Best use of Surround Sound Yet

[Whitehall]

In my so far limited experience with surround sound, one album stands out as the best performance and mix yet - E. Power Biggs playing Bach Toccatas and Fugues.

Although there is some tape hiss from this old recording, the spatial mixing of a giant organ makes one feel that he is sitting right behind the organist in a huge cathedral. The various registers of pipes (is that the right terminology?) are arrayed around the front of the hall and the reverbration time is magnificent. Too bad my subwoofer is awaiting a new cone seal. One can hear the mechanical action of stops being changed and even the echo from that. Those big pipes just thunder at times.

This one really gets the music's message across - God is very big and you had better pay attention.

I love Bach. :sun

 

[JonUrban]

E. Power Biggs was an artist with many Columbia Quad releases. Actually, there were many other quad organ music albums. The organ transforms well into a surround environment, as it naturally has a BIG sound with a lot of ambience. Thanks for the write-up!

 

[Guy Robinson]

In my so far limited experience with surround sound, one album stands out as the best performance and mix yet - E. Power Biggs playing Bach Toccatas and Fugues.

Although there is some tape hiss from this old recording, the spatial mixing of a giant organ makes one feel that he is sitting right behind the organist in a huge cathedral. The various registers of pipes (is that the right terminology?) are arrayed around the front of the hall and the reverbration time is magnificent. Too bad my subwoofer is awaiting a new cone seal. One can hear the mechanical action of stops being changed and even the echo from that. Those big pipes just thunder at times.

This one really gets the music's message across - God is very big and you had better pay attention.

I love Bach. :sun

Hi, this is a great disc. You might want to check the comments made on this disc on a different thread.

https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/showthread.php?t=978

 

[fdrennen]

I agree whole heartedly the organ is a natural for surround sound ! organs are usually designed to compliment the hall or church in which they are installed.
one of my favorites is the vox set A survey of the World's greatest ORGAN MUSIC it came in 6 volumes I found all of them at a thrift shop in excellent condition. they came from a library at a university however only one volume containing three disks was quad volume iv (qsvbx 5319) very good mix.

 

[bmoura]

I agree whole heartedly the organ is a natural for surround sound ! organs are usually designed to compliment the hall or church in which they are installed.
one of my favorites is the vox set A survey of the World's greatest ORGAN MUSIC it came in 6 volumes I found all of them at a thrift shop in excellent condition. they came from a library at a university however only one volume containing three disks was quad volume iv (qsvbx 5319) very good mix.

Interesting. Now that Mobile Fidelity has rights to the Vox catalog and has released several of those Quad albums on Surround SACD, I wonder if some of this material might show up on Surround SACD in the future.

 

[Whitehall]

The term I was struggle for is correctly "rank". The pipe organ has specific arrays of pipes with similar construction and tonality - one for each key on the keyboard. A chromatic set is a rank. A big organ can have hundreds of ranks.

Incidently, the world's largest pipe organ is in Atlantic City and is powered by 375,000 watts of air compressor motors. I don't know the efficiency of electric power conversion to sound power is for pipe organs but I'd guess it is within a factor of two of that of our sound reproduction equipment.

The longest pipe is 64 feet long and makes 20 Hz.

 

[bmoura]

The term I was struggle for is correctly "rank". The pipe organ has specific arrays of pipes with similar construction and tonality - one for each key on the keyboard. A chromatic set is a rank. A big organ can have hundreds of ranks.

Incidently, the world's largest pipe organ is in Atlantic City and is powered by 375,000 watts of air compressor motors. I don't know the efficiency of electric power conversion to sound power is for pipe organs but I'd guess it is within a factor of two of that of our sound reproduction equipment.

The longest pipe is 64 feet long and makes 20 Hz.

Hmm, we'll have to check and see if there have been any Surround Recordings on this one !