Whats on your turntable tonight?


For me its the first or very early LP's of:
Allman Brothers - "Allman Joys" "Idyllwild South"
Santana - "Santana" 200 g reissue
Emerson Lake and Palmer - "Emerson Lake and Palmer"
and,
Beethoven - "Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major" Rudolph Serkin/Ozawa/BSO
slipknot1
getting started on...

Porcupine Tree  "Voyage 34"  2016 re-master

I see my Aretha Franklin  "Aretha's Gold"  MFSL/45rpm just arrived!
Rory Gallagher "Against the Grain" (promo)

BTW: "Voyager 34" exceeded my expectations. Real nice!
Carolina Chocolate Drops  "Genuine Negro Jig"

Rhiannon Giddens...I think I can already say...the Great Rhiannon Giddens. She was just in town (her home town) last weekend for the Folk Festival in which she was the curator for artists this year. What a great talent!
Savoy Brown "Getting to the Point" original US pressing/Bell Sound/Parrot


Just broke the seal on the 2016 re-master of Pink Floyd "The Wall".

After just listening to "Voyager 34", it seemed like the right thing to do.
Cueing this latest "The Wall" up, I was ready to post, it is muffled compared to my original pressing. Then, I kept on listening. That was the correct approach. Because now, I hear delicate details that I never heard before. Moreover, the child choir is more expansive and important than ever before, "Another Brick in the Wall". I can now hear a faint, singular person singing along with the children's choir on this track. Very cool.

This lp always needed the full volume afforded by any system to sound it's best. No difference here. The more I turn it up, the better it sounds. Ahhhh, glorious analog! The real sense of space and the original acoustic environment is all here to enjoy. I think what I may be trying to ultimately get to is the warmth that comes along with all of the previously unheard details I just mentioned all equals out to be...this pressing is superior to my two originals, hands down. That's pretty darn good for me.
…...it seems to me that the goal here was not to in any way enhance, but to provide a clear path forward. Job well done!
OK...……I had an issue that caused me to wait...…..
Now, I'll continue with "The Wall", then 'l finish the rest of "Us" later.
@slaw 

That reissue of The Wall is damn good, my daughter got me a copy for my birthday this year and it sounds pretty spectacular and I agree, it really has to be fairly full volume for me as well which means I get windows to which I can listen to it, kinda like Rage. 
That Aretha's Gold is pretty damn good. Tough to remaster a greatest hits as the originals are so different but it is very good nonetheless. Dr. Feelgood is exceptional. 
on this pressing "Comfortably Numb", the soundstage spread is remarkable. There is nothing I'd change. The warmth, the presence, the way it is presented as a complete anthem...WOW!
Tonight:
Son Volt- Straightaways- phenomenal reissue, really great sounding record, and their first 3 records are some of my favorites ever. Any band.
Donald Fagen - Nightfly, original pressing, damn good 
Steely Dan, Royal Scam, original UK pressing 
Hey, @6t5-gto,

Good to here from you The warmth I hear from DSOTM & The Wall on these latest (2016) re-masters in conjunction with all of the fine detail is pretty remarkable!
@slaw 

The solo in Comfortably Numb is in my top 5 of all time and that reissue sounds epicly large and wide. I had forgotten that The Wall won Grammy for best engineered that year. 
I remember skipping school to get my copy the day they released it and I must have put 100 spins on it the first month I had it 
Thanks,Slaw
Funny, I still have an older copy of Dark Side and need to try a copy of the reissue. Wish You Were Here is a great reissue as well. Meddle is good but just not nearly as well recorded as the others but the vinyl is really clean. 
@6t5-gto,

Son Volt ""Straighaways"...I own it. As you may know, I've been procuring all of Son Volt. 

A serious band that really doesn't get the props!
@slaw 
Agreed, I have seen them about a dozen and a half times and met Jay briefly at a solo show in Austin that was in between Straightaways and Wide Swing (I think). 
I was an Uncle Tupelo fan prior and when they split I actually think Son Volt is the better band (at least for the first 3 records) and I like Jay more than Tweedy as a song writer. I am really not much of a Wilco fan. 
I would have told anyone for many years that Trace was my favorite collection of songs on one record. It is incredible. 
But from a playback perspective, my copy of Straightaways smokes Trace. 
They went kinda wonky after Wide Swing and I was not happy that it really became a solo effort for a while as I really liked the Boquist brothers, they are super talented. And the pedal player from the Jayhawks, who's name escapes me at the moment. 
They are not super exciting live but can be damn good. 
Pablo 
@6t5-gto, I too prefer Son Volt to Wilco, and Jay Farrar to Jeff Tweedy as both a songwriter and a singer. I’ve been following them from their Uncle Tupelo (great band name!) days, and have always wondered why Tweedy gets all the accolades.
Son Volt ,"Straightaways"

All this talk about Son Volt...doesn't take much for me to want to play Son Volt!
"Straightaways" IS one hell of a record! It’s been too long since I last played it. Hopefully, that won’t happen again.
............................................

The Flaming Lips  "Embryonic"
@bdp24

GDP, I couldn’t agree more. I personally thought Trace just absolutely mopped the floor with the first Wilco record from a songwriting and execution perspective. And I too could not figure out why Tweedy got so much more attention than Farrar. Didn’t compute to me. Hell, in my opinion, if you listen to Anodyne the two bands had already formed and when I would play that record I would skip most of the Tweedy tracks.
Oddly, I was never a huge fan of Jay’s solo stuff. The first 3 SV records were just so frigging great. A golden period like the Stones from Beggars Banquet to Sticky Fingers.
Pablo
@bdp24, @6t5-gt0,

When I saw Son Volt earlier this year, (Shovels & Rope) was the headliner,  while I was watching/listening, I couldn't help thinking that SV should be the (headliner).. I was glad that S&R made a point of saying on 2 occasions that they were (glad/had much respect) for Son Volt.
Is there a thing = (a perfect record?)

(I know bdp24 will not think so but....

Tom Petty :Southern Accents" is ONE HELL-UV-A record!

The re-master in my box set sounds so F'n' good!
"Perfect Record" as in every song is perfect, no filler songs or bad songs on the record or/and? Perfect vinyl quality and sound?
As many phenomenal albums as there are in this world I think there is a handful of "Perfect albums"
Kind of Blue, Dark Side, Aja, Led Zep I, Highway to Hell, Never Mind the Bollocks, In Rainbows, Trace and...? Are a few I put into my list. 
Hell, Exile on Main Street may be the greatest Rock and roll album of all time but there are two schitt tracks on it I can't stand, just like OK Computer. 
Now Morning Phase is a strong contender to me for the most perfect album ever. Amazing performance, amazing recording, amazing sound quality and mastering. It is awesome in every way to me. 
Pablo 

Great question slaw. A few I can name off the top of my head that are as close to perfect as any I’ve heard (excluding The Band’s first two albums, which go without saying ;-) :

Bob Dylan: Blonde On Blonde, John Wesley Harding, Planet Waves, a few others

The Beatles: Rubber Soul, Revolver (if you remove "Yellow Submarine" ;-)

The Flamin’ Groovies: Shake Some Action

Dave Edmunds: Get It

Rockpile: Seconds Of Pleasure

The Dwight Twilley Band: Sincerely

Iris Dement: My Life

John Hiatt: Bring The Family, Slow Turning

Rodney Crowell: The Houston Kid

Buddy Miller: Your Love And Other Lies, a few others of his

Julie Miller: Broken Things

Procol Harum: A Salty Dog

The Beach Boys: Smile

That’s enough outta me.....


That is the trick bdp, when I think "perfect" you can't pull off a single song (like Yellow Submarine) and EVERY track has to be awesome. It is a tough criteria and even renders a massive number of masterpieces 'imperfect' to me. Doesn't mean they aren't the greatest albums of all time but very few "perfect"
As I'd mentioned doing this earlier in this thread I just posted my impressions of comparing the MoFi and Classic 45 "Bridge over troubled Water" here -- it's a mixed picture
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/simon-and-garfunkel-bridge-over-troubled-waters-mofi-ud1s/pos...