It ain't just about sound quality... (1 Viewer)

[Mike Broadman]

No, it's also about the music.

Right now I'm groovin' to Chesky's New York Reunion SACD- but not SACD, it's a ripped version of the redbook layer on my Nomad Jukebox mp3 player. McCoy Tyner is one of my favorite piano players (and taking a then-girlfriend to one of his performances at the Blue Note made her stop hating jazz ). And on this disc Joe Henderson is on particularly good form, playing with much gusto. His solo on Ask Me Know is real, man, like down, ya know? Dig it.

Hats' off to the production- Foster's drum cymbals are sweet. And, of course, mad love to my fourth fave bass player ever, Ron Carter, holding down the mountain for the Titans to play on.

This is just such a great session musically. Thing is, it was probably the SACD aspect of it that got me to buy it. With jazz there are just so many recordings out there that I doubt I would have seeked this out over many other good ones. Tyner's output alone is daunting (the ones I do have are so good, though, especially The Real McCoy).

Ah, now the band is doing a nice, mella groove on A Quick Stretch. Shit, they're tight.

Hey, Lee, if you're ever in on another session like this, can I hang out? I'll even play on it if you want.


St Thomas on Sonny Rollins' Saxophone Colossus album- is that not the hippest think ever? Yeah, it is, 'xcept maybe the the douible-shot swing-athon whammy on of "Tune Up/When Lights Are Low" on Miles' Fab 5 closing workout on Cookin' (both found as hybrid SACDs from Analogue Productions in my venerable collection of round silver saucers that bring music).

You know what's a mighty damn fun album?- A Night at the Opera by Queen. Great to listen to when lazing on a Sunday afternoon, especially with the DVD-A belting out half-a-dozen dubbed Mercuries from all over your room on Prophet Song.

Say, the Dylan guy could write some pretty nifty songs, eh?

I've been an avid listener of Stravinsky's symphonic work for a while but hadn't really heard his violin concerto until picking up Hillary Hahn's delightful rendition on Sony's SACD.
The San Francisco Symphony's breathtaking performances of Mahler's symphonies have made me one of the Mahler faithful. 90 minute long symphonies, brash brass, sweeping epic preposterous arrangements- I love it, almost as much as I cherish the multitude of George Szell recordings that Sony released on SACD. His readings of Beethoven very much "agrees" with my extremely non-professional understanding of the music (I got a 57 on a high school music appreciation test, but that was still one of the top grades in the class!)

This is me enjoying the music part of high-res music...

 

[Kraig Lang]

Huzzah!!!

That's all. Have a good day

 

[Jeff Keene]

Oh god, is this going be yet ANOTHER thread about how music is good and...

Wha?

Thanks for this, Mike. I always appreciate your perspective. I'm currently listening to Bjork - Post, on CD on a little Sony bookshelf thingy in my office, and I'm loving it.

 

[Mike Broadman]

Bjork- you know, I've always been meaning to listen to what that chick does. I think I only heard like one song. She seems to be one of the weird ones...

 

[gregD]

That she is... and that is indeed a good thing.

Took a couple tries for her to sink in, but now she's a keeper!

There's none of what I usually like in her music... no virtuoso guitar wankery (no guitars at all), big emphasis on vocals and her formidable poetry / lyrics, set in a throb-y, synth-y atmosphere... lotsa atmosphere.

Nothing else like it... do yourself a favor and continue your hi-res enjoyment with her latest studio disc Vespertine on DVD-A.

 

[John Watson]

My Percy Mayfield disk from Rhino Handmade arrived yesterday.

Some of the liner notes deal with Dylan's admiration for the largely unknown poet of the blues, the aforementioned Percy Mayfield.

The disk has 28 tracks, and it's almost too much. To squeeze it all in, there is only a 2 second or so silence between tracks.

Some heavy lyrics about booze and suicide and the deep voice, (fretless?) bass, organ, etc.

It's almost symphony of sorrow. (I would have left a few tracks out, and given a 6 or 7 second pause between tracks, but Rhino wanted to give us everything they had, for which I have to be grateful.)

But the disk is capped with two tracks from Atlantic in the early 1970's that have a humourous and uplifting quality , (which I had on an Atlantic Blues LP from the 80's.)

There is amazing separation and clarity in the sound, like most of the Ray Charles 60's music recorded in the same places.

Someday I gotta have a decent sound room, with space for this music, but someday, baby!

 

[Mike Broadman]

Ah, Percy Mayfield! Another artist who's music I've been meaning to hear.

With the death of local small record stores, I have to figure out a new way to listen to albums without buying it.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

As I posted recently, it's all about the music!

As a gear head and business strategy guy, I definitely spend a lot of time discussing recording gear and sampling rates, but you know what? If we weren't producing good music, this stuff would not matter at all.

Maybe we should spend more time talking about great albums here and exploring & broadening (or is it Broadmaning ) our musical horizons.

And while I still prefer Super Audio, there are some amzing performances and sonic quality on DVD-Audio, and redbook has some great ones too! As a music fan I don't want to miss anything so I have a SACD player, a DVDA player, a fine redbook player, and an old Sony DVD player I use for playing 24/96 DADs.

By the way Mike, check out the Jazz at Oberlin College disc by Dave Brubeck.

 

[Mike Broadman]

It is now.
That's what you get, HTF, for making us use your real names.


OK, speaking of music (there's a redundant phrase for this forum if I ever wrote one), everyone should pick up a copy of the new Blue Note release of Art Blakey's Indestructable album. Classic Art playing classic music. Classic.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

Well the DADs play on my DVDA player, but I have a Sony DVD 7700 flagship player where the video chip died and I have been too lazy to get it fixed yet, so I figure why not get some audio use out of it? surprisingly good DACs for a DVD player...

Mike,

Do you have any of these new Art Pepper albums people are raving about? Apparently more stellar work from APO...

 

[Mike Broadman]

No, I only have Meets the Rhythm Section, which was released earlier. It's great, and I'm sure the new ones sound just as solid.

I've been very lax on my SACD acquisitions because the player is in storage. I'm into collecting box sets and DCC gold right now.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

DCC Gold is generally good. Prices can be high however.

 

[Sheldon C]

Speaking of DCC Gold, do you guys know where to find these? About 10 years ago I bought a gold disk of Ride the Lightning at Best Buy. I had crappy equipment so I couldn't really tell much of a difference; figured it was a rip-off. Years later on better speakers I could really tell when I compared it to my roomates regular copy.

I am kicking myself now for not buying other Metallica albums in gold. I know for certain that Best Buy was also selling Master of Puppets and either Justice or Kill em all. If only I had known better...:frowning:

 

[Jeff Keene]

http://store.acousticsounds.com/ has a lot of them.

 

[LanceJ]

FYI: I wish I could remember who this was said about (I think I read this in Stereophile, about five years ago) but here it is anyway: a well-known audio equipment reviewer back in the 70s was asked why he used a simple H.H. Scott integrated amp and AR(?) speakers for the core of his own home listening system, despite the fact that he knew of and could afford much better equipment. His reply was that after 8 hours of analyzing sound at work it was a relief to come home and just listen to the music itself, because with his home system, he knew it had sonic problems so he didn't have to worry if any were there or not.

I've had many similar personal experiences like his, such as: numerous trips with my and others lousy car stereos with cracked whizzer cone-equipped 6X9's; beach trips with just a little single-speaker FM radio; or listening to my $40 CD boombox while making beer-battered onion rings in the kitchen (last night!). During these times I completely enjoy hearing my music, sometimes more so than when it's played through my "good" system. And why? I really believe its because I'm still subconsciously critiqueing(sp) my good system. This happens too much to simply be my imagination.

This concept makes up part of my set of beliefs about the field of home audio in general, in case anyone wonders why I post some seemingly weird advice from time to time.

LJ

 

[FeisalK]

AMEN

(I just got my copy today, they didn't release it here )

 

[Lee Scoggins]

I think I know what you mean. Every audiophile and music lover wants to keep constantly upgrading his/her system and sometimes thinking about all the million possible component mixes can be distracting. I think this sometimes results from systems that might be "bright" or otherwise unsatisfying after a long listen. I have certainly gone through this. I had a real hard time when I just listened to redbook playback.

With me, It took several years before I assembled a satisfying system. I think hirez has really brought me back into enjoying the music as much as ever. While I still do an occasional upgrade, I mostly just collect SACDs and DVDAs that are good. It seems like I can listen over and over to DSOTM (SACD) or Kamakiriad (DVDA), so both formats seem to work on me.

I would suggest from an audiophile standpoint, these may be some key ingredients for a satisfying system, based on 20+ years in audio:

1. Speakers with good coherence. I find that speakers that have smooth transitions between drivers or in my case (Maggies) driver panels are easy on the ears.

2. A good clean source. I mentioned Super Audio and DVD-Audio above but a good turntable is hard to beat for natural warmth.

3. Good room acoustics. Listening rooms are an important factor.

4. Enough clean current as opposed to power. Many system's seem to suffer from not enough juice to get the best out of the speakers. Current is always more important that raw watt power numbers. There also seems to be certain speaker/amp combos that are magic, such as the Audio Research/Magnepan combo I enjoy.

So I guess I'm agreeing with Lance that having a system that you don't need to worry about from a satisfaction standpoint is important, but I am also suggesting that high end (but not always high cost by the way) systems can also fit the bill.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

Not every music lover.

 

[Marc Colella]

Agreed.

I have a friend who writes music reviews for a few magazines, interviews artists, plays in a band and has over 3000 CDs in his collection... and his system cant be worth more than $600 CAD.

Most of his friends are also in the industry in one way or another, and they're in the same boat.

None of these guys have any desire to upgrade - and haven't done so in years.

 

[Kevin C Brown]

I used to be like this. And then I discovered HTF. But I'm actually trying to get back to just enjoying what I have vs always trying to find the next, best thing.

It *is* just the music that matters. The hardware is just a means to that end.