[EagleWings]

If someone is up for trying out some good music from other languages you can try these albums:
 
Minsara Kanavu - Available on Apple Music, Spotify and YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSb3haU8gyk&list=PL47322C813B3A83EC&index=2
 
Mr. Romeo - Available on Apple Music, Spotify and YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKiu-cko0QI&list=PLjity7Lwv-zop9y9JbJD1oOecmAHVyBwA
 
Kadhalan - Available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLqv3P2hAmM
 
These albums were composed by A. R. Rahman, a very successful and popular artist from India. We (people in India) hold him in very high regard for his talent and the work he has produced. He won 2 Academy Awards for his work in the movie Slumdog Millionaire. Many of his work is available on Spotify and Apple Music and is worth checking out. He also pays great attention to the recording process and so, his work is also good from a technical point of view.
 
Some Trivia: The language used in these albums is Tamil. It is a regional language of India, spoken in the state of Tamil Nadu. Unlike the music industry here in the U.S, which is a standalone industry by itself, the predominant of the music industry in our region and even our country is a part of the Film Industry. Every movie (or at least 99% of the movies) have music tracks as part of the movie. There is a dedicated music industry as well, but it is fairly small in terms of popularity among masses.

 

[miketlse]

  this is the one that i like
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCxRYvVN0CA  this train: joe bonamassa
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YDAB1wSVtI slow train: joe bonamassa

 
I recommended these to a friend, for the use of percussion. 

 

[simonm]

As a fan of the Amanita Design games I since got in to the wonderful music of Czech composer and musician Tomáš Dvořák, aka Floex.  His stuff is recorded well and sounds fantastic through Mojo.
 
You can even download some free EPs at his online store in FLAC quality.  I highly recommend some of the other soundtracks and albums available there.
 
I especially love the song Gone.  Very cool music video also.
 
http://store.floex.cz
https://vimeo.com/72879481
 
Also in the distinctly ambient electronic genre are Canadian musicians Loscil, whom I also discovered through a game.  Their name is actually a contraction of "looping oscillations" and features slower, reflective, perhaps even hypnotic rhythms and textures but with a very modern edge.  This too is recorded exceptionally well and I'm keen to hear how Mojo responds to all the oscillating layers and textures in the songs.

 

[daberti]

+1 for Jazz At The Pawnshop
Lights - Midnight Machine
David Munyon - Purple Cadillacs
Ranagri - Forth Of The Hare (Holy God, if only vocals were a little bit less prominent)
Shawn Collin - Uncovered
Waylon Jennings - Analog Pearls
David Elias - Crossing

 

[TG04]

I mentioned in a prior post that it amazes me how the Mojo has “single-handedly” transforms my old music collection.  Now I have just realized the full impact of the fact that the Mojo is 32-bit capable and this advantage can and should be exploited to its fullest.  I certainly already had my audio player (JRMC20) set to output 32 for all PCM sources - and that has some merit – but ripping to IEEE 32-bit float to begin with is something else again (please note that most of the improvement can be captured by simply converting existing 16/24 bit rips).
 
The reason I bring this up is Nina Simone’s “Sings the Blues” which I recently acquired on a 2015 Japanese pressing: Jasrac SICP 4281 (Jazz Collection 1000, i.e. Yen 1000 or about $9).  When first received, I thought it sounded just plain awful, but ripping to 32 and listening through the Mojo, it now seems nothing short of sensational!  I have had the same experience with several other formerly poor sounding discs, but unfortunately not all … those that sounded great to begin with continue to do so after the conversion, but not necessarily a great deal of improvement.

 

[daberti]

  I mentioned in a prior post that it amazes me how the Mojo has “single-handedly” transforms my old music collection.  Now I have just realized the full impact of the fact that the Mojo is 32-bit capable and this advantage can and should be exploited to its fullest.  I certainly already had my audio player (JRMC20) set to output 32 for all PCM sources - and that has some merit – but ripping to IEEE 32-bit float to begin with is something else again (please note that most of the improvement can be captured by simply converting existing 16/24 bit rips).
 
The reason I bring this up is Nina Simone’s “Sings the Blues” which I recently acquired on a 2015 Japanese pressing: Jasrac SICP 4281 (Jazz Collection 1000, i.e. Yen 1000 or about $9).  When first received, I thought it sounded just plain awful, but ripping to 32 and listening through the Mojo, it now seems nothing short of sensational!  I have had the same experience with several other formerly poor sounding discs, but unfortunately not all … those that sounded great to begin with continue to do so after the conversion, but not necessarily a great deal of improvement.

This is to be expected, I mean that not all discs improved in such a way: I would in fact depict the improvement by sheer increase of bit depth an exception.
 
I'll try to keep it short, in order not to hijack this thread.
 
 
1)44/16 by Redbook specs means we have a usable freq up to 20, so first thing to do is analyzing each file and have a plot of frequency curve, checking that from 20 to 22.05 it is descending to touch the -96dB level. This prevents from ringing artifacts. If not you'll have to deal with that later.
 
2)You must detect ISP (Inter Sample Peaks) and thus True Peak Level.
Some SW in order to do this upsamples 44.1/16 to 32x, other software allows you to choose destination frequency/bit depth (i.e. 88/32 or 176/32 in your case) and analyze without convert it you wish so. With this latest SW using "Yellow Brick Road" of Angus and Julia Stone as a test, I detected +0.20dB TPL with 44/16 but +2.6dB TPL starting with 88 (either 24 or 32).
 
3)Rob Watts implemented 1) in Mojo but not 2) and wisely enough!!
So let's put the things together.
We need to upsample to 88/32 bit or 24bit, detect TPL, put a digital FIR linear phase filter steep enough to reach the Noise Floor Level belonging to the bit depth choosen (-144dB 24bit; ca -200dB for 32Bit ) by 22.05Khz and staying flat up to 44.1Khz.

 

[Peter Hyatt]

It's especially fascinating to have a song recommended for Mojo, and then highlighting:
 
what to listen for;
 
where it is found....
 
I've picked up a lot of new music from the recommendations here.  I find myself listening "for that cymbal lingering" or other such minute detail such as the scratch of a guitar string, or the inhale breath of the singer.  
 
Amazing. 

 

[TG04]

Cymbals?  That's easy -- Mose Allison's Back Country Suite, a 1957 recording by Rudy Van Gelder in glorious mono.  My pressing is a cheapo box "Seven Classic Albums on 4 CDs" by Real Gone Jazz, ripped to WAV 32 bit.  The first track on the first CD starts out with a most impressive snare drum and cymbals intro.  Just doesn't get any better than this!  Maybe the Japanese issue (Y1000 for that one album only) is even better but I am totally happy with this $7 plus s/h purchase from Amazon // TG

 

[TG04]

Thank you for the technical perspective, always appreciated.  Without really keeping count I think my success rate is at least 50% but it very likely depends on the type of music.  My albums are mostly from the "golden era" of stereo but also quite a lot of mono recordings from the early 50s -- and the latter especially seem to benefit. 
 
Now, it certainly is very tiresome to trial-and-error your way through an extensive music library. Would you have a suggestion for a practical tool to scan the music library "in bulk" for potential candidates?
 
Thank you,
 
TG

 

[Mython]

Regarding recordings of percussion, I've always liked the percussion at the beginning of Sade's 'Please Send me Someone to Love'
 
and I'm wondering if it may be the 'Rain-stick' instrument being played at the end of Ottmar Liebert's 'Snakecharmer'
 
 
Unfortunately, delicate percussive detail suffers particularly badly at the mercy of youtubes brutal compression, but you can, at least, get the general gist of the sound from the above two clips. That kind of percussion sounds superb through Mojo (I was listening to Sade during my time with Mojo)

 

[miketlse]

  It's especially fascinating to have a song recommended for Mojo, and then highlighting:
 
what to listen for;
 
where it is found....
 
I've picked up a lot of new music from the recommendations here.  I find myself listening "for that cymbal lingering" or other such minute detail such as the scratch of a guitar string, or the inhale breath of the singer.  
 
Amazing. 

 
Your post made me think of the What's New album by Bill Evans and Jeremy Steig, which I heard a few days ago. I have listened to it again today, and on most of the tracks, there are sections (often near the end of tracks) where you can hear Steig blowing hard, but there is no flute sound - although i do wonder if that is because he was playing a note above my hearing range.
 
There is also a section during the So What track, either side of the 7 mins mark, where Steig seems to be blowing hard, but only managing to hum instead.
 
I too enjoy hearing the details like 'cymbal lingering', I think the agility of my T51 headphones helps slightly, so your AK T8's will be similarly effective. 

 

[daberti]

  Thank you for the technical perspective, always appreciated.  Without really keeping count I think my success rate is at least 50% but it very likely depends on the type of music.  My albums are mostly from the "golden era" of stereo but also quite a lot of mono recordings from the early 50s -- and the latter especially seem to benefit. 
 
Now, it certainly is very tiresome to trial-and-error your way through an extensive music library. Would you have a suggestion for a practical tool to scan the music library "in bulk" for potential candidates?
 
Thank you,
 
TG

Was this for me? I assume so.
 
The most proficient in the fire-and-forget category is XiSRC by Xivero: check the ISP option and it will detect the TPL present at 32x44.1 and act accordingly.
Mostly choosing a destination frequency of 88.2 (24 or 32bit) as final output will do the trick and price it is not bank's vault breaking.
A good "add-on" it would be Xivero MusicScope which will tell you at which frequencies are artifacts and the TPL along with many other useful info.
 
If you've time to analyze the results and some basics into Digital Music processing, the Aul Converter 48x44 is for you, but you'll need to pay far more. It also addresses the FIR filter (actually it offers both Linear Phase and Minimum Phase filters).
I do use both, but when I need FLAC/32 bit only the latest allows for them, and when I've to make a 32bit and put it in my iPhone with an eye to space saving it is the only way. And yes, Kaiser Tone plays FLAC/32 on iPhone natively.

 

[miketlse]

  Regarding recordings of percussion, I've always liked the percussion at the beginning of Sade's 'Please Send me Someone to Love'
 
and I'm wondering if it may be the 'Rain-stick' instrument being played at the end of Ottmar Liebert's 'Snakecharmer'
 
 
Unfortunately, delicate percussive detail suffers particularly badly at the mercy of youtubes brutal compression, but you can, at least, get the general gist of the sound from the above two clips. That kind of percussion sounds superb through Mojo (I was listening to Sade during my time with Mojo)

 
I suspect that it is the rain-stick.
 
You can experiment yourself http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Rainstick

 

[miketlse]

  Cymbals?  That's easy -- Mose Allison's Back Country Suite, a 1957 recording by Rudy Van Gelder in glorious mono.  My pressing is a cheapo box "Seven Classic Albums on 4 CDs" by Real Gone Jazz, ripped to WAV 32 bit.  The first track on the first CD starts out with a most impressive snare drum and cymbals intro.  Just doesn't get any better than this!  Maybe the Japanese issue (Y1000 for that one album only) is even better but I am totally happy with this $7 plus s/h purchase from Amazon // TG

 
I hear what you are talking about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU6Qsli9KnI
 
The CD is also available https://www.amazon.co.uk/Back-Country-Suite-Local-Color/dp/B003XKAZPO, but it costs more than $7 new.
 
Or the whole 4 CDs for €10.99 https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/jazz/detail/-/art/mose-allison-seven-classic-albums/hnum/5427818

 

[TG04]

Wow, this is very interesting - I had no idea of these additional complications.  Thank you very much for the info.  I will certainly want to look into this further, quite a project as autumn rolls around.  Thanks again // TG