Dpoirier
Fractal Fanatic
Greetings y'all!
There must be other dinosaurs here who still hold on to their high-end turntables and CD players? I'd like to see others chime in about their go-to recordings to audition audio equipment, impress your friends, or simply enjoy like a fine wine.
I'm not going to bother posting YouTube links for my favorites... because (even though it gives an idea of content) YouTube sound is total trash. I won't mind searching for any recommendations, however obscure, made by anyone here.
1-) Rickie-Lee Jones' first album (particularly the tracks "Last chance Texaco" and "Night train"). How this unknown artist (at the time) managed to get such pristine recording quality is mind-boggling.
2-) Steely Dan (anything from Gaucho or Aja). The precision, the clarity, and the super-wide sound stage that extends well beyond the width of your speaker placement is still a standard against which many other recordings are measured.
3-) Norah Jones (particularly her first album). Even though this was recorded with too much compression for my taste (to join in to the volume wars), the engineer managed to squeeze in incredible dynamics, thanks also to the amazing subtlety of all the contributing musicians.
4-) Holly Cole (specifically the song "Train song" from the album Temptation) - to give your system's low-end a serious workout, and for the amazing dynamics
5-) Ozric Tentacles (particularly the Technicians of the sacred album). This is a huge departure from everything else but it combines psychedelia, trance, electronics, and real and obscure native and "world" acoustic instruments, while providing a very pleasant audio imaging workout.
6-) Clarke - Di Meola - Ponty (Rites of strings). Just beautiful, all acoustic. Imaging is "artificial", but we forgive them.
7-) Patricia Barber (Companion album) for soundstage depth
Dave Grusin (direct-to-disc "Discovered again"), superb!
... and I am very fond of acoustic jazz recordings. I wish I could easily find some that have been recorded with the "dual microphone in front of the live performance" type, as these tend to have superb soundstage depth and height!
Suggestions anyone?
Oh, bonus question: a good web site to buy and sell quality audio equipment? I'm aware of Audiogon, Reverb, and canuckaudiomart, looking for broader reach. Thanks!
7-)
There must be other dinosaurs here who still hold on to their high-end turntables and CD players? I'd like to see others chime in about their go-to recordings to audition audio equipment, impress your friends, or simply enjoy like a fine wine.
I'm not going to bother posting YouTube links for my favorites... because (even though it gives an idea of content) YouTube sound is total trash. I won't mind searching for any recommendations, however obscure, made by anyone here.
1-) Rickie-Lee Jones' first album (particularly the tracks "Last chance Texaco" and "Night train"). How this unknown artist (at the time) managed to get such pristine recording quality is mind-boggling.
2-) Steely Dan (anything from Gaucho or Aja). The precision, the clarity, and the super-wide sound stage that extends well beyond the width of your speaker placement is still a standard against which many other recordings are measured.
3-) Norah Jones (particularly her first album). Even though this was recorded with too much compression for my taste (to join in to the volume wars), the engineer managed to squeeze in incredible dynamics, thanks also to the amazing subtlety of all the contributing musicians.
4-) Holly Cole (specifically the song "Train song" from the album Temptation) - to give your system's low-end a serious workout, and for the amazing dynamics
5-) Ozric Tentacles (particularly the Technicians of the sacred album). This is a huge departure from everything else but it combines psychedelia, trance, electronics, and real and obscure native and "world" acoustic instruments, while providing a very pleasant audio imaging workout.
6-) Clarke - Di Meola - Ponty (Rites of strings). Just beautiful, all acoustic. Imaging is "artificial", but we forgive them.
7-) Patricia Barber (Companion album) for soundstage depth
Dave Grusin (direct-to-disc "Discovered again"), superb!... and I am very fond of acoustic jazz recordings. I wish I could easily find some that have been recorded with the "dual microphone in front of the live performance" type, as these tend to have superb soundstage depth and height!
Suggestions anyone?
Oh, bonus question: a good web site to buy and sell quality audio equipment? I'm aware of Audiogon, Reverb, and canuckaudiomart, looking for broader reach. Thanks!
7-)
