I'm gratified to say that the notes in question are clearly audible on my humble system- aging JVC cd player, PS Audio 5.3 preamp (unity gain mode), 55w AKSA, Ruark Templar II loudspeakers, DH Labs Silver Sonic interconnects and speaker cables. (lets not get into silver and teflon here! These cables sound pretty damn good and don't cost an arm and a leg.)
The first level of performance test is to check if the system correctly repoduces all the elements (notes) of music. (not all systems are able to produce all, or in other words, either missing some subtle elements or incorrectly reproduce them, eg. one instrument sounds like another)
The second level would be to check how well the system reproduces music. I am not going to get into this level as the assessment of this type is subjective so that it's very difficult to have sensible discussions over Internet if we cannot hear the same music at the same time. And also one doesn't know how good is the "good" the other one meant.
I believe the pair of drums on stage right (left as you watch TV) are Congas. The metal rings tension the drum head via the metal yokes (upside down wishbones) and nuts which can be seen in the video. The drums are tuned by adjusting the nuts to vary the tension on the the drum heads. The metal rings don't contribute to the tone, but a remarkable range of tones can be obtained from such drums by varying the location on the head and part of the hand used to strike the drum. A "rim shot" striking the very edge of the drum head sharply with the finger tips elicits a sharp metallic tone which decays rapidly. This is the first note by the left hand you have described. (This differs from the rim shot obtained on trap drums (the typical drum kit of jazz/rock/pop bands with cymbals and all) by striking the drum head and its metallic rim simultaneously with the drum sticks.)
The gentler brushing finger taps in the center of the left conga elicit the somewhat lower and more resonant, subtle tones which you have noted. The right hand striking the larger conga would ordinarily produce a deeper resonant tone, but I believe this is masked in the recording by a synthesizer, which is much lower and more powerful than the natural tone of the drum. The synthetic graininess of these deeper notes is barely audible on my system (but very clear in the Grado headphones). I have to admit that the synchronization of the right hand of the conga player and the synth beat is remarkable. Makes me wonder if there was an electronic trigger in the drum connected to the synth. If there is any doubt about the presence of the synth, check out the weird shimmery synth that pans across the sound stage shortly before the vocals start. Can you hear it? Come to think of it, perhaps all the synth was added after the fact, to augment the congas. It seems unlikely that the original take would have captured this exaggerated pan.
This is very useful information on this piece of widely used test track. I will note this down and try to understand this. One day I may have a chance to look at a real thing.
The best way is to compare the same live session to the recorded reproduction, but this is not possible. Comparing to the same type of instrument becomes the practical choice.
When I check the piano music, I always compare it to my piano. If the music sounds too far from my piano, it has a high chance that is not recorded or played properly. This is just a rought assessment. When I first bought my piano, all the piano sounded the same to me. I had to ask the piano teacher to listen to it before I decided to buy one. After a year or so, no piano sounds the same to me anymore. My neighbours', my friends' and the one in the Sydney Opera House all sound different to me. The same applies to amplifiers.
I have the same thought that there may be a triggered synth attached to the drum.
So, anyone been listening to anything else lately?
CD Player Health TestIf you worry about whether your CD player may be aging, there is a good test to make sure your CD player works as it should.
This is an objective test - there is only "yes" or "no" answer.
Tracks 33 to 40, "My Disc - The Sheffield/A2TB Test Disc", The Audiophile Reference Series, Sheffield Lab 10045-2-T. This is to test the linearity of your CD player, both laser pickup and DAC/OpAmp decoding/sensitivity capability but it does not tell the sonics, which is another story.
Start with T33 and see how far your player can go.
Here I can show a comparative results on my systems.
From here you can see the performance of my CD players. I invested hundreds of dollars to mod the Marantz but it did not solve the intermittent problem at the lowest signal level, Track 40 at -70dB, which may indicate that some details in music may not be correctly reconstructed by this player. So I wasn't satisfied with Marantz and continued to look for a solution. The ART DIO is able to do that.
Having the ART DIO in the system, then, I can look at how to get rid of the hum/noise to tweak my system into another performance level. I think most of the hum/noise in my current system setup is due to EMI so that I am looking at shielding mains to clean up the environments and pay a great attention to wiring layout. (I don't hear the hum and noise for T38/39 as the amp volume levels are different when listening to different tracks.) Getting rid of EMI can, I believe, improve the background darkness and perception of soundstaging.
Grand Overall System TestThis is a very difficult test on the overall performance including electronics, speaker positioning and room accoustics.
Track 7, "The World of the Harp", Marisa Robles, Decca 433869-2. What to look for:
1) a background noise; (easy)
2) what made that noise; (difficult)
3) how it was made. (more difficult)
If anyone likes to try this track, tell us what you hear.
I have all the information on this noise and I will tell you if anyone gets close to it. Then people can judge their own system performance from how this sound (noise) can be reproduced. This track has been used by some veterans to fine tune their systems.
Have fun.
