HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR SYSTEM IN LESS THAN 30 SECONDS

"Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden) - Tears of a Dragon"

And who can forget his immortal "More Cowbell"!

Dire Straits? Never heard of them. Are they popular among audiophiles?

Heard that Knopfler insisted his recordings had quality recording/production. Thanks Mark. Discussing some or many recordings where we like the music but the recording is so-so, personally think many artists compromise their careers by not doing exactly this.

Back in my twenties, which is way back, was friends with a local band from Athens. Great musicians led by an excellent songwriter who played with Howling Wolf and was with Steve Winwood on the road for many years. Us fans eagerly awaited their next album only to be disappointed time and again by the recording. They should have gone to Muscle Shoals. The guitar player played quite a bit in MS and Nashville. Always wondered why he didn’t drag the band up there.

I have all of Mark K’s solo albums. One of my fav tunes is ‘Back on the Dance Floor’ from the Down the Road Wherever album. Well recorded and totally rocks out on my system. I also like what he did with EmmyLou.

@tablejockey, when your contribution to the thread is to force your opinion on others what you think is not good music, perhaps you should reflect on how you spend your time and why you are even in this thread

Peter Gabriel 3, 4, So

Tom Tom Club Wordy Rappinghood and Under the Boardwalk

King Crimson Level 5

Neil Young

...just for some fun for the Mark & Eric fans....*s*

10:38 of time well spent....;)

Too many favs, too little time to append, so I'll just....

...run past with some diversions I like; this one gives the whole system some exorcise...

Anyway....Happy Sundaze....."...what I do, isa' what I do..."

@rcm1203,

Thanks for clearing that up for me. Makes perfect sense.

+1 for 'Private Investigations' and 'Tin Pan Alley'.

My goodness, do they sound good.

FF:  There is nothing to argue re: your statement that some groups (and their instrumentation, production, recording engineering, ad. inf.) sound better to you on a good system (also hard to simplify the variables here) than other above above referenced qualities.  Mark Knopfler knows how to hit you in the right places.

Strictly as a background note which may please you, Douglas Adams (alas, gone too soon at forty-nine) loved Dire Straits and mentions the fact in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series (also, HIGHLY recommended).  His other big favorite was Gary Brooker and Keith Reid as Procol Harum--my personal high IQ rock legends.  Try "Salty Dog" from 1968,  Best Fishes, HC, English Lit and Physics Lab teacher, retired.

Thanks hcow!  I do enjoy Salty Dog!  So much good stuff I agree with everyone (except maybe the Peter Cetera thing) :)   I just keep finding songs I like and adding them to my playlist.  I have about a thousand I shuffle through, and often stop and investigate the wnole album or albums from there.  Roon i squite good a selecting songs one might like based on their selections..better than most software I have sampled.

To thos who say they have heard it a thousand times, I challenge their listening habits not mine.  I just pointed out what sounds good.

I love the phrase 'hits you in all the right places' so true.   I would say all the music i truly love does that. or at least hits someplace with exceptional emotion. Example for me Genesis 'The Lamia" and most of the second side of that album.  But this does not sound great on every system.   For me it was also a standard evaluator for that reason.

Everything mentioned here is great music...I refuse to my mobile stuff.I can't afford it,retirement has taken it's toll.Its Cds for me now ,buck a piece.

2nd -

Iron Maiden and Wang Chung. The other submissions are excellent as well.

Happy Listening!

"Walk On" Leroy Walks! by The Leroy Vinnegar Sextet

@audioman58

Thanks for pointing out how the Beatles albums were recorded, although I think many people who just joined the audiophile community in the past 20 years are unlikely to have those recordings, as it seems they are much younger than you or me. (I do have quite a few of the Beatles albums).

What I find missing from nearly any thread is the music someone uses to evaluate a cable- or a preamp or amp, for that matter. One can’t use any old recording and expect to hear "low level detail" (whose meaning the great majority are confused about).

As was the case in the 70s, 80s and 90s, reviewers listed the music they used, so the reader could then find their copy, play it and try to duplicate what the reviewer heard with that piece of equipment.

I saw a thread asking what is "transient response" and it is such an obvious thing to me, as someone who’s spent the last 60 years in symphony halls, the ballet, the opera, and clubs that were intimate enough for them not to use amplified sound. Obviously, one doesn’t listen "for" transient response while at the symphony, but when you hear the sound of massed violins playing pizzicato, you know what "transient response" is. I think the older audiophiles (meaning those of us over 50) have considerably more exposure to live (unamplified) music, given many of us had music requirements even in high school, so we heard live music whether we wanted to or not.

That might help the newcomers. It might also quiet those (but not likely) who claim that all cables sound alike, especially since so many have no acquaintance with the sound of live music, unless it’s amplified at a noisy concert (like the Beatles in Shea Stadium), which is most certainly not going to provide an inkling of low level detail.

TAS used to have a vocabulary of terms (e.g. "midbass," "soundstage," "imaging,"
"airiness," "bloom, " etc. What do people nowadays have? Not much. And when. there’s no definition of a word, people will fill in the blanks. It would be great if we could get back to a common vocabulary, but I have to say, with the attention span of people being shorter than the tail of a Boxer, I’m not sure they’d even want to learn.

Yes. Knopfler’s Ragpicker’s Dream is so well recorded — achingly real. Other go to songs are Mary Chapin Carpenter’s Come On Come On and KD Land singing Helpless on  Songs of the 49th Parallel.  

Also a big fan of Dire Straits and Mark's creations due to the fact that there is silence (blackness) between notes and large swings of sound that do no overwhelm the listener, but actually draws you in. IMHO, Money For Nothing deviated a bit from that and is perhaps the weakest offering on Brothers for Arms. Mark is a recording master of diminuendo/crescendo. 

Many artists - or producers - seem to believe that when a large swing of sound is purposeful, they up the ante and add db levels to boost or heighten the sound - such as TV commercials of old. Mark never fell prey to the 90's loudness wars.

I have noted that many here are touting Shangri-La, which is one album I have not purchased. So when I went to do so, I was surprised it was well over $150? Why? Is anyone expecting it to be reissued? While I have purchased a $150 Steely Dan Aja UHQR album, I cannot fathom spending $150 on an album that is not, in some way, different than what was offered up in 2004 at $30. Guessing that the CD is the better choice.. 

I bought a Pioneer RT-707 and am having it restored at J-Coder

It’s supposed to be a good sounding entry level R2R

Moving up from there are the Technics 1500 or 1720 decks

I agree with others here when it comes to Mark Knopfler’s vocals. He’s basically chatting. The band sounds great though.

lalitk,

Thanks for your suggestion.  I'd never heard that song before.

Very nice!

To deep-333. You are truly a sophisticated, enlightened connoisseur of musical taste. Bravo to you.

To deep-333. You are truly a sophisticated, enlightened connoisseur of musical taste.

You can’t beat the sound of Def Leppard blasting away  on his multi-channel Von Swikert system.  

@howartcow 

THGTTG is very important to me and I consider it (and the subsequent books in the series) to be a masterpiece. I consider Adams a "cynic with a heart of gold (not the infinite improbability drive powered spaceship)". 

Regarding the "talking voice" v the "pretty voice" argument, art is art. The argument is akin to "it's not a poem if it doesn't rhyme" and very tired.  The delicate beauty of Prokoviev's Romeo and Juliet is not somehow superior to the fierce brutality of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, although the former is probably more accessible to the casual listener.  

In the end, nobody wins a "my favorite band is best" argument.

Turn it on ,Sorry....lol