What are you listening to right now?

[TooManyToys]

Rebecca Pidgeon 'Behind the Velvet Curtain'

[tmazz]

Have Yourself a Jazzy Little Christmas



Various Verve jazz artists performing Holiday favorites.

Track listing & samples:
http://www.amazon.com/Have-Yourself-Jazzy-Little-Christmas/dp/B00000479R/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1292823224&sr=1-1

[tmazz]

Diahann Carroll With The Duke Ellington Orchestra: A Tribute to Ethel Waters



I was really kind of disappointed in this album. Good music, good recording, Mercer Ellington really has the band swinging, but Diahann Carroll just seems to phone in the performance. It just seems that throughout the album she is holding back for some reason. The band is very dynamic, but the vocals take you 95% of the way there and just fall short. I always got the feeling that the vocal crescendos should have been going just a little bit further than they ever did. This actually surprised me because back in the day I did sound for a Diahann Carrol/Vic Dimone show at the Lakeside Theater and she really belted them out with reckless abandon, but on this album she just never lets it rip.

[Bigfish8]

[richidoo]

How is it Ken? That is the Mahler cycle I have been posting about for a long time.

[Bigfish8]

How is it Ken? That is the Mahler cycle I have been posting about for a long time.

I downloaded Symphony No. 5 from HD Tracks several weeks ago and had not listened to it recently as it is a Hi-Rez File.  After Shane brought over the Zodiac+ I listened to it again on Saturday Evening and then purchased Symphony No. 9 from HD Tracks late yesterday.  

You know I am a neophyte when it comes to Classical Music but I have fallen in love with it.  It is beautiful, complex, full of transients and detail that push my system for every last bit of its capability.  My wife is not a convert yet but whenever I am here alone classical is all I listen to.  The quality of the Hi-Rez Mahler Symphonies is exceptional.  I look forward to continuing to expand my library.

Ken

[richidoo]

Good classical really deserves a nice system, and visee versee    
Looking forward to hearing those hi rez tracks Ken! 9th too? Going right for the heavy stuff.  

I'm listening to Linn Radio on Sonos, thanks msfoa!
Carl you would like this station. It is 320kbps, sounds OK  

http://radio.linnrecords.com/

[etcarroll]

Good classical really deserves a nice system, and visee versee    
Looking forward to hearing those hi rez tracks Ken! 9th too? Going right for the heavy stuff.  

I'm listening to Linn Radio on Sonos, thanks msfoa!
Carl you would like this station. It is 320kbps, sounds OK  

http://radio.linnrecords.com/

+1 on the Linn classical station, they have a Jazz station as well.

I started in on Classical the 1st of this year, have been tweaking my system to support Classical playback. Just replaced my passive pre with a tubed Purity One pre for better classical reproduction. The SACD version of Mahler's 5th is testing the tubes as I type this. 

[richidoo]

Interesting Gene. I am listening to the Linn classical station now, and I can hear the effects of the compression much more on the classical channel than I can on the rock channel at same compression. I think it's that we're more sensitive to tonal aberrations on classical music. Most sounds on popular music are adjusted and enhanced for max palatibility, while classical recordings get compression and maybe some tube warmth added in mastering, but not heavy handed EQ and effects.

[tmazz]

Rich, I think the reason that we are more sensitive to compression and other alterations in classical music is that most of us, and especially those of who regularly attend classical concerts, have a good reference of what orchestral instruments are supposed to sound like. Therefore we know when that "proper sound is not being presented. In pop music there is so much electronic altering of sound in the recording process that the right sound of any given instrument is not an absolute standard, but rather whatever the production team for that recording decides it should be. Not that I am knocking that process for the altering of the instrumental sound has become an art form in and of itself, but no matter how artistic it is, music produced this way cannot provide us with any kind of sonic reference. If there is no real "right" sound, then it is hard to know when something in the mastering, distribution or playback chain is making it sound "wrong." We can know if something sounds better or worse to us, but not if the sound is right or wrong. It is easier to hear the aberrations in a classical recording simply because we have a reference to compare that sound to.

[tmazz]

Doobie Brothers:World Gone Crazy



Latest from the Doobies. Typical Doobies sound, but let's face it , the D Bros. are just not the D Bros. without Michael McDonald. (He does a guest appearance on one cut, which I think is the best of the bunch.)

[tmazz]

Vivaldi: The Four Seasons:Societa Corell



This is one of the scariest records that I have ever played on my system. Like most Living Stereos it have impeccable sound. However most of the recordings in this series were done in large concert hall settings so the sonic picture that they paint is one of sitting in a good orchestra seat of a large venue like Carnegie Hall. The best of these recordings transport you into the hall giving a nice "you are there" perspective. However this recording, being of a small chamber ensemble was recorded in a much smaller space. The acoustic cues that you get are very similar to what I would expect to here in a space not too different from the size of my mancave. As a result the usual "you are there" perspective  now becomes a very realistic "they are here" perspective. I have have the opportunity on several occasions to here all or parts of The Four Seasons performed in living room type spaces and I can tell you, the realism projected by the LP is spot on. Not only is the tonality and resolution top shelf, but the spatial ques are appropriate to the size of the room I am actually listening in. The effect is uncanny.  

[tmazz]

Beethoven - Appassionata: Vladamir Horowitz

[Bigfish8]

[Bigfish8]