Willie Nelson. His Stardust is something of an audiophile classic, but Red Headed Stranger is also excellent, as are most of his other recordings. Excellent test of male vocals and acoustic instruments - if Willie sounds good, the system sounds good.
Country gets little attention at Head-Fi, but I think it should have a wider audience. Forget the overproduced contemporary Nashville sound; I don't much like it, either. Classic country, alt.country, bluegrass, and roots have a lot to offer - I think many members are missing out on music they might love. The easiest path in is probably through Willie and Johnny Cash. Going backwards through Wilco's albums will get you there, as will Son Volt's first album, Trace.
Couldn't agree more with this^^. So many people just write country off as sad, depressing, "not cool" music and if they would just give it a shot with the right stuff, they would actually learn to like it. My girlfriend says that she "hates" country with a passion but enjoys Ryan Adams. Hmmmm, are his musical roots not based, in part at least, in country?
@s1rrah, thanks for the link to the live Ryan Adams show. He is one of my favorites and a local boy around my parts as well.
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Ahh country, I like alot of the older stuff and about that Nashville sound... yea it's no good.
... I'm not the most listened AudioPhile so take what I have to say with a grain of salt but...
Seiken Densetsu 3 Original Sound Version
It's one of my favorite games so as I kid I had it as junky 128/kbs on a cheap little mp3 player with some silly little ear buds...
I got ahold of it as .Flac ran it through a much better set up and... well I was shocked!
The tracks are all beautiful, they range from very funky and jazzy with tight punchy bass lines to slower and more melodic and dark with deep bass and soft wind instruments, not to mention some of the faster paced song have real energy to them!
In addition Composer Jeremy Soule's first Video Game Score
Secrect of Evermore
Is equally beautiful, there is alot of Piano music... and what makes it great is just the feel the music has through out the entire thing. It wonderfully captures the story line as well as sounds great.
Never though video game music would be anything cool but it is! The worse part though is that I sadly only have a pair of Sony XB700's... so that being said I don't listen to these albums to much as [even with EQ] there's not a whole lot of justice being done to them on my current headphones... non the less a $300 upgrade seems nessicary so I can enjoy these as they where meant to be
Paul Simon----------------- "Hearts and Bones" the best sound of this title comes off of the Vinyl (Quiex II) the promotional copy......Great for your system!
Paul Simon----------------- "Hearts and Bones" the best sound of this title comes off of the Vinyl (Quiex II) the promotional copy......Great for your system!
That reminded me of another album I use a lot to test. Paul Simon's Concert In The Park from 1991. Love this album, double disc, seems to have been recorded quite well. A lot of stuff going on in this record.
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Listened to some older Red Hot Chilipeppers yesterday as I just got a loseless collection of Studio Albums and Singles... didn't think I'd every be able to enjoy "Under the Bridge" and "Get up and Jump" any more than I already did... I was wrong thankfully! So I'm egar to re explore my collection of Rock and Funk, as Electronica got me into being an Audiophile... and thankfully I was able to branch back into more tradtional music and enjoy it like the first time all over again!
Both of the above tracks ... the entire show, in fact, are some of the best soundboard live recordings I've ever heard.
On a good Stax rig, these tracks are magical ... you can hear the snare taps splash off the back of the medium sized hall and the occasional hoots from the fairly well behaved audience come from somewhere way outside of the headphones, that's for sure.
Thanks @S1rrah for the link to Ryan Adams live FLAC archives. Love it! Anyone who has a sweet spot for US alternative country, then Ryan Adams is the one to dedicate some quality time with unless you already have. Most or all of his albums are really well produced and not brickwalled. RY does IMO belong to a very narrow crowd of one of the best US songwriters I have heard since..., well make up your own mind Completely underrated!
Overly loud, overly compressed mainstream mixing. Phenomenal song however, and the mixing/mastering does it absolutely no justice. Always a skeleton in the closet with these gems, sigh. Great test track for airy, delicate vocals.
Honestly I like to find the worst produced songs I can fine after I listen to better ones just to see what they sound like on my new stuff.
I usually choose any Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne etc crap. It's actually really hilarious to listen to. On my $6 JVC earbuds the production on their songs sounds medicore and then you put on some better headphones (even my Pannies which aren't very revealing) and it instantly turns to garbage. Not implying they weren't garbage in the first place. No offense to anyone who enjoys these artist btw
More on topic. Viva la Vida by Coldplay has a strange mix of rock, classical, and a small bit of pop. Makes for an interesting listening experience. It's a bit overly loud for a song like itself and can sound smushed together.
Eddie Arnold and the Tennesse Plowboys records between 1947 and 48 have some of the most vivid psychoacoustic depth cues I've ever heard on record. It's mono, but you would swear that the piano is twenty feet behind Arnold. Great music too.
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Completely underrated! 
