tonyfiore75
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2007
- Posts
- 441
- Likes
- 99
I'm *bumping* this thread because I think it's very useful to people who are perusing any of the Head.fi categories. Thanks for all of the suggestions, folks.
-T
-T
Originally Posted by FalconP /img/forum/go_quote.gif With the label ECM, you're always guaranteed superb sound. |
Originally Posted by Sordel /img/forum/go_quote.gif qft ... Manfred Eicher is exceptionally keen on dynamic range in his recordings, and ECM recordings are notable for their clarity. To mention just one album, Arbos by Arvo Part is almost the opposite of a "revealing" recording ... it will make just about any system sound pretty good, and is even more flattering to a high-end system. By the way, I think that it is this particular aspect - sounding good on any system - that people are going for in recommendations of Brothers in Arms or Graceland. These wouldn't be good albums to use as reference recordings if you were buying a new piece of kit, because they sound too good. I'm sure that they scale, so that they sound proportionately better as your system improves, but what you're really looking for is a recording that really sounds bad on a bad system and then sounds great on a good system. I think that this is why people tend to use albums with a complex sound (such as an orchestra) for analytic listening. Albums such as Brothers In Arms are very psycho-acoustically mixed (they are mixed to flatter precisely what the brain is intended to concentrate on at that particular moment), whereas a good orchestral recording tends to let the mind range amongst the instruments without favouring any particular part too much at any given time. A well-engineered album, then, is very different from a well-recorded album or a well-mixed album. Engineering should lock together the recording and the mix with appropriate dynamic range ... it's a pretty subtle thing for a lay listener to assess. |
Originally Posted by West726 /img/forum/go_quote.gif So what would you recommend for reference recordings/analytic listening? What is an example of something that sounds bad on a bad system but good on a good system? |