Music for testing Audio Equipment

[mevdinc]

On 10/26/2020 at 2:57 PM, christian u said:

One of my all time favorite albums, music and sq is in perfect harmony.

It's not available on Qobuz, but luckily I had purchased the 192kHZ version a long time ago.

 

[PAP]

On 1/8/2021 at 7:30 PM, mevdinc said:

It's not available on Qobuz, but luckily I had purchased the 192kHZ version a long time ago.

 

+1. And I agree, streaming is fine but I prefer to have/own my favorite albums.

[christian u]

+2

[PAP]

Signed copies of one of Doug's very best earlier albums are available here;

 

  https://www.doug-macleod.com/store.html

[PAP]

On 2/27/2019 at 8:29 PM, oso said:

I just commented on another thread about how good the bass and drum sound is on this recording.

Unbelievable that you can achieve that with only one microphone. I wonder why that kind of recordings are so rare.

 

 

Hifinews.com used the  album in it's review of the Quad Vena II Integrated Amp;

'"

Quad Vena II 

INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER

….the warmth and detail of this Quad amplifier is just as much in evidence with the immediacy of the single mike, single take recordings on Carmen Gomes Inc.'s Don't You Cry set [Sound Liaison SL1030A; DSD256]. Playing the music in from my stripped-out 'music' Mac mini via the Vena II's USB input, the sense of the musicians sitting in a group around the microphone is palpable, as is the emotion in Gomes's voice as she cracks on the final phrases of Gershwin's 'Summertime'."

 

 

[blue2]

Try this one for good SQ, soundstage. 20th Anniversary remaster Blues In My Heart. Track 'Canned Heat' has some nice percussion.

[christian u]

Is there a big difference between the original and the remaster?

[blue2]

18 hours ago, christian u said:

Is there a big difference between the original and the remaster?

I don't have both versions to compare but I'd recommend the 20th anniversary version on SQ.

[The_K-Man]

2 hours ago, blue2 said:

I don't have both versions to compare but I'd

recommend the 20th anniversary version on SQ.

 

Always the original for me! It's closest to original studio intent.

 

Not a matter of which 'sounds better', but of authenticity.

[Kal Rubinson]

44 minutes ago, The_K-Man said:

Always the original for me! It's closest to original studio intent.

 

Not a matter of which 'sounds better', but of authenticity.

I certainly appreciate your second statement but I can't go along with the "Always" in the first.  There are many instances in which the original, despite the best intent and efforts, is handicapped by technical constraints.  

So, I am in tempered agreement with you.

[botrytis]

@Kal Rubinsonwhat is YOUR favorite testing music? I know you use a variety, as seen in Stereophile, but personally?

 

I am always interested in that.

[Kal Rubinson]

1 minute ago, botrytis said:

@Kal Rubinsonwhat is YOUR favorite testing music? I know you use a variety, as seen in Stereophile, but personally?

 

I am always interested in that.

My comment was not specifically about "testing music" but about choosing among alternative releases in general.  I do not have any "testing music" per se.  It is whatever I like and whatever I have developed intimate familiarity with.

[botrytis]

5 minutes ago, Kal Rubinson said:

My comment was not specifically about "testing music" but about choosing among alternative releases in general.  I do not have any "testing music" per se.  It is whatever I like and whatever I have developed intimate familiarity with.

 

Thanks for that.

[The_K-Man]

5 hours ago, Kal Rubinson said:

I certainly appreciate your second statement but I can't go

along with the "Always" in the first.  There are many instances

in which the original, despite the best intent and efforts, is

handicapped by technical constraints.  

So, I am in tempered agreement with you.

 

A lot of the reason is illustrated in my profile avatar.  I listen mostly to music for the m'asses(!!!), and I have been burned accordingly when it came to the purchasing of so-called remasters.  

 

I have, over time, replaced them with original issue CDs of those albums

[Kal Rubinson]

1 hour ago, The_K-Man said:

A lot of the reason is illustrated in my profile avatar.  I listen mostly to music for the m'asses(!!!), and I have been burned accordingly when it came to the purchasing of so-called remasters.  

That's reasonable to me as I do not regard remasterings as automatic buys.  There has to be a reason to do it and, often, there is not.

[Summit]

On 2/26/2021 at 11:37 PM, Kal Rubinson said:

That's reasonable to me as I do not regard remasterings as automatic buys.  There has to be a reason to do it and, often, there is not.

 

Well I think remasterings is not bad per se. It can be superior. The reason for so many lousy remasterings results is that they just don't know how to do it properly. 

[The_K-Man]

2 hours ago, Summit said:

 

Well I think remasterings is not bad per se. It can be superior. The reason for so many lousy remasterings results is that they just don't know how to do it properly. 

 

In the popular realm(rock, hip-hop, country, etc), I have found it to be mostly increasing the apparent volume level of the reissued version.  My waveform profile avatar represents that.

 

I even noticed in an EMI Classics reissue of a classical performance I purchased on CD last year.  It was released in the late 1990s, and I remember not being able to turn the volume up as high as I have on older classical CDs(from early to late 1980s).

 

I believe remastering should be an audibly transparent process - minor level and EQ adjustments, IE: correcting a left-right channel imbalance. Or, re-digitizing original master tapes at the correct speed, if the original CD master was found to be off a bit.

 

There is no need to perform the destructive process(over-compression, brick-wall limiting, cranking up!) illustrated in my avatar, on legacy(pre-1990s) works.  Let them breathe!  Let their original dynamic ebbs and flows shine.  No need to make them sound like something from the last ten years, or to match that production volume level.

[christian u]

On 2/26/2021 at 4:02 PM, The_K-Man said:

 

Always the original for me! It's closest to original studio intent.

 

Not a matter of which 'sounds better', but of authenticity.

But if the remaster is done by the original engineer using better equipment, would that be acceptable?

[The_K-Man]

19 hours ago, christian u said:

But if the remaster is done by the original engineer

using better equipment, would that be acceptable?

_______

It depends on what that original engineer is doing, or just as importantly what, if anything, surviving band members want them to do with it.  

 

Is the remaster going to be a simple clean-up, and removal of any existing wow/flutter, left-to-right channel imbalance?  Or will it be an all-out, slammed-to-digital full scale squash-fest, like the majority of top forty material since around 2000, and remasters of legacy stuff have been?  (see my profile avatar) 

 

So for me, it doesn't matter as much who is involved with the remastering project, but what they are doing.  What the end goal is. 

[PAP]

It is a difficult subject. I remember finding some of Rudy Van Gelders remasters of his own recordings better for some albums and again on other albums I preferred the original.

[The_K-Man]

4 hours ago, PAP said:

It is a difficult subject. I remember finding some of Rudy

Van Gelders remasters of his own recordings better for

some albums and again on other albums I preferred the

original.

 

It really just boils down to 1) The wishes of the original artist, 2) The intentions of the project - restorative vs modernizing the sound, etc, and 3) the technique and skill of the mastering engineer/s involved.  

 

Since most of the music I listen to is for the 'm'asses', so to speak, the results usually fall under 2) - B - modernization of the sound: IE: EQ, DRC, and peak-limit the phecque out of it.  Hence on that priniciple alone, I avoid anything with the phrase "Remastered" on it, along with addtional copyright dates later than the original issue/release date on it.  IE: 1997 or 2009 on a Beatles CD or vinyl.  Next!  lol

[FredericV]

The first track from this album was playing on Belgian classical station Klara, and found it in 24/96, and also in hi-res on Qobuz.

https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN 20223

 

Added to our list of show demo material

[squirehill]

Thanks.  U should try ECM’s Anouar Brahem, any, but especially Blue Magams &/or Thimar.

[PAP]

On 3/31/2021 at 8:36 PM, squirehill said:

Thanks.  U should try ECM’s Anouar Brahem, any, but especially Blue Magams &/or Thimar.

Great album indeed.

[PAP]

Truly enjoying this one. This is a great album. Superb one mic. The most intimate yet of all the one mic albums.

 

      AMULET DOWNLOAD

Quote

 the ears and expertise of engineer Frans de Rond, ensures perfect imaging, great sense of depth, superior realism and complete phase coherence.

I love the result. There is in my opinion a no better tool for optimizing speaker placement and finding the optimal listening position, than a One Microphone recording done with the C700S.