Angelique Kidjo "Oremi". If the soundstage doesn't go outside your speakers on her cover of "Voodoo Child" your system needs tweaking or upgrades. |
Alison Krause--Forget about it. Listed as bluegrass but don't let that turn you away. Excellent recording and wonderful vocals. Highly recomended. |
Lots of Dead & Floyd can be ear candy. If you really want to stretch your system, get Don Dorseys Bachbusters put out by Telarc |
Especially the kazoo solos on the cut "Accidents"..not to mention car wreck sound effects...Brainticket's "Cottonwood Hill" is more psyched-out ear candy. |
James Taylor - Hourglass - track 4 - "gaia",
phenomenal bottom end reach and energy. (careful with that volume, eugene...)
Flim and the BB's - Big Notes - Gold Ed. - track 4 - "Funhouse" - soundstage all over the room - pipe organ "breath" rich and textured.
Al Dimeola - Elegant Gypsy - track 3 - "Mediterranean Sundance" - A balls out acoustic Flemenco duet with Paco De Lucia.
Diane Schurr - Pure Schurr - track 1 - "Nobody Does Me" -
vocals with dynamic range and pure output capability unequaled by anybody i've ever found. Her deeply soulful celebration of her gift is a joy share. A true Diva.
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Taraf de Haidouks - gypsy music: double bass, accordions, violins, cymbals.
Nonesuch Records.
Astounding! |
Jazz at the pawnshop, Roger Waters-Ammused to Death, Eagles-Hell Freezes over, Patricia Barber-cafe blue, Dean Peer-Ucross. |
Serebrier conducts Serebrier. A very unusual and sometimes weird classical CD, but....
the drum solo on track 4 is unlike anything I have ever heard on a classical recording. It will wake the dead. Not just your typical big orchestral dynamics with the usual typanis, but rather it sounds like a lost rock drummer wandered into an orchestra and found a drum set on "steroids". These 20 seconds are worth the price of the CD.
A classical recording from Reference Recordings. |
Toru Takemitsu - "From Me Flows What You Call Time" and "Legacy For The Future"
Miles Davis - "Big Fun" and "Bitches Brew"
Jimi Hendrix - "Axis Bold As Love" |
Try " The Legendary Marvin Pontiac" |
In orchestral music, Water Lily Acoustic's "Nature's Realm" is a must have. |
On headphones: Jean-Michel Jarre: Equinoxe Pt. 4 (a good recording of this will actually tickle the first time you hear it), Magnetic Fields Pt. 1; Pink Floyd: Shine On You Crazy Diamond Pt. 4 (the guy laughing after one of the lines sounds like he's in the room with you); Mike Oldfield: Platinum Pt. 1 (the most separated I've ever heard). |
Pink Floyd: Ummagumma, Atom Heart Mother |
The new Steve Earle, Transcendental Blues is a very good recording. |
Two LP's come to mind: an old Riverside recordings called "The Sounds of Speed", which included stuff like the world-record land speed record by Mickey Thompson; steam locomotive going by; etc. It's long out-of-print, but if you can find a decent copy I guarantee it will wring out your audio system. The other LP that comes to mind is Keith Johnson's recording on Reference Records called "Astounding Sound Show" (or something close to that). It contains 7 cuts from various recordings he has done, and several are really startling. |
Nautilus's vinyl pressing of Neil Young's "Harvest". Try to find one used, cue it up, and prepare to be startled. |
Anything by Yello. Their CDs still stand as some of the very best technical discs you'll find, and the stuff on'em is pretty good, as well. A "must" for any CD library. |
Without doing a history lesson of "head" music from the 1970s, during the early 1990s there was some good techno/electronica albums that made full use of studio tech to create incredible soundscapes......here are some quality examples artist/album.....Chemical Brothers/Planet Dust, Juno Reactor/Bible of Dreams, Fluke/Risotto, Crystal Method/Vegas, Underworld/Beaucoup Fish, Massive Attack/Mezzanine........many many more, unfortunately most audiophiles do not explore this area, sound quality is much better than average rock album, Sam |
Ammused to death is my all time/most played ever, cd.I understand they recorded the effects/stuff out of phase---as they do for surround sound.Some things come from behind or beside you.Best 2'ch ss.Love the music and the lyrics as well.It is a sort of test cd;after I have bought a tweak or whatever;I can hear deeper into the sound stage,if the tweak worked. |
For those who still have turntables try anything on RCA's "Living Stereo" if you can find them. |
Bob Dylan "Time out of Mind" is good and strange - extremely closed mike vocals and lots of fuzz box and pedal guitars all over the soundstage. Fiona Apple's latest is weird too, alot of weird stuff - listen to that one in the dark! |
The group Coil is famous for their spatial recordings, they use a process called Sidereal Sound, some of the sounds will literally sound like they are happening at the back of the room, it is espetially evident on their Solstice series of EPs. Another master of this is Robert Rich his recording with Alio Die called Fissures is amazing. |
Tracks #7 and #12 of Lucinda Williams "Car Wheels On a Gravel Road"-- this is an HDCD recording though, and I don't know how important that is on non-HDCC players-- the rest of the CD is darn good too. I also agree with Treyhoss re: all of the Enigma CDs. Cheers. Craig. |
Startling? King Crimson's "Lark's Tongues in Aspic", Liquid Tension Experiment's "Vol. 1", Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music", Wendy Carlos' "Beauty in the Beast" & "Tales of Heaven and Hell". |
good topic, but i hope we can get more obscure stuff (like "dirt track date"- gotta get that one). Here's an eclectic sampling of my faves: kraftwerk: "numbers", track 3 from "computer world" stravinsky: "histoire du soldat" chesky cd122- the whole thing dead can dance: "yulanga" , track 1 from "into the labyrinth" chris rea: "the road to hell" , parts 1&2 phish: "rife" , tracks 3&4 james taylor: "gaia" , track 4 from "hourglass" frank zappa: "jewish princess", rhino 10577, "have i offended someone?" , track 14 eels: "susan's house" , radio records (nl) , "meter sessies, vol. 7" (may be available elsewhere-haven't looked but it's a real find) keep 'em comin'. i like these pieces of earcandy. |
These aren't necessarily startling, but they are cute... 1. Pink Floyd "Atom Heart Mother" (Quadraphonic!) has a water drip, drip, drip,... that repeats forever at the end of Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast until your tonearm picks up--if your tonearm picks up. 2. There is a Mike Oldfield record (forgot title) that chants "Debby Boone, Debby Boone,..." in a similar fashion. 3. Also on "Atom Heart Mother," in the Atom Heart Mother Suite, a motorcycle starting and taking off is incorporated into the orchestral arrangement--goes from one side to the other--first time I heard it I actually looked out my window for the motorcycle. |
Anything by Enigma! Also, for synthesized is Moodswings. Best ear candy of the classic rock days is the Moody Blues - hand's down. Of course, Pink Floyd is great too! Tony |
The first cut on the original Soundtrack From Twin Peaks, Music Composed by Angelo Badalamenti, has the most surefire bodyrush of anything I've ever heard. It'll wash over you, the wife and any small animals present :-) The rest of it's way cool too. But beware of imitations, make sure it's the CD original Warner Bros 26316-2. |
For me, it's "Dirt Track Date" from Southern Culture on the Skids(great band!). On this cut for the last 6 or so minutes, there is the sound of a dirt track racing car barreling around the track. It's another great imaging test, as the cart not only goes from side to side but to the far side of the track as well. It is so lifelike that those in my house routinely barge into the listening room, mad as hell, swearing someone is going crazy outside, riding around on a motorcycle. When I explain it's the recording, they are in absolute disbelief. |
I would have to say that 2 of my favorites are Madonna- The Immaculate Collection and Roger Waters- Amused to Death. Both were recorded with the Q sound process and the imaging on these discs is nothing short of phenomenal. I don't remember the reviewer it was, but one of the guys at Stereophile chose Amused to Death as his reference for imaging tests. He said there wasn't a disc that was better for this purpose. To bad the musical content is worthless, but thats a different story. If you can still find the Sony SBM gold version, believe me it's worth the price. |
