Favourite recordings - your choice ...

[kittykat]

While we are taking a break from electronic music like Sugababes and still south of the border, Keith, not sure if you have tried
CAETANO VELOSO The best of Nonesuch Warner 2003. Its a good listen. No bad tracks, Guitarish though, but back to a bit of brass
MANUEL GUAJIRO MIRABAL on trumpets World Circuit 2004 is not too bad. He apparently has Joao Gilberto as his influence. Music all within the circle.

[timleety]

Btw, the Focus album's cover is pretty nice.

I have to admit, years ago I was first drawn to the cover as I was thinking, "do i really need another stan getz album??" Anyway if you can find that on LP, it would be a really nice size.

And if you can find the Japanese pressing of this one, I guarantee you will be in "bathing in paradize":

[timleety]

Two of my favourite Caetano Veloso's from my collection:

[keithwwk]

While we are taking a break from electronic music like Sugababes and still south of the border, Keith, not sure if you have tried CAETANO VELOSO The best of Nonesuch Warner 2003. Its a good listen. No bad tracks, Guitarish though, but back to a bit of brass MANUEL GUAJIRO MIRABAL on trumpets World Circuit 2004 is not too bad. He apparently has Joao Gilberto as his influence. Music all within the circle.

Thanks kitty. Is something similar to charlie byrd? nice music him...will try the caetano..

[kittykat]

Hi Keith

He’s like the the Latin/ South American version of Charlie Byrd. No offence to anyone for pigeon hole-ing any artistes. Caetano's music is one i look forward to hearing again. Sarah Brightman is another, but the quality of her recordings do waver (like her music... thinking that "Harem" might be her best album imho (and most commercial sounding, I like). Diana Krall is another, the quality being more uniformed (Verve). Ive got a thing for women's voices, Grace Jones’ “Classic” best of (Univesal Spectrum 2008) is also a good listen, reasonably good quality. On to something more trashy - Liz Phair, i like!, Lily Allen, more serious - Tori Amos, back to something more trashy - Pink, Britney. Am starting to think the noughties wasn’t that bad after all. A lot of these albums have become more listenable due to harbeths. On to more sober artistes - Norah Jones - most of her albums sound pretty good. Since you mentioned Charlie Byrd and brass Keith , i put on a 20 bit version of John Coltranes “A love supreme” (on Impulse MCA 1995) the other night and it sounds very very different (and not worst) from the Castle Music version. On to males, i like Lenny Kravitz, Bryan Ferry (his recordings are by and large terrible in quality though). don’t laugh but George Michael is very talented as well imho.

Enough of favourites for one afternoon….

[keithwwk]

Thanks kitty. Talk abt guitar reminded me guitar master Segovia. His Fernando Sor guitar Studies works cassette tape accompany me walked thru my Pri to Secondary school days...Here is one of my favourite from him:

[lallapai]

Keith, if you love Getz, try this one:


Not your usual west coast cool, but seductively lush strings featuring Getz as more of a composer. I think you'll dig this album.

I have the Japan pressing of "Focus" on cd format.
If you love Stan Getz, you can't miss "Getz-Gilberto" on First Impression Music (LIM K2HD 036).
Astonishing release!

[timleety]

Thanks kitty. Talk abt guitar reminded me guitar master Segovia. His Fernando Sor guitar Studies works cassette tape accompany me walked thru my Pri to Secondary school days...

Haha, this is where we differ slightly. These are two of my "guitar heroes" - give me anything by them any day!





(Though the Django recordings are usually salvaged from old acetates and therefore are not "hifii" in quality, it's easy to put up with hiss and cackle with such astounding innovation. Case in point: Nuages. One of the greatest 20th century compositions. C-ra-zy.)

[Pencey]

Another of my favs: MAonSA

Three hours of glorious music on one disc.

http://www.marecordings.com/main/pro...roducts_id=108

[kittykat]

not sure if anyone has heard the Soundtrack to "Where the wild things are" - Karen O and the Kids on DGC 2009. This is the happiest sounding CD ive heard this year, and have put it on almost every 2 days. I only got the DVD yesterday (because of the music). The movie is a bit quirky but the songs are really catchy and tuneful with some real foot tapping ones in there. the quality is reasonably good.

[Thanos]

Now, here is something really great, that happened in 2009, in the U.K.'s top chart. I copied it and paste underneath:

TALKING ABOUT NOSTALGIA……

It seems that in times of economic crisis the public turn to nostalgia and the certainty of the past. Like the soldiers of the forgotten army, we need a morale boost and once again Dame Vera Lynn's voice is working its magic. Vera loves the French Rivieria, so in the voice of the old wartime newsreel commentators, we say 'The Riviera loves you too, Vera!'

So I just ordered Vera Lynn's "We'll meet again" re-issue of 2009 (DECCA), which hit No.1 (!!!!!!) album chart in the U.K. in 2009, bringing her as the single living artist in the world, aged 92, to become No.1!!!

A National Treasure, they call her in the U.K., and she surely is...

[DrewTurner]

If you are a lover of Jazz Piano, then check out the latest Keith Jarret / Charlie Haden recording on ECM titled.... JASMINE. All ballads except for one track.A very beautiful disc( Piano and Bass only) for late night listening.

[DrewTurner]

Just purchased an amazing new recording of Bach's Brandenburg concertos on CD, with the English Baroque Soloists and John Eliot Gardiner conducting.Amazing performance!! Beautifully recorded My Harbeths ate this recording up. Bravo

[keithwwk]

I also just bought a Beethoven full symphonies conducted by John Eliot Gardiner. A latest release box set (re-issue). Very nice.

[Gan CK]

Dvorak Symphony No 7 to 9 & the Golden Spinning Wheel performed by London Symphony Orchestra & conducted by Istvan Kertesz. Another superb symphony is Beethoven Symphony 5 & 6 performed by Berliner Philharmonic & conducted by Karajan. Both sound absolutely glorious, majestic & highly involving on my SHL-5.

[Sebastien]

Let's start with three LP:

1) Tortoise, TNT (Thrill Jockey, 050). This Chicago's group has integrated jazz, electronic, rock and more in a intelligent modern way;

2) Do Make Say Think, Winter Hymn Country Hymn Secret Hymn (Constellation, CST025-1) Toronto's post-rock group made me discover few years ago a new way in music;

3) Smog, A river ain't to much to love (Drag City, DC292). This low-fi folk always reminds me the forest where I like to spend days with my girlfriend and friends when I have the time to;

And continue with five more...

4) Radiohead, Ok Computer (Parlophone-EMI, 7243-8-55229-1-8). Ok... no presentations to do. So representative of the modern world and the passage to the 21st century;

5) Dave Brubeck, Time Out (Columbia, CS8192). Even after all these years, such a great recording with space and space between all those intruments. Who can resist to Paul Desmond?

6) Nina Nastasia, The Blackened Air (Touch and Go, TG231). Indy-folk registered by the brilliant Steve Albini. Nina's voice hits me deep in my soul. As years go, I realize how much I like folk music like this;

7) Kenny Burrell, Midnight Blue (Blue Note, BST-84123). I took me a long time to discover jazz's guitarists but now I know few of them and I really enjoy this late night album;

8) Dirty Three, Ocean songs (Touch and Go, TG193). The feeling of the deep and blue ocean, right in your ears with this Australian's trio (violin, guitar and drums).

That's it (for the moment). Oh no! I already miss one:

9) Pixies, Doolittle (4AD, CAD 905). Even if I was a teenager when the grunge movement arrived, I've just discovered this raw album from College's rock Pixies two years ago. Like we say in French "Il n'est jamais trop tard pour bien faire." After that arrived groups such Nirvana...

Sebastien

[timleety]

Hi Sebastien

Your selections are frighteningly close to mine! Great choices there, seriously! Some of my favourite recordings ever committed to tape, period.

"Here comes your man..."

Let's start with three LP:

1) Tortoise, TNT (Thrill Jockey, 050). This Chicago's group has integrated jazz, electronic, rock and more in a intelligent modern way;

2) Do Make Say Think, Winter Hymn Country Hymn Secret Hymn (Constellation, CST025-1) Toronto's post-rock group made me discover few years ago a new way in music;

3) Smog, A river ain't to much to love (Drag City, DC292). This low-fi folk always reminds me the forest where I like to spend days with my girlfriend and friends when I have the time to;

And continue with five more...

4) Radiohead, Ok Computer (Parlophone-EMI, 7243-8-55229-1-8). Ok... no presentations to do. So representative of the modern world and the passage to the 21st century;

5) Dave Brubeck, Time Out (Columbia, CS8192). Even after all these years, such a great recording with space and space between all those intruments. Who can resist to Paul Desmond?

6) Nina Nastasia, The Blackened Air (Touch and Go, TG231). Indy-folk registered by the brilliant Steve Albini. Nina's voice hits me deep in my soul. As years go, I realize how much I like folk music like this;

7) Kenny Burrell, Midnight Blue (Blue Note, BST-84123). I took me a long time to discover jazz's guitarists but now I know few of them and I really enjoy this late night album;

8) Dirty Three, Ocean songs (Touch and Go, TG193). The feeling of the deep and blue ocean, right in your ears with this Australian's trio (violin, guitar and drums).

That's it (for the moment). Oh no! I already miss one:

9) Pixies, Doolittle (4AD, CAD 905). Even if I was a teenager when the grunge movement arrived, I've just discovered this raw album from College's rock Pixies two years ago. Like we say in French "Il n'est jamais trop tard pour bien faire." After that arrived groups such Nirvana...

Sebastien

[Sebastien]

Hi timleety,

I'm glad to hear this. If you have any other recordings that I might like, please feel free to post them here. I guess that a lot of HUG members are willing to discover new musics.

Sebastien

[kittykat]

Not sure if anyone uses the http://www.dr.loudness-war.info website but personally find this database quite useful as an initial screener for recording quality. It’s a dynamic range log of cd’s (lossless) and compressed music (lossy)(I’d just ignore the lossy loggings and concentrate on the lossless ones). You can contribute as well by downloading a tool and running a ripped *.wav through it. It will tell you the dynamic range of the product. All things equal, the higher the DR, the less compression and the recording should sound better through your Harbeths. You might also find that you are setting your volume control at a higher level for those recordings with a high dynamic range (to catch the lower level detail). The recordings with a low DR can be a pain not only because they are loud, but difficult to adjust the volume control to for the most comfortable listening level.

There seems to be some consistency in the database as there are some discs which are logged more than once and the readings are close if not equal. Interestingly some albums released in different years have different readings and generally the more recent the release, the louder they are.

You can copy the list to an excel sheet and do some funky stats on them. There is a min and max reading for each album, ie. the track with the lowest and highest DR. You can run a Standard deviation on the min and max to get an idea of consistency, all things equal of the total product. I can see why Tubular Bells, Steely Dan come out on top as decent recordings. Pink Floyd albums have some good tracks but there are also some really awfully loud ones. The irritating things about inconsistent albums is that you might find yourself jumping out to lower the volume (after a quiet track).

[kittykat]

Just a little more on selecting decent recordings. I know most of us buy the music we like, rather than buy what is a good recording. ive however found it useful to be able to put an objective frame of reference on what constitutes a decent CD in a collection.

1. Using the approach above helps i.e. Evaluating the loudness density. (The TT DR Offline meter software (free download) can give a rough idea of what albums or tracks have good dynamic range (with some limitations which you can read in their userguide)

2. Another very useful approach which I learnt from this forum (thank you to Alan, yeecn, miniwatt and others) is using a software tool. It’s more dependable than a subjective listen. I find that it’s possible to be more discerning using measurements and data.

Some examples of albums I ran through a wave editor…

The Huey Lewis album registers the highest DR, album wise, among the 5, and the lowest dynamic range award no doubt goes to the Roots Manuva album, which graphically is obviously very loud all the way through. Peter Gabriel’s “Scratch my back” looks promising together with Amparo, which however does look clipped off on certain tracks?

Im not sure if it will be acceptable as consumers to buy an album, evaluate it technically, and if it measures poorly take it back to HMV.