KLIPSCHTAPE (CD review)

First-generation stereophonic copy of the original stereophonic master. HDTT KLIPSCH-1.

First, let me allow the folks at HDTT (High Definition Tape Transfers) to explain their new release, KLIPSCHTAPE, better than I could: “In the 1950’s, Paul W. Klipsch, inventor of the famous ‘Klipschorn’ corner bass horn loudspeaker, began recording live performances in stereo as ‘reference’ recordings to aid his own loudspeaker research and development. The 1950’s saw enormous activity and expansion in the Hi-Fi world which was spearheaded by the emergence of stereo recordings for public consumption, and during the latter half of the decade, the first stereophonic reel-to-reel tapes became available, produced by recording companies such as RCA, Mercury, Westminster, and others. The tapes proved to be so popular that in 1956 Paul Klipsch would jump on the reel-to-reel bandwagon by founding the Klipsch Tapes Division. Headed by the redoubtable Mr. Klipsch and assisted by future recording engineer John Eargle, KLIPSCHTAPE produced a total of seven titles, and marked one of the first attempts by an equipment manufacturer to make direct tape masters available to audio enthusiasts. Klipsch’s tapes were among the earliest stereo recordings ever offered to the public, and survive today as a prime example of primitive but exemplary ‘purist’ recording art. Unfortunately, Klipsch’s tape enterprise lasted only about 2 years, and is today a virtually unknown and forgotten fragment of audio history. However, thanks to the kindness of the present-day Klipsch company, which has made the original master tapes available to us, we have been able to carefully transfer and preserve some of Klipsch’s amazing recordings to CD.”

What HDTT have done is take selections from three of Klipsch’s tapes and transfer them to CD. The disc contains twelve musical tracks and ends with an interview with Klipsch. The music comprises small jazz ensemble pieces and large organ works, so the results show off most aspects of a speaker’s range and power. Whether you actually enjoy the music is probably secondary to the recording quality involved, but in any case it is fairly well performed and fun overall.

Now, here’s the thing: Most people today are unaware that the state of stereo recordings hasn't really improved much (or at all) since the early Fifties. I listen daily to brand-new recordings that haven't nearly the depth, breadth, range, or fidelity of the Klipsch tapes, which were among the first of their kind. Strange world.

The disc begins with the Flem Ferguson Trio (what a wonderful name) playing the “Tin Roof Blues.”  It’s pleasant enough and gets the program off to an arresting start. Following that is Weldon Flanagan (another great name) playing the Wurlitzer pipe organ in “The Yellow Rose of Texas.” Remember, these are live recordings made in acoustically amenable surroundings; play this one loudly and you’ll experience a truly gigantic effect. Then we hear organist John Eargle (who would later become one of the world’s most prestigious recording engineers) playing an Aeolian-Skinner organ in the “Carillon Sortie,” followed by the Joe Holland Quartet doing “I Think You’re Wonderful.”

Next is an impressive organ recital by John Eargle that includes Bach’s Toccata in D minor, Langlais’s Arabesque for the Flute, Gigue, Liszt’s Harmonies du Soir, and Alain’s Litanies.

From the final demonstration tape, we get three numbers by Flem Ferguson and his Dixieland Jazz Band: “Lady Be Good,” “Way Down Yonder in New Orleans,” and, the best of the lot, “Muskrat Ramble.” If you can’t find any demo material in here, you just are trying. The tapes carry with them a few background noises associated with live, unedited performance. You live with it.

The disc concludes with a June, 1954, television interview with Paul Klipsch, about ten minutes of audio. He’s an amusing gentleman, and the information he provides, while rather elemental, is nevertheless captivating.

In terms of recorded sound, Paul Klipsch was a purist in the literal sense. He made his tapes using Stephens C2-0D4 condenser-type microphones with transformers bypassed; Berlant series 30 recording machines; and IRISH Brand Shamrock 300 tape, some of the best products available at the time. In Klipsch’s own words, “Unlike most tape copies, where a good deal of ‘engineering’ and ‘dial twiddling’ have been employed in the duplication processes, KLIPSCHTAPES are recorded and duplicated without anyone ‘riding the gain or tone controls.’ Throughout a given piece the volume level is thereby the same as in the original performance. There are no tone controls; the flat response maintained results from the use of precision equipment throughout.”

To be sure, the sound of the HDTT disc is quite good, if not quite in the absolute audiophile category we know today. However, to be fair, there are only a handful of topflight audiophile discs in that category, so maybe the point is moot. This HDTT disc displays an excellent separation of instruments in the jazz pieces, with the kind of wide left-to-right stereo spread we would expect from early loudspeaker demonstration tapes. Transient response is relatively quick; the dynamic range is reasonably expansive; impact is strong; lows are taut; and midrange definition is fine, if to my ears a trifle soft. Most important, I found no noticeable distortion even at very high playback levels. Maybe in some of the jazz numbers there could have been a tad more air to the acoustic (they’re a trifle close and dry), yet in the organ pieces one hears a good sense of ambience and occasion, with lifelike hall resonances.

In all, the disc provides not only splendid sound and rewarding musical experiences but a valuable historical document that should interest most hi-fi fans. Although there is not a lot of content involved (about forty-four minutes of music, plus an additional ten minutes of interview), it’s a matter of quality over quantity.

As always, the folks at HDTT make the music available in a variety of formats for a variety of pocketbooks, from Redbook CD’s, 24/96 DVD’s, and HQCD’s to 24/96, 24/192, and 16/44 Flac downloads for playback on high-end computer audio systems. For details, visit http://www.highdeftapetransfers.com/storefront.php.

JJP

Meet the Staff

Meet the Staff
John J. Puccio, Founder and Contributor

Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on the Big Jon and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.

Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing for the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.

Karl Nehring, Editor and Contributor

For more than 20 years I was the editor of The $ensible Sound magazine and a regular contributor to both its equipment and recordings review pages. I would not presume to present myself as some sort of expert on music, but I have a deep love for and appreciation of many types of music, "classical" especially, and have listened to thousands of recordings over the years, many of which still line the walls of my listening room (and occasionally spill onto the furniture and floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering wife). I have always taken the approach as a reviewer that what I am trying to do is simply to point out to readers that I have come across a recording that I have found of interest, a recording that I think they might appreciate my having pointed out to them. I suppose that sounds a bit simple-minded, but I know I appreciate reading reviews by others that do the same for me — point out recordings that they think I might enjoy.

For readers who might be wondering about what kind of system I am using to do my listening, I should probably point out that I do a LOT of music listening and employ a variety of means to do so in a variety of environments, as I would imagine many music lovers also do. Starting at the more grandiose end of the scale, the system in which I do my most serious listening comprises Marantz CD 6007 and Onkyo CD 7030 CD players, NAD C 658 streaming preamp/DAC, Legacy Audio PowerBloc2 amplifier, and a pair of Legacy Audio Focus SE loudspeakers. I occasionally do some listening through pair of Sennheiser 560S headphones. I miss the excellent ELS Studio sound system in our 2016 Acura RDX (now my wife's daily driver) on which I had ripped more than a hundred favorite CDs to the hard drive, so now when driving my 2022 Accord EX-L Hybrid I stream music from my phone through its adequate but not outstanding factory system. For more casual listening at home when I am not in my listening room, I often stream music through the phone into a Vizio soundbar system that has tolerably nice sound for such a diminutive physical presence. And finally, at the least grandiose end of the scale, I have an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom II Bluetooth speaker for those occasions where I am somewhere by myself without a sound system but in desperate need of a musical fix. I just can’t imagine life without music and I am humbly grateful for the technology that enables us to enjoy it in so many wonderful ways.

William (Bill) Heck, Webmaster and Contributor

Among my early childhood memories are those of listening to my mother playing records (some even 78 rpm ones!) of both classical music and jazz tunes. I suppose that her love of music was transmitted genetically, and my interest was sustained by years of playing in rock bands – until I realized that this was no way to make a living. The interest in classical music was rekindled in grad school when the university FM station serving as background music for studying happened to play the Brahms First Symphony. As the work came to an end, it struck me forcibly that this was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and from that point on, I never looked back. This revelation was to the detriment of my studies, as I subsequently spent way too much time simply listening, but music has remained a significant part of my life. These days, although I still can tell a trumpet from a bassoon and a quarter note from a treble clef, I have to admit that I remain a nonexpert. But I do love music in general and classical music in particular, and I enjoy sharing both information and opinions about it.

The audiophile bug bit about the same time that I returned to classical music. I’ve gone through plenty of equipment, brands from Audio Research to Yamaha, and the best of it has opened new audio insights. Along the way, I reviewed components, and occasionally recordings, for The $ensible Sound magazine. Most recently I’ve moved to my “ultimate system” consisting of a BlueSound Node streamer, an ancient Toshiba multi-format disk player serving as a CD transport, Legacy Wavelet II DAC/preamp/crossover, dual Legacy PowerBloc2 amps, and Legacy Signature SE speakers (biamped), all connected with decently made, no-frills cables. With the arrival of CD and higher resolution streaming, that is now the source for most of my listening.

Ryan Ross, Contributor

I started listening to and studying classical music in earnest nearly three decades ago. This interest grew naturally out of my training as a pianist. I am now a musicologist by profession, specializing in British and other symphonic music of the 19th and 20th centuries. My scholarly work has been published in major music journals, as well as in other outlets. Current research focuses include twentieth-century symphonic historiography, and the music of Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Malcolm Arnold.

I am honored to contribute writings to Classical Candor. In an age where the classical recording industry is being subjected to such profound pressures and changes, it is more important than ever for those of us steeped in this cultural tradition to continue to foster its love and exposure. I hope that my readers can find value, no matter how modest, in what I offer here.


Bryan Geyer, Technical Analyst

I initially embraced classical music in 1954 when I mistuned my car radio and heard the Heifetz recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. That inspired me to board the new "hi-fi" DIY bandwagon. In 1957 I joined one of the pioneer semiconductor makers and spent the next 32 years marketing transistors and microcircuits to military contractors. Home audio DIY projects remained a personal passion until 1989 when we created our own new photography equipment company. I later (2012) revived my interest in two channel audio when we "downsized" our life and determined that mini-monitors + paired subwoofers were a great way to mate fine music with the space constraints of condo living.

Visitors that view my technical papers on this site may wonder why they appear here, rather than on a site that features audio equipment reviews. My reason is that I tried the latter, and prefer to publish for people who actually want to listen to music; not to equipment. My focus is in describing what's technically beneficial to assure that the sound of the system will accurately replicate the source input signal (i. e. exhibit high accuracy) without inordinate cost and complexity. Conversely, most of the audiophiles of today strive to achieve sound that's euphonic, i.e. be personally satisfying. In essence, audiophiles seek sound that's consistent with their desire; the music is simply a test signal.

Mission Statement

It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.

When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.

So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job. --John J. Puccio

Contact Information

Readers with polite, courteous, helpful letters may send them to classicalcandor@gmail.com

Readers with impolite, discourteous, bitchy, whining, complaining, nasty, mean-spirited, unhelpful letters may send them to classicalcandor@recycle.bin.

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa