How do you "flex" or show nuance of your music system for visitors?

[jadis]

Tape and analog!


Mallets, Melody and Mayhem: Columbia LP

Any cut in particular? Side 1 or Side 2. Mine would be Side 2, cuts 3 and 4. Canon for Percussion and Parade. I have a 'Demo Copy' Stereo 6 eye.

 

[jadis]

Lately, I've been using Michael Hedges 'Aerial Boundaries' LP to demo my system to visitors. I was playing this as warm up music and eventually leading to some M&K D2Ds like Fatha and For Duke, and after the that, my visitor said to me, what's that first guitar album you played? I want to buy that.

 

[Dre_J]

With regards to the brewing digital vs. analog sparing starting in the thread

You know… If I were a moderator, I’d ask that we please try to stick with the Ops original intent for this thread.

Since I’m not, I’ll take a different approach and ask "can't we all get along?" for a brief moment. The intent was/is to just list very good music you would play for visitors as phrased here. It doesn’t matter if it is digital or analog. Surely this is one thread where we can leave the Digital vs. analog debate/discussion out of the picture. Isn’t it?

In an effort to show good will and prove to some of my friends that I do actually listen to music on formats other than vinyl, I submit the following CD/SACD for demo listening and more importantly just plain good music.

The Ray Brown Trio – Live At The LOA (summer Wind) – Concord SACD/CD

Wynton Marsalis Quartet – The Magic Hour – Blue Note CD

The Coryells – The Coryells – Chesky SACD/CD

Greg Brown – The Poet Game – Red House Records CD

Eric Bibb, Rory Block, Maria Muldaur – Sisters & Brothers – Telarc SACD/CD

All are awesome Digitally played back performances from these artists. I like each and every one of these albums particularly for their performance as well as sound quality. I think I can almost promise that these won't make your ears bleed either.

Dre (in peacemaker mode )

 

[Dre_J]

Lately, I've been using Michael Hedges 'Aerial Boundaries' LP to demo my system to visitors.

That's in my Guitar list going up in a day or two. Very good LP.

Dre

 

[Dre_J]

Will do. I have gotten the bass a little better since your visit. I'm pretty darn happy with the system overall.

Sean

Looking forward to my next trip to the great northwest.

Dre

 

[puroagave]

Lately, I've been using Michael Hedges 'Aerial Boundaries' LP to demo my system to visitors. I was playing this as warm up music and eventually leading to some M&K D2Ds like Fatha and For Duke, and after the that, my visitor said to me, what's that first guitar album you played? I want to buy that.

fwiw, aerial bounderies is DDD. michael hedges was one of the most copied (and revered) acoustic guitar players of the '80s early nineties (see youtube for endless ragamuffin covers). i feel fortunate to have seen him play montezuma hall at SDSU eons ago. RIP michael.

 

[Dre_J]

Dre-I'm still thinking about it, but I promise I will post my thoughts. I have some ideas for sure. In the old days, it would have been the standard list of audiophile chestnuts, but not now. If you ever do make it to Bloomington and manage to come to my house, aside from a great meal and the beverage()s of your choice, I'm pretty sure that within my collection of music I will have plenty of things to put a smile on your face.

And Dre, I hope you have seen some of the jazz LPs I have mentioned here on WBF as being outstanding music and recordings (IMO of course). I would pretty much put most of my jazz LPs in the "must hear" category.

I'm patiently waiting. I'll have to go searching for your mentions in the past.

Dre

 

[MylesBAstor]

Any cut in particular? Side 1 or Side 2. Mine would be Side 2, cuts 3 and 4. Canon for Percussion and Parade. I have a 'Demo Copy' Stereo 6 eye.

Side 2 track 2 is my reference cut for reviewing. Then side 2 track 4.

 

[audioarcher]

Looking forward to my next trip to the great northwest.

Dre

Cool. Your welcome anytime.

 

[jadis]

fwiw, aerial bounderies is DDD. michael hedges was one of the most copied (and revered) acoustic guitar players of the '80s early nineties (see youtube for endless ragamuffin covers). i feel fortunate to have seen him play montezuma hall at SDSU eons ago. RIP michael.

yes, a case of 'digital done right'.

 

[audioarcher]

Digging Aaron Neville-Warm Your Heart 45 rpm reissue right now.

Here's some digital.

James Taylor - Hourglass Track 4 Gaia in particular. SACD
Sara K - Hell or High Water. SACD
Nils Lofgren - Acoustic Live CD. I know your sick of it if you go to audio shows.
Crown Imperial Dallas Wind Symphony. RR HRX 176.4/24
Godsmack -The Other Side. Acoustic SACD

 

[Groucho]

You know… If I were a moderator, I’d ask that we please try to stick with the Ops original intent for this thread.

Sorry. I did try to make sure my posts were civil and non-personal, and were vaguely on topic by mentioning that one's choice of source might influence how well the system was flexed, and hence how impressive one's visitors found it. But you're right: the debate should go on elsewhere.

 

[Groucho]

And if I were in the mood to have my ears bleed, I'd listen to some '80s digital gear.

This is precisely one of the questions I'm interested in over at the Early Digital Recordings thread. Was it really so bad? Care to move on over there?

 

[Dre_J]

Sorry. I did try to make sure my posts were civil and non-personal, and were vaguely on topic by mentioning that one's choice of source might influence how well the system was flexed, and hence how impressive one's visitors found it. But you're right: the debate should go on elsewhere.

I did understand your approach and comments. They were carefully worded. After seeing a few posts I could see where things were going and I didn’t want the thread to go down that all too familiar rabbit hole of a debate. My approach was one of trying to put those differences aside and come to the table for some fun.

So far I’ve appreciated every post to the thread, including yours. I hope to see more from everybody. This topic, in this context isn’t discussed as specifically often. It is really a curiosity for me since it combines our love of music and the delivery system in the context of how we share it with first-time or infrequent visitors.

Dre

 

[Groucho]

Here's some digital.

...Crown Imperial Dallas Wind Symphony. RR HRX 176.4/24

Excellent! Very nice piece and recording. Some extremely deep bass in there, and another one of those "bass drums heard around the world" at the end.

 

[mep]

Digital - Ray Brown Trio Live at the LOA (DSD sourced). Talk about nuance. This album has it all and if this doesn't make your system sound mellow, sweet, dynamic, three-dimensional, live, make you feel like you are in the club, and every other positive audiophile adjective you can think of, something is seriously amiss.

Analog:

Herb Alpert LP "Rotation" on MFSL and the demo song is "Rotation." Very dynamic, deep bass, great trumpet sound that will knock the dust off of your ceiling.

Secret Policeman's Ball 1979 - Pete Townsend playing "Pinball Wizard" solo with acoustic guitar and singing live. This is simply a phenomenal sounding recording. The speed and attack of Townsend's guitar playing and his singing brings new joy to this classic song. This is as close as you can come to being at a Pete Townsend concert without being there.

Chicago Transit Authority's first LP - The cut "I'm a Man" on the original Columbia pressing is as good as it gets. It nails the sound from the bottom to the top. The opening bass line is instantly recognizable, the lead guitar work is killer (there is a reason that Jimi Hendrix said his favorite guitarist was Terry Kath), the drum work is great and sounds about as realistic as it gets on a recording which is really, really, good. If you love rock and roll and you own a turntable and don't own this record, shame on you.

The Beatles White Album - "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except For Me and My Monkey" is a great sounding cut and I don't give a damn what anyone says who never owned a good copy of this LP and a good turntable, cartridge, and arm to play it back with. I am specifically referring to the Swedish EMI Parlaphone copy that is part of one of my BC-13 boxed sets that I have owned for well over 25 years and have played the dog snot out of and it still sounds great. It just has a really good presence with live sounding bass and guitar work and some guy named John Lennon singing lead vocals that sounds like you are right there with him. Top to bottom, another great rock recording.

For good measure, I'm going to add another LP and that would be Sonny Rollins "Way out West." Pick a song, any song, and you can't go wrong (and yeah, I'm a poet too). Seriously, this entire recording sounds great and blows me away. I bragged on this recording on this forum years ago and had some digital naysayers who never owned and never heard the Analog Productions version tell me that the recording was "just OK" and "nothing special." Sorry, they are dead wrong. This recording is something special and I still feel like it is something special every time I listen to it. It still blows me away that this recording was made in 1957. There is a reason that I said this recording should be a mandatory listening requirement for all wannabe recording engineers so they can hear what was laid down in 1957 with primitive reel to reel gear, tube microphones, and tube playback electronics and judge their recording abilities and how they are advancing the state of the art accordingly. Good luck with that.

 

[jazdoc]

For good measure, I'm going to add another LP and that would be Sonny Rollins "Way out West." Pick a song, any song, and you can't go wrong (and yeah, I'm a poet too). Seriously, this entire recording sounds great and blows me away. I bragged on this recording on this forum years ago and had some digital naysayers who never owned and never heard the Analog Productions version tell me that the recording was "just OK" and "nothing special." Sorry, they are dead wrong. This recording is something special and I still feel like it is something special every time I listen to it. It still blows me away that this recording was made in 1957. There is a reason that I said this recording should be a mandatory listening requirement for all wannabe recording engineers so they can hear what was laid down in 1957 with primitive reel to reel gear, tube microphones, and tube playback electronics and judge their recording abilities and how they are advancing the state of the art accordingly. Good luck with that.

Absolutely agreed. It will cost you an arm and a leg, but an original pressing kicks the crap out of the Analogue Productions.

You may want to track down an original of "Gettin' Together" or "Smack Up!" by Art Pepper on Contemporary. The Contemporary recordings are amongst the best sounding in my library...I've literally had people slack jawed when I tell them the records are originals and over 50 years old!

You might also like "Sonny Rollins and The Contemporary Leaders"...

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

First, that wasn't Phoebe Snow as far as I know. I think it was Alicia Bridges, and I am unaware that Ms. Snow covered that song. If you are saying that Phoebe reminds you of that, well, I can't help you there, Mep.
Ms. Snow was more of a folk-pop singer, who had a huge hit with Poetry Man, but had a bunch of other songs that were quite good. She is still, perhaps, an acquired taste, so i'm not going to try to convince you otherwise.
Now, you ******, I have that stupid disco song stuck in my head. What's that called, when a song gets stuck in your brain?
Ugh!

"Teach Me Tonight" is another track that got tremendous play, to name but one. It's a cover of a 1954 song by the De Castro Sisters. I'm not sure if she's an acquired taste as she is very easy to listen to and her voice just draws you in. YMMV though.

Bill. I stand corrected. You are right. The song I was thinking of was sung by Alicia Bridges so therefore I'm wide open to getting some Phoebe Snow music.

Get her S/T debut Mark.

 

[MylesBAstor]

Absolutely agreed. It will cost you an arm and a leg, but an original pressing kicks the crap out of the Analogue Productions.

You may want to track down an original of "Gettin' Together" or "Smack Up!" by Art Pepper on Contemporary. The Contemporary recordings are amongst the best sounding in my library...I've literally had people slack jawed when I tell them the records are originals and over 50 years old!

You might also like "Sonny Rollins and The Contemporary Leaders"...

I think saying the originals kick the reissues in the ass is a little bit of an overstatement. I've done comparisons of a number of the original black label Contemporary vs. the AP and while there's a difference, the AP sound damn good. To wit The Poll Winners 45 rpm transfer is very, very good. And the AP on average were better transfers than say the Classic LPs were of titles.

OTOH, try and find a Contemporary (or for that matter any) jazz LP in good shape. Rots of ruck. I'd say my return rate for jazz LPs was around 80-90 pct. until hooked up with some better dealers. Jazz collectors actually played their LPs to death; classical lovers seem to have played them once and then put the album on the shelf. But even then it's a crap shoot vs. getting say original classical lps. The biggest thing that I currently look for in the picture of an LP online is wear around the spindle hole.

 

[jazdoc]

I think saying the originals kick the reissues in the ass is a little bit of an overstatement. I've done comparisons of a number of the original black label Contemporary vs. the AP and while there's a difference, the AP sound damn good. To wit The Poll Winners 45 rpm transfer is very, very good. And the AP on average were better transfers than say the Classic LPs were of titles.

OTOH, try and find a Contemporary (or for that matter any) jazz LP in good shape. Rots of ruck. I'd say my return rate for jazz LPs was around 80-90 pct. until hooked up with some better dealers. Jazz collectors actually played their LPs to death; classical lovers seem to have played them once and then put the album on the shelf. But even then it's a crap shoot vs. getting say original classical lps. The biggest thing that I currently look for in the picture of an LP online is wear around the spindle hole.

Just for the 'record' (heh, heh), I said the originals kick the crap out of the very good AP releases . When I want to listen to "The Poll Winners", I invariably reach for my original mono over the AP reissue (which sounds very, very good). BTW, the subsequent releases by The Poll Winners are also very good sonically and for musical content.

As to original pressings, I'll paraphrase "I'd rather pay a fair price for a great copy than a great price for a fair copy"...