Which CD brings out the best in your system?

[admin_exported]

Here is a question. We are all somewhat obsessed with building that perfect system, looking for the holy grail of sound quality, however, a sytem can only ever reproduce what is on the CD (Or record). Often I am disappointed with the quality of some recordings, even many new releases sound poor.

Out of my (quite) large CD collection, I think there may only be a handful of C.D's that sound truly amazing in terms of production quality. I am interested to know which are your favorite recordings; which ones make your system shine?

I will start the ball rolling:

Moloko (Statues)

MTV unplugged series

 

[Big Chris]

I'm gonna start sounding like a broken record here, but the later Opeth albums, especially 'Ghost Reveries' are very well recorded.

It's quite tricky with Opeth too, due to the complex nature of the music. One minute it's extremely heavy with deep growling vocals, the next it's all acoustic guitars and melodic vocals.

One thing I've found as a metal/hard rock fan. It's very hard to convey the sense of power and aggression onto CD. A lot of bands that kill live, suffer from an over-polite/sedate sound on CD (Step forward 'Tool').

Opeth have got it nailed IMO.

(Step forward the queue of people accusing my Arcams of being the main culprit)

 

[Anonymous]

Damien Rice , the album "O"

 

[Anonymous]

The beatles love album spring's to mind, it's a stonking album from start to finish, its the best ive herd the beatles sound.Guns and roses-november rain, carly simon-nobody does it better, and stevie wonders-you are the sunshine of my life are among the first played to freind's, after that its usally some weird eighties stuff, a wee bit of ultravox or fiction factory..

 

[gpi]

The White Stripes, their album which includes Biscuit Ball, Ball biscuit... err, a track with ball and biscuit in the title.

Alternative: AC/DC Back in Black.

 

[fr0g]

Kestrel:Damien Rice , the album "O"

Excellent CD, I also use this for vocal testing.

I also use
Aphex Twin - Selected ambient works Vol.1 1985-1992 (Specifically... "Ageispolis")

REM - Automatic for the people (Everybody hurts)

Massive Attack - Protection (Protection)

Sepultura - Chaos AD

My Dying Bride - The light at the end of the world (She is the Dark)

My Exit Music - Someday Zero

...at the moment.

 

[Pike900fish]

For me it's anything from Spock's Beard, IMO modern day prog rock at it's best. Rush recent and remasterd CD's (avoid live recordings though) and anything from Lenny Kravitz for jaw shattering Base and lovely oldy fash warmth mix (check out 5!) Yes, " The Ladder" is also sounds gr8 a real cheery tune!! but please no Led Zep remasters..they should be kept to vinyl!! IMO

Cheers

System Rotel RCD971CD, Linn axis with Akita arm Ortofon 510MkII Nad Preamp 1155, 2 x Nad 2200PE mono blocs, Temporary Mission 760's (awaiting AE Aerelite 2's)

 

[Craig M.]

gpi:The White Stripes, their album which includes Biscuit Ball, Ball biscuit... err, a track with ball and biscuit in the title. Alternative: AC/DC Back in Black.

you're thinking of (suprizingly enough) ball and biscuit from elephant

metallica - and justice for all. even mates who don't like this type of music think it sounds great.

basement jaxx - remedy. red alert sounds great, not so keen on the rest of it though...

nirvana - nevermind.

 

[Anonymous]

Big Chris:I'm gonna start sounding like a broken record here, but the later Opeth albums, especially 'Ghost Reveries' are very well recorded.

It's quite tricky with Opeth too, due to the complex nature of the music. One minute it's extremely heavy with deep growling vocals, the next it's all acoustic guitars and melodic vocals.

One thing I've found as a metal/hard rock fan. It's very hard to convey the sense of power and aggression onto CD. A lot of bands that kill live, suffer from an over-polite/sedate sound on CD (Step forward 'Tool').

Opeth have got it nailed IMO.

(Step forward the queue of people accusing my Arcams of being the main culprit)



your bang on their chris! ghost reveries is a killer album that is extremely well recorded - like most opeth albums.

for me though, Michael Jacksons Bad really shows off my setup as does Oceansize's Effloresce

 

[Cypher]

Donald Fagen - Morph The Cat (incredible production)

Steely Dan - Aja (remaster) (also an incredible production)

Spyro Gyra - The Deep End (listen to the track Monsoon)

 

[Anonymous]

Craig M.:
gpi:The White Stripes, their album which includes Biscuit Ball, Ball biscuit... err, a track with ball and biscuit in the title. Alternative: AC/DC Back in Black.

metallica - and justice for all. even mates who don't like this type of music think it sounds great.

Craig, although i am a fan of metallica im not to keen on this album due to Jason intricate lines being drowned out in the mix on this album. For me, the "black" album is their best recording sound quality wise...

 

[Anonymous]

Agreed, quincy jones production on bad is amazeing, it's one of my fav's to.

 

[JoelSim]

The The - That Uncertain Smile

Beautiful South - Carry on up the charts

Seal

Sade - Love Deluxe

Everything but the girl - Amplified Heart

Fleetwood Mac - Rumours

 

[Anonymous]

Seals has awesome bass not to mention the silky vocal's in .

 

[fatboyslimfast]

I'm currently addicted to the Beatles, especially Love, SgtPepper and Revolver. Geoff Emerick should be made a CBE at least...

 

[Gwyndy]

Top of my head here

Def Leppard: Songs from the sparkle lounge

Kate Bush: Aerial

Hayley Westenra: Pure

Primitive Radio Gods: Rocket

Probably several dozen others, don't mention the vinyl.

 

[Anonymous]

I am a massive beatles fan, you should get your mit's on abbey road and the white album and dont forget the magical mystery tour...just buy them all.

 

[gpi]

Duplicate post deleted. What does it mean 'no children will be deleted'?

 

[jimdonnelly]

Any of these will do me nicely

Jeff Buckley - Grace

The The - Infected

The Blue Nile - A walk across the rooftops

Cowboy Junkies - Trinity session

Robbie Robertson - Contact from the underworld of redboy

 

[Craig M.]

ifitsoundsgoodlistentoit:Craig M.:

gpi:The White Stripes, their album which includes Biscuit Ball, Ball biscuit... err, a track with ball and biscuit in the title. Alternative: AC/DC Back in Black.

metallica - and justice for all. even mates who don't like this type of music think it sounds great.

Craig, although i am a fan of metallica im not to keen on this album due to Jason intricate lines being drowned out in the mix on this album. For me, the "black" album is their best recording sound quality wise...

i'm not really a fan of metal but i do like "and justice for all", i've not heard black but will check it out. probably what i've done is not put down the cd's with the best sound quality but the ones that put a grin on my face when cranked up. one of my cousins who is a metal fan said he once heard one of metallica say he didn't like "and justice for all" 'cos they were just showing off, i think thats what i like about it.

 

[Anonymous]

Dunno about brings best out in my system, but here are a few of my favourites:-

Murcof - Remembranza

Max Richter - The Blue Notebooks / Memoryhouse

Aereogramme - My heart has a wish that you would not go

Ulrich Schnauss - Far away trains passing by

Port-Royal - Flares

Joni Mitchell - Blue

Gui Boratto - Chromophobia

Steve Reich - Different Trains / Electric Counterpoint / Three Movements

Weather Report - Black Market

Phillip Glass (Anything)

Jon Hopkins - Contact Note

I'll get annoyed in a minute when I realise I love a hundred over albums more than these, bu these sprang to mind.

 

[Anonymous]

Sometimes it can be a real pain - albums you love don't sound as good as you'd like on your setup, and albums you think are just OK sounds great!

Gotta agree with Octopo though - 'Blue' is my favourite Joni album, and it sounds great.

"Alice In Chains - Jar of Flies" works well for me, as do pretty much any of Suzanne Vega's albums ("Song of Sand" on 99F degrees is superb).

The "10,000 days" and "Lateralus" albums by Tool are great system workouts, though the vocal is always mixed a bit to much in the background for my taste (I like the vocal to really feel as if it's right in front of you).

"Transistor Radio" by M.Ward is a great sounding album, but not always one of my musical favourites.

 

[the record spot]

It depends on the mastering as well as the title for me. I have a brilliant 1984 West German copy of Genesis "A Trick of the Tail" which utterly canes the Definitive Edition Remaster from 1994 and pretty much the current SACD version too. Likewise a Japanese disc of the same album which came out on the US Atco label.

A MFSL "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" is pretty stunning and likewise the West German fatbox counterpart.

This is just two of many - the funny thing is, I read a post on a thread on here not so long back that said you could virtually almost forget any CD from pre-1991 - lol!

More like the other way around IMO. There is detail, soundstage and scale by the truckload on some of those discs.

I think people often mistake recent discs labelled "Remastered" for "better quality" when often the brickwalled, compressed mess they end up listening to is anything but a high quality audio release.

If you do happen to take an interest in mastering, check out releases where guys like Joe Gastwirt, Steve Hoffman or Barry Diament are namechecked and you should be doing well.

 

[Anonymous]

Several releases currently for me:

American Music Club - The Golden Age
Tool - 10,000 Days
Hans Zimmer - Da Vinci Code soundtrack
Redshift - Last

 

[bigblue235]

Paul Weller's Stanley Road usually sounds pretty good. As does Sprit by Jewel, one of the few HDCD discs I ever got round to buying!

Morcheeba's Fragments of Freedom is one I remember being championed in the mag. I went out and bought it, despite never having heard a song from it, purely because WHF said it was a great system tester. It was just a nice bonus that I enjoyed the music

In fact, if I remember correctly, it was bought in a 5 for £30 deal at HMV, and all the discs were WHF recommendations! Only other one I remember is Miles Davis, Kind of Blue.