The value of open space


Composers such as Webern, Cage, Feldman, and Stockhausen all utilized vast spacious open passages with faint and delicate sounds within them ('colored' silence as Stockhausen put it). If a system is set up right, this allows those sounds to 'sparkle' in deep space, opening vistas for the ear to swim in. How many audiophiles really appreciate this phenomena? It is really one of my favorite things in music. It seems to me that digital sources crunch this space into blandness, and it really takes a turntable to do it justice. Agree?
chashmal
Well, I agree with Guidocorona on all points except format. Like you Chashmal, I too am a huge fan of vinyl LP's and have little or no emotional connection with music from CD's.

I have several of Stockhausen's works as well as those of Edgard Varèse. I like both artists, bought the LP's in the 1960's when new.
Hi Albert, I'd love to finally listen to your fantab system! . . . I'll be in Dallas from June 28 through July 6th . . . any chance of visiting with you?
Come on !

Send me an email. I’ll come get you if you need a ride.

I hope to have my new Aesthetix phono and newly designed custom crossover by then but if not, the system is working well as is.
Of course, open resonant passages have been with music since the beginning of time. However in both 20th century composition and improvisation something unique was done: they became focal points with just as concentration as the notes. I am definitely not taking anything away from the great silences in, say, Gregorian chants, but someone like Morton Feldman makes subjects rather than supports out of them.

I have heard many of the great CD players, factory and modded. I still maintain that even the best of them cannot do with open resonant space what vinyl can do.

In case anyone was wondering, or wants to point the finger at my source, I use a Linn LP12 with a Rega arm and Benz Ace cartridge. My CD is a 24 bit Meridian. Nice detail, but it aint vinyl.
Yep, those Linn's do make beautiful music.

Do you have an opinion on the music of Edgard Varèse?

Also, have you heard any modern abstract artists you like? I am very fond of the music of Jan Jelinek, who also recorded under the names Farben and Gramm.

His work is available on LP and the recordings are excellent. My favorites are "Loop-Finding-Jazz" on Scape as well as "La Nouvelle Pauvreté", again on Scape Records.