MUSIC ⸜ review
text WOJCIECH PACUŁA
images “High Fidelity”
No 253
June 1, 2025
⌈ SAKURAPHON CD – Japanese label making reissues of vintage piano recordings with high fidelity transfer, minimal noise restoration and natural sound of mastering, founded by HISAO NATSUME. See: → www.DISCOGS.com ⌋
MUSIC RECORDED ON SHELLAC DISCS has mostly never been later transferred to either vinyl or digital records. While there are collections focusing only on records made of shellac and the like, spinning at 78 rpm, they are rather exclusive and enclosed. They serve only their owners and possibly their guests. The exceptions are public collections, such as those of the US Library of Congress or the Smithsonian Institution, which make digitized collections available. This is great, except that the sound quality of such recordings varies greatly and, in addition, they are not ours but borrowed.
The Japanese label Sakuraphon is among a small group of labels that have undertaken to bring such recordings to a wider audience. Run by Mr. Hisao Natsume, it offers restorations and remasters primarily from his extensive shellac collection. As he told us in an interview published in High Fidelity in January this year, he aims to release all valuable 78 rpm discs, i.e. around 6000~7000 records which he has collected in his life; more → HERE.
The medium of choice is the Compact Disc – the most popular music medium in the history of humankind. He digitalizes the material himself, using Joplin Mk 3 and Mutec MC3+ USB AD/DA converters and recording the signal on hardware DSD recorders: the TEAC SD-500HR and Korg MR-2000S. He then copies the signal onto a computer, where he removes crackles and noise using the CEDAR (Computer Enhanced Digital Audio Restoration) and iZotope RX processes. The signal must first be converted to PCM 88.2 kHz, 32 bits (float), already on the computer.
The main signal source is 78 rpm shellac discs, less often 33.3 rpm. However, Mr. Natsume also uses tapes provided by relevant institutions, most often containing historical, never-before-released recordings from radio broadcasts or from private recordings and recitals. In this article we will take a look at all of these methods.
We would like to present you the four latest albums from the Sakupahon catalog:
˻ I ˺ LEO SIROTA W.A. Mozart Recital Vol.1 ⸜ 2025
˻ II ˺ LEO SIROTA L.V Beethoven Sonatas Vol. 1 ⸜ 2024
˻ III ˺ Pulpils if Leschetizky Vol. 6 ⸜ 2024
˻ IV ˺ AUGUSTE de RADWAN Complete Recordings ⸜ 2024
The first two are transcriptions from tapes. The Mozart recording is from a tape recorded from a radio, presumably on AM medium waves. Allan Evans (Arbiter of Cultural Traditions) was responsible for the transfer from tape. Along with the disc, we receive an extensive interesting essay by Sarah Davis Buechner and a short biography of Leo Sirota by James Irsay. Also, the Beethoven Sonatas… were transferred from “master” tapes from the Leo Sirota Archive. The same authors were responsiblefor transferring the sound from the records to a digital form and for the essay.
The next two albums contain sound from shellac discs and 33.3 rpm LPs. Auguste de Radwan Complete Recordings consists of two records – a shellac and an LP one. In both cases, the Sakuraphon owner was responsible for the transfer and mastering. They have been assigned a slightly different logo informing the listener about the sound source. It's an upside-down equilateral triangle with the letter “M” in the center, saying that it's mono material. As for the shellac disc remasters, the number “78” appears above it, for LPs it's “33,” and for tape remasters – “Reel Tape.” The discs also feature different printing: “78” are discs imitating vinyl, with a ‘lining’ beautifully prepared by Mr. Hisao, while ‘tapes’ have an image of a tape reel.
It looks very nice – after all, the label owner is a graphic designer. He also designs the covers and booklets that accompany the albums. They are exceptionally tasteful and all other publishers would benefit from having such an artist among their staff. The releases do not have a box, only paper booklets into which an envelope with the disc and a plastic pouch for the disc are put. The envelope is the color of wrapping paper – this is what shellac disc packaging looked like. Let me add that the discs were pressed in Korea – I assume the idea was to cut costs. Sakuraphon is a tiny one-man venture dealing with an ultra-niche subject, so the expenses must be as low as possible for it to make any sense at all.
▌ THE SOUND
THE WAY WE LISTENED • The Sakuraphon records were listened to in the HIGH FIDELITY reference system, on the Ayon Audio CD-35 HF Edition SACD player accompanied with the Ayon Audio Spheris Evo preamplifier, the Soulution 710 power amplifier and Harbeth M40.1 speakers.
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˻ I ˺ LEO SIROTA W.A Mozart Recital Vol. 1
WHAT AMAZES ME when I listen to recordings from Sakuraphon is skilfully selected balance between interfering with the sound material and preserving its vitality. In the case of Sirota's recital, it certainly helped that there was no need to work on eliminating the crackle and noise of the shellac disc. But it is, after all, still a tape recording from an AM radio station, and that means noise, narrow frequency response and distortion.
Listening to the CD reissue, one can hear that it is material of this type, and yet it does not irritate the listener or obscure the music. The biggest problem, by the way, turns out not to be noise, but copying. A cassette tape that is probably thin and has been lying around for many years without any maintenance, tends to become secondarily magnetized by adjacent reels of tape. This is most often audible in the form of pre-echo, just like here.
However, it is not a nuisance, and even adds beauty to the recordings. This is because they have a bandwidth limited to the midrange, or rather its higher part, and the reverberation of the room from which the sound was transmitted is short. Pre-echo makes the sound appear larger and more spacious than one would expect from a monophonic, “dry” source material.
However, the most important thing is that the tonal balance has been skillfully adjusted. This is sound based on the upper midrange from around 800 Hz-1 kHz, and yet it is not bright. I would even say it's somewhat velvety. There is no lower bass and no high treble, but also both extremes seem to work well with the midrange. Indeed, the sound of the piano is smooth, pleasant and nice.
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˻ II ˺ LEO SIROTA L.V Beethoven Sonatas Vol. 1
THE SOURCE MATERIAL for this reissue is better than in the case of the previous album. An archival tape differs from a radio broadcast recording, and it can be heard right away. The sound is bigger and more saturated. It also has a lower tonal balance, with more low midrange and less upper midrange. Interestingly, the difference between the two records doesn't seem as big as one might expect. And this shows how good W.A. Mozart Recital Vol. 1 sounds.
The condition of the archival tapes may be the problem here. In slower passages you can hear slight vibrations – a distortion known as wow&flutter. They are not large, but if you listen closely, you will pick them out. This is, by the way, a different type of recording. The previous one was a broadcast from a concert, and here we have a studio recording, made perhaps in amateur conditions, but still.
The sound on this album is built at a certain distance from us. This is done not by reducing its volume, but because of more sounds determining the pre-echo – not that resulting from copying the tape, but from the acoustics of the room. At the same time, however, it's intimate sound. Sirota can make use of pauses and silence in his performance, which blends nicely with the type of sound. This is not a microscopic glimpse into the instrument, but a recital listened to from the middle of a small room, with a good view of the pianist. The sound is louder than on the previous album, due to the higher volume.
˻ III ˺ Pulpils if Leschetizky Vol. 6
WITH THE ALBUM Pupils of Leschetizky Vol. 6 we are entering the “proper” world of the Sakuraphon label. I'm not saying that the two previous discs were “wrong”, but they were still less typical. After all, the material for the recordings selected for the sixth album of Leschetizky's students' performances comes from 78 rpm shellac discs.
The change is, of course, huge. It involves a lot of noise in the recording, which would normally disqualify any release, but not this one. After all, we know what to expect, and we take it at face value. Muted pauses between the tracks are a bit annoying, as I would have left the noise everywhere, but I am not the record producer.
Anyway, we expect noise and noise we get. But it comes with very cool sound. It's cool because it's big, has high energy and lacks something “electronic” that only disappears with the best recordings from the days of tape and microphones. It's also really clear. Mr. Hisao Natsume, who remastered the recordings, has almost completely eliminated crackling and distortion other than noise. Every now and then you can hear slight distortion due to compression, but very rarely.
It is also important that the recordings differ from one another, depending on what album they were copied from. Their common features are smoothness and sonority combined with non-mechanical sound. However, they do differ in tone color – Chopin’s Mazurek No. 47 by Jan Cherniavsky is brighter than Nocturne No. 2 by Leo Paul Schramm, while Valse No. 7 played next is darker and comes from a clearly less well-preserved record. It also features highly audible low-range modulation.
Nevertheless, it is similar thinking about sound as something that is not meant to irritate and attack, while maintaining good selectivity. We enter this world without blinking an eye.
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˻ IV ˺ AUGUSTE de RADWAN Complete Recordings
THE RECORDS FROM THE LABEL collecting all known recordings of Auguste de Radwan are two albums that differ from each other in terms of the source and sound quality. The disc with shellac transcriptions is quite noisy, but less than Pupils of Leschetizky Vol. 6. The noise also seems more spectrally limited, as if there is much less energy going into the highs.
The musical message is quite dry and you can hear that the recording took place in a small room without additional reverberation devices. But it is a very direct message: strong, large and dynamic. It is surprising to find quite a lot of higher bass in it, which should not be there at all. The recordings are different from each other, that's obvious. In the intro to Chopin’s Waltz No. 2 we have stronger distortion, along with pronounced losses in the substance of the record. In contrast, in the fragment from Piano Concerto No. 1 the noise is stronger in the treble.
The other disc, containing 33.3 rpm and tape transcriptions, is similar to what we hear on W.A. Mozart Recital Vol. 1 and totally different from the recordings on Pupils of Leschetizky Vol. 6. The sound is far less noisy and, thanks to it, the sound is much clearer and more present. These are recordings similar in expression to what I have heard before from Leo Sirota’s W.A. Mozart Recital Vol. 1, i.e. a transcript of a radio recording on tape.
The lack of crackling is obvious, but it was the low noise that surprised me the most. And it's not about aggressively cutting it out, because on the previous album it was high and one could hear that Hisao-san doesn't fight it at all costs. Here you can simply hear records that have been much better preserved. There is low hum, as if coming from the motor of a notching machine used to make the acetate. Overall, though, this is again a smooth, velvety musical message with nice energy and sonority.
▌ Conclusions
WHILE THE RECORDINGS discussed above vary in sound quality, what remains after listening is something that can be called fulfilment. Pretty soon the noise becomes less intrusive, or at least we perceive it in a different way than at first. The sound that remains is almost touching because of the fact that it actually shouldn't be there at all. The Sakuraphon remaster brings it back, almost literally, to life. ●
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You can buy Sakuraphon CDs directly from its website:
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