I spoke with Lyn Stanley before the show, she was gentle enough as to tip me about this event, she would be playing lacquers in the EAR Yoshino room with legendary designer Tim de Paravicini.
The system consisted of EAR top of the line electronics paired with Rockport speakers and Tim’s turntable with a My Sonic Lab MC cartridge. Lyn and Tim went through the details, explaining how difficult and expensive is to produce a one step vinyl record, omitting several passages (mother copy and stampers) in the pressing chain, thus keeping the sound as close as possible to the master lacquer and the recording itself. Add that to a superb production with nothing but analog equipment used throughout the recording and mastering process and with nothing but the best musicians out there (with names such as Mike Garson and Rickey Woodard to name a few) and you have one hell of a record with Lyn singing classics like My Funny Valentine and Crazy.
If all this wasn’t good enough for a great Munich session Lyn brought a couple of the lacquers used for the production of this double LP, the Moonlight Sessions and played them on Tim’s analog front end. Now pay attention, there is nothing ordinary in playing lacquers as these are fragile and can only be played maybe 3 or 4 times max before getting deteriorated to the point of being trash.
For those few lucky enough as to be inside the room with us it was a revelatory session of what vinyl is capable of, what kind of transparency an analog system can achieve and unfortunately how much is lost when mass produced records end up on our platter. You cannot buy the lacquers but you can buy the closest thing to them, meaning the special edition beta copy of the Moonlight Sessions from Lyn’s own site.
Thank you so much from all of us involved in this demonstration! We appreciate Part-Time Audiophile taking part in this event and appreciate your comments and support.
Pleasure, as always, is all ours Lyn!