloom fuller and naturally,…and, at times, the instrument(s) maysound slightly slower in comparison to my usual vinyl record playback systems (of the same album),…or that tape’s (more) resolution was able to present the minute differentiation of each tone.
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Here, in term of scale, soundscape and soundstage, I do believe that my vinyl record playback systems were on par with that tape. However, I must say that the tape in question has a slightly better stability in positioningand more solidness in theimaging of each musician/ instrument, within that soundstage,…which made up the whole presentation to be fundamentally accurate and anchored.
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Finally, I found the presentation of its bass, from lower mid to low frequencies, to be moredetail, articulate anddelineate than its counterpart, the vinyl record. However, I would add that my usual vinyl record playback systems have more quantum, dynamism, transient, energy and attack of that same bass.
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More to come,…
