I listen to a lot of classical music (the romantic period is my favorite) on my home audio system. I love the sound of a big symphony. It really stresses the audio reproduction in a way that few other things do, and it's so rewarding when everything falls into place, from the performance, the recording, and the playback. Unfortunately, some of my favorite pieces / performances have recordings that are flawed in some way. I find that if the background noise is too high, it takes me out of my zone. Also, if the spectral balance is off then I can't comfortably listen at high levels.
As an audiophile, I appreciate the conflicting desire to reduce excessive background noise while maintaining perfect fidelity of the underlying music. I tried a few commercial noise reduction products, and found that they weren't well suited for classical music. If I configured them to substantially reduce the background noise, they were always detrimental to the music, or introduced artifacts that were as offensive (or more) than the noise. In the end I wrote my own, and have been very satisfied with the results.
For years I've been de-noising music in my classical library. I recently started rebalancing the spectra as well. It occurred to me that others might appreciate this "remastering" of the music, so I started posting results to my youtube channel. I have a few audiophile favorites on there (Saint Saens Organ Symphony, for example), and feel that all the pieces I've done had a lot of potential, and with the minor issues addressed they have become very enjoyable and useful for appreciating a good playback system.
Here's the channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/alexdlrg
Here's the 1st movement of the Saint Saens Organ Symphony (noise reduction only, balance was good). The second movement can be found on the channel. I always post every movement to a piece.
Here's Borodin's Polovtsian Dances. (Incredible soundstage, recorded in 1966!)
If anyone can think of a recording that would benefit from some noise reduction and/or spectral rebalancing, please let me know. If I like the piece enough to add it to my library, I'll likely try my hand at "fixing" whatever is deficient.
As an audiophile, I appreciate the conflicting desire to reduce excessive background noise while maintaining perfect fidelity of the underlying music. I tried a few commercial noise reduction products, and found that they weren't well suited for classical music. If I configured them to substantially reduce the background noise, they were always detrimental to the music, or introduced artifacts that were as offensive (or more) than the noise. In the end I wrote my own, and have been very satisfied with the results.
For years I've been de-noising music in my classical library. I recently started rebalancing the spectra as well. It occurred to me that others might appreciate this "remastering" of the music, so I started posting results to my youtube channel. I have a few audiophile favorites on there (Saint Saens Organ Symphony, for example), and feel that all the pieces I've done had a lot of potential, and with the minor issues addressed they have become very enjoyable and useful for appreciating a good playback system.
Here's the channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/alexdlrg
Here's the 1st movement of the Saint Saens Organ Symphony (noise reduction only, balance was good). The second movement can be found on the channel. I always post every movement to a piece.
Here's Borodin's Polovtsian Dances. (Incredible soundstage, recorded in 1966!)
If anyone can think of a recording that would benefit from some noise reduction and/or spectral rebalancing, please let me know. If I like the piece enough to add it to my library, I'll likely try my hand at "fixing" whatever is deficient.
Last edited:
Paray and Munch are my usual goto recordings for this work.
