Favourite recordings - your choice ...

[wtaylorbas]

Sir George Martin, the Beatles producer was interviewed recently saying that he has spent two years reworking the original Beatles recordings that he produced from the 1960's for the new 'Love' album. He described these gems as 'the holy grail of music' and explained how he had consulted the remaining Beatles and widows throughout the process and all were delighted with the results.

I have the Love CD, and the sound is decidedly modern. Out of curiosity I've picked one track - Hey Jude - and performed a spectral analysis of the original 'raw' recording on CD issue with that from the Love album.

The scale is 12dB/vertical division. To put that into perspective, 6dB is a doubling of sound pressure and 12dB is four times.

I've drawn a gradient line from an arbitrary frequency point that seems common to both. This downward sloping trend is exactly what you expect for any music averaged over time - the bump at around 8kHz is the cymbal which if you recall, features quite prominently throughout this song so contributes a lot of energy to the top.

The most interesting thing is the quite different equalised spectral balance in the middle frequencies - with much more energy in the new rework hence the more immediate sound?

ADDED: Eleanor Rigby. Note that the channel balance is different and the top end has been slightly lifted on the new version (around 5-10kHz).

Hi Alan,
1.I do not have much knowledge about wave/spectral analysis but I am interested to be able to identify particular frequencies (bass notes) in a track. Is there a free or affordable software that could do the job? My interest began with the Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Waters about 3mi 10 sec from the start of the song there is a definite low note that I feel is very satisfying to hear.

2.Which Harbeth speaker would reproduce that note most faithfully?
Regards

[yeecn]

Sonic Visualiser is an excellent for spectrum analysis and much more. It will take a bit of playing around to know how to work the program and how to interpret the graphs/charts.

You will need to extract the CD into the computer first. Exact Audio Copy is a popular program for that.

[hannah-ham]

Coming back to the primary question.

Note: if all the world repeatedly asks the "Island Question", it goes everytime around the music, but in our case the question should be allowed:

"Ok, I am now on this island, for some inexplicable reasons I managed to bring 3 LP Album with me. And, OH, what a luck! Behind that palm over there somebody forgot his HiFi System with an Thorens TT, a nice Mcintosh Integrated Amp and some Harbeth Monitor 30. Now that' s where I was lucky things didn't turn out worse! "

Now back to the question, which I thought, is heavy to answer, but when I got through my collection there are indeed 3 outstanding Albums:

1. The Gary Burton Quintet with Eberhard Weber: Ring (ECM 1974) This Album associates so many things for me: 1. Gary Burton, Eberhard Weber and Pat Metheny are my favourite musicians. 2. I bought this album exactly 30 years ago, when I was 17. I remember listening to it on the couch of my first girlfriend on her Dual Mono TT. This album is almost the only piece of music that went along with me for all the years and I permanently have listened to it.

2. Holger Czuckay: On the way to the peak of normal (EMI-Welt Rekord 1981). Great Album by a wonderful artist. People who don't know Holger might be thinking, he is some crazy professor making strange music. But his work over the past decades is simply outstanding. And of course I do know about the huge influence CAN had exerted to generations of young UK and US musicians and bands.

3. Genesis: Seconds out (Charisma Records 1977): Difficult to choose, very close vote against any Album by David Sylvian. At least same like Gary Buston: this album I listen for 32 years now permanently. The music of the band without Peter Gabriel but with Gabriel songs. Everything since then was dissapointing. So was the last tour of them. My thought was, they only in it for the money.

[keithwwk]

It is lyrical, rhythmic, rich and full recording.



http://www.amazon.com/Mouse-Hunt-Ori.../dp/B000001534

[keithwwk]

More I listen, more I love it..

Swing is Here album from RR. My wife said "They (my Harbeths) seem happily dancing there!"



http://www.amazon.com/Swing-Here-Dic...5678097&sr=1-1

[keithwwk]

Classical Jazz that sound very nice if your system's sound is balance enough...



http://www.amazon.com/Vivaldi-Four-S...ref=pd_sim_m_5



http://www.amazon.com/Jacques-Loussi...6103172&sr=1-9

[kittykat]

Some favourite music of mine from 2010. They are, in my opinion, pretty catchy, tuneful and listenable, but not necessarily of good fidelity.

CORINNE BAILEY RAE-The Sea- EMI 2010 - l love her voice
GORILLAZ- Plastic Beach- EMI Parlophone 2010 - funky
JOHNNY CASH - American VI: Ain’t No Grave -American Island Def Jam 2010 - haunting
LITTLE BIRDY-Hollywood -Virgin Eleven 2010 - tuneful
PAT METHENY-Orchestrion -Nonesuch 516668-2 2010 - entertaining, reasonable quality
SADE -Soldier of Love -Sony Epic RCA 2010 - "stylish"
THIRSTY MERC -Mousetrap Heart- Warner 2010
CHRISTINA AGUILERA- Bionic -Sony RCA 2010 - loud but some really catchy tunes in there...
DAVID BYRNE & FATBOY SLIM - Here Lies Live- Nonesuch 2010 - some melodic tunes in there

Anyone like to share their favourite 2010 releases?

[keithwwk]

Most of my recent purchase are all old release. I think the latest among them is Rattle Brahms full symphonies with Berliner Philharmoniker by EMI which is released in 2009. Good but I personally like Claudio Abbado version more than Rattle.

[timleety]

A little late, but while we're still in the spirit...

A treasure trove of early festive music from 1917 to 1959, it affords the listener a peep-hole into times gone by - like a journey of discovery, much like when radio broadcast first came into play. I can just imagine people sitting in front of their radios, transfixed on whatever programme was being magically beamed into their homes.

Some favourites like Lightnin' Hopkins, Bessie Smith and Leadbelly are here, along with some delightful surprises like Fiddlin' John Carson & His Virginia Reelers, Walter Davis, Vera Hall Ward and the Cotton Top Mountain Sanctified Singers.

May not be suited for all, given the rudimentary recordings from early days. But I thought this might be an intriguing listen on the Harbeths: they neither flatter nor forgive, but present a very buttery, creamy texture on all the proceedings. Just try playing this through other speakers tuned to today's prevailing *audiophile* tastes; I daresay some results will be rather horrendous. It again highlights the measure of a truly good speaker - its versatility and encompassing nature. Perhaps this could be due to the fact that we are dealing with vocals and acoustic instruments.

The disc comes nicely packaged with a mock-period postcard and a little booklet. Without a painstaking project like this (restored from original 78s), most of the musical material may have been lost to us forever.

An extract from the booklet:

This collection reflects sentiments of earlier times, when the holiday involved more than indoor trees and endless trips to the mall. Our playlist includes Southern fiddles, banjos and choirs, jazz bands and blues singers, and festive music from Puerto Rico, Italy, Ukraine and Trinidad. In the spirit of fairness, we've tried to designate equal time for sacred and secular, for Christ and Santa Claus, and for respectable and rowdy.

[keithwwk]

Which Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake is your choice? Just bathe with below albums thru my C7 last Sunday...wonderfull and beaustifull..Ansermet was released in 1959 and Geirgiev was released in 2007..Both sound equally nice.

[BAS-H]

Mine's Michael Tilson Thomas's with the London Symphony on Sony. Ace!

[pirastro]

Mine would be

mahler symphonie no 2, otto klemperer. EMI studio for the phenomenal recording in 1963 with huge and dynamic soundstage
http://www.amazon.com/Mahler-Symphon...596507&sr=8-14

A lasting inspiration, jacqueline du pre. EMI

Carol Kidd, That's Me

[macroaudio]

well recorded

[kittykat]

Which Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake is your choice?

Anatole Fistoulari's with the LSO (on Decca as well). :-)

[delgesu]

previn / london symphony orchestras / EMI
ansermet / l´orchestre de la suisse romande / DECCA

best,
delgesu

[timleety]

Some innovative European jazz with a slightly esoteric bent. Well crafted recording with emphasis on the spatial relationships between respective instruments.

Sublime.

[timleety]

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.

The film and its soundtrack speak to the inner child in all of us.

One of my favourite releases (in both forms) that year.

[keithwwk]

Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet. I love this. Please share me your best collection of this.

This Montreal Symphony Orchestra/Charles Dutoit, I bought this in Audio Cassette format in early 1990s and fell in love with it.


My first full version in CD format is this one: Cleveland Orchestra/Lorin Maazel


After that, I bought few other versions such as Abbado/BPO, Vladimir Ashkenazy/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Valery Gergiev/St.Petersburg Kirov Orchestra, Andrew Previn/London Symphony, etc...

[MikeH]

Soundtrack from Star Trek First Contact. - the theme and orchestration are surperb
1958 HMV version of The Planet Suite conducted by Sir Malcolm Seargent
Abbey Road -by ...... well you should know

[Paul G Smith]

Lou Reeds "Transformer" on vinyl, the dynamics are really quite natural, and the recording of the two basses is absolutely stunning on "Walk on the wild side".
I can't comment on any CD version.