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OK, OK, yes I know there is a "Music" ward in the asylum. But this query has something to do with equipment as well, where it seems like many of the posts I've read in the "Music" sections are, appropriately, about the music as an end. So here's my query (forgive me if it has been discussed before as I'm a new inmate):What are your favorite recordings to use to really show off what your (tube) system can do...which ones come out as standards when you change a component, roll tubes, or swap interconnects? I'm posting this here in the Tube section since I'm an addict of the tube sound myself and would like to hear from fellow tube-addicts.
Here are a few of my standards. I should qualify this by stating that I am a big fan of female vocals, string instruments, and 'unusual' music of all kinds. I'll keep my comments brief about each one, and keep the list short and concise. If you want to know more about any of them just go to Amazon and do a search for the album or artist and there should be ample commentary there. I'd love to hear from others with divergent as well as similar musical tastes!
I've found these recordings really make my system shine, and they always come out when I am changing anything in my system:
Casandra Wilson, Blue Light Til Dawn - Deep liquid sensual female vocalist - Modern Jazz Fusion. Great recording to hightlight the warmth of tube sound.
Eva Cassidy, Songbird - What an amazing powerful voice! Just goes straight to the heart! She was mostly a studio recording artist who died tragicaly at age 33 of cancer. This is an absolute MUST for anyone who appreciated female vocals. This will show off any system - her voice just pierces right through you!
Cowboy Junkies, The Trinity Session - Stark, haunting vocals. Wonderful recording. This one really shows off the ability to recreate ambience, or that black space around the instruments. It was recorded in one-day recording session in an old church.
Tom Waits, Swordfishtrombones - Most folks either love him, or hate him. I fall in the former category and have been listening to his stuff since the early years. He is a creative genius, in my opinion. I really love the later stuff which is more complex and musically textured. The years he began recording with Island marked the beginning of this period, culminating with the two recently released albums, which are both great. This album is one of the earliest of that genre, and remains one of my favorites. This really shows off spatial qualities of a system with a rich variety of sounds and musical textures, in a wide and deep soundstage.
Jazz at the Pawnshop - Great live classic jazz. This one's been a standby since the LP version. A wonderful performance and an outstanding recording of very engaging and lively jazz. I've not heard the CD version(s). Again, great ambience and spatial demonstrations available in this recording. Plenty of wind instruments that are brought to life with tube warmth.
OK, there's the top five. I could go on, but I'd rather keep it brief since it is a bit off topic. I look forward to hearing from others!
Follow Ups:
Everybody has one or two recordings that "do it" for them, and mine only work with tube gear.Anyway, Stravinsky's "Rite Of Spring" (Pierre Monteux and the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra, RCA Victor LM-2085, 1957) is mine... I have three copies of this (2 16S/17S and 1 19S/19S pressing), and each is unique. When rendered by a Rega Planar 3 through an Audible Illusions Modulus 3A and a pair of Dyna Mark IV's I get shivers and the hair on the back of my neck stands up.
Another record that has this effect -- with tubes only -- is the 1955 RCA Victor LM-1913, "Delibes Sylvia and Coppelia"; Monteux again, this time with "members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra" as the jacket says.
My solid state Rega Elicit is good, but it can't do these records justice. Both of these are mono recordings -- the latter with a single mike directly over the maestro's head. I'm not a mono fanatic, but these recordings paired with my EL34 based system... well, they do things to me. Air, imaging, soundstage... all of this is still important in the monaural domain. These disks have it, and the EL34's reveal it (David Hafler's transformers probably have a bit to do with that as well!).
A friend posited that it may be ideal to match up the recording and playback technologies -- tube with tube, and ss with ss. I wish I could remember the specific example, but he had an orchestral recording that was cut entirely with tube equipment, and if played through ss gear gave one the rather unsettling effect of hovering above the orchestra.
Here I go showing my ignorance again, but I had no idea that a mono recording could recreate a soundstage at all!? I thought it required two mikes to create the illusion of width, depth and placement (the same way having two eyes allows us a sense of depth, but with only one we do not perceive depth nearly as well.....so do two ears/two speakers do the same with sound....or am I way off base here)? I don't think I have many mono recordings but I'm sure I have a few in the blues category (I'm just beginning to really appreciate classical music so my collection is quite small). I'll have to pull a few of those mono's out and listen on tubes, as I don't think I have done that since converting.
If you close one eye you'll see that you still have depth perception, and likewise, stereo is not a requirement to capture aural effects of the recording environs. Of course, without the notion of left/right there is no sided-ness. If you adjust your expectations a bit and listen to a few high quality mono recordings I'm sure you'll "get the picture." I suspect that the best effect is had from vinyl in this catagory... I have very few mono recordings in a digital format, and so can't say for certain.You can usually find relatively nice mono RCA Victor "Shaded dogs" (the LM-xxxx catalog numbers) and blue label Columbias at your favorite used record emporium, as monophonic vinyl has yet to come into vogue amongst the collector crowd. Just stay away from MY favorite dealers ;-)
Sure, I'll stay away from your favorite dealers. You'd better make a list of them so I'll know which ones to avoid! Just use my email link and lets not clutter up this thread any more than we have to;-)!Indeed, with one eye closed we can still perceive depth ;-(, but not nearly as well as with both eyes open :-), especially when any kind of motion is involved. Our hearing, as I understand it, is more lacking in the ability to perceive depth than our vision. I found a good explanation of our visual depth perception here, which briefly mentions hearing:
http://www2.iicm.edu/0x811bc833_0x000dacca
BUT, better yet, there is an interesting page on depth perception in hearing and recording, specifically adressing mono recordings vs stereo recordings here, which DOES support your observations:
http://www.digido.com/depthessay.html
Thanks for bringing this to my attention Tom!
Especially "Blue Light Til Dawn". Just a deep, rich, recording with amazing tone. I love the way they mic'd the instruments. My only complaint is that there tends to be a bit of sibilance on all her recordings. Like they should move the microphone back another few inches.
I've noticed that (sibilance) too on more than one of her CD's! It occurs on both my home and work systems and both are (modest) tube systems. This leads me to another question that may be a bit naive, but here goes: On many of the instrumental and classical CD's I listen to, when I raise the volume to a 'satisfying' level for me (most folks tell me I like to listen at louder volumes) there is a marked hiss that is constant as long as there is recorded music (disappears with no signal, or in the short gaps between cuts). This hiss is quite distracting to me in silent or quiet passages where it is most apparent. It occurs on both of my (tube) systems, as well as in SS when I had it, only with specific recordings. Is this solely a function of the way the music is (originally) recorded? Would a better top-end improve this? I have this ideal in my mind to eliminate the hiss and have the instruments all occuring holographicly in a 'black' silent space. Perhaps this can never happen with these particular recordings. My systems are listed under the Inmate Sytems section, but I have a feeling they are not to blame. Two recordings that come to mind that this 'hiss' is apparent on are Rubenstein's Beethoven Piano Concerto's remastered from a 1956 recording on RCA, and the wonderful Ry Cooder colaboration with Vishwa Mohan Bhatt called A Meeting by the River.
Very likely the problem is with the recording particulary if you only notice this problem with certain recordings. However once I went the balanced power route it greatly reduced background noise. The nice thing about it is that it helps all the items in the stereo system. I also like roller blocks for my CD and turntable. A separate isolation transformer for your digital sources is best. Good idea to keep the digital stuff isolated from the other equipment. Of course YMMV but I feel power quality is an important often overlooked part of the equation.
Now, the Cassandra problem with vocals is inexcusable. I've noticed it on several of her recordings and you would think someone would have taken notice.I mean, I love "Blue Light..", but the sibilance almost ruins the magic for me. It's not too bad if you listen at casual levels, but once the volume gets past a certain point, it really becomes annoying.
Other than that, I use the recording as a reference for vocals, bass, drums, and spatial evaluation. Her version of Van Morrison's "Tupelo Honey" is mind blowing. And her duet with Vinx on "Children of the Night" is hauntingly beautiful.
1. Stevie Ray Vaughn "The Sky is Crying"
2. Jimmy Rogers "Blow Wind Blow"
3. Doyle Lawson "Heaven's Joy Awaits"
4. Kenny Wayne Shepherd "Daja Voodoo"
5. Stevie Ray Vaughn "Chittlins Con Carne"
Bozz Scaggs Silk Degrees LP is one that I use to show off the my Fisher tube reciever. Tubes seem to show off the grittyness of his voice. The CD not recorded very well.
This is a great thread! I can see I'll be spending a bunch of cash looking into some of the recordings I am not familiar with. Thanks for all the input, and, by all means, chime in with more if you have not already! It's all great - I'm especially grateful for the references to genre's which I have not explored as much and know little about (jazz and classical), as well as those I am already fond of.Thank you all for taking the time to respond!
I really like listening to late 50s Blue Note jazz LPs....any that were recorded by Rudy Van Gelder. If you like jazz and havent heard those....run dont walk to Analogue Prod or Classic and buy a couple of their excellent 180gm reissues to try out.
Hey-Hey!!!,
This single album has a bunch of really difficult passages, to demo imaging, bass response, detail....No single fav track. It is an all around cool album. PinkFloyd was always really careful in the studio and this one is no exception.
regards,
Douglas
Thanks for the compliments. Check out I Robot too.......
rocked my world back then, but I bet it's a little dated now. "I wouldn't wanna be like you, noooo-ooo-oh".Now, "Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe" is a whole 'nother slice of pie!
i robot - alan parsons group - have not heard it in years - time to fix the turntable - or buy the cd - alan is that you??
Holy Smoke!!!!!
Just pulled out the jacket and looked through the credits. Well done Sir. I had to go back and look, have been listening to that album since I was about 13, it was my first CD, ever....
regards,
Douglas Piccard
Of the ones you mention - I have Songbird on CD and I agree it's great.The other female vocals I like to put on are Rebecca Pigeon (particularly the Spanish Harlem track), I've Got the music in me - Thelma Housten, and Bonnie Raitt - Luck of the draw album.
I like the Patricia Barber LP's. Especially Cafe Blue. With tubes, she is eerily in the room.
k.d. lang, "Ingenue" runs the full gamut of dynamics. Tremendous vocals, great instrumentals, excellent recording engineering.
You have to step up and spend 30.00 bucks on this one 180 gram groove note Illinois Jacquet birthday party. I guy who sells records said this is one of the top 10 records of all time for recording value. The other great thing is the cuts are great also. For the cast lets see Joe Newman, Art Farmer, Jimmie Smith, Kenny Burrell, Jack Six, Roy Haynes, Gerry Mullingan, and James Moody. It is great.One-night stand A Keyboard Event on Columbia The track When Johnny Comes marching home again with George Duke and Charles Earland on B-3 organs playing back and forth and together is outstanding. The next cut has a Ron Carter doing a great bass solo and the piano is outstanding and I am normally not a Bob James fan.
For the record Tom Waits is a genius. Some of his late stuff I am not as fond of. But his Mixing of Jazz, blues, rock, ballets, French what ever, strange beats and sounds is the best. If you like a funky piano and wild sounds Mule is a double album that came out in the late 90's. Blue Valintine is one of my favorites for his voice and orchestra back up.
Can we get more info on this one...sounds great. An amazon link maybe????> > One-night stand A Keyboard Event on Columbia The track When Johnny Comes marching home again with George Duke and Charles Earland on B-3 organs playing back and forth and together is outstanding. The next cut has a Ron Carter doing a great bass solo and the piano is outstanding and I am normally not a Bob James fan.
I got this used at a record store. It is a double album and looks like it came out in 1981. If you are ever in L.A. record surplus has a ton of jazz.
Her albums "Bach: works for violin solo" and "Bach Concertos" , besides being musical gangbusters, are recorded extraordinarily well. The layers and layers of crystal-clear harmonics so well-recorded WILL show off how good (or bad) your tubed system sounds. Guaranteed!
ABSOLUTELY MAGNIFICENT! I just purchased a group of recordings recommended on this thread and started out by playing this one on my work system. I stood transfixed by the music, unable to pull myself away from listening. Absolutely holographic presentation of magnificent heartfelt music. Crystal clear... truly brought tears to my eyes. This was the Bach works for violin solo. I also ordered her other recording titled "Gypsy" but have yet to receive it. Thank you for this recommendation which I heartily recommend to absolutely anyone who enjoys music! I would not understand how anyone could not be moved by this recording....really wonderful, and definitely highlights the assets of a tube system. Extraordinary. Thanks Jon! I'm looking forward to listening to some of the other recommendations that listers shared on this thread!
I've been wanting to get the 45 RPM set of The Trinity Sessions, pricey bugger.All three Jacintha's and the two Holly Cole's on vinyl really show the magic of toobs for me...
Clickit!
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