George Szell conducts the Cleveland Orchestra in a performance of Johannes Brahms' Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77 with soloist David Oistrakh.
Producing the analog vinyl records under the best available condition
The analog vinyl records of the "Masterpiece Collection" have been reissued by remastering the original master tapes, exclusive for the vinyl records. The mastering process employs the newly established "Esoteric Mastering" system, including ESOTERIC's top-of-the-line equipment "Master Sound Discrete DAC" and "Master Sound Discrete Clock." In addition, the MEXCEL cables are sparingly employed to achieve flawless high-quality sound as the master data.
The Analog cutting process has been performed at MIXER'S LAB in Tokyo employing the Neumann VMS80 cutting lathe, a famous machine manufactured in West Germany in the golden era of the analog audio, of which only two remain in Japan.
The "Esoteric Mastering" equipment is also employed to send out master data for the analog cutting machine. Collaborating with the MIXER'S LAB, the "Esoteric Mastering" equipment was brought into their cutting room and connected the output directly to the Neumann SP79C cutting console. The "Esoteric Mastering" sound is sent directly to the cutting process bypassing the equalizer section of the console. The cutting process is performed by Mr. Katsutoshi Kitamura, a cutting engineer at MIXER'S LAB, and he put his master craftsman skills into the master disc.
Analog Cutting Equipment:
• Cutting Lathe: Neumann VMS80
• Cutting Console: Neumann SP79C
• Cutter Amp: Neumann SAL74B
• Cutter Head: Neumann SX74
Today, it is rare to cut a lacquer disc just for audition purposes, as only master discs are cut for record pressing. However, in order to pursue sound quality, ESOTERIC created a number of lacquer discs with different transmission methods to the console.
Those lacquer discs created were taken back to the ESOTERIC Mastering Center to be auditioned and sound quality checked on ESOTERIC's Grandioso T1 analog turntable to determine the best transmission method.
This is how Esoteric created vinyl records extending the information contained in the original master tape, with a focus on the analog sound.
Remastering