ABOUT
Music, Acoustics and Science
How musical transfers became a passion.
IT START WITH
An Endless Passion...
For MUSIC, ACOUSTICS and SCIENCE
Wim Prinssen (1953) is an acoustic and theatre consultant with a wide range of specialist expertise in the field of auditorium design, theatres, concert halls, worship spaces etc. This was the subject of his study at Eindhoven University of Technology, Department of “Architecture & Building Sciences”. This know-how is since then continuously put into practice in numerous building projects.
The result of this “integral” design approach with specialist expertise in the field of room and electro acoustics and theatre technology is more than is expected from the individual subjects. Enthusiasm and passion are the key words of his way of working.
Already in his earliest childhood, he showed a particular interest in radio and gramophones, their technology as well as music. A favorite pastime was playing the 78 rpm records on the family’s 1956 record changer. At 11 years of age, 78 rpm record collecting started, a collection which comprises close to 10,000 items by now (including some 500 cylinders. Main fields of interest are classical music (including opera), pre-WW II jazz and popular music. Playback of these records on contemporary high-end gramophones and phonographs in his own collection as well as on modern Hi-Fi equipment and his expertise in acoustics and audio, lead to a restoration philosophy that aims to combine the best of both worlds and make state-of-the-art transfers available to the public.
21st Century digital technology is now becoming sufficiently advanced to offer a sound quality previously thought impossible. Although the music will not sound like a modern digital recording, it is this newly achieved quality level that makes our recorded musical heritage much more listenable and above all enjoyable for new, younger generations of music lovers who grew up in the digital sound of the 21st Century. As the name Gramophone-Classics suggests, it is the intention to disclose gramophone recordings that made history (mainly 78s) to the public in state-of-the-art transfers.
In other words, recordings of classical music, jazz etc. that are highly esteemed and respected, and for this reason deserve the best possible restoration.
Hi-Fi Transfers
The 78 rpm era started in the last decade of the 19th century ended some 60 years ago. Transfer technology began with the start of the LP era in 1948 and has made an enormous progress and has become more and more scientific as well as professional. After all, audio technology continues to be improved and transferring historic recordings moves along with it. In the early digital days, processing artifacts of noise reduction etc., were unacceptable since the sound processing in our human brain is much more tolerant and forgiving for analog background noise etc. than for digital background noise even if the loudness is so low that it is barely noticeable. Therefore, the transfer engineer needs to be very cautious and conservative, especially when applying surface noise reduction techniques. Having said this, it is important to note that until recently, surface noise could only be reduced outside the frequency bandwidth of the recorded music, i.e. by filtering scratch and hiss above the highest frequency on the record and rumble below the lowest frequency on the record. New technology allows to remove surface noise within the music bandwidth as well, but cautious use is needed to prevent undesirable artifacts. Clicks, pops, crackle etc. can effectively be removed digitally without affecting the musical content. Today’s advanced equalization techniques allow very refined modelling of the sound for modern ears, including reverse engineering the recording characteristic of the old equipment (i.e.
microphones, amplifiers, cutting lathes). Acoustic technology allows extracting more of the recording venue or studio than was previously possible. Our transfers are offered in two versions:
– Pure Mono: the mono sound of the recording in the best possible restoration, without any additions
– Acoustic Stereo: convolution of the restored recording with the actual acoustic of the recording or a similar venue. No synthetic reverberation or stereo processing is applied.
Restoration equipment and software used for restoration are, among others:
Dual CS 704 direct drive turntable with Shure V15-III and M75 MM cartridges and a choice of 6 differently shaped styli to best fit different groove sizes and shapes, Revox A77 tape deck, iZotope RX10 restoration suite, Cubase Digital Audio Workstation, Sonarworks SoundID Reference room equalization software.
It never ends
Passion never die. It grows
Stay Hungry and Funny
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