Albums you like the sound of

Kebabkid · June 2014

Wynton Marsalis - Standard Time Volume 1 *

* I used a track from this album to demo a pair of Harbeth monitors I was selling. The guy bought the speakers maybe 2 minutes into the track.......

I'd heard that Tracey Chapman's debut album and Fleetwood Mac's "Tango in the night" were benchmarks for speaker testing.

Skipped · June 2014

Kebabkid said:

I'd heard that Tracey Chapman's debut album and Fleetwood Mac's "Tango in the night" were benchmarks for speaker testing.

There was a point when I suppose I was a Hi-Fi nut and I eventually realised that speakers that sound great with female vocals are a good bet for long term listening.
The Harbeths were very, very revealing (used by the BBC to monitor Eastenders I believe) and with well recorded trumpet were startling. But you have to decide if the purpose of your music system is for your mates to say "Holy Shit" at the visceral impact, or if it is for your long term listening pleasure and relaxation.So I now worry less about attaching spikes to every bit of equipment, or trying to count the rivets on Bernard Purdie's Ride Cymbal.......and just listen to the music,

ICBM · June 2014

Mike Oldfield's Songs Of Distant Earth would be a good one to test a system with. It's not a natural-sounding album but it has frequency extremes you rarely hear in 'acoustically' recorded music.

xSkarloey · June 2014

Zeppelin I

Exile on Main St

Kebabkid said:

Go West - 1st album and Scritti Politti's "Cupid & Psyche".They're of their time but are good representations of 80s sounds and squeaky clean production. I always thought the Go West album sounded quite punchy.

Only know Go West's singles, but as for Scritti Politti I'd go with that 100%. I played that album recently and my wife was saying "this is so 80's!" in a half mocking way. But it certainly has its place and I do like the sound.

Same thing with Miles Davis's Tutu from the mid-80's. For a long time i didm;t like it because I suppose I was on a backlash against the 80's synth gated drum sound thing. But I really like that kind of thing again, especially as it's done with taste.

koneguitarist · June 2014

Steve Miller Born to be blue.

Neil Young Harvest Moon

ZZ top Tejaz

not_the_dj · June 2014

ICBM said:

Mike Oldfield's Songs Of Distant Earth would be a good one to test a system with. It's not a natural-sounding album but it has frequency extremes you rarely hear in 'acoustically' recorded music.

Good choice. I love the track with bible reading (not that I'm religious at all) but IIRC correctly it's a recording from one of the Apollo missions (was it Michael Collins?)

Haven't actually listened to that for ages though, I'll dig it out later.

*Edit* Wiki tells me it was Bill Anders on Apollo 8

richardhomer · June 2014

Talk Talk's The Colour of Spring, The Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock all sound fantastic. Beautifully recorded 'real' instruments and some atmospheric electronics.

EricTheWeary · June 2014

I used* to like the sound of Electric by The Cult. For some wrong reasons, probably, but I like that very dry sort of demo tape sound and you can hear the overdubs come in and out. The complete lack of slickness works and at the same time it has a great energy - for me a production should always capture energy.

Given the period and the equipment some of the Blue Note stuff sounds amazingly good, same for Chess records. I used to listen to a lot of Chicago blues and the stuff on Chess just sounded so much better than other stuff from that period.

I also used to listen to quite a few things on the ECM label, very accurately recorded modern jazz. I gave up on all this - it worked when I had a half decent hi fi set up but in the car or on my ipod with the 'sound' removed its just a bit people going poodlepoodlepoodlepoodle

In recent times - Blak and Blue by Gary Clark Jr is fun soundwise, couple of tracks where they capture all the hiss of his fuzz pedal and its a real in the room type moment.

* as in haven't heard it for ages

Deadman · June 2014

Foo fighters Wasting light

xSkarloey · June 2014

Vitually all of Scott Walker's stuff but probably Tilt has the best overall sound. A masterpiece.

Gagaryn · June 2014

Lixarto said:

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2014-05-14-71b0RVFmyqL._SL1425_.jpg

Funnily enough, I was looking at this the other day - the vinyl version. It was an 'audiophile direct recording' - seemed a bit pointless. Needless to say, I didn't buy it - I've heard it!

Lixarto · June 2014

What happens if the vinyl should get scratched? :-S

richardhomer · June 2014

Lixarto;271950" said:
What happens if the vinyl should get scratched? :-S

It would be considered to be part of the performance...

Skipped · June 2014

The forthcoming Albums you don't like the sound of thread is going to be controversial I feel.....

RobDavies · June 2014

I've always lived the sound of Living Colour's Time's Up album. The snare sound on Type in particular is just brilliant.

mike_l · June 2014

Kevin Shirley's produced Iron Maiden Albums, Brave New World - Final Frontier. A little less raw, a bit smoother than Martin Birch productions.

Might just be better recording equipment, or my ears though.

RocknRollDave · June 2014

mike_l said:

Kevin Shirley's produced Iron Maiden Albums, Brave New World - Final Frontier. A little less raw, a bit smoother than Martin Birch productions.
Might just be better recording equipment, or my ears though.

I agree. A Matter of Life of Geoff in particular sounds huuuuge to me. Maiden have never sounded as good as they do now.

xSkarloey · June 2014

@erictheweary Talking of older jazz stuff the Prestige stuff and anything done at the Van Gelder studios is good quality.

There's a Prestige cut of If I Were a Bell by Miles Davis where the bass level is right up there and pushes everything along.

beed84 · June 2014

Associated with Maiden, Tribe of Gypsies III by Tribe of Gypsies (features Roy Z, guitarist for Bruce Dickinson) is a great sounding record. The Brazilian rhythms are great, and the percussion comes through particularly well. Great album too.

57Deluxe · June 2014

TALK TALK - Colour of Spring and It's My Life LPs

Strange Kind Of Love - Love and Money

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Albums you like the sound of

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