Best Audiophile recordings

45 rpm reissues of the Mercury Living Presence recordings. As a REFERENCE, only classical/acoustic counts. Rock music is ok, but for judging accuracy you're into preference not reference with rock/pop and other heavily miked studio stuff. Nothing beats Mercury. Other Classic Reissues plus RR Mastercuts of Vox recordings of SLSO and Minneapolis are wonderful. Also Decca/Speaker's Corner. EMI very good but a little too hifi.

well, some labels hae a consistently superior hoouse sound, even when they are as criticisable like telarc is for their impactful early discs. but then, live music is impactful. the lorin maazel pictures and the yoel levy pics are Good examples. many of the others are laudable for their naturalness and accuracy. the eric kunzel things are mostly very good, an example of how a label's stable of artists can draws you in. audiophile labels arent always the source of good music; everyday labels sometimes will bowl you over in quality. muse label for instance. some of mark murphys record will stun you in that regard. on that note, get a load of kurt elling! the messenger is a good place to start. the xrcd discs are too exhorbitantly priced for a company thats not paying the musicians and porducing the recordings themselves. the doug mc leod was good enuf on aq. the merc living presence reissues supervised by wilma cozart are a good contrast to the xrcd. not only are they fine reissues, sometimes exceeding the orig LPs, but they usually give you 1.5-2LPs morth on 1 disc for cheeeeep--$10! at nearly $30 a pop new, or $16 used, its too much...... mfsl, go figure some of the choices they made--matthew sweet? gimme a break. el&p tarkus??? as the magazine in britain is named:"what hifi" i havent even started to paw my thru my LP (6k of 'em)collection or cd for that matter, so i coould crow loudly about some of the stuff thats out there for the grabbing. i'll be baaaaaaaaack. tr

The remixed and remastered RAW POWER by Iggy and the Stooges.The closest cd comes to the sound of a live rock and roll band. It is the finest and best sounding rock cd out there. Use it as a test cd when shopping for equipment. I'll guarantee you that most of the high rated equipment out there will be torn to shreds when fed a true dynamic signal from this cd. I say all of this with the utmost seriousness.

i tend to agree with you. my favourite cd's are not rated "audiophile", but check out these mixture: -the very best of Jacques Loussier "Air on a "G" string" Music Club MCCD 399, a UK label. -Paquito d'Rivera "Carribbean Jazz Project" hucd 3039 Heads Up label,USA. -Dave Samuels presents Tjaderized, tribute to Cal Tjader,Verve 70862. -Stan Getz "The Bossanova Years", Verve 823611-2, a 4-cd collection of classic archive material of surprising quality ,fantastic value.

iceraven.....i have heard of j.loussier from a friend and record store owner (gideon, roundhouse records in granada hills,ca) who is from israel and has lived in the uk. he played me some of the bach, we had been talking about wendy carlos. it was verrrrry nice. i plan on getting some of this. oyeah! the standard issue form bmg of harry belafonte ant carnegie is first rate. the squeaking kick drum beater annoys a little once you identify it. my kinds have to participate with this music every time i put it on; theyre teenagers! where do you live? hifitommy@aol.