I got a chance to listen to the four tapes today as well as compare the Music from Argentina tape with the Yarlung record. To cut to the chase, the tapes all are quite excellent in sound quality. The Argentina tape is a big step better than the vinyl, which is quite fine. As is typical, the tape gets you closer to what I think is the sound of the master tape. Bob Attiyeh dubs each tape to order, 15ips 2 track, CCIR EQ, tails out on RMGI SM468 2500' 1/4 inch reels. He emailed me after my order that it would take him about a week to do the tapes, since he had a recording session to do. All the artists are new or relatively unknown and Bob has recorded them in different LA area venues. Steve Hoffman and Bob were the mastering engineers and in one album Kevin Gray as was a mastering engineer. As mentioned earlier, the tapes have between 28 and 32 minutes of content each, about 2/3 of the content of the corresponding albums. It appears that Bob uses a very simple recording system - all analogue. The packaging is much simpler and less elegant than the TP. He reuses the RMGI boxes, with printed labels on the cover, spine and reel. A copy of the album artwork is enclosed as well as liner notes, modified for the shortened content. The reels are also the original RMGI SM468 metal NAB hubs. There are no spliced leaders and the tapes are loose on the reels.
A few specific comments: Aside from the Argentina tape, the other three titles are all classical, with each one having at least one piece that is being debuted or was written for the performers. There are also other 20th century pieces on all of the albums. There are two earlier pieces - the Bach Cello Suite 1 on one album, and the Beethoven String Trio Op9No3 on another. The classical artists were supported by the Yarlung Artists Foundation which is a non-profit 501(c)(3) funded by contributions. Interestingly, the production of one of the tape releases, the Janaki String Trio album, was underwritten by Arian and Sophia Jansen.
An interesting coincidence. The violist of the Janaki String Trio is Katie Kadarauch, who at 32, is my daughter's age. They played in the Oakland Youth Orchestra at the same time in the early '90's. I used to carpool to drive my daughter and Katie to the orchestra practice, since their family lives in the same town as we do. Her dad, David, is the long time principal cellist of the San Francisco Opera and Ballet orchestras. Katie was quite a prodigy. She was principal cellist of the orchestra in her first year (as a fifth grader when most of the orchestra members were in high school or even in college). When the conductor needed a strong leader for the second violin section her second year, he asked her to switch to principal second violin. Her third year, she transferred over to the San Francisco Youth Orchestra, and played the viola. Since 2007, Katie has been assistant principal violist for the San Francisco Symphony.
I would recommend buying the tapes as an adjunct to the TP tapes. The artists and repertoire are very different, and they very much complement the releases of the TP at a reasonable price for what you get. They also add more classical music, mostly modern classical, to the 15ips, 2 tr CCIR, tails out catalog.
Thanks, Larry