[iamsmrt]

Hey everyone, I'm having my best friend come over and I want to show off my new cans... the audio-technica w2002's. I've very new to the head-fi scene but I've been a very big indie rock/electronica fan for the last year or so and an avid music fan my whole life... My dad had 2500 CDs or so before they all got ripped off.

I've noticed of the music that I loved previously, a lot of it is not that well recorded or produced or whatever you want to call it. Some music however seems to jump out of my cans and sound like heaven. A lot of electronic music not made from very old samples (ie. not the avalanches) and folky music like David Gray - White Ladder sounds amazing. TrevorNetwork introduced me to a band called Shpongle at the Vancouver mini-meet recently and that sounds fantastic as well.
I'm just wondering if other people have similar experiences with their music and recommedations for great music for cans. I understand that these recommendations will largely be influenced by everyone's personal headphone setup and musical preferences but I believe there is still some useful information to be derived from everyone's experience. Thanks for your help

Ack! In my noobness, i didn't even realize that a) there is a music forum and b) this should be in it.... mods please feel free to move thread... my apologies!

 

[BANGPOD]

Pink Floyd -- The Wall (especially ABITW and Comfortably Numb)
Led Zeppelin -- House Of The Holy (remastered, of course)

Vivaldi -- Four Seasons (The New York Philharmonic does it well)

Those are just a few of the thousands upon thousands of choices.

BANGPOD

 

[kramer5150]

IMHO have him bring over his favorite CDs... Let him listen to material that hes familiar with, and let him hear nuances and subtle details for the first time.

I think someone else posted this request last week... I listed a bunch of dreamtheater, eric Johnson and SRV tunes.

Garrett

 

[jpr703]

A girl I knew once showed me her cans while playing You Can Leave Your Hat On by Joe Cocker. It was quite a memorable experience!

 

[kramer5150]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jpr703 A girl I knew once showed me her cans ....

LOL!@!@

 

[sr20dem0n]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kramer5150 IMHO have him bring over his favorite CDs... Let him listen to material that hes familiar with, and let him hear nuances and subtle details for the first time. I think someone else posted this request last week... I listed a bunch of dreamtheater, eric Johnson and SRV tunes. Garrett

exactly

sure you could play something recorded very well with a ton of detail, but if he's never heard it before he would have nothing to compare against. In order to get the full effect he HAS to listen to something he's very familiar with, so when he listens to this common song that he likes, he can hear all of the added detail that your cans provide that he's never heard before.

 

[bg4533]

Check out the thread entitled The Perfect Song?

 

[Oski]

Since you like electronica music, you should consider:

Theivery Corporation - Sounds From the Theivery Hi Fi, Mirror Conspiracy, Richest Man in Babylon

Kruder & Dorfmeister - The K&D Sessions

Faithless - Reverence, Outrospective

The forefather of electronica:

Kraftwerk - The Mix (their vinyl recordings back in the 70's were also exceptional)

 

[UserNotFound]

I find a lot of people to be impressed by Radiohead on my Senn's, and of course Led Zep always sounds excellent when the treble almost sounds like it's going to pierce your eardrums

 

[backdrifter]

edit

 

[catscratch]

The quality of a headphone depends a lot on your point of reference, which in turn is easy to evaluate mostly on the music that you're familiar with. Of course, lack of familiarity will not be able to compensate for poor presentation, but exact minutae in the comparison of quality gear is most easily assessed with familiar material.

The best music to show off is the music that your intended listener knows best, and likes best. Unless, of course, said music happens to be poorly produced - but on some systems, like my 404's, even poorly produced music produces a strong emotional response. Listening to Melechesh's "Sphynx," you realize that yes, the sound is completely flat and terribly recorded, but you're headbanging all the same (or trying to anyway, with the Staxes threatening to fly off with the slightest provocation).

You're definitely right in mentioning Shpongle. I've known these guys for years, and their production is utterly amazing. There are the wild rumours that the first album was created entirely under the influence of LSD, and it is known that they use exclusively analog synths, and record in analog as much as possible to preserve quality. The perfectionism shows, both in Shongle, and in Simon Posford's other projects.

I strongly recommend that if you liked Shpongle, you check out OTT's "Blumenkraft." OTT was Shpongle's editor and co-producer on their albums, and his own material is of comparable quality. OTT leans more towards the Dub style, and his sound is somewhat more coherent and less experimental, but within his particular style, his mastery is unrivalled. Many of the same sounds that were in the 2d Shpongle disk can be found on Blumenkraft, as well as the same studio musicians and vocalists. Liked the vocals on Tales? They're back here. And there are days when I think that "Smoked Glass and Chrome," the last track off Blumencraft, is one of the finest pieces of electronic music to be recently made.

Anyway, my favorite music to listen to with the Staxes:

1) Both Shpongle Disks, Blumenkraft.
2) Porcupine Tree - Signify, Sky Moves Sideways (amazing band that fuses psychedelic rock and electronica. Don't miss it! PT has gotten a bit poppy over the years, but this earlier material is suberb)
3) Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall, Wish You Were Here
4) Many Telarc recordings - Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" and "Petrushka," directed by Pierre Boulez, John O'Connor's renditions of Beethoven's piano sonatas... bah, I could go on naming for quite a while. It's pretty shallow to recommend classical performances based on record label, but we're talking production here, right? These guys know how to produce. Oh yeah, they have some great performers too.
5) Arkady Volodos' "Piano Transcriptions" and his performance of Rachmaninoff's 3d Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic. This is under the Sony label, and is one of the best recordings, in terms of performance quality, of this piece that I've ever heard. Volodos is Horowitz come again. He is the greatest piano virtuoso of out times.
6) "Friday Night in San Francisco" by Al Di Meiola, Paco De Lucia, and John McLaughlin. Man, what a show! These guys are acoustic guitar virtuosos. Utterly incredible playing with musicality and frenzied energy, and of course, some tasty pyrotechnics.
7) "Awake," Dream Theater. Didn't think metal could be well produced, did you? Check this out. Great metal album, too. And the guitar work? Eat your heart out, Kirk Hammett. John Petrucci is the real deal. Too bad DT sucked hardcore after this (but the Liquid Tension Experiments disks were still good).
8) Nile - "Black Seeds of Vengeance," "In Their Darkened Shrines." Oh boy. This is music made by the truly insane for the truly insane. Nile is one of the hardest bands out there, but they betray a level of refinement, complexity, literacy, and astuteness that I simply didn't think the death metal genre could possess. IMO, they're the best metal band out there right now. Production is spotless. Very dark, which is perfect for their sound, and the detail of the Stax brings out the hidden intricacies that lesser systems miss. Great albums. Not for the faint of heart!

Eh. I could keep going. I think this is enough for now.

 

[Dan the audioman]

I think Radiohead sounds excellent with most cans.

Hail to the thief is a good album to use.

Thats what Im playing through my senn 600's as we speak.

Regards,
Dan

 

[radicaltothemax]

Quote:

Originally Posted by catscratch 8) Nile - "Black Seeds of Vengeance," "In Their Darkened Shrines." Oh boy. This is music made by the truly insane for the truly insane. Nile is one of the hardest bands out there, but they betray a level of refinement, complexity, literacy, and astuteness that I simply didn't think the death metal genre could possess. IMO, they're the best metal band out there right now. Production is spotless. Very dark, which is perfect for their sound, and the detail of the Stax brings out the hidden intricacies that lesser systems miss. Great albums. Not for the faint of heart! Eh. I could keep going. I think this is enough for now.

I just picked up "In Their Darkened Shrines" the other day but havent really given it a serious listen.

I've never really thought of Death Metal being a showcase of Sound quality, but I'll give the cd a good listen tonight.

 

[necropimp]

Quote:

Originally Posted by catscratch 8) Nile - "Black Seeds of Vengeance," "In Their Darkened Shrines." Oh boy. This is music made by the truly insane for the truly insane. Nile is one of the hardest bands out there, but they betray a level of refinement, complexity, literacy, and astuteness that I simply didn't think the death metal genre could possess. IMO, they're the best metal band out there right now. Production is spotless. Very dark, which is perfect for their sound, and the detail of the Stax brings out the hidden intricacies that lesser systems miss. Great albums. Not for the faint of heart!

+1

 

[pspivak]

Buddy Guy's Blues Singer is one of my favorites. I also like the Cowboy Junkies Trinity Sessions.